Every morning we would get up and see what progress had been made through the telescope on the balcony. And after that we would make love, sometimes right out there.
"I'm going to miss this a little," she said one time as the morning sun warmed our naked bodies. "Making love on this balcony."
"Don't worry," I said as I kissed her head. "We'll find a spot down there that's just as amazing."
We were married in the cove a few weeks after we moved into our new home. It was a very small gathering in the cove at sunset—that perfect time when the sky changed color and the stars were just starting to come out. That night the sky turned brilliant red and stayed that way until the ceremony was over. I'd never seen such a beautiful sight in my life. Maggie, with her beautiful, blue eyes and the intense red sky behind her. She said the same thing, and she's lived here her whole life.
Now we go out to the beach every night to watch the sun set. It's always incredible, but I'll never forget the way she looked on our wedding night under the starry sky.
* * *
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JB Duvane writes about tortured billionaires, bad boys with secret desires, and men with a dark past. She loves them all - ranging from hired killers to serial killers to the non-lethal variety of bad boy. After all, she wants to make sure everyone has their HEA.
* * *
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COLD AND HOTTIE
JAN O’HARA
What fresh hell is this, mon?
* * *
A decade ago, in a messy breakup with the only man she has ever loved, Olivia Prosser behaved badly. She has lived with the consequences since in a decent-if-uninspiring life.
* * *
Then bad news comes in rapid succession. The company she works for has been purchased; her ex, Finn Wakefield, is her new boss; and she must attend a retreat in Jamaica, supervised by Finn and a half-crazy psychologist. One week filled with forced intimacy and corporate-speak, not to mention memories better left in the past.
* * *
A white knight’s armor will rust in salt water.
* * *
For years and with ample justification, Finn Wakefield has placed the blame for his breakup with Liv squarely on her shoulders. Then new information comes to light. Not only might Liv be innocent, the party who framed her might be continuing their sabotage from within Wakefield’s newest acquisition.
* * *
But Liv shows no interest in righting the wrongs of the past. Is that because she is over Finn? Or because she has reason to protect the saboteur? Either way, he can’t let it go. For the sake of his company and his heart, in the guise of team solidarity, Finn will push for the truth.
For Cathy and Jerry
CHAPTER 1
LIV
A t 4:37 p.m. on Friday, after weeks of dread and just when I’ve convinced myself I’ve been spared, a dossier bearing the title Jamaica lands on my desk. Tucker had probably been aiming for my in-basket, but since he’s standing in my doorway and the basket is overflowing, the folder tips over the edge and continues its horizontal motion. It comes to rest on the refinery drawings I’ve been marking up, the right lower edge touching a pump that needs modernization.
When I find my voice I say, “You’re kidding me.”
Tucker’s smile is his signature blend of cynicism and amusement. “If you pull yourself together and need to talk, I’ll be in my office for another five minutes.” He pivots on a well-shod foot and vanishes from sight.
I turn the pencil in my hand and use the eraser to tease out the top sheaf of paper, willing this to be one of his practical jokes. Easy enough to put a label on a folder and pack it with documents destined for the shredder. Then to stand in the hall just out of sight, ready to pop in with a, Haha, Liv, got you good this time.
Alas, this evening brings no such luck. For there in black and white, issued in the name of one Olivia Prosser, is an e-ticket for this coming Monday morning. I’m flying from Columbus to Kingston, via Atlanta.
I use the pencil to extract the next sheaf. Apparently the resort and I have corresponded, most recently when I confirmed an ocean-facing, non-smoking room with a king-sized bed.
At least I was smart enough to avoid having a roommate.
I close my eyes and bend forward to clunk my head repeatedly on my desk. Having seen fellow staffers open their envelopes, I don’t need to examine the rest of the paperwork to know what it contains. There will be a shiny brochure on the all-inclusive resort’s amenities. (Seven pools! Six restaurants featuring international cuisine! Unlimited soft drinks and booze in your room’s mini-fridge!) There will be a listing of optional paid activities, both inside the resort and on the island. Finally, there will be the handout delineating the source of my dry mouth and blossoming headache.
I don’t need to look at the handout but…I stop banging my head and do it anyway, because some masochistic impulses can’t be resisted.
Three months ago, the company I work for, HMZ Consulting, was purchased by Wakefield Enterprises. When I say “purchased,” I really mean “swallowed whole.” We were the krill to Wakefield’s blue whale. Now the time has come for us to “harmonize our corporate cultures.” Accordingly, for the past several months, select employees within my office have been receiving invitations to the upcoming retreat in Jamaica. Once trained in the ways of the mothership, they—and I guess that includes me now—will return as ambassadors to the home office, where we will spread the ways of enlightenment.
Most of the five-day retreat will be run by Wakefield’s second-in-command, Yolanda Perez. The brochure photo shows a woman in her early forties with tight black braids and a confident smile. She’s a psychologist, reportedly half-crazy in her own right, and the rumors about her outdoor group exercises are downright intimidating.
Then there’s the CEO, Finnegan Wakefield. I don’t know if his photo has been retouched, but thirty-four looks good on him. Even better than twenty-four did, if that’s possible.
Finn is giving the Tuesday noon keynote—one hour is his full commitment for the entire program. Depending upon how he receives me, that one hour could be all it takes to upend my life.
I seize the dossier and jam all the papers back inside, then locate my shoes under the desk.
Tucker looks up when I enter his office. He has already put away all his paperwork and is shrugging on his suit jacket.
“How long have you had this?” I ask, brandishing the file.
“It came the same day as mine.”
So six weeks then. You bastard is the phrase that springs to mind, but since Tucker is sensitive to that particular wording, I restrain myself to a growl. “How did you get it?”
I’m at work a good hour before he arrives in the morning, and easily another hour after he leaves for the day. Since he darn well didn’t take the dossier from my desk, that means he’ll have co-opted one of the clerical staff in his scheme—perky, blonde Katrina in the mailroom, if I had to guess.
Before he can reply, I throw up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear it.” Where Tucker’s concerned, it’s often better not to be too inquisitive. “Anyway, you waited too long to tell me. I can’t go. There’s the Fairchild meeting next week.”
“Amy’ll cancel and reschedule.” He opens his corner wardrobe to extract his overcoat. “It’s not like they were flying in.”
“Hello?” I tap my wristwatch. “She’s gone for the weekend. Everybody’s gone.”
He smirks as he shrugs on the coat. “Guess you’ll cancel it then. His assistant should be reachable if you hustle.”
“What about the Barker project? No way I can make the deadline if I’m away for a business week.”
“The
resort has WiFi.”
Meaning that I’ll spend all day in the rah-rah false intimacy of team-building exercises, and my nights on office work. Super.
I turn my back on him with a huff and fold my arms over my chest. Two stories below, my fellow Buckeyes shiver and shuffle through the falling snow, getting an early start to the weekend. I wish I were among them.
Tucker comes up behind me. When he settles his hands on my shoulders, I shrug them off. “Look, Liv, if I could have spared you, I would’ve. You know that, right? And it’s not like we haven’t worked out a strategy to deal with this all.”
This is true. Tucker has his own reasons to be worried about his job. In the summer we three spent together, he and Finn got along like proverbial oil and water. We had decided the best plan was for Tucker to attend the retreat, but become the Jamaican equivalent of beige wallpaper.
“Besides, let’s be honest, you’d have been a mess if you’d known this was coming.”
I set my jaw and feed him a look over my shoulder.
“You wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on the Handel account—”
“What a horror,” I say dryly.
“—and the fractionator would have fallen through the cracks.”
I raise a finger and make a small twirling motion.
“Plus you’d have been starving yourself to try to lose the fifteen pounds.”
I swing around and glare at him. “Sometimes I really hate you.”
“Only sometimes?” he says mildly. “I’m getting lax.” He winds a powder-blue scarf around his neck. Rebecca in HR once said she liked how it brought out the color of his eyes, and it has been a perennial favorite since. “Besides, you know you’re going to see him eventually—Mr. Bigshot Corporate Raider in his custom-made suit—though I’ll always remember he looked and smelled just like me after shoveling cow shit.”
Tucker’s bitterness has such a fresh edge I wonder if I’ve missed something. “Have you seen him, then?” As an engineer, Tucker attends all manner of high-level meetings that a technologist wouldn’t be invited to.
He chucks me under the chin. “I’d have told you if I had. I was referring to the pictures on the company’s website. It’s obvious Finn drops a bundle on his clothes.”
By biting my tongue I refrain from pointing out that Tucker has been known to indulge in sartorial elegance himself, his coat being the latest example.
As for the larger argument, a corner of me knows he’s right. If I’m to continue to work for Wakefield—and with my situation I simply have to—it’s only a matter of time until I run into Finn. Better to rip off the Band-aid in a time and place of my choosing rather than wait on tenterhooks for months, or possibly years.
“Okay. I’ll make it work.”
Tucker nods approvingly. “That’s the spirit, Kibble.”
But as I let myself back into my office and start packing up the drawings I’ll need to take, the enormity of the task seems overwhelming. I’m going to have to pull off the balancing act of a lifetime.
I’m going to have to come across as smart and competent, but not to the point Finn looks too closely at my employment record, or my position within the company. I’ll need to be cool and collected, but not to the point he’ll take my reserve as a challenge. Again.
I’ll have to figure out how not to become the pawn in a power struggle between Finn and Tucker. Like that’s going to happen.
But carry it off… Oh, carry it off, and the potential rewards are huge. Maybe I can repair some of the damage I did the last time we saw one another. Imagine that—Finn able to look at me without revulsion.
The very thought has my throat tightening and my eyes prickling.
And if I’m exceedingly fortunate, not only can we be civil to one another in passing, but I’ll work in an opportunity to show him a photo of my apartment. I think Finn would approve of it. I think he’d be impressed with all its white, pet-free serenity.
CHAPTER 2
FINN
A s the cruiser’s prow sweeps through the water toward the pinks and golds of the Jamaican sunrise, I pump my fist in the air and let out a whoop. My exhilaration earns me understanding smiles from the Larsons, a middle-aged Canadian couple seated to my left, and an eye roll from their prepubescent son. Their daughter, who I’d peg at fourteen, flicks a quick glance at me before returning to play on her phone. But the edges of her mouth creep reluctantly upward.
On the starboard side, I get a dignified nod from the elderly Asian man, and from the rear, a thumbs-up from the grinning captain.
Only the first mate chooses to ignore me. He’s an odd one, that guy—new to the resort, unless I’m mistaken, and one of the few employees who doesn’t function on perma-cheerful. In fact earlier, when he was preparing the rods and bait prior to departure, there was a moment when he eyed me with something approaching hostility.
No matter. Not everyone is cut out for a life pandering to tourists, and what’s one grump on a fantastic morning like this?
An hour later, I have taken up a position as far away from the Larsons as possible, given their amateurish casting. My lure is in the water, the sun a warm presence at my back, and I’m considering cracking open a cold beer to celebrate my wisdom.
It was the right decision to clear my schedule and get out of the resort for a few hours. No matter how beautiful and carefully tended, it was starting to feel like an extension of the office.
Of course, where have I been lately that hasn’t?
Yesterday was consumed by the Board meeting—and yes, it took work, but I managed to conquer the members’ nervousness about the pace of Wakefield’s expansion. At noon, in my keynote, Yolanda expects me to pump up the enthusiasm of our new, nervous employees. Then this afternoon I fly to Milwaukee, to massage the egos of some deep-pocketed investors.
Between the non-stop conquering and pumping and massaging, I’ve been feeling like a corporate gigolo.
My float lies undisturbed on the water, and having decided on a soda instead of the beer, I secure my rod in the holder and decide to show a little community spirit.
“Want a drink, Mr. Lee?” I say to the Asian man to my left. During introductions, he told me to call him Vince, and I’ve addressed plenty of men his age by their first name, but something about him encourages formality.
“Not for me, thanks.”
The surly first mate is to my right, mucking with his fishing rig. It feels odd not to make the same offer to him, so I do. But he shakes his head at me and goes back to muttering at his equipment.
I grab a soda from the bottom of the cooler and return to my spot. When I tip my head back for a long, cold pull on the bottle, both gravity and a gentle breeze send my fishing hat tumbling to the deck. I’m looking at it, deciding whether I’m concerned enough about safety to retrieve it, when there’s a high-pitched whistling sound to my right and a sudden, sharp tug at my ear.
Three things abruptly register: the first mate’s wide, disbelieving eyes, the fishing line which runs from his rod to the vicinity of my head, and that the tension hasn’t let up.
I put my hand up to confirm, but the evidence doesn’t lie. I’ve been hooked.
Liv, I think automatically, before pushing the name away.
I haven’t made a sound. Nonetheless, all over the boat, fishing rods are abandoned and people converge as I become the center of attention.
The captain is nearly overcome with dismay. He shakes his head like he’s palsied, a rim of white showing around his dark irises. “Mr. Wakefield, no. That is not good, sir. Not good at all.”
The first mate’s eyes, while not hostile, are downright cool. “I’m very sorry, mon. But this is why we ask you to wear hats.”
The teenage girl gives a faint scream and claps her hands to her mouth. “Oh my god, that’s disgusting.”
“Says the chick who was talking about a cheek button the other day,” her brother says.
Mrs. Larson’s head swivels in her daughter’s direc
tion. “You were doing what?”
“I told you that in confidence,” the girl says, as her brother smirks.
Mr. Larson—Gary, I think it was—slaps me gently on the shoulder. “I’ll get my family out of your hair while the staff sort you out.” He snags each kid by a sleeve and hauls them down the deck, trailed by his wife. Then they form an animated huddle, casting frequent sympathetic glances in my direction.
The first mate raises a pocket knife near my face. “To cut the line and release the pressure,” he says, making me feel like a dolt for flinching.
When he’s done, the staff retreat to a position near the engine, where they confer in rapid Patois. I can only make out every third or fourth word, but they seem to be debating whether to return to the hotel for medical help, thus ruining the trip for everyone else, or removing the hook themselves.
I’m considering my own preference when Mr. Lee, who has been a quiet observer until now, nods at my ear. “It’s in the cartilaginous part, which has comparatively poor circulation. If it were me, I wouldn’t leave that in a second longer than necessary. Remember, that hook was bathed in raw chum, and who knows what else, given the first mate’s dubious hygiene.”
I nod, then wish I hadn’t when the hook shifts against my skin. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner this humiliation is over with, the better. Then maybe we can get back to our peaceful morning.
“Can you take it out?” I ask him.
He looks at me like I’ve questioned his sanity. “Of course. It’s a matter of simple physics. Look.” He curves one finger like a hook and uses the palm of his other hand to demonstrate. “If you drag it backward toward the entrance wound, it’ll catch and you’ll tear all manner of flesh. But push it through to the other side, like so, and you can cut the barb off with pliers. From there, the extraction is easy.”
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