by Zoe York
“Maybe you could recoup some of that from the executors. Move on to another project.”
She gasped, then laughed, and neither was a good sound. Fuck. “How many historical sites do you think there are around here?”
He didn’t want to point out that the entire island seemed to be covered in three hundred year old buildings, a good number of them empty and in need of her special brand of “get it done” vigour. Surely there were other options for her to focus her attention on. But she didn’t seem to think that was the case and he wasn’t stupid enough to suggest otherwise. “Okay. Crap. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. You didn’t do this.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I have to go call the chairman of the board.”
“Do you want—” He cut himself off as she glared at him. No. She didn’t want help with something that he knew nothing about. Right. He gave her a helpless I wish I could help look. “Good luck.”
She stomped her foot and stared at the ground, then let out a strangled curse. Then she was gone, the front door bouncing in her wake. He watched as her station wagon bumped down the lane and out the gates. Fuck.
~
BY THE END OF THE AFTERNOON, Cara had talked to three members of the board of directors—two in person at the Society’s cramped offices just off Boulevard Honore.
“This is a disaster, Ms. Levasseur,” Bill Chouhan, the chairman said as he sank into the chair opposite her desk.
She nodded. She knew it.
“We’ll have a board meeting tomorrow. You’ll be expected to explain yourself.”
Again, she thought more bitterly than she realized at first. She’d already explained herself three times over. What was another round for the entire committee? “Of course. I’ll be prepared.”
“See that you are.”
She worked late into the night, and when she finally folded her tired, aching body into her car, she thought about going back out to the plantation. But she’d need a hot shower and work clothes first thing in the morning, and she didn’t know what she’d say to Mick.
One of those things was more serious, bigger and more dangerous than the other.
But she pretended both reasons were equally weighted and climbed into her bed in her small apartment in town.
Sleep took a long time to fall over her, and when she drifted off, her dreams were unsettled. Monsters and shouting mobs. Storms and taking chase.
In the morning, she quietly got herself ready.
Pencil skirt past the knees. A blouse with cap sleeves and buttons nearly to her neck. Sensible yet professional heels.
A folder full of documents that highlighted that she’d acted in good faith, and with the board’s full support.
Would they remember that? Did it matter?
At the office, she turned on the overhead fans in the board room. With a quiet whirr, they started moving the stale air around the room. She pushed up the far windows, then sighed.
She’d been planning to put a copy of the report she’d assembled at each seat. The breeze would likely just blow them away.
Instead, she set them in front of her own seat and weighted them down with the digital voice recorder she’d use to type up the minutes after the fact.
Ice water was next. Then another slide around the table, ensuring all the chairs were neatly pushed in.
Tick. Tock. She flicked her eyes to the clock on the wall.
Five minutes to the hour.
She stepped into the foyer of the office just as the door opened and the first board member ambled in. “Good morning, sir,” she murmured, taking his umbrella.
One by one, they filed in, none of them talkative.
Even those who hadn’t come by or called yesterday had clearly heard the news.
As they were all formal society types, they didn’t launch right into grilling her. They waited until the big hand ticked past the top of the hour, then they took attendance and approved the previous minutes, added a few items to the day’s agenda.
Niceties. Protocol.
Empty, meaningless shit. Cara’s palms were sweating. She pressed them to her skirt, grateful she’d worn a dark colour.
“And now to the unfortunate matter that arose yesterday,” Bill said when it was finally her turn. “Cara, you can explain.”
She stood and handed around her report, with the letter from the lawyer, Dewiller, on top. After running down the highlighted points, she looked around the table, trying to make as much eye contact as possible with each board member. “This is, as Bill said, unfortunate. We will need to pause our plans for renovation and campaign in a reasonable fashion for our claim against the estate.”
“Campaign how?”
“A letter, to start. A formal statement of Gwendolyn Parry’s philanthropy on the island and her fondness for the Historical Society.” It was a bit of a reach, but in the same territory as the truth, and the woman was dead. It didn’t matter.
“We can’t afford a lawyer.”
She nodded. “Of course not.” It was a crapshoot, bringing up Daphne and Arielle’s idea, but what did she have to lose? “One option would be to recruit a local attorney to the board of directors. All of you have been so gracious with your time. I’m sure if we had a new director with legal knowledge, they might—”
“That is an incredibly self-serving thought,” one of the older committee members, Bettina Hugo, snapped out.
Cara flushed. “I was only thinking of—”
Bill held up his hand, cutting her off. “We’ll take that under advisement.”
But Bettina’s criticism had opened the floodgates, and the meeting slid far and fast from professional politeness.
“We can't afford to wait forever,” said one member.
“This might bankrupt us!” said another.
She listened to them imagine horror stories, and finally raised her voice. What if it didn't cost anything? Let’s not jump to worst case scenarios. Let’s just start with a simple letter.”
Bettina stood, her cane shaking against the table. Cara felt awful, but she wasn’t in the wrong here. “It costs us every day that you're there and not doing the other, very important work of the Society.”
“Like polishing the plaques on board member's homes?”
Stunned silence greeted her inappropriate and unfair outburst.
She wanted to cry.
“That's enough, Ms. Levasseur,” Bill said quietly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, staring intently at Bettina. “I didn’t meant that.”
Bill gestured for them both to sit down. “We appreciate that you are passionate about this project. We'll give you a week to wrap up the work out at Villa Sucre. Itemize the expenses, document everything as much as possible, and have a report back to us next Monday.”
She nodded. “Understood.”
“But this is probably it. You can write that letter, sure. But you need to wrap it up out there, Cara. That can't be where your head is next week. We need to move forward on the assumption that Villa Sucre is going elsewhere in the Parry family.”
She nodded numbly.
“Let's move on to the next agenda item.”
She sat woodenly and listened to the rest of the meeting. When it wrapped up, she excused herself, painfully aware that as soon as she headed for the door, everyone else sat down again.
Her days were numbered. She had to make them count.
FOURTEEN
MICK HADN’T REALIZED HE’D BEEN HOLDING HIS BREATH until Cara drove back up the lane the next afternoon.
He stood on the verandah and watched hungrily as she climbed out of her car.
She was dressed up like a librarian or something. A historian, he supposed. Her wild curls had been tamed into a bun, and her long, gorgeous legs were mostly hidden by a demure skirt. The heels made what he could see of her calves go on for endless miles, though, and he wanted to drop to his knees and hike that skirt up, inch by inch, until her thighs fell open and revealed
all her secrets for him.
Sex wouldn’t change the fact that she ran away the day before. But it sure as fuck would feel good. And maybe what she needed was a reminder of just how intense their connection was.
She moved around her car, to the trunk, and opened the back door, lifting out a large basket covered in a checkered cloth.
“Hey!” he called out, raising his hand.
She waved back. “Hi.”
He headed over there. “Can I take that?”
She shook her head. “It’s not heavy. But there’s a hibachi back there, too, would you get that?”
He stopped in front of her. He wanted to give her a kiss, but she gave him a look, like…that wasn’t a good idea. Fuck. He settled for rubbing his knuckles lightly against her bare upper arm, from her elbow up the silky curve of her skin to the fluttery cap sleeve on her blouse. “Sure thing.”
He grabbed the portable grill and closed the hatch on her car before following her through the house to the back deck.
She set the basket on the table and gave him a weak smile. “Corn and pineapple, and some lobster, too. I thought we could get our grill on.”
He grinned, happy as a stupid fool just to hear her voice and see her pretty face again. “I accept your apology.”
“That’s not what this is,” she said softly, but her eyes sparkled. Finally.
“Sure it’s not.”
“I’m being nice.”
“Okay.” He raised one eyebrow. Spit it out, woman.
She licked her lips. “I don’t think either of us has wronged the other here.”
“You don’t.”
“No.”
“Then why weren’t you in my bed last night?”
“I was swamped. I had to make a presentation to the board this morning and I was working late…”
If she hadn’t trailed off, he might have just believed her. But that wasn’t the whole story. And he was pretty sure it wasn’t just last night. “After we ‘get our grill on’… Will you head back into town?”
She gave him a pleading look. “I think so, yes.”
“Why?” He softened his voice as much as possible. “Cara, what happened yesterday?”
“I have a week,” she burst out. “A week to document everything I did here, how valuable this property is and why we should fight for it. And those last two things? They don’t even want me to do that, but I have to. So I don’t have time to be distracted by your arms and your smile and your secretly sneaky kindness.”
“I distract you?”
“Yes. And okay, fine, this is an apology dinner.” She busied herself unloading fruit and vegetables from the basket. He didn’t miss that she’d bought him beer, too. And the same brand he’d been enjoying.
He set his jaw. “But you’re not saying sorry for yesterday.”
“No.”
“What are you making amends for, then?”
“I need you to let me be for the next week.”
“Let you be.”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Just…don’t distract me.”
“With my arms and smile and…my kindness.” His huff did a good job of conveying what he thought of her excuse. This was crazy. “I don’t get it.”
“I screwed up.” Her eyes flared wide in her face and her lips drew tight. He knew panic and fear well, and felt them and conquered them, talked other guys through it on the battlefield.
He hadn’t expected to see it here, like this. “I doubt that very much,” he said softly.
“That’s what the board thinks.”
“What do you think?”
“That hardly matters.”
“It matters a great deal.”
She dropped her eyes, hiding her gaze.
“Hey, I’m not trying to make you fee bad. But mistakes happen. Human error is a fact of life. We learn from it and we get better. It doesn’t need to be about blame.”
“You haven’t met the Miralinda Historical Society,” she muttered.
“I’m not sure I want to if they’re asshats.”
She laughed weakly.
“Whatever you need to do to fix this with them, I can help you.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Pretty sure that part of it is damn simple, kitten.”
She stopped unpacking and pressed her slim hands to her cheeks. “Stop that.”
“What am I doing?”
“Don’t call me kitten, don’t try to seduce me, just…let me deal with this, okay? And then once it’s done…” She whirled around, facing him, and he took a step back at the emotions rioting on her face. Her eyes were full of tears. “I’m going to lose my job, Mick. I can’t give anything less than a hundred percent this week. And if I give any part of myself to you…”
“Okay.” God, that hurt. He held his hands out wide. No tricks up his sleeve. “You know me. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll lay on the beach, out of your hair, and when you’re in a better place…call me.”
The tears breached her eyelids then, flooding her cheeks, and he crossed the deck, pulling her into his arms.
“I’m sorry. Jesus, Cara, I’m so sorry.” He held himself back from kissing her hair. Just a friendly hug, that was all. “You want a beer? Want to tell me about what happened today?”
She shook her head. “No. To talking, I mean. Yes—hell, yes—to the beer.”
He let go of her, his heart cracking as she slid out of his arms.
“I don’t think you’re lazy,” she said quietly as he twisted the caps off two bottles of beer. “I may have a habit of lashing out, verbally. I do owe you an apology for that, and probably more than once.”
He handed her one. “You’re on the defense, and with good reason. I’m not going to sweat it. Plus you brought me dinner. Unless you want me to cook?”
She laughed. “I can handle it.”
He peered more closely at the lobster. “Is it already cooked?”
“Shhh. That’s the secret to my culinary skills—outsourcing.”
As she wrapped the corn and prepped the pineapple onto skewers, she told him about the fish shop in town that parboiled the lobsters for her.
“So all I need to do is mix up the jerk rum butter, slather, et voila…impress you.”
He was impressed all right. “Tell me more,” he said, settling back in one of the chairs as she lit the grill. “In French.”
“As-tu faim?” She smiled at him as she put the corn on first, then lowered the lid. “That means, are you hungry? This will take about half an hour, so I hope only a little.”
“Oui.” Yes, he said, dragging out one of the few french phrases he’d learned. The others—Mettez vos mains, put your hands up, and mettez votre arme, put your gun down—had no place here. “I am a little hungry.”
She turned back to her prep work, pulling out a small pot, into which she put butter, onion, and red pepper, and his mouth watered. Not for the food, although his stomach insisted he was hungry for that, too. But the twist of her hips in that skirt—the buttoned up librarian look worked for her.
He wanted to undo every last button and explore the tight confines of that skirt with her perched in his lap.
And she needed him to cool it for a week.
It would take a Herculean effort, but he’d give her that.
“Tell me more about the sauce,” he said abruptly, shoving his filthy thoughts to the back of his mind. Couldn’t turn them off, but he could force them into a curtained off closet.
She lifted the lid on the grill and set the pot down. “First I’ll melt the butter, and start the onions and peppers cooking. Just to soften, you know?”
“That sounds great.”
She leaned over the basket. Don’t notice how her skirt pulls tight over her ass. “Then we add…” She pulled out a bottle. “Rum, of course.”
“Of course.”
She laughed. “It is the Caribbean, after all.”
“Rum and turquoise waters?”<
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“And laughter. You can’t forget that.”
He grinned. Would never forget that. “How about dancing?”
She did little sashaying step. “Of course. Do you like to go to clubs?”
“Not if it’s techno crap. But I’d go dancing with you.”
She made a satisfied little sound as her knees bent and her hips rolled. He was ten seconds away from clearing the table and tossing her down on it. So much for curtained off mind closets. She spun in a circle, then pointed to him. “See? You’re doing it again.”
“Me? You’re the one whose dancing like you learned to do it before you could walk. Those moves are illegal where I come from.”
She laughed out loud, her teeth flashing white in her happy face. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Once everything falls into place—and I have a lot of faith in your abilities, Cara, so I’m sure they will—you could take me dancing.”
She tipped her head to the side. “I will.”
“Then it’s a date. So…what do you do with the rum?” He pointed to the pot on the grill. “Add it to that?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded and carefully poured in two measures. “And then jerk spice mix.”
“Hot.”
“You know it. And finally a good squeeze of lime. And we’ll have more lime wedges on the side, too.” She turned her attention to the lobsters. “Okay, these are next. And then dinner is just ten minutes away. Will you get plates?”
He did more than that. He grabbed all the dishes and cutlery they needed, spread out the cloth she’d brought as a tablecloth, and found a utility candle on a shelf. He stuck that in a mason jar and lit it.
“Nice touch,” she murmured as she brushed past him with two groaning plates of food.
“It’s getting dark,” he said gruffly.
“Of course.”
He should be annoyed at the hot and cold, but how could he be? They’d known each other less than a week and her job was on the line. And staying cold to each other wasn’t an option, either. He couldn’t help himself—so he could hardly blame her for indulging in a little flirtation.
