Villa Blue Read Online Free

perfectly fine cliff?”
    She thought about it—her ex-husband learning she’d done something dangerous—and a smile hinted like a defiant whisper on her lips.
    “Isn’t that reason enough?” Aiden asked, reading her.
    Feeling her heartbeat for the first time in months, she surprised herself by joining her hand with his and stepping out of her shoes. “What am I doing? I can’t do this.”
    “Yes you can.”
    “Are you sure this is safe?”
    “No,” he replied. “We go on three.”
    She heard the count as she thought of the years spent politely smiling through dinner parties hosted by fellow doctor’s wives, riding the spinning hamster wheel of small talk. She thought of the years spent doing what she was supposed to do, according to others. She thought of the woman her husband had left her for, the woman now carrying his baby.
    That woman had life inside of her.
    And what did she have inside of her besides a big boulder of artist’s block weighing down her world? Would she sink to the bottom of the sea because of it? she wondered as she heard the final count and found herself soaring through the sky with a man she’d just met.

 
    Chapter Two
     
    Submerged in the depths of the bay, Ivy kicked her way up to the surface where she sucked in a gasp of air. “Holy crap, that’s cold.”
    “Refreshing. Feel better?” Aiden’s face was covered with glinting drops of the reflective ocean, somehow looking even more handsome.
    “Strange idea of refreshing,” she told him through teeth that began to chatter. “And I’ll get back to you on the rest once my senses return. I think my fingers are numb.”
    He gave her a little nudge and they began swimming toward the sandy crescent that cradled the bay. The touch was a gentle form of checking on her—it wasn’t pushing or pulling her in any direction, but rather the easy reminder of a comrade.
    As they reached where tourists sprawled on colorful towels and played in the shallow bay, Ivy expected applause for the death-defying plunge. But the only sounds were of waves lapping at the beach, boats sounding their way into the harbor, seagulls squawking demands for food, and that collective chatter of beachgoers. Either no one had seen them or no one cared terribly much, because their approach was broadly ignored.
    When her frozen toes reached hot sand, she thawed enough to realize she actually did feel better. Alive. Her lungs and heart had skipped breaths and beats as she’d fallen through the air, and that feeling that had welled in her chest while talking to Greg had been replaced by a potent rush of adrenaline. Realizing that, she tilted her head up to the soothing glimmer of the sun to soak in the warm and glorious sensations.
    She may not have encountered a magical muse on her trek into town, but she had come across an adventurous—if not a tad dangerous—man who had somehow managed to get her to jump into the Pacific Ocean.
    Goosebumps covered her arms and she felt along them with her chilled fingers. She’d done something adventurous, she thought with a soft smile. Just what had come over her?
    When she looked down at the sand that coated her feet, she realized her white linen shirt that had been baggy was now clinging tightly to her petite figure, sheer and showing the lacy bra beneath it. She immediately tugged at the fabric to pull it away from her chest.
    “I’ve seen you jump off a cliff. No need to be modest now,” he told her as he shook water from his hair then raked a hand through the thick waves, pushing it back.
    His face was striking; his features were hard and angled but there was something boyish about his grin, something unpredictable about his mouth, like it could take you places with one spontaneous breath.
    The pulse pumping through her body provided a healthy dose of heat.
    Maybe it was the fact that she’d done something so out of character, so far outside of the scope of who she was, that the adrenaline was altering her