Unfortunately, it’s not that easy, and I am still standing here on his boat, surrounded by curious onlookers, boxes of toys, and Brody, who looks as hot as always, and now—unsurprisingly—pissed.

“Do you want me to leave?” I whisper.

“Oh, God, no!” he whispers back. “Don’t leave me alone with them!”

The desperation in his voice startles me—and makes me laugh. Which startles him. He turns his green gaze on me, and something in those eyes flares. Anger, I think.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “It’s just—I wasn’t planning to leave you with them. I assumed if I left they’d leave with me. But—I don’t know, they did pay money to ride your boat, so maybe that was a faulty assumption.”

Brody pulls something out of his pocket. It’s that little mini rabbit’s foot he fidgets with. He hides his gaze from me again, which is just as well because you’re not supposed to stare into the sun that long.

“Look,” he says, from under his bangs. “This wasn’t what I expected… But please don’t go. I, um, need this. I need to make this work. This business is what takes care of the whole Wilder family, and if I’m not pulling my weight…”

He trails off.

That was at least five sentences. A whole paragraph of Brody Wilder. The look on his face hurts my heart. Brody Wilder, veteran bad boy, wants desperately to do right by the people he loves, even if doesn’t look like that’s who he is from the outside.

“Of course I’ll stay,” I say.

The pained look softens into something much more like the Brody I’m used to. A scowl. “I’ll just, I don’t know, plug my ears.” The corner of his mouth tips up, the scowl morphing into something more like a half-smile. I want to keep it.

“And close your eyes?” I murmur.

Unfortunately, the combination of the situation, the question, and my tone makes it sound super suggestive. The smile leaves his face and is replaced with something else, and humiliation swamps me again.

Ugh, as if it’s not bad enough that I’ve just clobbered him with sex toys on his own boat, I’m flirting now. With a guy who has done everything he can to make it clear that I’m nothing more than his best friend’s little, bitty, insignificant sister.

“I’ll just…”

I gesture to the women, and practically run away from him.

“Everything OK?” someone asks me, as I rejoin them in the front of the boat.

“Yeah—just a little—misunderstanding.”