Big did not even begin to describe Lucas' boat. It was a massive display of modern luxury. Three fully stocked bars, two equally stocked kitchens, a pool and hot tub on the deck, a functioning spa and sauna, countless elegant bedrooms, even a dance floor and DJ booth. But there were no servants, not this time. This time, it was just me and him, all alone on this enormous yacht.

"I'm going to sail us out to anchor and then I'm hoping you'll join me on deck for a swim," he told me, shooting me a wink as he set our bags down by the bar and hurried off toward the stairs at the back and what I assumed was the helm.

I walked forward toward my bag, understanding immediately why Maria had demanded I pack a swim suit. Of course, I hadn't actually brought any with me to LA so I'd had to send her out to buy one for me. Now, I supposed, it was time to see what she'd picked.

I grabbed my bag and headed off in search of the nearest bathroom. It wasn't far off the main cabin, just right down the hall. I stripped off my clothes and started pulling the bikini on. I smiled at myself in the mirror when I was done. Given what Maria had chosen in the lingerie shop, I should have expected this much. Maybe I subconsciously did and that's why I had trusted her to buy a swim suit for me. But she had certainly not disappointed. Of course, she was on Lucas' payroll so perhaps that was the reason for the tiny little fuchsia triangle bikini I now found myself in.

I rolled my eyes but, if I was being honest, I didn't mind it. After spending all of last night drooling over my perfectly tailored husband, after the comment he'd made about not crawling into bed with me for a very specific reason, I'd wondered what it would be like to actually try to make Lucas Vega want me. I never knew what he was thinking. One moment, he looked at me like he wanted to tear my clothes off right then and there, and the next, he was winking and smiling as if it were all a part of the act. I needed to know, one way or another, if it truly was. Because there had never been this heat between us before. I needed to know if it was one sided. So, settled on my plan of ruthless seduction, I donned a pair of sunglasses, fluffed up my hair, and headed out toward the deck.

The view of the pacific was beautiful. White-capped waves splashing lightly against the ship as Lucas steered it out into the open water, gorgeous California sun beating down, making the ocean itself glisten. I sat on the edge of the pool, my legs dangling over so that my feet were just barely in the water. It was warm but not hot, just cool enough to be refreshing. I sighed and leaned back, arching my back and letting the sun warm my face.

"Alright, I've dropped anchor so we're not going anywhere until—" he broke off and I looked up to find him staring at me, lips parted slightly, eyes bulging from his head. I toyed with the string of my bikini on my hip as if retying it, acting aloof.

"You were saying?" I asked.

He blinked back to reality and cleared his throat.

"Uh, right. I've dropped anchor so we're stopped for now. I thought it was as good a place as any," he continued, turning away from me.

I allowed myself a small smile of victory as he turned away but it faltered a moment later when he tugged his shirt up and over his head, letting it fall to the ground in a heap. His gorgeous muscles were glistening in the sunlight and I knew I was staring just as hard as he had been but I couldn't help myself. He noticed, of course, grinning at me as he waited, letting me get my fill.

"Why are we here, Lucas?" I blurted, trying to draw his attention away from my obvious staring. I was afraid that I might start drooling at any moment and then the jog would be up and I would no longer be the one doing the seducing. "I'm hoping you didn't bring me out here to murder me and escape with all my hard-earned money."

He laughed outright at that and then stepped into the pool via the steps on his side. I watched as the water rose up his body until it was just below his abdomen, trying to remember to breathe even as he walked slowly toward me through the water.

"Yes, Piper, I'm after your fortune," he teased, letting his eyes rove over my tanned legs hanging over the edge directly in front of him. He raised a brow as his bright green eyes met mine. "And nothing else."

My heart skipped a beat but I took a breath to maintain control.

"Really, though," I repeated. "Why are we out here in the middle of the Pacific?"

"Because I thought that for our anniversary, the first one we've actually celebrated, we should take the time to get to know each other again. Away from anyone who we have to pretend for, away from anyone investigating our marriage or wanting something from us. Just me and you. No one else. With a whole day to reacquaint ourselves."

I smiled. It was a good idea and promised some much needed understanding.

"So this is you..." I started, gesturing at him and the way he was still prowling towards me through the water like a gator on the hunt, "being yourself."

"One hundred percent, cariño."

"Why do you call me that?"

"Cariño? Do you not like it?"

"No, I— I do," I answered, biting my lip and blushing furiously. He smirked at the reaction. Ugh. Why couldn't I stop blushing in front of him? He took another step forward and I panicked. "Do you still like soccer?"

He raised a brow but the smile remained on his lips.

"I do," he answered. "Do you still hate it?"

I wrinkled my nose.

"I never said I hated it," I protested.

"No, you just fell asleep every time I watched a game," he recalled with a chuckle. "Do you still snore?"

My jaw dropped and I dipped a hand in the water and splashed him, indignant. But I regretted it an instant later because the water had only made his phenomenal pectorals even more glisteny and now I was listening to his deep laugh as it reverberated around my chest cavity.

"Never mind, you don't have to answer that," he teased. "I heard you last night."

I blushed again, averting my gaze and pulling my feet out of the water to stand and march off. But he reached out and grabbed my ankle, lowering it gently back into the water and using it to pull himself toward me. He smiled up at me as he snaked his arms around my legs, just below my knees, and held me there. My breathing stopped all together at the feeling of his hands on me and I thought I might pass out into the pool.

"This is a good color on you," he told me, his eyes fixed firmly on my breasts. As he spoke, they travelled slowly down to my bikini bottoms as well. "And I won't say I'm disappointed with the obvious lack of fabric either."

"I can't say I hate the swim trunks either," I replied, sticking to my plan. Not like it was difficult. He looked like a model straight out of a swim catalog in those things.

His lips spread into a delicious smile and he leaned forward. For a moment, I thought about what it would be like to kiss him, to really kiss him, not like that enticing chaste kiss he'd planted on me in the kitchen this morning for Luisa's benefit. But to let go, to give into this violent physical attraction we felt for each other and let our passions take the wheel. It was tempting, so tempting. But the closer he got, the more my brain was sending off alarm signals for me to stop this right here.

"What are we doing?" I spat when his lips were only inches from mine.

He sat back, pulling away from me. I thought I saw disappointment in his eyes but he hid it well, maintaining his composure, even keeping that easy smirk upon his lips.

"Enjoying a nice anniversary swim as husband and wife," he answered, slowly.

"But we aren't, really? Are we? I mean, sure, we've got the paperwork and legally we're married. But we haven't seen each other in six years and we've never..." I trailed off, blushing as I left the words unsaid between us. But I knew he understood. "It wasn't like this between us before, Lucas. Why is it now?"

"Speak for yourself, Clark," he replied, tone more firm than before, more serious than I'd heard him since the day I arrived.

"What do you mean?" I asked, blinking in surprise.

He released me, letting my legs go so that the weight of them dropped my feet back into the water. He sidled up next to me, leaning back against the edge of the pool, arms propped up behind him, only inches away from where I sat. But he looked out at the water as he spoke.

"I was always interested," he told me with a shrug.

"What? No you weren't. Lucas, come on."

"I'm serious, Piper. You're a beautiful woman. A fierce, intimidating, beautiful woman. I never had the balls to tell you back in college. I guess I do now."

"But— but I never knew—"

"I know. It was selfish of me to marry you. It was never just about a green card, Piper. Not for me. For one forty five minute session in a courthouse six years ago, I got to feel like the luckiest man in the world. I felt that again the moment you walked through my door this week. But you had your rules, your doubts, your penchant for separation and I gave you all the space you needed, as much as it killed me to do so, because I knew I couldn't possibly expect you to know what I was thinking, what I had been thinking for years, if I never actually told you myself. But I'm telling you now. You can decide what you want to do about it."

The way he was speaking to me, the way he was telling me these things, pouring out his heart to me, it wasn't cold but it wasn't emotional either. It was as if he'd been preparing this pitch for years, just like he prepared for all of his board meetings and memorandums. It was a speech he'd thought about considerably, rehearsed maybe, but that didn't make it any less true. He was putting his heart on the line, finally, after years of feeling something for me that he couldn't voice aloud. But I hadn't had the same preparation, I hadn't been rehearsing a speech. I hadn't even known this was coming.

I stared at him, shocked, opening my mouth to answer but words wouldn't come.

"This is why we're here," he said then, finally turning to face me. "To finally get it all out in the open. To figure out what this is between us once and for all. We've got an ICE agent on our tail now, Piper. If this is still the sham marriage it started out as, I'll play my part in whatever way you want me to. But if there's a shot at this becoming something real, well, I'd very much like to explore that with you while we get through this investigation together."

Still, I couldn't answer. I was utterly speechless.

"I know you'll need some time to think it over," he told me, lifting himself from the pool using his extraordinary muscles. He grabbed a towel and started patting himself dry. "I'll give you some space. If you need me, I'll be in my cabin."

Then he was gone. He simply grabbed his shirt and headed back inside the yacht. I sat at the pool for a moment, letting the water cool my toes, lost in thought. Then I rose and grabbed my cover up, mechanically going through the motions while I searched for some privacy to sort out my thoughts.

There were at least a dozen bedrooms on this ship. I picked the nearest one and slipped inside, breathing hard as my mind raced with all that I had just learned. Lucas actually liked me. And he had for years. How had I been so unaware? How had we seen our marriage so differently? This meant something to him and I'd treated it like it was nothing, like it didn't exist. That must have hurt him more than I can imagine.

Tears started to gather in the corner of my eyes and I flung myself onto the bed in frustration. I pulled my phone from my bag and held it up in the air. No service. But the yacht had Wi-Fi. I would have to make do. My video-calling wasn't working but Facebook Messenger was. I tapped Leah's name and sent a desperate video call off to her. She answered a few minutes later, perplexed.

"Why are you Facebook calling me? Is it 2015 again?" She asked, brow furrowed in confusion. But then she saw my face and her joking vanished, her expression immediately becoming concerned. "Babes, what happened? Where are you?"

"I'm on a yacht," I told her. It was the only words I could get out, afraid I would cry if I talked about Lucas too soon.

"A yacht? What? Did he take you to the middle of the ocean to dump your body and play the tragic widower to the feds?"

"That's what I said!" I exclaimed and smiled slightly at how similar mine and Leah's minds were. "But... no. He took me out here to confess his feelings for me."

Her jaw dropped.

"What?" She squealed.

"Shh," I hushed her, poking my head out of the cabin and looking down the hall to see if there was any indication that he had heard Leah scream. But it was dark and empty, silent, so I slipped back inside and shut my door. "So a gorgeous, billionaire Argentinian hunk just professed his love for you and you're talking to me instead of riding him on the deck of his fabulous yacht because...?

"First of all, he never said he loved me," I clarified, blushing. "Secondly, believe me when I say the picture you're painting sounds fantastic but... this is Lucas, Leah."

"And? Look, you guys haven't seen each other in years. You haven't even thought of him for years. Why not take this time to get to know him again? Mentally, emotionally, and yeah, maybe physically. I mean, why not. You're literally already married to the guy."

"But—"

"You're afraid it won't work out and you'll lose a friend you forgot you even had?"

"No, I'm—" I hesitated, unsure if I was quite ready to voice this aloud. But I had to. I needed to. And Leah would understand. I knew she would. "What if it does work, Leah? What if we fall in love and live happily ever after except his life is here, in California, and mine is there, in New York? What then?"

"Your life in New York? By which you mean me, Connor, and that shitty fourth season sitcom that you hate working on?"

"I may hate it but it's taken six long years just to get that gig, Leah. I can't give up on my career."

"Um, hello. TV is literally made in LA."

"I'll lose all my connections at NBC. I'll—"

"Look, Piper, I know that you aren't the sort of person to throw caution to the wind and throw yourself headfirst into something without a guaranteed outcome. And a career that isn't going how you hoped has made you jaded towards taking risks. But if there's anything deserving of you taking a risk, isn't it this thing with Lucas? Isn't that why you flew out there in the first place? It wasn't for the investigation. It was for him. Admit it."

I hesitated. She was right. I hated when she was right. I sighed.

"Okay, maybe, but—"

"No butts unless it's his," Leah cut me off. "Babes, I've got to go. I have a class in ten. But please, do this for yourself. Have a bit of fun, take a vacay in Californ-I-A, maybe fall in love. You deserve it."

I smiled.

"Thanks Leah," I told her and I genuinely meant it.

"And if you do end up riding him like the ponies in his stables, I demand to hear all about it," she replied and then hung up just as I burst into a fit of laughter.

Leah was the closest friend I'd ever had next to Lucas. She knew me better than I knew myself and she was always the one I turned to for advice. Because she was always able to point things out to me in a way that I couldn't ignore. And she was right. I cared about Lucas, still after all these years, and I was attracted to him, there was no denying that. I couldn't let my fears keep me from going after something that could be amazing.

So I stood from the bed, adjusting my bikini in the mirror, and took a deep breath. It looked like Operation Seduction was still on for now. Though, it was an entirely different game I was playing this time. Still, I held my head high and wrenched open the door to the guest cabin, striding off down the hall in search of Lucas.