"What are you doing to me?" he murmured so softly, she wasn't sure whether he was asking her or himself. Then he moved and let her get up. He kissed her and brushed her hair from her face, and laughed a little for no apparent reason. Mind you, she felt like laughing too. It was something about the lightness of her body and the happiness in her chest. And by the look on his face, he felt the same way.
Not that she could stand around laughing with him. Her dress was covering her now, but her panties were in a damp heap on the ground and she really had to go to the bathroom to clean up.
She tugged herself out of his grip. "Back in a minute."
"You want a warm cider? I'll split one with you."
"Sounds good."
She floated down to wash and change. By the time she came back, he'd set up the cockpit's collapsible dining table. Two glasses of cider were waiting.
She and Nate sat together on the bench seat she'd been lying over. There they were shaded from the late afternoon sun, and could watch the sun sparkling on the water. The blues and greens of the land and water around them were spectacular, and there wasn't another soul for miles.
If it weren't for Friday's wedding, Suzie would be in heaven. But now her after-sex glow was fading, she was starting to feel anxious again. And Nate must be feeling the same time pressure.
"What are you going to do about your test?" she asked, feeling guilty again. "You can't do it now."
He took a gulp of his cider and shook his head. "At least I have enough preliminary data to do most of the software changes. In fact, I should be working on it right now."
"What software changes?"
He shot her his crooked grin, the one that made her insides melt.
"I haven't told you about my software yet, have I? It's more than a self-drive system. It's an artificial intelligence system that learns. It remembers everything about the surfaces it travels on. If it's raining, it knows where the dips and potholes are and works out exactly how deep the surface water is and how slick the road is likely to be. And that kid with his raincoat pulled over his eyes who's about to run in front of you? By the time his foot's lifted off the sidewalk, our system's figured out how to avoid him."
His eyes were shining and she wanted to smile at how enthusiastic he was. It obviously meant a lot to him.
"And you've wired your system into the yacht? How will that work?" She pushed her back into the corner of the seat and pulled up one leg so her knee was on the seat between them. Now she could face him and rest her glass of cider on her leg.
"I need to make sure we can adapt it to use in boats without a total code re-write," he said. "My business partner, Tristan, wants to sell our software. I don't. A car manufacturer's made us a generous offer, and I need to convince him to turn it down. Putting together a solution for boats will help fund us to go it alone."
As problems went, it didn't sound half bad. She should be so lucky to have a problem like that. "How generous is their offer?" she asked.
"Fifty-five million dollars."
She jerked, spilling cider on her thigh. "Be serious."
He didn't say anything, just looked at her. It had to be a joke, didn't it? So why wasn't he laughing?
"Fifty-five million dollars?" She tried out the number on her tongue just to see what it felt like. It was Monopoly money. Anyone who did deals that enormous was living in an entirely different world.
"It's not about the money."
Wiping the spilt cider off her thigh, she couldn't help but give a shocked laugh. "Not about the money?" she repeated. "Then what is it about?"
"For three years we've had a team of fifteen programmers working full-time on the software. The big guys are throwing billions at creating self-drive systems, but Tristan and I spent a fraction of that and came up with an artificial intelligence system that's better than any of them." He grinned. "We always joke that we're creating Skynet."
"Skynet? From the Terminator movies?"
"You like science fiction movies? The perfect woman."
She still hadn't got over the fifty-five million dollar shock yet, but she managed a smile. "You're creating smart robots."
He nodded. "And eventually the robots will become our overlords and wipe out the entire human race."
"So you've developed a system so smart that somebody wants to pay you all that money. But you don't want to sell it. Instead you want to use it in boats to drive around rocks?"
"Exactly."
She drank some cider. That much money was impossible to wrap her head around. But he was already loaded after selling Journeyman, so it probably didn't mean as much to him. It had been too easy to forget he wasn't just an ordinary guy with the same kind of problems most people faced. Somehow he'd discovered the secret to success. He was a genius, but was brains all it took? Because if it was, bad luck for her.
"Can I ask you a question?" she said, putting her cider safely on the table. "How did you get so successful?"
He shrugged. "Just lucky."
"You sold Journeyman for squillions. Now you've got a new hit in a completely different field. It's not luck. It's something you're doing. What is it?"
Nate hesitated, looking sightlessly to the side as though he were really thinking about her question. She realized she was leaning forward, holding her breath. If she could be anything like that successful, just once, it would change her whole life.
"You know what's made the biggest difference in the way I look at things? It came from growing up with Harrison. Watching him."
"What do you mean?"
"My brother taught me a lesson I'll never forget and it's shaped everything I do. When I wonder if I'm doing the wrong thing, I think about him and what he went through."
"What lesson?"
Nate shook his head. "It's Harrison's story to tell. He's the one who went through it, and it's up to him if he wants to share it."
"What?" She sat back in disbelief. "You can't stop now. You have to tell me."
"I can't. Ask Harrison when you see him. You are going to see him, right? Didn't you already promise?"
"Yes, but … " She let out an exasperated breath. "At least give me the gist of it. You can do that much, can't you?"
"He taught me persistence. The power of believing in something, and keeping going." He laughed, shaking his head. "But that doesn't really cover it. Get Harrison to relate his story, then you'll understand."
"You're so mean." She grabbed her cider, screwing up her face. "You tease me with the secret to success and then say you can't tell me. That's torture, pure and simple."
He dropped his hand onto her knee. Her skin was still damp and a little sticky from spilt cider, but he didn't seem to notice. "You don't need my secrets. You have your own business and you're about to cater a big wedding. The way you cook, you don't need any help at all."
Suzie's face went warm. Why did she lie to him? Now was the perfect time to tell the truth about it not being her business. But how could she confess she'd only been able to get a part time job, and only because Marianna did her a favor? If he knew about her struggle to find work, would he still look at her like that? Would he still want her?
"Besides," he said, before she could screw up her courage. "Harrison didn't give me a crystal ball. He can't help me decide the right thing to do. Tristan wants to take the money and move onto something else, and maybe we should. Doing it his way would be a hell of a lot easier."
"You want to know what I think?" She picked up her cider again, glad for the excuse to keep talking about him.
"Of course."
"When you talk about your software, you're like a kid at Christmas. I think if you sell now, you'll regret it."
"You know what? You're right." He grinned, picked up his own cider and clinked their two glasses together. "So screw it. I'm not going to sell, no matter what."
She raised her eyebrows. "Screw it?"
"Yup."
"That's the way you turn down fifty-five million dollars?"
"That's exactly how to do it. No apologies and no regrets."
She shook her head. "I still think that's an arrogant motto. But I like the way you say, Screw it, and that's the decision made. I think I need to do a bit more of that myself."
"There you go. I gave you a secret after all."
Yeah, but not the secret. She was definitely going to ask Harrison about it when she saw him. Hearing about Nate's multi-million-dollar choices made her more determined than ever. One day, she was going to get to make decisions like that. One day it would be her deciding whether to sell a company for squillions.
First step was to get home and make sure the food at Friday's wedding was good enough to change Marianna's mind about the food they offered. If she got a glowing recommendation from the bride, that would do it.