Wicked Heat

by Kelli Ireland

  Looking around, she found Liam herding the last bird through the far exit and shutting the garden gate behind it. He turned and found them all staring. “They’re contained, Jenna. The gate is locked. They won’t get out again. Mike, if you’d kindly remove my sister from the garden.”

  “I’m not leaving until I know who did this,” Jenna said. “Liam wouldn’t have.”

  “I have the paperwork here,” Ella said. “Let me look at what your assistant filled out.”

  Mike consoled Jenna as Ella dug through her messenger bag. She’d left the paperwork in her bag last night, both copies, in fact—the original and the one with Liam’s changes. But now the only one she could find was the one Jenna’s assistant had originally sent over.

  The groom said something soft in his future wife’s ear, and she sagged against him, her sobs reduced to hiccuping little gasps. “Shh,” he said gently. “I’ve got you. Deep breaths.”

  “I feel like such a fool,” she said, voice muffled by his shirt. “Did anyone see me?”

  Ella wanted to crawl into a hole and die. She hadn’t ordered the peacocks, and certainly not pink peacocks, but she had ordered the flock of doves that were to be delivered tomorrow. Liam had made sure the order had been placed. She’d questioned him, referring to the “no birds” stipulation in the original paperwork, but he’d insisted his sister wanted the doves released. According to him, “no birds” meant she had wanted the area cleared of any indigenous animals—domesticated parrots, flocks of pelicans or whatever else might have been curated by the resort.

  She’d done as he asked, but she’d kept the paperwork for reference.

  Page after page, she flipped through the original paperwork. She finally came to the “Ceremonial Release Option,” and there, in bold Sharpie next to the checkbox labeled “Birds,” was the word NO in capital letters, underlined twice.

  She wanted to vomit.

  Instead, she grabbed her bag and dug through, determined—desperate—to find the copy Liam had provided, to redeem herself. But the copy he’d provided her wasn’t there.

  Mike must have been watching her, because he asked, “What’s on the paperwork?”

  Ella couldn’t lie. God, she wanted to, but it went against everything she was.

  “No birds,” she answered, throat so dry she could’ve been labeled a fire hazard. She glanced over to where Liam stood. “I know there was something about a request for birds on the subsequent paperwork.”

  “Subsequent paperwork?” Mike asked.

  Ella clarified. “The paperwork Liam, Mr. Baggett, provided.”

  “Liam didn’t do it, Mike.” Jenna looked up at him with doe eyes. “He wouldn’t.”

  “Ms. Montgomery,” Mike started, but Liam chose that moment to close the distance between them.

  Liam reached out and gently touched Ella’s arm, trying to gain her attention.

  “Not now, Liam,” she bit out.

  “I’d like to see the paperwork.”

  “You’ve seen it plenty of times.”

  “Ella—”

  “This is mine to fix, Liam. Somewhere, somehow, someone made a mistake. It appears that someone was me.” She shrugged off Liam’s hand and stepped toward Jenna. “I can only apologize profusely, Ms. Williams. I’ll make this right and ensure there are no birds anywhere near the ceremony. You have my word.”

  “Why were they pink?” she asked, slipping into a hazy awareness. “I hate pink.”

  “I have no idea,” Ella answered.

  Jenna just looked at her, the accusation in her eyes unquestionable.

  Ella’s stomach was threatening a full-scale revolt. She swallowed several times before she was able to get her mouth to stop watering excessively and her eyes to stop tearing up. “I’m so sorry. We’ll find out where the mistake was made. Perhaps it was for another wedding.”

  “Whatever the reason, I expect you to ensure nothing like this happens at the ceremony. I will not have our day destroyed by someone’s mistake, no matter how innocent it allegedly was.” Mike shifted his hold on Jenna. “I’m going to take her back to the room to clean up. We’ll forgo the rest of the walk-through to give you time to make sure everything is in order. Guests begin arriving in the morning. Don’t screw this up for us, Ms. Montgomery. If this goes well, it could make your career. If it goes poorly, it will ruin it. Don’t make me regret hiring a relative unknown event coordinator.”

  And with that parting shot, Mike gently steered Jenna back toward the resort.

  Liam laid a hand on Ella’s arm. “I know—”

  “No, Liam. I know. I know!” she shouted. She knew exactly who had ordered the peacocks. The same person who had encouraged her to include the dove release at the end of the ceremony. The only man who had the ability to authorize changes to the prewedding events. The man with the power to destroy her career without doing more than initialing changes he’d initiated on behalf of his sister. The only man she’d ever cared for so much that she’d overlooked changes she should have known better than to blindly accept.

  Liam Baggett.

  * * *

  Liam had let Ella be, taking a walk along the beach to sort out the riot of emotions burning through him. He should have stepped up and taken responsibility for the bird debacle, but he hadn’t. Planning on ruining the wedding had been one thing; seeing his plan come to fruition had been another.

  When Jenna had experienced a full-blown panic attack this afternoon, Liam hadn’t been able to make himself say the words. Accept blame. Look into his sister’s eyes and tell her that he was the one who had scared her in the hopes her precious Mike would show his true colors.

  Had he an ounce of chivalry, he’d have spoken up. But he hadn’t. And he was disgusted with himself.

  It had been seeing Ella step in and bear the brunt of Mike’s anger that gave his guilt a voice. Jenna might put up with that shit, but Liam wasn’t going to allow Mike to treat Ella that way.

  He’d stepped in, intent on clearing the issue up. But Ella had stopped him dead in his tracks. She shut him down, telling him, all of them, that she’d make it right. She’d fix the mistake, see the wedding through as promised and ensure there were no birds at the ceremony.

  The least he could do was respect her wishes and let her save face by handling it as she saw fit.

  He owed her that. That, and so much more.

  He had to find a way to make it right for his sister and to salvage what lay between Ella and him. Part of his plan had failed in ways he hadn’t been fully prepared for, but that didn’t mean all was lost. There was still time to ensure Mike showed his true character before vows were exchanged. Liam would just have to be careful. He’d have to find a way to shield Ella as much as possible while still getting Mike to show Jenna he was the worst possible choice she could make. There was still the rehearsal and dinner. Time enough.

  Standing on the bungalow’s porch, his hand on the doorknob, Liam hesitated. Making the decision to go through the door and face Ella’s anger was simple enough. It was her presumable disappointment in him that he didn’t want to confront. So there he stood, the deep shade of early night settling around him, the winds stalling and the waves shushing. On the other side of the door, he heard Ella throwing things around with fervor, cursing his name with such creativity and thoroughness that it was clear she thought he and the devil himself were on a first-name basis.

  With a deep breath, he turned the doorknob and stepped inside.

  The one-bedroom suite was clean. As in, sparkling. No papers lay strewn about. No seating chart was tacked to the bulletin board. No computer with its portable printer sat on the desk. Nothing.

  A shadow moved past the sliver of light that escaped through the bedroom door and door frame.

  Ella.

  Heart in his throat and pulse pounding out a heavy-metal drumbeat in his ears, he f
orced himself to knock.

  She didn’t answer, but he opened the door anyway.

  Ella was packing. Or, in actuality, had already packed.

  She let out a shout when she saw him. “You scared the shit out of me, Liam,” she snapped, hand fluttering back and forth between her chest and throat like a hummingbird that wasn’t sure where to land.

  “I...” The word sorry hung up in his throat yet again. “You’ve packed.”

  “Brilliant observation.” She shot him a bland look. “Next you’ll tell me your London offices are at 221b Baker Street.”

  “Where are you going, Ella?” The question was delivered with a quiet severity he managed only by keeping a fierce grip on his emotions—emotions that threatened to erupt in a bout of rage and desperation. She couldn’t leave. If she left, he’d be forced to chase her down. His father’s voice resonated through his head.

  You’re a Baggett, by God. You do not lower yourself to such plebian behavior.

  “Ella?” he pressed when her silence broke through his father’s posthumous rant.

  “Away, Liam. I’m going away.”

  “Where? There aren’t any rooms on the island.”

  “I’ve found a place.”

  “Where?”

  She rounded on him then, all fury and fire. “Who the hell do you think you are, sabotaging my job and then demanding answers from me like I’m some bought-and-paid-for dinner date? Not to mention the fact that you stole my notes!”

  “I didn’t steal them,” he ground out.

  “What, you ‘borrowed’ them?” she asked, her air quotes exaggerated. “Couldn’t keep up with all the shit you’d changed so you needed my paperwork to be in the right place at the right time to see this house of cards fall?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” But nothing he could say would change her mind, and he knew it. Besides, part of her accusation stung with truth. Perhaps he’d wanted this more than he’d thought. “I don’t want...” He tugged at the neck of his suddenly tight shirt.

  “What, Liam? What is it you don’t want so badly that you’d destroy my career?” When he didn’t answer right away, she shouted, “Tell me.”

  Something in Liam snapped, and the truth poured out of him in a tsunami. Devastating. Unstoppable. Catastrophic in force. “I don’t want Jenna marrying that son of a bitch, okay? She deserves better than him. All he wants is her money, her fame—a key to her house and her car and her heart. But what’s he giving her in return? What is it he brings to the table, Ella? The answer is nothing. The man brings nothing.”

  She stared at him, mouth slack with shock. “You’re standing in front of me telling me you truly believe you’re a better judge of what’s best for your sister than she is?”

  “She’s blinded by love, or what she thinks is love.”

  “Did you stop even once to think that maybe love is exactly what she’s found?”

  “It’s not possible.”

  “Why, Liam? Why couldn’t she have fallen into something beautiful and grand and promising? Tell me. Convince me it’s not possible.”

  “Because love isn’t real, Ella!” The shouted words echoed in the heart of who he was. “It’s a figment of imagination, something propagated by industries like yours. You lie to people every day to get them to buy in to the idea that there’s this utopian life on the other side of commitment where it’s sunshine and champagne every damn day, where people love each other forever and no one ever leaves.”

  Ella looked so sad just then, standing there staring at him like she’d never seen him before. “You’re wrong, Liam. So wrong. Love is a very real thing. And what I do isn’t propagating a lie. It’s celebrating a new beginning. It’s rejoicing that you’ve finally found that one person who truly gets you. The person who always has your back. The one who will be there on Sunday morning so you don’t have to do the crossword puzzle alone and when you need someone to hold back your hair because you’re sick.”

  “So, if love is real, why is the divorce rate so high? Why are there a million country songs and rock ballads about heartache and loss? Why are there weekends with dads and visitations with moms for kids from divided households? Where’s the power of love in these people’s lives, Ella? Tell me, because I don’t see it.”

  “It’s right in front of you,” she whispered. “People make bad choices sometimes, but—”

  “Which is what I’m trying to prevent Jenna from doing,” he said.

  “Don’t you get it? It’s not your decision to make, Liam. Her life is not yours to micromanage.”

  “I promised our father I would make sure she was happy.” Raking his hands through his hair, he spun away from her and stalked to the open patio doors. Beyond the railing lay the infinite sea, as dark at night as it was brilliant during the day. “I swore I would make sure Jenna was happy.”

  “Then trust her to make sure that happens and be there to help if she asks for it. But don’t you dare take over her life and try to make it into your version of happy.”

  He didn’t respond right away, just stood there staring out over the water.

  “You don’t get to choose for people, Liam. You don’t get to live others’ lives by proxy, to decide what’s best for them under any given circumstance.” The soles of her shoes tapped across the hardwood floor, the sound telling him she’d stopped somewhere nearby. “What did you see happening here, between us?”

  There were a hundred things he wanted to say, each of them the truth, but like the apology that wouldn’t come, neither would a single answer to her question.

  “Did you seduce me so you could have free rein where this wedding was concerned, or did you seduce me because you wanted me?”

  There was heartache in that question, and fury as well. What struck him the hardest was the sour note of regret she couldn’t, or didn’t bother to, hide.

  So no more lies. No more deception. “Both.”

  She laughed, the sound brittle on the soft night air. “I can’t believe I fell for you, let you use me like you did.”

  He rounded on her. “I didn’t use you.”

  She looked up slowly as if she’d been stunned. “You did, and by your own admission. You seduced me. And I fell for it.” She shook her head. “You must really think I’m a fool. I sure as hell do.” She stepped away from him, and he moved to catch her when she swayed. She stumbled out of his reach and then froze, not looking at him when she spoke. “Touch me again, Liam Baggett, and I swear I will cause you a world of hurt.”

  Liam stepped back, and she shot him a look that would haunt him for the rest of his life. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Ella.”

  She grabbed the handle of her bag and started for the door. Drawing parallel to him, she stopped and leaned in. “You already did.”

  And then she was gone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ELLA REFUSED TO CRY. That man didn’t deserve her tears any more than he deserved her forgiveness. He’d thrown her under the bus with so much force she’d nearly come out the other side. Had he apologized with an ounce of sincerity, she might have been able to forgive him. But hearing him admit that he’d seduced her not only for pleasure had wounded her pride. Not as much as it wounded her heart, though. Because as stupid as it was, she’d fallen for him.

  She wandered the grounds for a while before collapsing onto an empty beach chaise. They were plentiful this late at night, but she craved one away from wandering beachgoers. Midnight strollers. Lovers. She’d lied to Liam when she told him she’d found a place to stay. There still wasn’t a room available, but she’d be damned if she’d be dependent on his good will. Never again.

  When dawn finally came, she made her way to the concierge’s desk, asked them to stow her two bags and went to the dining room for breakfast. It was a quick trip through the buffet before Arvin called to inform her the first shuttle of guests had arriv
ed and checked in to the block of rooms Liam had reserved under a fictitious party name. The whole thing had been set up under the guise of a family reunion. So far, it had worked.

  Ella went to the event coordination desk and made sure the welcome bags for each guest were ready and labeled; she double-checked the contents and then went out to the docks to check on the boats reserved for parasailing.

  At one o’clock, Ella confirmed all the guests had arrived and then had a member of Arvin’s staff call each room and ask guests who had signed up for the excursion to meet her on the lawn behind the main dining room.

  The guests trickled into the tent in twos and threes. Liam came somewhere in the middle, trying to speak to Ella. She avoided any conversation by saying, “I believe the bride is in that corner, Mr. Baggett. You’ll want to see her, I’m sure.” Then she focused on the guests behind him. Ella greeted each one, provided them with the courtesy towel, bottled water and sunscreen, and she explained that, after their excursion, there would be a champagne bar set up and in-room spa treatments available before the rehearsal dinner. Despite the fact she’d done it before, it was a bit intimidating to be mixing with Hollywood’s elite. There was so much riding on this job. She had to get it right. From the positive responses coming from the group, it seemed she had. It was just too soon to cash that particular check, though.

  They all went down to the docks, Mike and Jenna walking with her. When they reached the powerboats, Mike stopped short.

  Jenna looked between the boat, her fiancé and Ella. “What are we doing?”

  “Parasailing?” Ella’s response came out a timid question.

  Mike shot her a sharp look. “I thought we’d agreed on diving.”

  Ella took a deep breath. “It was suggested that more people would take part in parasailing, so the event was changed.”

  Jenna stepped in close to Mike and took his free hand in hers. “It will be okay. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Is there a problem?” Ella asked under her breath.

  “Mike is, um...” Jenna glanced at her feet.