A Taste of Paradise

by Elizabeth Lennox

  Slow, steady breaths and she nodded her head several times, acknowledging her boss’ words even though she still couldn’t really absorb or understand what he was saying. It felt like everything was tumbling down around her at the moment.

  Her boss finished and Gaia realized that she needed to respond. “Yes, I understand. Okay, I’ll be there early tomorrow and will update you as soon as I have more information,” she said to her boss, hoping that he hadn’t said anything else because she was clueless. “I’ll submit a summary of my conversations with Steele Industries about the waterfront project so that you’ll be in the loop.”

  She heard her boss laugh softly. “You don’t have to go into too much detail, Gaia. Just a quick e-mail every once in a while will suffice. And know that we are always here to help. So don’t feel like our firm is abandoning you just because we’re contracting you out to another firm. You’re an outstanding designer.”

  Gaia smiled slightly with his kind reassurance and unexpected praise. “Thank you, Jim. I appreciate your confidence.”

  “I’ll get off the phone now. It sounds like there was a bit of chaos happening when I first called. Everything okay?”

  Was everything okay? She wasn’t really sure. Gaia looked at Freddy who was now staring at all of the food on her countertop. “Definitely. Just my brother stopping by for a quick visit. He likes to annoy me by ringing the doorbell impatiently.” Freddy’s wide-eyed gaze swung towards her and she simply lifted her eyebrows in response, daring him to contradict her statement.

  Her boss laughed, obviously having dealt with siblings himself. “Well, I can understand brothers, being one myself. They can be the best and the worst in our lives, I know. Talk to you later, Gaia.”

  Gaia smiled, genuinely touched by his acknowledgment of sibling issues. “Thank you, Jim,” and she hung up the phone, taking a deep breath. Goodness, how had such a boring evening turned into a chaotic string of events?

  As friendly as Jim was at the moment, Freddy was the exact opposite. Normally, she would try to pacify him, but tonight, after all she’d gone through with Logan, she wasn’t in the mood for his irrational, paranoid rant.

  “Don’t you dare say a word!” she snapped when he opened his mouth to start. She knew where he was about to go and she didn’t want to hear it again. “First of all, you will not ever ring the doorbell repeatedly in that manner again. Repeated ringing is rude and inconsiderate. I am not your servant or a butler. You may ring the doorbell once and I will answer my door when I get to it. Not before. And if I don’t want to answer the door, then I won’t!” She felt empowered both by her speech as well as the shocked widening of Freddy’s eyes. “Furthermore, you are no longer allowed to just drop by my place anytime you want. Obviously, I have a life. You are my brother and I love you, but a bit of forewarning would be greatly appreciated. So unless you have a dire emergency, and if that’s the case, you darn well better call me and disturb me, but otherwise, you will respect my time and my privacy and call first! I won’t mind if you call and are already on your way over, but just dropping by unannounced is annoying.”

  Freddy’s shock quickly transformed to anger, his eyes darkening at those words. “Only because I caught you consorting with the enemy! How could you be here with that man! He’s not good, Gaia! You know what he did to our family!”

  Gaia put a hand to her forehead, trying to calm down, to suppress her impatience but it was difficult. She was tired, she’d just done something with the man in question that had seemed incredibly wonderful at the time and she was so tired of Freddy’s preoccupation with revenge against the Steele family. Taking a deep breath, she looked at him with both firmness and compassion. “Freddy, this obsession you have with the Steele brothers is not only wrong, it is like a sickness. You need to get help. The Steele brothers didn’t destroy our family. Dad did. He drank himself to death, leaving us to pick up the pieces.” She shook her head and corrected herself. “No, that’s not right. He left me to pick up the pieces. You haven’t helped. You won’t keep a job even if you like it. You won’t move on with your life!”

  “Because the Steele family needs to pay!” he practically whined.

  “No!” she snapped back at him, lifting her hand to stop his next tirade. “No, the Steele family does not need to pay! They did nothing wrong. I’ve listened to your arguments for the past several years, but they haven’t ever made sense!”

  Freddy’s face turned red with his fury at her words. “You believed what I was saying before!”

  Gaia gritted her teeth, trying to figure out how to get through to him. “No, Freddy. I never agreed with your arguments. I didn’t disagree though, which was wrong too. I didn’t want to lose you. You’re the only family I have and I was scared that, if I didn’t allow you to vent, then you would do something rash.” She moved closer to him, taking his hands in hers gently. “But Freddy, your anger is not right. Something is wrong here. I need you to go see a doctor. I’ll even go with you. I’ll help you however I can, but this isn’t right. You’re trying to hurt people that don’t deserve to be hurt.”

  Freddy was livid now. Whipping his hands out from her gentle grip, he stepped backwards, his eyes on fire with an inner rage that scared her. “You’re in love with him!” he shouted in an accusatory voice. “You’re in love with him and you’ve turned on me!”

  Gaia was stunned. “Freddy, what are you talking about? Who am I in love with? And no, I haven’t turned on you. You’re the only family I have left!”

  Freddy’s hands flailed out, dismissing her words. “You’re in love with him! And don’t you dare try and tell me that the guy leaving here a minute ago wasn’t one of them!” he said, the last word coming out as an epithet.

  Gaia couldn’t believe the vitriol that Freddy was spewing. “I guess I should have seen this a while ago, but I kept thinking it was just…something else.” Putting her hands on his shoulders, she looked at her handsome brother through clearer eyes now. He was only an inch or two taller than she was and, after being around Logan, who always felt like a giant, Freddy wasn’t so bad. “Freddy, would you please let me help you?”

  He smacked her hands away and moved away from her, pacing her small family room, his shoulders tense as he navigated around her sparse furniture. “You can help me! By bringing down that family! You just need to convince them to go through with the project down by the waterfront. I know they’ll sink a lot of money into that project if you point out all of the good aspects of that building.” He stopped pacing and looked at her, suddenly seeming lost but still angry, almost as if he were blaming her now. “You have an honest face, Gaia. People believe you when you say something.” He smiled and laughed slightly. “Maybe that’s why you’re so in demand with all of your ritzy clients and don’t have time for me anymore.” He shrugged, not even looking over at her, not noticing her horrified expression at his words. “It doesn’t matter. Help me with this, finish what you said you would do, and I’ll stop.” He glared harshly at her then, waiting impatiently for her answer.

  Gaia was more hurt than she cared to admit. But she wasn’t going to allow him to malign her job any longer. His words weren’t fair and she couldn’t hold back her anger. Not this time. “Freddy, I am just starting to be in demand, but it isn’t because I have an honest face,” she snapped sharply. “It’s because I work hard and I’m good at my job.” He started to interrupt her but she held up a hand, stopping whatever wounding words he was going to utter next. “They trust me because I listen to them and help them realize their dreams. Which is exactly what I thought I was doing for you, but this…obsession…it isn’t healthy.”

  He flailed his hands wildly in the air. “I don’t have an obsession!” he roared back. “I have a healthy desire to give our family the revenge Dad deserves!”

  He wasn’t listening! He didn’t even want to see reason regarding their father! “No, Freddy! Dad was a drunk! He was addicted to alcohol and he didn’t get help!”

  Of course,
Freddy ignored her. “Are you going to help me or not? Am I going to have to take down that family by myself? Or are you going to be my sister and honor Dad’s memory by helping me?”

  Gaia looked at him carefully, seeing him a bit more clearly now. Her mind worked frantically, trying to come up with a way out of this problem. “I told you I’d help you. In fact, I have a meeting with two of the brothers tomorrow morning and I believe it is to go through the waterfront building and examine the structure. Teague Steele is in charge of construction and knows buildings better than I know the shoes in my closet,” she explained, trying to lower her voice to try and help him gain control of his own temper. “Logan is a brilliant architect. They’ll both be looking at the building, at the structure, and the materials to see if there is anything that can be saved. I’ll be with them and can point out whatever I see,” she told him, not mentioning her personal plan of getting him to seek out help. “But if I’m going to do that, I want you to do something for me.”

  “What’s that?” he sneered. “Make dinner for the two of you so that you can get all cozy again, just like you were doing tonight?”

  Not giving into his taunt, she shook her head. “No. I need you to talk with someone. I’ll set up the meeting, but you have to promise me that you’ll talk to this person.” She needed him to see a therapist, someone who could evaluate his state of mind. She was starting to suspect that something wasn’t connecting correctly in his brain. “Will you do that for me?”

  He shrugged dismissively and crossed his arms over his chest. “Sure. I’ll do that for you if you’ll follow through on your end of the bargain.”

  She stared into his eyes, trying to discern if he was telling her the truth or not. Unfortunately, all she saw was his anger. An unhealthy, strange anger that frightened her now that she was really looking at it with different eyes. But he’d agreed and she suspected that was the best she was going to get for the moment. If it got him in to see a therapist, then at least it was a first step. “Fine. I’ll make the appointment for you and I’ll even go with you, if that will make you feel more comfortable.”

  He snorted. “I don’t need to talk to anyone, but if it will get you to follow through on your promise, then yeah. I don’t need you to hold my hand though. I’m a big boy now, Gaia. Just tell me where and when. I'll be there.” A moment later, he pushed past her, stalking to the doorway. “Don’t let me down.” And then he was gone.

  The silence in her apartment was eerie, she thought. Looking around, she couldn’t believe all that had transpired over the past few hours. She’d come home just wanting a glass of wine, a warm bath, and sleep. Boy, had her plans gone awry!

  Gaia glanced at her watch, shocked to find that it was still only about eight o’clock. It felt like it should be well after midnight!

  With a sigh, she walked into her kitchen and put away all of the food containers, stacking them into her fridge. She hadn’t had much to eat tonight, but the thought of food right now turned her stomach.

  When she entered her bedroom, she came to a standstill as she looked at all of the clothes spread over her bed. Only then did she glance down and realize that she was still wearing the sparkling rose dress. That’s when her mind flew back to being in Logan’s arms, the things he’d done to her body! Her hands came up to cover her breasts, her body aching once more to feel that thrilling exhilaration.

  And yet, she couldn’t let that happen again. First of all, she wasn’t really sure how she could face Logan again. Not after what she’d let him do to her. His hands and his mouth…the way he’d kissed and pulled, tugged and tormented her nipples. Goodness, she could still feel the aching need that had overwhelmed her! And then that explosion…

  She took a deep breath and leaned her open hands against her dresser, then quickly pushed away as if she’d been burned, remembering that this was the place of her seduction at the hands of an expert.

  Covering her face, she tried to obliterate the memories from her mind, not wanting to think about it, not wanting to remember. But they were there, the feelings, the images and that explosion! Goodness, the pleasure had been more intense than she ever could have imagined possible! She wanted that again, but she didn’t want to want that!

  In a burst of self-disgust, she unzipped the dress and carefully folded it back into the tissue paper, putting everything back into the box and closing it up. When that was done, she had to slide the box underneath her coffee table, not wanting to see the box. It taunted and tormented her with the memories of what had come after she’d slid that amazing dress on. Or more specifically, what had happened when Logan had slid that dress down, baring her breasts to his intense gaze.

  Shivering, she shook her head and walked away from the family room. Apparently, even being in the room with the dress was too much for her.

  She finally poured herself a glass of wine, hoping it would help her stop thinking of that moment, the way it had felt to have his hands cup her breasts, or how she’d loved the way his mouth had captured her nipple, his teeth grazing against the tip….

  “No!” she snapped to the empty room. “Don’t think about it!”

  Walking into her bedroom, she stepped into the shower, turning the water to barely lukewarm. She’d wanted a long, soaking bath, but that was out of the question now. No way was she getting into a warm bath, the water soothing over her skin, just like Logan’s…

  “Stop!” she said out loud, startling even herself.

  Her phone buzzed and she glanced over at it as if it might turn into a serpent. Fortunately, it sat there on her bed, looking innocuous. But it buzzed again, indicating that another text had come in.

  She wrapped a towel around her nakedness and walked over to the phone. Staring down at it, she felt her heart rate pick up speed. It wasn’t a message from Logan, she told herself. He was gone, had probably headed to a bar, looking for a less complicated woman and was happily trying to seduce her at this very moment.

  She tried to tell herself it was most likely Freddy or her boss.

  Forcing her feet to move forward, she carefully lifted the cell phone, trying to convince herself that it wouldn’t reach out and bite her.

  The warm, fuzzy feeling that enveloped her as she read the words was shockingly strong. “You okay?” read the first message. “Let me know if you need any help.”

  For some reason, she’d expected messages from Logan to be more sexual in nature. Maybe something more along the lines of, “I loved watching you earlier,” or “Can’t wait to finish what we started.” So, a message simply asking if she was okay made her feel…cared for? No, that couldn’t possibly be right.

  But yes, she re-read the messages, completely unaware of the smile forming as she typed back, “I’m good. Thanks.” She probably should text something more, but her fingers were shaking too hard for anything more.

  “Good,” he came back, obviously waiting for her response. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Sleep well, beautiful.”

  Chapter 7

  She’d thought about it all night. And dreamed about it. Gaia had tossed and turned in her sleep, her sheets tangled around her legs while her pillows somehow landed on the floor, all because of the erotic dreams the man had instigated. Unfortunately, the dreams didn’t stop at his sweet messages. Nor did they stop with just his warm mouth on her too-sensitive breasts. Oh no, her imagination was so much better than that! She dreamed about what it might be like to be completely naked with him, her body pressing against his and feeling all of that power in his body so close to hers. She dreamed about having his hands, those strong fingers, touching her in places she’d never been touched before.

  Several times she’d woken up with the sheets tangled around her legs, her lungs gasping for breath, and her body chilled as the cool, night air taunted her sweat soaked body.

  By four o’clock in the morning, she gave up on trying to sleep. It was pointless anyway, so she simply stepped into the shower and got ready for work. Her mind and body couldn’t h
andle another dream like what she’d endured last night.

  It was going to be a long day, she thought to herself as she drove to her office. The area was quiet this early in the morning and she was able to focus, clear up several outstanding issues on her current projects.

  By seven-thirty, she was already exhausted. But she packed up her bag and walked out to her car for the meeting scheduled at the waterfront site to go over the building structure with Logan’s brother. As she scrolled through the messages, she was startled to realize that there were several messages from Logan. The first ones seemed flirty with him letting her know that he was coming by to pick her up for breakfast.

  Gaia felt truly horrible because she vaguely remembered him saying something about breakfast last night. No, she hadn’t told him she would go to breakfast with him, but she hadn’t told him she wouldn’t either. She’d stood him up and that was just inconceivably rude of her.

  He’d obviously stopped by her place around seven only to discover that she wasn’t there. The next few messages were concerned, with him asking her if she was okay, if she was avoiding him after last night, then annoyed because he couldn’t find her and she wasn’t responding. When the elevator doors opened to the parking garage of her office building, she’d read the last one and couldn’t stop the smile from forming on her face because his anger had changed to concern. He was sweetly worried about her?

  She wasn’t used to someone worrying about her! She was the one that always worried about everyone else. For so long, she’d worried about her father, her brother, her clients, and all the details of work, home, and keeping Freddy out of trouble. She worried about paying the rent and getting good grades, of making sure Freddy wasn’t being bullied and ensuring that he was eating properly. She worried about his job situation and all of the problems he was facing.