“I did.” He nipped her jaw. Those presumptuous hands squeezed, and then pressed their lower bodies together, and an equally bold part of him prodded her stomach.
“Rafe?” she whispered, clinging to her quickly evaporating sense of responsibility.
“Hmm?” His mouth grazed hers.
“Your call?”
He sighed and rested his forehead against hers for a heartbeat. “Right.” Stepping away, he gave her a half smile. “If I’m still on the call when you’re done with your bath, do me a favor. Wrestle the phone away and toss it in the ocean.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Not even if I could win a wrestling match with you. I don’t want the St. Sebastian SWAT team coming after me for destruction of company property.”
He gave her the panty-melting scowl. “You should worry more about who’s coming after you in the near term. I have extensive plans for tonight.”
The promise sent a feather down her spine. After everything he’d done to her this afternoon, could she handle “extensive plans”? She entered the master bath on less than steady legs, closed the door, and leaned against it, hoping the escape would restore her equilibrium. But as she looked around the marble and tile room, she realized she hadn’t really escaped.
His dark leather toiletry case sat on the marble counter next to the candy-stripe pink makeup bag her mother had given her. A stainless steel Patek Philippe lay alongside her sunglasses, phone, bikini and the sundress she’d left on the patio table earlier in the afternoon.
The sight unsettled her. She started the bath and then picked up her phone to check messages, all the while telling herself not to hyper-analyze the domestic display of their belongings commingling in such a personal space. Why should putting her toothbrush next to his, or seeing her sunglasses alongside his wristwatch, seem so intimate?
When you got right down to it, she and Rafe barely knew each other. Oh sure, they’d shared some intimacies, mostly physical, but she didn’t truly know him. Not the way she’d known, or rather, thought she’d known, Paul.
She glanced at her phone. Only one new text had arrived while she’d been busy. Laurie, reaching out to tell her Cindy had been blowing up Instagram with ultrasound photos. Apparently she and Paul were expecting a baby boy.
Woo for them. Frankly, she barely gathered up the energy to care. Yes, the news underscored how long she’d been oblivious to something going on right under her nose, but she owed Paul and Cindy a big thank-you for showing her, once and for all, nice girls finished last.
She tossed her phone on the counter and it landed beside Rafe’s watch. An unwelcome memory barged into her mind, of buying that big, splashy timepiece for Paul. Yet another sad attempt to cater to the man in her life. At the time, she’d thought the generous gesture would foster intimacy by showing him the level of her commitment. Now it seemed like a perfect indicator of her level of insanity.
She shrugged out of the robe and stepped into the bath. When she sank into the warm water, her sore muscles insisted she knew certain aspects of Rafe pretty darn intimately. And that was exactly the level of intimacy she wanted in her life right now.
So stop getting uptight about toothbrushes and timepieces. Concentrate on fun, attraction, and hot sex. Six weeks from now you’ll be in Tahiti, managing a brand new resort, and Rafe will be satisfying his ambitions as the head of St. Sebastian Enterprises.
Chapter Fourteen
“Where are you, and, more to the point, where is my jet?”
Rafe stood on the balcony and contemplated chucking his phone over the bluff. “The G-6 belongs to the company, and I’m using it for company business.”
“A weekend rendezvous is not company business.”
“The Tradewinds acquisition is company business. I’m in Maui.”
“You were scheduled to leave for Maui today. Why—?”
“You were the one who told me not to leave the due diligence to the lawyers and accountants. You should be delighted. I’m taking your advice and spending time on-site, getting to know the property firsthand.”
“I take this to mean the Las Ventanas re-launch is on schedule? The agreement was three acquisitions completed and integrated by the deadline. If the re-launch does not proceed as planned, it hardly matters what happens with Tradewinds.”
Rafe closed his eyes and counted to ten. Losing his temper only validated his father’s suspicion he lacked the discipline to take the helm of the organization. “The Las Ventanas re-launch will not only occur as scheduled, it will be an unqualified success.”
“Oui, but you know I prefer to qualify everything. To that end, I have questions.”
Experience had taught him his best option was to tolerate the questions, answer those he saw no harm in answering, and dodge anything he preferred not to discuss. He doubted the illusion of cooperation completely fooled his father, but it would work better than sacrificing his phone to the Pacific. “Of course you do.” He lowered himself to a lounge chair while his father peppered him with questions about remodeling costs, personnel, marketing campaigns, and financial forecasts.
The Q&A portion of his evening continued through a trip to the bedroom to grab a shirt to go with the shorts he’d tugged on while waiting for his father to get on the line. He spent a long moment staring at the closed bathroom door, imagining wet, naked Chelsea on the other side.
Luc rambled on about the projected increase in revenue per available room while Rafe directed two waiters through the villa and stood by while they set up dinner on the terrace. He fielded questions about capital investments as he approved the wine, signed off on the bill, and sent the servers on their way.
The topic had turned to the guest list for the re-launch party, which meant his father was running out of minutia to torment him with, when a sound behind him drew his attention.
Chelsea hovered in the doorway between the main room and the terrace. A thin, strapless, yellow sundress hugged her curves and flared out at the waist to a short, leg-baring skirt. She’d swept her hair into a loose bundle. Strands escaped and tempted a man to toy with them before dragging his fingers through the whole silky mass.
“I have to go,” he said into the phone, and disconnected.
She raised her eyebrows. “Did you just hang up on your father?”
“I saved us a long, awkward good-bye.” God, he wanted her again. Wanted to back her up against the terrace rail, pull the dress off, and feast on her until he forgot all about dinner, or deals, or the stress of handling his father.
Glossed lips tipped up at one corner in a hesitant smile. The dimple begged for his tongue. “Sounds like an interesting relationship.” Her attention wandered to the linen-draped table. “I hope I didn’t delay dinner. You’re probably starving. I know I am.”
Back to plan A. They’d eat first. Then he’d peel her out of the wispy little sundress. He was fairly certain she didn’t have a stitch on underneath. His definition of essentials for her didn’t include underthings, and, consequently, he hadn’t bothered looking for any while he’d been in her villa. He held a chair for her and, once she was seated, took the one beside her. “Good. I ordered plenty. The chef recommended the seared scallops to start.”
She draped her napkin on her lap and then fiddled with her silverware. “They’re my favorite. Everything’s okay with your dad?”
“He’s annoyed with me, as usual. Kept insisting I’d borrowed his jet without permission.”
The smile flirted with her mouth again. She propped an elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “Is this the billionaire’s version of taking Dad’s car without asking?”
“Technically, it’s not his plane.”
“But you should have asked first?”
“That would be treating it like his plane, don’t you think?”
“I think you like to ruffle his feathers. You enjoy rebelling. If I was a therapist, I might say you’re stuck in an arrested adolescence.”
He battled a smile and
poured wine into her glass. “Not a bad place to be stuck.”
Delicate fingers twirled the stem of the glass. “I’ll bet you broke every rule growing up.”
And she hadn’t, judging by her tone. “I bent a few,” he admitted.
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Half the time in Manhattan, the other half in Los Angeles.”
She bit into a scallop as she considered the information. “Are your parents divorced?”
“Bite your tongue. The St. Sebastian fortune holds marriages together, long after the normal glues like love and affection dissipate. It also makes separate households feasible. My father lives in New York, to be close to the company headquarters. The business is one of the few things he’s faithful to, and he’s an unapologetic workaholic. Mom prefers the sunshine and pool boys of Los Angeles. The arrangements made my younger sister’s birth a near miracle.”
As soon as the words were out, he regretted them. Normally he danced around questions about his family, but tonight, in the face of her curiosity—and maybe the tiresome discussion with his father—he’d dumped a cynical load of dirty laundry on her. Now sympathy swam in her eyes. Totally misplaced, completely unwarranted sympathy.
“That must have been disruptive, always bouncing between coasts.”
He shrugged off her concern. “I got used to it. Don’t paint me as a poor little rich boy. I promise you, I worked benign parental neglect to my full advantage.”
She smiled at that, but her eyes stayed serious. “Fair enough, but didn’t you ever wish for something a little more traditional?”
“Depends on how you define traditional. My father grew up the product of exactly the kind of distant marriage he ended up having, so I guess you could say living separate lives represents the norm for St. Sebastians. Happily ever after continues to elude, but one way or another, they uphold the ’til death do they part.” More cynicism on parade. What the hell had gotten into him?
She’s gotten into you.
Chelsea put her fork down and gave him her undivided attention. “What about you? Don’t you hold out any hope for happily ever after?”
The setting sun turned her skin pink and gold. The breeze sent tendrils of hair dancing around her face. She stared at him with big, soft, hopeful eyes and there, in that moment, some long-lost part of him wanted to shove cynicism aside and drink the Kool-Aid.
You know better.
He did. He had to crush the hope, as applied to him, before either of them got carried away. “Happily ever after just isn’t in the cards for some people.”
“You don’t see yourself falling in love someday, getting married, and—”
“I don’t.” He paused a moment and stared at the shimmering water, waiting for his pulse to settle. You can’t even talk about it without triggering a flight instinct. Fingers of tension dug into the base of his skull. He rolled his shoulders. “Despite my all play and no work reputation, I work a lot. I travel constantly, and I like it that way. Relationships don’t work for me. I’m not cut out for them.”
Chelsea took a sip of wine, and carefully placed her glass on the table before looking at him. The sympathy was back in full force. “Maybe you haven’t met the right girl yet?”
“Maybe I’m not the right guy.” He bit into a scallop to try and cover the terseness of his response. Tonight this particular subject worked a nerve. He was happy, damn it. He led his personal life exactly as he wished, and his professional goals were nearly within his grasp. Things in his world couldn’t be more on-target. Why the discussion, and the way she was looking at him, left him edgy and dissatisfied made no sense. He swallowed, barely appreciating the perfectly seared scallop, and prepared to turn the conversation to an infinitely more interesting topic, like whether she preferred he deliver her next orgasm with his hands or his mouth. His dick was sadly out of the question because after the way they’d gone at each other earlier, it was a miracle she could walk straight. Still, possibilities abounded. Before he could commence an in-depth discussion of them, she broke the brief silence.
“Are you and your sister close?”
Abrupt mental gear shift. He went along with the direction she chose since his sister seemed like a safe topic. “We are.” His mouth stretched into the familiar, slightly exasperated grin Arden always provoked. “She’s six years younger, and a complete bohemian, but I do my best to keep her out of trouble.”
“She lives in New York?”
“She’s nomadic. Overseeing the interior decor and guest room amenities for St. Sebastian keeps her on the move, but a couple years ago, she bought a beach house in Twilight Cove. I own the house next door.”
Chelsea’s eyebrows rose. “The Twilight Cove located south of Montenido?”
He nodded. “Las Ventanas hit my radar shortly after I bought the property.”
Her eyes took on a faraway look and he thought she might pursue the subject of Las Ventanas, but she skipped around the mention of the resort and focused on the other information. “So you and your sister are neighbors. Sounds cozy.” She tipped her head to the side and brushed a wayward curl away from her neck. A quick vision flashed in his mind. Him, undoing her hair, wrapping it around his fist and pulling her head back so he could stare into those faraway eyes as they went blind with pleasure. The image held so much appeal it took him a moment to realize she was speaking.
“I always wanted a sibling.”
He’d read her wrong. It wasn’t a faraway expression after all, but a wistful one. Hoping to tease a laugh out of her, he said, “Your parents denied you that one little wish?”
She smiled, but turned her perfect profile to him and stared at the view. “More like fate.” With that cryptic comment she waved a hand in front of her face as if to brush the conversation away and raised the cover on another plate. “Have you tried the macadamia nut dusted wasabi vegetable rolls? They’re a house specialty.”
The breeze blew a strand of hair across her cheek. He reached over and tucked it behind her ear. “Why no siblings?”
“My dad died when I was six. My mom never remarried, so—”
“No siblings. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “For all I know, I would have gotten a brother who taunted me or a sister who borrowed my clothes without asking. Besides, I had my mom, who’s like two parents packed into one, and my best friend Laurie, who’s like my wilder, cooler, blonder twin.”
He traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertip. “I meant I’m sorry about your father. For better or worse, mine’s exceedingly present in my life. Growing up without yours must have been difficult.”
“Don’t paint me as some poor little middle-class girl.” Though she tossed his words back at him, there was no sarcasm. “Honestly. I don’t want to make light of it, but I barely remember him. Aside from photos and some videos, I only have bits and pieces. He gave really big hugs—the kind that lifted me off my feet. He loved the ocean and swam or surfed almost every day. I always think of him when I smell saltwater and Old Spice. He had a deep voice and used to sing me to sleep with a Billy Joel song about the middle of the night.”
“Sounds like a great dad.”
Her faraway smile made an encore. “He was. I got quality, just not quantity.”
“What accounted for the lack of quantity?” He traced her jawline. Her neck. He couldn’t stop touching her. As if his touch could make up for attention she didn’t even know she missed.
“He worked as the grounds supervisor at Las Ventanas. One random Wednesday he was helping his crew plant baby palms along the walkway to the pool and he collapsed. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Apparently this strong, active guy had an undiagnosed congenital defect in his aorta, which amounted to a ticking time bomb in his chest.”
Congenital. His fingers traced her collarbone to the base of her throat, and then down the center of her chest, honing in on the steady beat of her heart. He flattened his hand against it. “Genetic?”
“No.” She curled her fingers around his wrist. “My heart might be seriously messed up when it comes to, well, matters of the heart, but it pumps just fine.”
The sad little twist of her lips told him she was referring to Barrington, and he felt a strong, gut-churning urge to ruin the bastard. The man sat in his office at Las Ventanas, doing nothing of merit for the resort or the community, while Chelsea—who felt in both a connection to the father she’d barely known—had exiled herself thousands of miles away. Unfair. A part of him wanted to shake her for running, forfeiting the people and places she cared about to Paul and Cindy. Another part simply wanted to do whatever it took to wipe the sad look off her face.
Only one method came to mind. “I have another question.” Her eyes widened and turned a little wary when he stood, stepped around the table, and knelt in front of her chair. He leaned in and put his lips to the spot where his hand had been just moments ago, inhaling coconut and vanilla scents that clung to her skin. “Did you know when the sun hits you at the right angle, I can see through your dress?”
Her heart thumped under his lips, and slender fingers speared into his hair. He eased back a fraction and drew his fingertip along the top of her thigh, inching her skirt up as he went. “Tell me, what do you have on under here?”
“Nothing. You—” She broke off and inhaled as he swept his tongue along the swell of her breast. “You didn’t bring me anything.”
“Did you get a secret thrill out of sitting across from me, eating a civilized dinner while pretending not to know you were teasing my cock?”
Her eyes locked with his, and she stared for so long he didn’t think she’d answer, but then long lashes swept down, veiling her gaze, and pink tinged her cheeks. “I did.”
That demure admission had him hauling her out of the chair to get his lips on hers. He was already working her dress down to her waist and walking her backward toward the bedroom when she flattened her hands on his chest and said, “Wait.”
Compromising Her Position Page 10
