Private Paradise

by Jami Alden

  “Don't take it personally. I'd worry about anyone mentally deficient enough to go out into the eye of a hurricane when he has no way of knowing how fast the storm is moving.”

  As if to prove her point, at that moment there was violent snapping sound, followed by a crash which Carla guessed was the sound of a palm tree being denuded of several giant fronds.

  Sam's eyes darted to the windows, though he couldn't see anything through the sturdy wooden storm shutters. When he looked back at her, the chagrin on his face was unmistakable. “I'm sorry. You're right, it wasn't safe. I just wanted to make sure you had something to eat.”

  Carla felt the tension in her shoulders ease as the fear-fueled anger evaporated at the contrite, almost sweet expression in his electric blue eyes. “I'd rather miss a week of meals than risk you getting hurt or killed,” she said before she could consider the wisdom of such an admission.

  He crossed to her and gave her a quick, fierce hug. “Since that won't be necessary, why don't we go ahead and dig in.”

  “How bad was it out there?” Carla asked as she did a quick inventory of the supplies Sam had brought as he rummaged through the cabinets for utensils and plates.

  He found two plates, a couple of forks and spoons, and a paring knife. “Flooding from the pool into the fitness center, and the restaurant took a hit from the beach, but other than some minor roof damage the main structures are holding up.”

  Carla let out the breath she hadn't even realized she was holding. Sure, flooding, even seemingly minor, could cause a lot of damage but for the moment―they wouldn't know the extent of the damage until the storm had fully passed―it sounded like repairs would be finished well in time for the holiday high season.

  As the knot in her stomach eased her hunger once again came to the forefront. She moved next to Sam, squinting a little in the flickering lantern light as she took inventory. Piles of fruit and vegetables, loaves of bread, an assortment of cheeses and cold cuts. Bags of chips, a six pack of beer, a bottle each of red and white wine.

  He'd certainly taken her hunger seriously.

  Sam grabbed a baguette and went to work on it with the paring knife, slicing it in half and down the middle for sandwiches. “There's turkey in there somewhere and a block of Swiss over there.” He indicated the pile of cheeses on the far end of the corner. “I grabbed some pickles too―I think you put them on the table. I couldn't find that sweet mustard that you like, but there's some mayo and Dijon next to the pickles.”

  Carla's hand froze momentarily as she reached for her baguette. She tried to ignore the squeezing sensation in her chest, telling herself that like her stupid peanut allergy, Sam remembering her favorite sandwich combo was of no significance whatsoever. Especially since he'd heard her order it dozens of times.

  Yeah, but not in the past week...

  She put the baguette on a plate, grabbed a spoon and slathered some mustard on both sides. She considered forgoing the pickles, just to send a signal that he didn't know her as well as he liked to think he did. But he'd gone through all the effort to bring her the food, she didn't have it in her to be bitchy and passive aggressive about it.

  Besides, how much would her turkey and Swiss suck without pickles? Especially when she already had to forgo the honey mustard. She finished making her sandwich and grabbed some chips from the bag he'd opened to accompany it.

  “I brought dessert too,” he said, and indicated with his chin a plastic tub perched next to the sink.

  “Ice cream?” Carla asked, her mouth already starting to water. For the most part, she tried to eat pretty healthfully, but ice cream had always been her weakness. Leave it to Sam to remember that.

  “There wasn't any strawberry,” Sam said as he piled his own baguette with meat, cheese, and tomatoes, “so I grabbed the mango kind. We should probably get it into the fridge.”

  Carla nodded and set down her plate. Even with the electricity out, the fridge was still cold and the insulation would help keep the ice cream from turning to soup in the still, hot air. When she picked up the ice cream she noticed there was something else behind the plastic tub.

  She recognized the contents and nearly dropped the ice cream. Condoms. An entire bulk size box of them. “Wow, someone's optimistic,” Carla said, heat scorching her cheeks as she bent to put the ice cream in the mini fridge.

  As she stood she met Sam's gaze. “We only have two left to get us through the storm. I didn't want us to run out.”

  Even in the lantern light there was no mistaking the heat in his gaze. Carla felt it rush straight to her core, the look in his eyes enough to make her clench with need. She picked up her plate in two hands, marveling at her own ability to make it to the couch and set it on the low coffee table without dropping and breaking it.

  She picked up half of her sandwich and sat back as Sam placed a bottle of beer in front of her, then settled into one of the padded teak armchairs positioned at either end of the table. She couldn't decide if she was relieved or miffed that he hadn't chosen to sit next to her. Then she took the first bite of her sandwich and didn't care as the first bite of solid food in over eightee hours made her mouth and stomach sing with joy.

  She polished off the first half and sat back and sipped at her beer, a little embarrassed at how she'd scarfed down her food like a trucker in front of Sam.

  Not that he was showing any more restraint. He ate like a man who'd spent several months in a POW camp, polishing off at least three times as much food as she did in the same amount of time. Soon, he too sat back, beer in hand, resting his big hand on his lean stomach.

  She would have been a little bitter, she thought as she contemplated the ripped―no shredded―ab muscles rippling under his tight skin, had she not witnessed for herself exactly how hard Sam worked out to look like that.

  The memory of him, droplets of sweat beading on his skin as though daring her to chase them with her tongue, flooded her senses. Between her legs her sex throbbed almost painfully and her nipples pulled tight under her thick robe.

  “Chris seems really happy.”

  Carla jerked her eyes up to Sam's face, embarrassed, yet again, to be caught blatantly ogling his buff body. But instead of the sly, knowing look she expected to see, Sam's expression was pensive as he stared sightlessly at the flame of the hurricane lamp perched on his end of the table.

  Carla couldn't help but give a wistful smile at the mention of her cousin and Julie, his wife of four years. “It's kind of disgusting how happy they are.”

  “I remember how he used to talk about Julie when he'd come back to Vegas,” Sam said, his teeth white as he flashed a wry grin. “It was so obvious he had a huge thing for her, but whenever I asked him why he never made a move, he kept saying she was too good for him. Deserved better than a player like him,” he paused and took a sip of his beer. “I know how that goes.”

  “He's not a player anymore,” Carla said, instinctively defending the cousin who was as close to her as her own brother. “And besides, it wasn't all a cakewalk.”

  “I know,” Sam said, shaking his head. “He told me all about it, how he very nearly fucked it all up. Lucky for him she gave him another chance.”

  Carla's throat closed around the sip of beer she'd just taken, warning bells going off in her head at the direction this conversation was going.

  “He's living the dream,” Sam said with a little shake of his head. “He got his business going, got the girl he always wanted, two kids...no man could ask for anything more.”

  She gave a harsh laugh. “Oh right, like that's your dream.”

  “I never said it wasn't.” Sam retorted.

  “Really? Like I'm supposed to believe you, the guy whose personal mission in life is to break Wilt Chamberlain's record for number of women screwed.” Carla drained the rest of her beer and set the bottle down with a thunk.

  Sam's eyes narrowed and his mouth pulled into a tight line. The muscles in his shoulders pulled tight and she got an uncomfortable feeling
like she'd just poked an angry lion. “Not wanting it and never believing you can have it are two totally different things. At the risk of sounding like a fucking broken record, I'm not like that anymore.”

  “Sure,” Carla said. “Next you're going to tell me that before tonight you've been celibate for the last eleven years.”

  Sam shrugged and sat back against the chair back, his hard chin jutting out ever so slightly. “More like nine or ten months.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I'm not twenty-one any more. This may sound corny, but I've realized sex is a lot more fun when I actually care about the person I'm doing it with.”

  She felt a jolt in her stomach as his words registered. Was he trying to imply that he cared about her? Oh right, who was she kidding. “Uh huh. And I bet you've 'cared'”―she made air quotes with her fingers―“for a lot of women over the years.”

  She picked up the second half of her sandwich, not so much because she was still hungry as to distract herself from the hard set to his jaw and the turbulent emotions in his blue gaze. Almost as though she might have hurt him with her little jab.

  He got up and she heard a cork pop in the kitchen, followed by the glugging sound of glasses being filled. Sam returned to the armchair and set a glass of red wine in front of her as he brought the other to his own lips.

  The storm shutters rattled against the windows, and for a second Carla questioned the wisdom of getting a buzz on while a hurricane raged. But as she caught Sam's intense stare she took her glass in hand and took a deep drink. Now that the eye had passed over, the worst of the storm was over. The villa had held up and they were safe as long as they stayed inside.

  And God knew, if she was going to be stuck in here with Sam for several more hours, she needed something to take the edge off.

  “What about you?” Sam asked curtly. He sat back in his chair, one foot draped over his knee as he held his glass loosely in one hand. Though his posture was relaxed, Carla knew from the tightness of his muscles in his shoulders and neck he was anything but.

  “What about me?” she said.

  “What happened to your plan to get married and have a couple of kids before you turned thirty?”

  Carla felt her face heat and she stared at the dark depths of her wine so she wouldn't have to meet Sam's probing gaze. She wanted to kick herself for ever revealing her hopes and dreams to him in those secret, starlit conversations. She wanted to kick him for throwing it back in her face.

  She cringed inwardly, remembering how she'd told him things about her mother and her string of loser boyfriends. How Carla had vowed to never be anything like her mother, how she would be smart about who she gave her heart to so she wouldn't end up alone with two kids to raise, her heart so bruised and battered it was a wonder it even beat anymore.

  How the man sitting across from her was living proof that when it came to bad boys who flashed a sexy smile as they said all the right things, Carla was just as foolish as her mother.

  “I haven't made the best choices, relationship wise,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Sam's eyes narrowed. “I assume you're referring to me.”

  “I'd hardly call our summer fling a relationship,” she said, throwing his own words back in his face. “But yeah, that probably should have clued me in. There were others after that who did their own damage.”

  Sam leaned forward. “Like who?”

  Carla took another sip of wine, felt its warmth pour through her limbs, relaxing her body and her tongue as the liquor went to work. “Let's see,” she stared at the ceiling and wiggled her fingers as though mentally counting.

  “Jesus, how many have there been?”

  Carla hid a smile at Sam's irritation. Was it possible he was actually jealous? “Let's see, after you there was Carl, who I dated my sophomore year of college. He's the one I finally had sex with, in case you're wondering. We were together for a year before I found out he was also sleeping with one of his fraternity brothers.”

  Sam choked on his swallow of wine at that.

  “Then Jason, who I dated part of junior and senior year. We were going to move to New York together after graduation, where he had a job with a major hotel group. While he backpacked through Europe I sold all my stuff to buy a non-refundable plane ticket to New York and put a deposit on an apartment in Manhattan. Only by the time he got back to the states he had found another roommate.”

  “Not another dude?”

  Carla shook her head and drained her glass. “Nope. Tina from Australia. Five nine, waist length blond hair, legs up to her armpits, and a 'hey no worries mate’ attitude, although I think that was as much because of her fat trust fund as being from Australia. Either way, somewhere over the summer Jason realized what he really wanted was the anti-me.”

  Despite her light tone, Sam's expression was anything but, his dark brows knit and his mouth turned down in a scowl. “That it?”

  Carla gave a sharp laugh. It was either that or cry. “One more. The biggie.” She paused for a moment, wondering why she was telling him all of this. She waved her hand dismissively. “This is stupid. You don't really care about any of this.”

  Sam leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Tell me. I want to know.” The way his eyes focused on her, full of what looked like sincere interest and sympathy, just like they'd been all those years ago, compelled her to keep talking even though it wasn't in her nature to share.

  After he'd dumped her, she'd convinced herself he'd probably come out of the womb knowing how to give that look, knowing on some instinctive level that women were more inclined to give it up for men who listened – or pretended to.

  Even knowing that, she still wasn't immune to it. Combined with the effects of the wine, it sent the sordid truth spilling out. Or an abbreviated version, anyway.

  “His name was Greg. He was the chef at Holley Cay. He asked me to marry him after six months and I was over the moon, convinced I'd found someone who could deal with my dedication to my job and handle living resort life full time. Which, you'll soon find out, isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

  Sam nodded and indicated for her to go on.

  “So I started putting together plans for us to get married during the low season.”

  “Please don't tell me he left you at the altar.”

  Carla flashed him a rueful smile. “No. Thankfully things didn't get that far. As it got time to send out the invitations, he started acting weird. Distant, uncommunicative, I'm sure you know the drill.”

  She shot a look at him and saw that he had a slightly chagrined look on his face.

  “Then one night I went to check something on the computer―the personal one I kept at my place, not the office one―and he'd left his email up.”

  Sam brought his hand up to his face.

  “I didn't snoop! I swear! But as I went to close it I saw an email from the manager of Curtain Bluff.” At Sam's confused look, she clarified, “It's a resort on Antigua. I told myself there was probably nothing to it. Greg was―is―very talented, and people were always trying to woo him away. But I couldn't stop myself from reading it.”

  She reached for the bottle and refilled her glass. “And that's how I found out he had taken a position as the head chef and was expected to start only days from then.” She remembered the shock that had coursed through her, her heart pounding so hard she thought she was having a heart attack, her fingers going cold.

  “When I asked him about it, he told me he'd regretted asking me to marry him almost immediately, that he'd realized he wasn't nearly as in love with me as someone who's getting married should be. So instead of telling me that and keeping me from mooning around this place like an idiot chattering about wedding plans, he quietly went off to find another job. He told me he thought it would be better to wait to end it when he could leave right away. Clean break and all that.”

  “What a dickhead. That must have been awful.”

  Carla shrugged. “It was for a wh
ile. Not so much because I was so heartbroken. In retrospect, Greg was onto something there about being in love enough to get married. I'm not sure I was either.uard down. 摘veryone knew what an idiot I was except for me.

  No,” Sam said, sharply enough to make her meet his gaze. “They're the idiots for being stupid enough to screw up with you.” His hand was clenched so tightly around his wine glass she was afraid it might shatter in his grip, and his eyes were stormy with what looked like fury. On her behalf.

  She had no doubt if any of the men she'd mentioned walked into this room, Sam would deliver an ass kicking none of them would ever forget. The idea that he would be so protective of her and her feelings gave her a primitive thrill.

  “Total, fucking, idiots,” Sam said. “And don't think I don't lump myself firmly in that category. I should have never screwed things up with you. I should have never let you get away.”

  Carla felt a weird twisting in her chest, tried to chase it away by reminding her that he'd been the one to push, that she hadn't been looking for the exit. When that didn't work she took another sip of her wine. “And think about what a disaster that would have been if you'd actually let me follow you to the Army.” Her laugh sounded forced, hollow.

  Sam took a drink of his own wine, contemplating her over the rim. “Or not. We might be happy together with a couple of kids by now.”

  She knew she shouldn't go there, but her mind was suddenly flooded with visions of what life would be like, had she married Sam. She probably would have never come to work with Chris, would have probably found work close to wherever Sam was stationed.

  Work she would have given up, at least partially once she had kids since she'd told herself she wouldn't work full time as a parent if she could help it. That long ago summer she'd fantasized dozens of times about what their future children might look like. Would they have had boys, tall and rangy with their daddy's devilish blue eyes? Or determined little girls with dark curly mops of hair and big brown eyes? A combination of the two?

  The tightness in her chest told her she had to get off this track, and fast. “Or I would have ended up a single mother, either because you were killed in combat or because we got divorced after we wised up and realized what idiots we were to think a summer fling between two kids could ever lead to something meaningful.”