Cherished by the SEAL (Hot Caribbean Nights Book 4)
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Cherished by the SEAL
Zoe York
Contents
Hot Caribbean Nights
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
The SEALs Undone Series
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About the Author
Hot Caribbean Nights
Welcome to Miralinda, a sleepy Caribbean island full of French and Spanish culture—and a new crop of Navy SEALs looking for love.
ASSIGNMENT: Hot Caribbean Nights
Ruined by the SEAL
Bound by the SEAL
Bought by the SEAL
Cherished by the SEAL
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If you enjoy Navy SEAL romances set in the Caribbean, look for other ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights stories from Kat Cantrell (Duchess Island) and Anne Marsh (Angel Cay)!
www.navysealromance.com
A hot bride, an island honeymoon, and a suitcase full of bikinis. So what if he’s not the groom?
Navy SEAL Logan Dwyer has been Victoria Fletcher’s best friend since second grade, and has had a hopeless, secret crush on her for at least half his life. But Tori deserves a man that can be there for her whenever she needs it.
Not a warrior. Not a guy who spends more time in jungles and war zones than at home.
But when she’s left at the altar, and decides to salvage her honeymoon if someone can go with her…Logan can’t help but volunteer.
Seven days on the Caribbean island of Miralinda. Seven hot, unexpected nights.
One week to figure out if this is just a rebound fling, or if the only woman he’s ever loved might just see him as something more than her safe, sexy and willing best friend.
Chapter One
Logan Dwyer adjusted the flower pinned to his lapel for the tenth time and paced outside Tori’s hotel suite.
As the dude of honor, he was left waiting in the hallway as her sisters got her into her wedding dress. Some things weren’t for best friends to do when one best friend had a dick—especially when that dick secretly wanted the bride-to-be.
He left out a frustrated breath because that was a thought he was not allowed to dwell on today.
It was Tori’s wedding day, and she was over-the-moon, ridiculously happy with Stephen. He was everything Logan’s best friend wanted in a man: stable, smart, and safe.
Everything that Logan wasn’t.
Hell, he’d barely made it to the wedding because his SEAL team had gotten stuck in the middle of a jungle for an extra seventy-two hours.
Not a big deal to him. That was his job. But for Tori? He’d have been gutted if she’d felt like he couldn’t be trusted to be there for her on the most important day of her life.
Since she’d accidentally glued his fingers together in grade three art—and then made him a series of increasingly silly Get Better Soon cards, until all she had to do was hand him folded up craft paper and they’d both dissolve into giggles—Victoria Fletcher had been Logan Dwyer’s best friend in the entire world.
They’d been through a lot together.
And as soon as whatever drop-dead-sexy lingerie she was wearing was safely hidden under a dozen layers of lace, he was going to be by her side until the second she said “I do” and he had to officially accept that he was no longer the most important man in her life.
In her mind, he probably hadn’t worn that label since college. He’d spent the last six years on the SEAL teams, flitting in and out of her life, often without any notice. He knew he was important to her, but in a guarded, who-knows-when-Logan-will-reappear kind of way.
It didn’t help that deep down, Tori would forever be special to him.
He turned around and glared at himself in the mirror across from the elevators. His damn flower looked just fine. It was his attitude that needed serious re-adjustment.
She could be special to him and get to live a fully realized life. He would never stand in the way of her happiness.
Behind him, the elevator started up again with a muted sound of gears, and a ding on a floor above or below. Logan never turned off his heightened sense of awareness. He listened again. Below, definitely. And as soon as the elevator started up, it slowed again, so before the doors opened on Tori’s floor, Logan was already turned around and facing the lift.
The groom-to-be was the last person he expected to see stepping off the elevator car. Both Tori and Stephen had been adamant they would follow tradition and not see each other before the wedding service.
Logan didn’t get it, but he didn’t mind, either. It meant that he had Tori almost all to himself last night. They’d gone out for drinks and dinner with her sisters, then retired to her suite and stayed up until two in the morning reminiscing about elementary school, lazy summers, and busy course loads. Nearly twenty years of friendship rehashed over and over again until their faces hurt from grinning.
Now Stephen McKenzie was in front of him. The man was about to marry the most perfect woman on the planet. He had no fucking excuse not to be smiling.
No reason to be pale. Sweating.
No reason to have his car keys clutched tight in his white-knuckled fist. The wedding was downstairs in the hotel ballroom in forty-five minutes.
Logan stood a little straighter. Yeah, he towered over the guy. At six-four, he towered over everyone. Usually, he didn’t care about using that to his advantage. Right now, the way the normally staid groom looked a little green as his eyes flitted nervously back and forth between Logan and the bridal suite door? Logan would use every bit of physical menace he could muster.
“What’s up, Steve?”
“It’s Stephen.” Logan would be hard pressed to like anyone who Tori married, but that kind of correction grated on him. Because in a moment where something was obviously wrong, where he was nervous about something, he still cared most about his name. Selfish prick.
“My bad. What’s up?”
“I need to speak to Victoria.” Stephen’s voice caught on Tori’s name.
Logan wanted to step in his path, but he didn’t have that right. Instead, he gestured toward the door. The words didn’t come out the first time he tried to force them past his lips, but they burned like hot rubber on pavement when he pressed them a second time. “She’s just getting dressed, but go ahead.”
Stephen didn’t move.
Logan gave him one last benefit of the doubt since the guy could be nervous for a lot of reasons. “Is someone hurt?”
“Ah…no.”
He slid his gaze down the hand gripped around the car keys. “Going somewhere?”
Stephen blanched.
Yeah. Wow. “Don’t do this, man.”
“I…”
“She adores you.” Logan wasn’t really sure why, although until this moment, he’d have said that Stephen loved Tori right back. They’d seemed so perfectly suited to each other. Although maybe having to comment on how right they were for each other constantly could have been, in hindsight, a flag that all was not well.
Stephen shook his head. “I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can. Nerves are normal,” Logan said, his voice cold. Clipped.
“Maybe it would be better if you told her…”
“Told her what?�
� He wasn’t going to let this guy off the hook. He had to say it out loud.
Stephen’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his throat. “I can’t do it. I can’t marry Victoria.”
Chapter Two
Victoria Fletcher was mid-twirl, checking out the ribbons lacing up the back of her wedding dress, when they heard the crash from outside her suite.
Her sisters raced to the door ahead of her. Elspeth glanced quickly into the hallway and slammed the door shut again.
“Tori, you should go check your makeup in the bedroom,” her middle sister said, panic painted all over her perfectly done-up face.
She rolled her eyes and pushed past Elsie. “What the heck is going on?”
When she pulled the door open again, she found Logan rubbing his fist and Stephen flat out on the floor, and all the blood drained from her head. “What…”
She rushed to her fiancé’s side. “Oh my God, Stephen.”
He groaned and tried to sit up. Tried and failed. Her heart leapt into her throat. “Elspeth, call for a doctor!”
“He doesn’t need a doctor,” Logan said from behind her, his voice hard and cold.
God, Logan. She ignored him for a second and tried to focus on Stephen. “Are you okay?”
His only answer was a curse. Her mild-mannered fiancé never swore. He waved her off and slowly staggered to his feet. She rose with him, her concern for Stephen sliding quickly into outrage at Logan, who had clearly overreacted or something.
Her overprotective goon of a bestie had to wait another minute though. First she reassured herself that Stephen could stand without swaying—although his words were still not working, apparently. He just stood there, holding his jaw, and stared at the carpet.
“What happened?”
Stephen choked on something that sounded like a pitiful cough and gestured to Logan.
Tori whirled around. Her best friend’s face was drawn tight. She stared at him, unable to process what was going on. The silence stretched painfully as the distant sounds of the hotel provided a surreal soundtrack to the worst thing that could have happened on her wedding day. She couldn’t find the words to express how upset she was right now. She’d always suspected that Logan didn’t care for Stephen, but to punch him?
“Explain yourself,” she finally said, her voice shaking.
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything.
“Logan!”
He looked past her. “Tell her why you don’t need a doctor, Steve.”
She turned again. If he had that little respect for her, fine. They’d have this out another time. She was shaking as she reached for Stephen. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, hot tears pricking at her eyelids.
Instead of accepting a hug, he stepped back from her. His face—around the dark red bruise forming just below his cheekbone—was unnaturally pale. She took another step toward him and he shook his head. “No.”
What the hell was going on? “No, what?”
“Don’t make this harder.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He…he hit me because I came up to tell you I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?”
“We need to call off the wedding.”
“What?” She laughed because that was preposterous. “Oh my God, do you have a concussion?”
He shook his head, then groaned. Maybe he really did. But when he spoke again, his words were even more clear. “I don’t love you, Victoria. I can’t marry you.”
Each word was a sharp, brilliant stab. Perfectly delivered in their clumsiness. He doesn’t love you. Her mouth ran dry and she shook her head. It wasn’t possible. He can’t marry you. It didn’t make any sense, even as it hurt. “You’re kidding.”
He looked her right in the eye and broke her heart. “I’m not.”
“You’re kidding!” she shrieked, the reality setting in. Everything he’d promised her. Everything she’d done at his urging… The kick of reality was immediately followed by white-hot rage. Suddenly a punch to the face seemed entirely reasonable, and she kicked off her shoe so she could pummel him with it. “You said you couldn’t wait to be my husband. You pushed for this wedding when I just wanted something smaller… We have three hundred people eating shrimp and hundred-dollar-an-ounce caviar downstairs. Imported from Russia. Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s better this way.”
“Better?” Her voice cracked. “That’s…there is no better way to do this. When did you…What about everything you said at the rehearsal dinner?” He’d gazed into her eyes and said he couldn’t wait to have children with her. That she’d make a wonderful mother. “You liar. You stupid, stinking, aw-ful l-liar.”
Strong arms circled her waist as her voice cracked and the tears started to fall, as Stephen stepped backward onto an elevator car she hadn’t seen him call. Those arms turned her around and held her against an even stronger, warmer chest as she started to sob.
“He lied to me,” she hiccuped into Logan’s chest. He held her tight, not caring that she’d just been incensed at him, too.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“He made promises…”
“I know.” His voice cracked, from rough to strained. “I’ll kill him if you want me to.”
That just made her cry harder, and after a time Logan had to pick her up and carry her into the suite when she finally sagged against him in defeat.
He carried her straight past her sisters, holding her curled against his body, so she only had to hear their shocked and sympathetic whispers, and didn’t have to see their faces. He set her on her bed, then stepped back outside for a minute.
She heard him murmur something about telling her father, who could make a general announcement, and then he was back, curving around her where she’d slumped sideways on the bed.
The hiccups came after a while. She was all sobbed out, but every time she tried to start talking—because there was stuff to do. Three hundred guests. Oh my God—her chest would seize up and her diaphragm would stutter, and Logan would make a shushing sound in her ear.
“I want out of this dress,” she finally managed.
“I’ll get one of your sisters,” he murmured in her ear.
“No.” Suddenly the lace and satin she was still bound in felt like iron chains, and they had to go right away. She reached behind her and started tugging ineffectively at the ribbons. Her breath hitched as she felt sobs returning, and she shook her head roughly. No, no, no. She shook her hand, pointing toward her bags. “I need something else to put on. Can you grab me a t-shirt from that suitcase there?”
He hesitated behind her, then agreed in a rough voice.
“There’s a big one of yours, from a fun run you did a few years ago.” She got her fingertips into the loops and yanked, but that just made the dress tighter. She gasped and stood up. “Fuck.”
He came around in front of her and handed her the navy blue t-shirt, worn and soft from many wearings. Stephen had always side-eyed that she wore Logan’s t-shirts, but when she asked him for one of his to sleep in instead, he’d rolled his eyes and said it didn’t matter.
And see? It hadn’t. Because she’d been ready to become his wife today, and he’d…
And he’d…
Her breathing hitched as another round of sobs tried to get started again in her chest, and Logan got right in front of her face.
Logan.
She gave him a weak smile, and he returned it. His wasn’t weak at all though. His crooked smile was full of rueful knowledge, steady and understanding.
Now the tears were flowing free, her cheeks wet. “I thought he loved me.”
“I thought he did, too.”
“You never liked him.”
He gave her a weak shrug. “Nobody will ever be good enough for my Tori.”
Oh God. She knew he meant it in a nice way, but that wasn’t what she needed to hear right now.
“Dress off, now.” She tugged the t-shirt o
ver her head, sliding her arms into it before turning around. “If you just loosen the ribbons, I can get out of the rest of it.”
Another hesitation, then Logan’s hands pressed against her back. “Where do you…Oh. Down here.” He untied the knot she’d made by tugging on the bow too hard, but the carefully laced up back didn’t give.
She wiggled a bit, and one of his hands landed on her hip.
“Stop moving,” he said, his voice strained.
She closed her eyes. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Stupid girl clothes. Stupid wedding.
Stupid Tori for thinking any of this was something she deserved.
Logan finally figured it out, his fingers tugging at the ribbon, loosening it up her back until the bodice finally gave way. She held the front of the dress against her breasts and nodded. “Thank you.”
“What about…the…um…underneath stuff?”
She smiled despite herself at the awkward hitch in his voice. The things he did for her. She owed him big time. “The lingerie is pretty easy to get out of. I can manage that myself, don’t worry.”
“Great. I’ll just…wait outside.”
In the living room of the suite, Logan found Tori’s sisters, Elspeth and Caroline, waiting nervously. He should have come to look for them before he agreed to undress the bride. If he wasn’t so damn upset for Tori right now, he’d be sporting an embarrassing erection. Even thinking about the slices of creamy skin he’d felt as he tucked his fingers behind the white ribbon and loosened her confining dress…
Damn it.
He crossed to the bar and poured himself a drink.