Playing the Part

by Kimberly Van Meter

  And he never wanted Carys to know that.

  Ever.

  * * *

  LINDY SLOWLY OPENED her eyes and grimaced at the sticky taste in her mouth. Damn rum. She rose and saw it was dark outside. She looked around and realized she was not in her bed. A moment of disorientation followed the uncomfortable feeling that she didn’t know where she was. She flashed to a party in the Hollywood Hills where she couldn’t rightly remember all of the details but was pretty sure things had happened without her express permission and she fought the rising disquiet that followed when she thought too much about that night. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and waited for the dizziness to go away.

  It was then she realized she wasn’t alone in the room.

  She opened her mouth to scream but realized a heartbeat later Gabe was the dark form lying uncomfortably in the chaise lounge by the window. He was still clothed, wearing board shorts and a hideous magnolia shirt, and his dark hair, which was usually so orderly and perfect, was disheveled and mussed as if he’d spent the night raking his hands through it during a crisis. It shouldn’t have been sexy given the circumstances, but it was.

  The knowledge that he’d slept in an uncomfortable chair so a drunken stranger could sleep in his bed, oddly enough made Lindy want to cry. It’d been a long time since she’d met any decent men. Of course, it would stand to reason that the first time a decent man came into her life, she’d have to run like hell in the opposite direction.

  Irony was a bitch.

  Lindy read the time on the digital clock: 1:00 a.m. Had she really slept that long? Man, she must’ve hit the rum way too hard. She exhaled softly and rose from the bed with the intent to slip out unnoticed, but Gabe awoke as she reached the door.

  “You’re awake?”

  She turned, biting her lip. “Yeah...sorry about all this. I’d forgotten how quickly rum hits me.” She thought of the impression she must’ve made on Carys and she cringed, hating how everything had unfolded. “I’m so sorry.... I never meant for you or Carys to see me like this. I’m not usually so...”

  “Irresponsible?”

  “No, I can be terribly irresponsible,” she retorted with a weak smile. “What I was going to say was, careless. I never would’ve wanted Carys to see me like that. It’s not my style to be drunk around kids, just so you know,” she felt compelled to add.

  He let that go and she was grateful; her head was pounding and she needed water and aspirin immediately. “Are you okay to walk to the main house?” he asked solicitously.

  “Yeah,” she answered, her cheeks heating. Why did she feel as if she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar? She was a grown adult. She straightened. “Anyway, thanks.”

  “I’m thinking it would be best if we checked out and found a different resort to finish our stay in St. John,” he said, and she turned to stare at him. It was difficult to discern his expression in the dim moonlight but the tone of his voice was clear: she was a bad influence on his daughter.

  Lora was going to kill her. Lindy licked her dehydrated lips and her mind fought to think fast, though all that materialized was the overwhelming urge to apologize profusely and beg—two things she wouldn’t do.

  “I’ve heard the Worchester is nice,” she said stiffly. “Ask for Darla. She’ll give you a good rate.”

  And then before she could do something stupid or rash, further mucking things up, she let herself quietly out of the bungalow and walked on unsteady feet to her room.

  Each step was punctuated by the very real fear she’d just screwed Larimar with her stupidity.

  But there was something else that gnawed at her that she was reluctant to look at too closely.

  Gabe was leaving because he thought she was a bad influence on Carys, and after last night maybe he was right. What business did she have being around an impressionable kid? Hell, last year, she’d partied so hard at the Playboy Mansion, Hugh Hefner had hinted that she had an open invitation to join the house bunnies if she was willing to play nice. Of course, she’d politely declined. It was one thing to run around without a top in the heat of the moment, quite another to run around topless as an everyday thing. She bit back the unhappy sigh, surprised at how much it hurt to think she might’ve damaged her relationship with Carys for her stunt. Worse, she knew how Gabe felt about her, too. It’d been written all over his face. She was nothing but a boozehound with loose morals. Her cheeks heated. The sad part, back in L.A. she’d really started to feel the same.

  Lindy pushed open the gate to the private area and went straight to her room, each step making her queasy stomach that much more agitated.

  Face it, a voice told her, you hate that he thinks that about you.

  Yeah...she hated it a lot.

  And that scared her more deeply than anything she’d ever known.

  She shouldn’t give two figs what Gabe Weston thought of her. He was a Larimar guest. Nothing more.

  Right?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  GABE WASN’T LOOKING forward to this conversation but he’d booked them a room at the Worchester and he had to break the news to Carys they needed to pack.

  “Morning, Dad,” Carys chirped with unusual good cheer that morning as she grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and peeled it open to take a big bite. “Somehow the bananas here taste better than the ones at home. Have you noticed that?”

  “That’s because they’re fresh, whereas the bananas at the grocery store in the States have been picked green and ripen later.”

  “That’s stupid. Why would you pick something before it’s ripe?”

  He smiled. “Because if they didn’t, by the time it reached the store it would be rotten. Did you know apples are picked six months ahead of schedule and then slowly ripen in cold storage?”

  Carys wrinkled her nose and grimaced. “That sounds gross.”

  “Well, apples still taste pretty good.”

  “Not as good as this fresh banana,” Carys quipped, taking another bite for emphasis. “So, we should see if Lindy is feeling better today. Maybe she’ll be up to some ice cream for that rain check.”

  Here it goes...the dreaded conversation. “About that... You know, with everything that’s been going on, I think it might be best to switch resorts. I’ve booked us an amazing suite over at the Worchester and I know you’re going to love it.”

  “I don’t want to leave Larimar,” Carys said mutinously, her brow furrowing darkly. “I like it here.”

  “You tried to kill the plumbing,” he reminded her.

  “That was before. Things have changed.”

  “Yes, and although I’m grateful you’ve seen the error of your ways when it comes to malicious mischief, I have to question whether or not this is a good environment for you.”

  “You wouldn’t know a good environment for me if it came and bit you on the nose!”

  His cell phone trilled to life at his hip and he groaned at the ill-timed interruption. He paused a minute to check the caller ID and then cursed softly when he realized he couldn’t send it to voice mail. “Listen, I have to take this call. This isn’t up for discussion. I need you to pack your things.”

  “No.” She folded her arms across her chest.

  He did a double take as he answered the phone. It was Vincent Burchell, the attorney representing Weston Enterprises’ most recent acquisition bid. “Weston,” he said, then covered the phone with his hand to warn in a fierce whisper, “Carys, I’m not going to argue with you about this. Now go!” Vincent asked if he’d received the relevant documents. Gabe, believing the matter with Carys finished, returned to his conversation, answering, in a normal tone, “Yes, I received the acquisition documents but I told you I wasn’t going to go a penny over twelve million for that property. You and I both know it’s in distress. The market value simply
isn’t there to support a higher offer.” Suddenly, he was startled by his daughter’s angry shriek.

  “You never ask me how I feel about anything!” She stomped her foot and clenched her small fists. “You just tell me what I’m doing and where I’m going and you never ask how I feel about it! You never change! You promised me you’d listen but you aren’t listening to me now. You’d rather talk on the phone about your stupid business stuff than talk to me! I hate you!”

  “Everything okay?” Vincent asked, overhearing Carys’s enraged scream.

  “Vincent, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call you back. I’ve got something I have to deal with here,” he said, gritting his teeth at the image of the attorney on the other line smirking. “I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  “Take all the time you need. My client isn’t going to accept your offer as it stands. It’s an insult.”

  “Vincent, let’s get real here,” Gabe started, holding his finger up to Carys for her to wait until he got off the phone, but she wasn’t going to give him another second. Her face reddened at being put on hold and she ran out the door. Damn it. “Not again,” he muttered, closing his eyes for a brief second before muttering a hasty goodbye to Vincent. He quickly dialed his own attorney and barked into the phone, “Vincent Burchell is saying he’s not going to accept my offer. I need you to show him the error of his ways. I don’t want to talk to that man again until he’s ready to do some real business. This is bullshit and a waste of my time.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you all day. I received the news first thing this morning that Harris Montgomery was having a change of heart. He wants more money and believes he can get it.”

  “He’s a doddering old fool who’s holding on to a company for nostalgic reasons and not ones grounded in good business sense. Make him see reason. I’m not about to lose out on this deal because Harris is feeling sentimental.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. You might have to walk away from this one,” his attorney warned, but Gabe wasn’t in the mood to hear that.

  “I’ve already invested too much time and energy into this damn acquisition. Make it happen, Warren,” he fairly growled into the phone. He clicked off without saying goodbye. The situation wasn’t improving his already raging temper. And now he had to go find his hotheaded daughter while the biggest deal his company had ever brokered was starting to go down in flames, as well.

  He cursed long and hard, irritated by the whole situation—Carys, the deal, and more importantly, Lindy.

  The last time he’d felt so out of control of everything was when Charlotte had gotten sick.

  Was it too much to ask for calm waters instead of all this chop? Maybe it’d been a bad idea to take a month away from the office. Hell, maybe he’d been fooling himself into thinking that it would make a difference with Carys. Charlotte was gone; no amount of fun in the sun was going to change the fact that she’d died, and he’d been stupid to think that a change in scenery would salvage his relationship with Carys. So far, that harebrained notion had been a gigantic bust.

  A part of him was tempted to let the kid run, but the moment the selfish and angry thought entered his brain, shame followed and kicked his feet into motion.

  He chased her all the way to the main house where she’d run straight into Celly’s arms.

  Oh criminy, he thought, feeling as if he’d just crossed into the path of a lioness guarding her cub. He sighed as he caught his daughter’s impassioned sobs.

  “I hate him,” she cried into Celly’s ample bosom, earning a black look from the Crucian front desk woman.

  “What yah do to dis chile?” she demanded, stroking Carys’s hair and murmuring soft accented words that Gabe couldn’t begin to make out. “She all upset and quaking.”

  “He wants to move us to the Worchester,” Carys answered for him, spitting the words as if they were dirty and Celly’s resultant look was just as expressive.

  “Bah on de Worchester. Plenty good here.”

  “It’s not that...” he started, then stopped, wondering why he was explaining himself. “If you please, this is a situation between me and my daughter. Carys, come with me. I will not entertain this emotional manipulation. Now let’s get packing.”

  “You go. I’ll stay.”

  He stared. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. I like it here and if you drag me out of Larimar, I’ll just find a way back.”

  And he didn’t doubt that for a goddamn second. “Carys! Enough.”

  But Carys merely turned away from him and clutched at Celly harder as if she were afraid that Gabe might do something terrible to her and Celly was her only hope for safety. He’d never wanted to grab his little heathen by the neck and shake her silly more than he wanted to at that moment but he held himself in check by the narrowest of margins.

  “The chile don’ want to go,” Celly said unnecessarily as if that were the end of it.

  “Well the child is not in charge,” he said tightly. “If you please, Celly...you’re not helping.”

  “Don’t you be mean to Celly!” Carys shouted, glaring at Gabe. “She cares about me, which is more than I can say for you! You couldn’t even miss one stupid work call to talk to me. You always choose work over me. Always!”

  Celly patted Carys’s back and crooned to her softly, clucking her tongue, chastising Gabe with a short look. This was getting ridiculous.

  Why couldn’t they just get along? They used to, but now it seemed she lived to make his life more difficult. He wasn’t about to carry on this conversation with an audience of one judgmental and intimidating hotel receptionist. “Carys...let’s talk about this in private.”

  “No.”

  “Dis chile is more than yah can handle,” Celly observed, chuckling when he scowled at her candid observation. Then she surprised him by waving him away, saying, “Yah go and do something.... I talk wit her.”

  Gabe hesitated, caught between the urge to simply grab Carys by her arm and drag her out of there or go back to the room to cool off. “I can handle my own daughter,” he said, freshly pissed off that the woman was right.

  Celly arched one brow as if she found his statement absurd and then said, “Yah stubborn mon. Chile don’ fall far from de tree. You force her to go...she come back. Yah decide. Either way, de same.”

  Hell, she was right. He choked down a bitter pill of resignation, and said tersely, “I’ll be back in an hour. Be ready to pack or I will pack for you.”

  “I hate you!” Carys screamed at his back and he flinched but kept walking.

  * * *

  LINDY WALKED INTO the lobby and found Celly talking to Carys in soothing tones that Lindy didn’t think the older woman was capable of, which made Lindy realize Carys was crying.

  Immediately forgetting her own mental stuff, she went to Carys with open concern and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “My dad wants to leave,” the girl answered with a sad hiccup.

  Lindy took in the puffed and swollen eyes and the runny nose and felt sick to her stomach. This was no act. There was no hiding the genuine distress written all over the little girl’s face. Lindy winced. This was her fault. “Let me guess...the Worchester?” she supplied, to which Carys nodded.

  Lindy sighed and straightened, forgetting her headache and minor complaints to concentrate on how to fix this immediate problem. Aside from the obvious fact that Larimar needed the money, she knew if Gabe took Carys away it would cripple his chances of ever repairing his relationship with Carys. Even if he didn’t see it, Lindy knew it in her bones. If only she’d swallowed her damn pride and apologized for being such an idiot. And then begged him to stay.

  Would it have mattered? She didn’t know but if she didn’t at least try, what leg did she have to stand on with her excuses?

  Lindy wiped away a tear fro
m Carys’s cheek and said to Celly, “Why don’t you ask Lilah to cover for you and you two go to the kitchen and raid it for some ice cream? I think Pops always has chocolate on hand. And while you’re doing that, I’ll go talk to Mr. Weston.”

  “Good idea,” Celly agreed, holding out her hand to Carys. Carys sent her a pleading look, as if to say, please fix this, and then went with Celly in the direction of the kitchen.

  Lindy blew out a short breath. Here goes nothing...

  She walked to Gabe’s bungalow and gave the door two solid, confident knocks, even though her insides were quivering and her brain was chattering with all sorts of unhelpful crap. She’d really screwed up on this one. Somehow, she had to fix it. The pressure was more than she was accustomed to but she was determined to repair the damage. She wouldn’t allow her mistake to mess with Carys. The kid had enough on her plate.

  Gabe opened the door. She wished she could say she saw pleasure in his eyes, but no, she didn’t.

  “Can I talk to you?” Lindy asked.

  He hesitated but good manners dictated that he open the door for her to enter. “Can I get you something?” he asked.

  “Water would be great,” Lindy answered, smiling gratefully when he handed her a cold bottled water from the fridge. After she’d guzzled half the bottle, she said, “Listen, I know why you’re leaving and I can’t say I don’t understand but let me plead my case before you make that decision.”

  He spread his hands in a gesture that said go ahead but the look in his eyes told her this was going to be a waste of time. She was tempted to say forget it, but the memory of Carys’s tear-streaked face wouldn’t let her.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” she started, preparing herself mentally to be brutally honest and hope that it did some good. “I don’t usually drink like that but I’m under a lot of pressure and I got news that wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for. My friend Billy owns his own charter company and he ferried me to St. Thomas for some business, and when my business concluded badly he consoled me with what used to be my poison of choice. I’d forgotten how quickly rum goes to my head and before I knew it, I was stumbling out of the cab. I never meant for you or Carys to see me that way, I promise. And if I could take it back, I would in a heartbeat. Carys is a special kid and I’d never do anything to give her a bad impression of me.”