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Chapter Twenty Eight

This really is the life. It's the end of October and I'm in a bikini with the Californian rays warming my pale and exposed skin. Being British, this is a very rare thing indeed. Back home, I would certainly not be in a bikini and sunbathing on an inflatable lilo lounger with a voddy in my hand. No, I would be wearing a jumper and be holding a brolly in my Londoner hand. Rhys says that this is the time when the weather in LA starts to really cool off and that November is the beginning of the rainy season, but with today being 67°F, for this Brit Chick, that feels positively tropical. Feeling utterly relaxed and warm as I float around in his lavish pool, I sigh with contentment as I stare at the panoramic views of the mountains and the valley that surround Rhys's single-storey home. It really is modestly beautiful. Simple and Contemporary Mediterranean by design with no expense spared. It's comfortably luxurious, not over-the-top luxurious like I thought it might be. Yes, Rhys has a pool and a hot tub, a movie and games room, a mini music studio, his very own gym, an indoor wet bar and a camera security system that surveils the entire property both inside and out, but his home really is a home. It's not excessively dressed up. It doesn't look like a show home. It's a place that is well lived in. As soon as I crossed its homely threshold, I felt right at ease here. I think it was the intricate beauty of the cathedral ceilings inside his home and the open air atrium in the centre of the gorgeous place that totally sealed the deal for me. I literally drew breath when I first laid eyes on their delightful design, which amused Rhys no end.

"Clara? Have you put sunscreen on?" He calls out to me from the side of the Spanish feel pool, wearing only a pair of casual swimming shorts with the cream being held tightly in his right hand.

"Yes, Dad!" I humorously shout back as I take a quick sip of my iced vodka and cranberry.

Rhys dives into the pool, causing annoying ripples to disturb my previously calm and very still water; effortlessly swimming towards me beneath the watery surface. When he slowly comes up for air, he looks a golden and wet thing of gorgeousness. Without saying a single word, he lifts my plastic martini glass from out of my hand and swims away with it. When he swims back, he has a determined look in his eye as he rests his elbows on my lilo. "Did you just call me dad?" His expression is pinched, his frown teasingly deep.

"I might have done." My chin juts out with smugness, my sneer with the same amount of supreme confidence.

Rhys doesn't say a thing, he simply ducks down beneath the water, leaving me to wonder whether he is going to do exactly what I think he might just do.

No, he wouldn't...would he?

Seriously, he wouldn't...would he?

The next thing I know, I am being thrown from off my comfy long lilo and submerged in the watery depths of the cool pool.

He did do it!

He really did!

The absolute git!

Arms soon come tightly around my sinking waist and push me back up through the water. Let me tell you, I certainly don't surface the water like a golden and wet thing of gorgeousness—more a pale and gasping thing of straggliness. "I can't believe you just did that!" I splutter, rubbing my eyes and trying to remove my stupid hair from off my dripping wet face.

Rhys is laughing but holding me tightly where he stands in the deepness of the pool. "I can't believe you called me dad." Is his cocky reasoning for tipping me off my inflatable.

"I was joking!" I almost shout back, totally annoyed with him now.

Helping me out with the dark strands of my hair that messily still cling to certain parts of my face, Rhys kisses my saturated lips. "You look kinda cute being all wet and angry." He smirks back at me with the water lapping against both of our shoulders, expecting me to forgive him.