A few short days ago, Liz had wondered what it might be like to experience the true beat of the island at one of the wild and sultry street festivals.
She was about to find out.
Carnival Tuesday was one of the wildest days of the year. The party started at dawn and continued all day, with concerts, pageants, parades. Every food vendor on the island would set up shop, any musician who owned an instrument could find an audience. Trinity had shut down the bar because everyone would be here on this day.
“Just park at my building,” Liz replied, already leaning forward in her seat, staring wide-eyed at the brightly costumed revelers. “I have a reserved spot.”
“Scooter-size? I’m afraid I might just be too big to fit.”
“It’s amazing how easy it is to squeeze into tight places if you’re motivated enough.”
He grabbed her hand from the seat and lifted it to his mouth. Pressing a kiss on her knuckles, he whispered, “I am very well motivated.”
“At least three times last night and twice the night before.”
Lord, she had never in her life had so much sex in such a short time. And yet she still craved it, still went wet and tender with want just thinking about the wild, incredible things he had done to her over the past few nights.
“Enough,” she said, pulling her hand away. “Or I’m going to have to run up to my apartment and change my underwear.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” The self-satisfied expression made a liar out of him. He knew exactly how he affected her. “Your underwear looked perfectly fine to me when I ripped them off you two seconds after you put them on this morning.”
Her thighs tightened. “Stop it or I’ll get even.”
“Maybe we should detour up to your apartment.”
“Maybe we should go get a big, cold drink to cool off. I have the feeling if we go up, we’ll miss the parade completely. Not to mention the rest of the day.”
He pulled the car into her parking lot, right into the spot she pointed him toward. “I’d sure as hell hope so.”
As he cut the engine, Liz asked, “Are you serious? Do you really want to skip today? Because we don’t have to…”
“I want to go,” he told her as he got out of the car. “I can’t wait to dance with you again.”
She licked her lips. “Carnival’s pretty wild. But we will have to keep our clothes on while we dance this time.”
“Aww, hell.”
Hand in hand, they walked out of the parking lot and were almost immediately absorbed into the street party. Performers had already drawn large crowds. The air was redolent with island scents—spicy jerk chicken, simmering black beans, fruity rum drinks—and they tried a little of everything.
Beneath it all, that seething, hungry beat thrummed on. The island had a pulse, a vibrancy that demanded life be lived in full measure, no holding back. They walked to that beat, swayed to it, danced to it in the street, along with thousands of others. Jack might have seduced her slowly with the dance on the patio the other night, but today, as they spun and thrust and gyrated against one another, pure, wanton lust was the name of the game.
As she’d remembered, he was an excellent dancer, natural and smooth, and more than one woman had shuffled between them.
Liz didn’t mind. Today was about being wild, free and joyful.
Besides. She’d be going home with the man.
“You’re loving this,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the music and the writhing crowd.
Out of breath, Liz merely nodded. She lifted her hands to her hair, tugging it off her hot, sweaty body and holding it out of the way. Jack’s eyes followed her every move, telling her without words that he wanted to taste the salty sheen of her skin.
“Let’s get out of here!” she snapped, suddenly unable to wait. The entire afternoon had been filled with intense foreplay. Now she wanted the payoff.
He didn’t need to be asked twice. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her with him as he worked his way through the crowd. They were quite a few blocks from her place now, and Liz didn’t relish the long walk. Neither, apparently, did Jack. He led her to a side street, then flagged one of the many taxis waiting to pick up partyers who’d had a little too much liquid fun.
“That was fantastic,” Jack said as they settled into the back seat and gave the driver the address.
“I know.” She breathed deeply, trying to slow her still-racing heart. “I never got that good a workout after a grueling step-aerobics class.”
Wanting to pull her hair into a ponytail to get it off her face, Liz unzipped the fanny pack she’d worn over her capris. Preferring not to carry a purse at the festival, she’d tucked a few necessities into it.
As she grabbed a ponytail holder, she noticed her cell phone. The message symbol was lit. No way would she have heard it ring over the noise of the crowd.
Though normally she would ignore it, she decided to check the message. Though Carnival Tuesday was wildly fun, it could also be dangerous. She didn’t want to think anyone she knew was in trouble, but since she so seldom received calls on the cell, she couldn’t rule it out.
“Let me check this, okay?” she told Jack.
Nodding, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. They were almost at her place.
Dialing, Liz waited for the recording. The tiniest bit anxious, she waited to make sure there was no emergency.
Then she heard the voice on the other end. Tension didn’t begin to describe it. Full-fledged shock flooded her. And the heart that had been gradually slowing its pace seemed to come to a dead stop for a few seconds.
“Liz, it’s me. Tim.”
Her ex-husband hadn’t tried to call her once since the divorce had been finalized more than a year ago. She’d gone on her merry way thinking she’d never have to listen to his voice again. So hearing that casual greeting yanked the proverbial rug out from under her, big time.
“I need to talk to you, to tell you something,” he said. There was a slight slur to his words. Liz didn’t think there was a time difference between here and Boston, so it was certainly not late enough for him to be drunk on a weekday.
“I got a call from one of hotshot Jack Beaumont’s lawyers about what’s going on with the company.” His voice dripped dislike when he said Jack’s name. “I hear he’s down there trying to get your help.”
She didn’t follow at first, wondering why he would think she’d care what was going on at Jack’s company.
“It’s all bull, you know. He’s using this lawsuit as an excuse to do what he’s wanted to do since he met you—get in your pants.”
Liz reached for the button to shut the phone off. Damn Tim to hell. He had no right to do this to her, no business contacting her at all or making such snide remarks.
Before she ended the call, though, she heard him say one more thing: “He’s the reason we broke up, you know.”
She hesitated.
“He wanted you from the get-go and he did everything he could to come between us. Set up that interview, told Desi I’d do whatever she wanted me to do.”
Desi. The ho-bag herself, Desdemona Eros.
“He even encouraged me to have sex with her so the story would have a real authentic note. So his high-priced lawyers better cover my ass in this lawsuit, too. It’s all his—”
The phone beeped, signaling that Tim had run out of time to finish delivering his ugly words.
Turned out he hadn’t needed any more time. She had gotten the message loud and clear.
The world seemed to be spinning, pressing in on her with enormous weight. Jack, the man sitting beside her, had intentionally broken up her marriage? It was crazy. Utterly ridiculous. He had never made an inappropriate move toward her.
And yet….
He’d admitted he came here for her. He’d pursued her relentlessly since his arrival.
But had he come here just for her? Had he really? Or was it for some other reason? A business reason, involving this myst
erious lawsuit Tim had mentioned.
Had she once again been completely fooled by a man she’d developed deep feelings for?
“God, no,” she whispered, slowly putting the phone back into her fanny pack.
“What?”
She swallowed, not knowing where to start. With the accusation that Jack had manipulated things to free her up for his own pursuit, or that he’d come here not to seduce her, but to use her?
“Here you go, brother. Glad to hear you like our island’s little party,” the driver said.
Liz watched, still stunned into silence, while Jack pulled money out of his wallet and handed it to the driver. But before Jack could refold the wallet and put it away, Liz caught sight of something inside.
It was one of those plastic sleeves, used for holding pictures of loved ones. And in the split second’s glance she’d had of it, she saw a face that completely shocked her. Her own.
“Let me see that,” she said, reaching for the wallet and pulling it out of his hand.
Jack said nothing, watching her as she opened the fine leather and flipped to the photograph. “It’s me,” she murmured.
Liz as she’d looked several years ago. Her hair was short, and she stood beside a Christmas tree. She was smiling, laughing really, and the photograph had been taken from somewhere across the room—she hadn’t been posing.
“The first night I ever saw you,” Jack admitted.
Ignoring the driver, who tapped the steering wheel impatiently, she looked into Jack’s eyes. “You took this?”
He shook his head, which gave her a moment of relief.
“I found it in a bunch taken by someone else at the party and kept a copy.”
“Has it been here in your wallet ever since?”
“No,” he admitted, his voice throbbing with intensity. As if he wanted to make sure she understood. “I haven’t been pining away, and I haven’t been celibate since the night we met. But once I stumbled across this picture and realized I was going to be seeing you again, I couldn’t help…remembering.”
“Remembering what?” she whispered.
He gave a helpless shrug. “How I felt about you from the minute I laid eyes on you.”
Liz’s throat closed and she had a hard time breathing. Such an admission might have seemed incredibly romantic in another time, under other circumstances. Now, with Tim’s words echoing in her head, it was almost painful to hear.
“How did you feel?”
With a helpless half smile, he admitted the truth. “I wanted you from the very first. And working with you made me realize it wasn’t just want—I liked you more than any woman I’d ever met. Truth is, I’m crazy about you, Liz.”
Closing her eyes briefly, she let the truth of it wash over her. He’d seen her. Wanted her. Kept his distance because she was married—at least until, with his help, she was no longer married. Then he had eventually followed her to her new life.
All so the rich, charming Bad Boy Beaumont could get what he wanted.
He didn’t hold a gun to Tim’s head. Nobody had forced her ex to drop his pants. He’d cheated all on his own. And, she suspected, the affair that ended their marriage had not been his first one.
The thought calmed her a little. But there was still too much she didn’t understand. She had to know for sure. Find out if the rest of the ugly accusations were true.
“So when you said you came here for me, you really meant it. This talk about opening new markets for the company, that was just a small part of it. You really flew to this island to explore your attraction to me, right? And for no other reason?”
She held her breath. Confusion still whirled in her brain, doubt thrusting daggers into her heart. Liz honestly wasn’t even sure how she wanted him to respond.
Which was worse? The idea that the man beside her had hoped for her marriage to break up, perhaps even helped it along, then pursued her to get her into his bed? Or that he was here because of some damned lawsuit, and having her was merely a side benefit?
“Well? Answer me, Jack. Why did you really come to this island?”
His silence continued, and his mouth opened, then closed, as if he didn’t know what to say.
Which said it all, really.
Liz didn’t think, didn’t plan, didn’t say one word. She simply reached for the handle, opened the door and jumped out.
And then she walked away, intentionally disappearing into the crowd.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACK HADN’T BEEN sure how Liz would react when she learned how he felt about her. Considering even he himself hadn’t known the depth of his feelings until recently, he’d imagined she would react with anything from skepticism to amusement.
As it turned out, he hadn’t had time to tell her much at all. Nor to even answer her question. Just the news that he’d wanted her for such a long time had been enough to send her running.
Jackass.
He’d been so focused on trying to find the words to admit that one of his reasons for coming here was to ask for her help in dealing with his legal troubles, he hadn’t even noticed how upset she truly was.
It had just suddenly seemed so ridiculous. The idea that Liz should have to talk about the condition of her marriage—Tim’s other infidelities, anything she knew about the affair with Desdemona—just to save his company a few bucks, was out of the question. Yet he had to admit the truth to her, clear the air about it, even though he had no intention of following through.
She hadn’t stuck around long enough to listen. And her mood hadn’t been skeptical and it hadn’t been amused. It had been pure, raw anger he’d seen in her eyes, combined with a flash of utter sadness.
He just didn’t know why.
Though he’d quickly gotten out of the car and hurried after her, she’d been impossible to locate in the dense crowd. He’d searched fruitlessly for an hour, then realizing she might simply have doubled back and gone home, he went to her place. She didn’t answer the door, and the windows were dark and shuttered.
“Damn it, Liz,” he muttered, unable to understand. Okay, it hadn’t exactly been the most romantic time and place. And he had played it a little safe, telling her he was crazy about her rather than admitting he was head over heels in love with her.
But he didn’t think that was it. Liz had run, but she wasn’t a coward. Something had spooked her, big time. She was troubled.
He suddenly thought of something she’d said last week. About where she went to let her troubles float away.
To her sailboat.
“Oh, God, please, anything but that,” he said. With no other ideas, though, he had to at least check.
Not even considering driving through the madness surrounding her building, he cut to another street and flagged down a taxi. This time he asked to be taken to the marina.
“No action up there,” the driver said. “All the ladies are in town tonight. Things are just heating up.”
“I think I’ve had as much heat as I can handle,” he replied. Liz was as much as he ever wanted to handle.
As they drove away from Castries, the traffic all but disappeared. What few cars were on the road were heading into town, not out of it. He wondered for a second if he was making a serious mistake. Liz had friends on the island. She could easily have gone to see one of them.
But something told him she hadn’t. Whatever was bothering her, it cut deep. Her expression had told him that much. And if she truly was angry with him, thinking he was some kind of stalker for having an old picture of her in his wallet, she might have sought out the one place she knew he wouldn’t follow: the sea.
When he arrived at the marina and saw the empty slip where her small sailboat had been docked the other day, he knew he’d been right.
“Hey, Jack!” a voice called.
He looked up to see the Duke, with his beautiful wife on his arm and another couple beside them. “Ray.”
“You look miserable, my friend. Too much fun at Carnival?”
“Not exactly.”
“It can be a bit much. That’s why we’re going out for a sunset cruise.” The other man laughed. “I would invite you to join us, but…”
“Thanks. I’ll just wait here.”
Marchand walked closer, gazing at the empty slip. “She set sail about half an hour ago. She can’t have gotten too far.”
“You saw Liz?”
The man nodded. “She didn’t look too happy. In fact, I’d say her face was almost as sad as yours is right now.”
“I’ve got to talk to her. Find out what’s wrong.”
Marchand looked at the sky. “Long summer day, hours till sunset. You could be here awhile.”
Jack thought about it, pictured Liz out there for hours, letting her troubles—including whatever feelings she had for him—disappear on the waves. He couldn’t stand the thought of it.
“That trick—sitting still in the back of the boat,” he said. “It worked pretty well last week.”
Throwing back his head, Marchand let out a deep belly laugh. “I told you,” he called back to his wife. “Men do crazy things for the women they love.” Putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder, he added, “Come, my friend. For you, I will make sure my ship sails as smoothly as a child’s toy in a bathtub.”
* * *
LOWERING THE SAILS once she was well offshore, northeast of the island, Liz turned to watch the sun dropping lower in the western sky. It would be a few hours yet before the great blue sea opened its yawning mouth and devoured it. A few hours before she would have to head in and deal with the problem she’d come here to escape.
You shouldn’t have run.
No, she shouldn’t have. She was no damned coward. If Jack really had messed up her life for his own selfish purposes and then come here to use her, to boot, she should have stayed right there and told him exactly where he could go.
But what if he hadn’t?
Back in the cab, fresh off the wild day, the dancing, the heat and that insidious voice on the phone, Liz’s emotions had been swinging wildly. She knew better than anyone that her ex was a world-class liar when it suited his purpose. She also knew he’d relish the chance both to screw with her life and deprive Jack of something he might want.
Sand, Sun...Seduction! Page 15
