Monroe chuckled as Chaz bounced with nerves. “No one has it figured out. All those parents running around looking like they know what they’re doing are only better actors than the rest of them.”
“Thanks,” Chaz sighed loudly. “I’ll let you guys eat your meal, and I’ll check on you in a little bit. Save room for dessert.” He winked knowingly at Aria, who waved him off as though their inside joke was not funny right now.
Aria was studying Monroe’s face clinically and not touching her meal. “I should let you off the hook early,” she asserted. “No need to have you sitting here wondering if this is going anywhere.”
“This?” he said, spiritedly pointing between them and waggling his brows. “Because it sounds like you are desperate for this to be a date. Usually eating alone?”
“I meant my assessment of you,” she corrected sternly, trying to beat back his silly advances. “No use stringing you along and making you wonder how you did.”
“The suspense is killing me.” He took a mouthful of his stew, and his eyes rolled back as the spices teased his taste buds. “This is incredible,” he explained, gesturing with his spoon at the stew. “You have to try this.”
“I’ve had it,” she said, eyeing him. “Aren’t you worried this isn’t going your way?”
“I figure I don’t have much control over that since you haven’t told me how you’re grading this bizarre test of yours. I might as well be myself and enjoy the meal. If nothing else, like Chaz said, I’m in the company of a beautiful woman.”
“You passed,” she groaned, looking almost disappointed. “I’ll tell you what you want to know about the resort.”
“First I have to know how you decided,” he said, grinning widely. “How in the world could you know, in that short amount of time, that I am trustworthy?”
“Trustworthy is the wrong word,” Aria explained. “It’s more about that hesitation good people have when faced with a choice. They hit the inevitable crossroads, and they have to decide which way to go. Some people fly down the path they think is best for them. I’m always looking for the people who have the mechanism in them that at least lets them pause and think of the impact on other people. To hesitate and consider right from wrong.”
“That’s interesting,” Monroe commented, actually impressed at the distinction. “But still, there’s no way you were able to see I possess that level of conscience after just one meal.”
“The test started the second I met you. It does for everyone I meet.”
“Why?” Monroe asked skeptically. “You aren’t in business for yourself. You aren’t running a small country. Why do you have to test everyone you come across? Isn’t that exhausting?”
“Not nearly as exhausting as everything that happens when I don’t do it.” Her eyes darted away and by the time she glanced back at him again, she’d managed to hide any emotion that had flashed across her face.
“I’m glad I passed the test,” Monroe said, trying to quell the tension between them. He raised his glass and clinked it against hers. “To our new arrangement.”
“To the truth coming out,” she added, breathing in deeply and flashing that agony in her eyes again. With painful clarity he knew Aria would be impossible to walk away from. Whatever dragon was tormenting her, he’d slay it.
Chapter 6
Aria could feel Monroe’s curiosity closing in around her. It was killing him that she’d made it all the way through dinner without letting him in on her secret formula.
“What was the waiter’s name?” Aria asked, enjoying their slow-paced walk, winding their way back to the resort.
“Who, Chaz?” Monroe asked, his face showing confusion.
“Yeah.” She breathed out a laugh. “Chaz. What color were his eyes?”
“Uh, how should I know?” Monroe asked, tucking his hands into his pockets and looking away.
“Come on,” Aria insisted, bumping her elbow into his side. “What color were his eyes?”
“Green,” Monroe groaned. “Why?”
“His wife’s name?”
Monroe rolled his eyes. “Gigi. But is there a point to this? Are you planning on painting a picture of Chaz and Gigi?”
“You looked at him, and you listened to him,” Aria explained, though she could tell he wasn’t connecting the dots. “It was part of the test.”
“Looking someone in the eye, and learning their name is common courtesy,” Monroe challenged, unconvinced.
“No, there’s a distinct difference between common courtesy and human dignity. There’s a difference between looking at someone and actually seeing them.”
“That couldn’t possibly have been enough for you decide if I’m a good guy,” Monroe scoffed. “I mean, don’t let me talk you out of it.”
“What were the two cross streets between the resort and the restaurant?” Aria pressed, knowing the full picture would become clear to him if he stayed patient enough to hear it.
“Topin and Fisher,” Monroe answered matter of factly. “What would that possibly tell you? I’m observant and have a good sense of direction.”
“Did you see the flowers?” she asked, propping a hand up on her hip with an air of overconfidence.
“Actually I didn’t,” Monroe countered, as though he’d just scored a point. “I didn’t notice them at all.”
“I know you didn’t. You were looking on the other side of the road. You were looking at Miss Tilly.”
“You know her?” Monroe asked, forgetting to keep his guard up. “The homeless woman on the bench.”
“Yes,” Aria replied sadly. “There’s this street full of exotic vibrant flowers on one side and this sad disheveled homeless woman on the other side. The easiest thing for someone to do is to look away. To comment on the flowers and their beauty. But you didn’t. You looked right at Miss Tilly. You smiled, gave a nod.”
“What does that have to do with me remembering the name of the cross street?” Monroe asked, his heart thudding with unease at being analyzed so closely. He’d underestimated how thorough she’d been.
“You tucked your hands in your pocket. I watched you.”
“I left the resort so quickly I forgot to pull any cash out of the safe,” Monroe explained through a huffy breath. “I would have given her something.”
“And when you realized you didn’t have cash,” Aria said, her eyes wide with what looked like excitement, “you looked at the sign and took a mental note of the cross street.”
“I thought I might pass by here tomorrow and maybe have some cash in my pocket then.” Monroe fidgeted nervously as he admitted what should be an admirable idea.
Aria was bouncing and grinning victoriously. “There were plenty of the little instances where you showed you are compassionate and when you look at people, you really see them.”
“So from that you’ve deduced I’m a good guy?” His voice was layered with incredulity.
“It sounds like you want me to change my mind. That’s counterproductive to what your goal is,” she reminded him. “Why don’t you want me to think you’re a kind man?”
“Kindness is frequently confused with weakness,” Monroe explained. “And weakness means you accomplish nothing. I’m a man who likes to get things done. So I prefer not to parade around showing my softer side.”
“That’s dumb,” Aria mocked. “You have to have this bluster in order to be taken seriously?”
“If you’ve analyzed me enough,” Monroe said annoyed, “can we move on to the task at hand? I’m a good guy. Check that off the list. Now you said you’d tell me what I want to know.”
“I will,” she said, nervously wringing her hands. “I just don’t know how this will work. Buckley hates me. I have back to back shifts for the next few days. He won’t allow me to miss those.”
“There’s a part of your formula you forget to add in,” Monroe said, spinning so his chest was suddenly in her face. She had to stop abruptly so as not to ram into him. Her neck craned up, and she stared n
ervously at him. “I am all the things you say. But Buckley and anyone else who crosses me or people I care about will see a side of me you can’t imagine. One you wouldn’t want to try to figure out. I’m good to those who deserve it. I’m merciless to those who don’t.”
Chapter 7
“I don’t really like to walk back to my bunk alone this late at night,” Aria explained as they reached the gate of the resort. “I’m just over that hill, so I hope you don’t mind if we part ways here.”
“You’re staying with me tonight,” he asserted, his hand on the small of her back as his key card buzzed the gate open.
“Our agreement does not include me sleeping with you,” Aria countered, firmly spinning away from his touch.
“Trust me,” Monroe whispered, “I don’t need any kind of agreement to get women to sleep with me. They can’t help themselves. If anything I’ve needed written contracts to get them to realize we’re done sleeping together.”
“Nice,” she said, rolling her eyes, but he noticed she was still following his lead. “Well, if I go to your room, I think you should know I will fight the powerful urge to have sex with you. It’ll be hard, but it’s my cross to bear.”
“Because you’re so different than all the other women I meet?” he asked, knowing this would anger her. It was fun to see the color rise in her cheeks.
“I have a feeling if the women you usually date were gazelles at the waterhole, they’d be the first ones to get eaten. I don’t make myself easy prey.”
“They do look good in bikinis around that waterhole,” he teased.
“That’s not what I meant. I was inferring they must be idiots,” she corrected. “You’re no better if you are foolish enough to believe I’d throw myself at you because we’re alone in a room. I have self-control.”
“And you’ll need to employ it?” he asked, biting at his lip as he stared down at her.
“I’m glad you’re taking this all so seriously,” she scolded. “I thought this was such a big deal. Very time sensitive.”
“It is,” he resigned. “You’re right. I will stop fooling around.” Monroe made his face very serious.
“This isn’t a joke,” she said, choking up with emotion. “There are people here. This is our life. It’s not a joke.”
“I’m sorry,” Monroe stuttered out, catching her elbow and spinning her back toward him. “I understand how serious this is.”
They moved in silence through the lobby and up the elevator. It wasn’t until he was swiping the keycard in front of the door that she finally spoke up. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m also sorry I jumped to conclusions about why you were trying to get me back here. I should have realized your intentions were strictly professional.”
“My intentions with a beautiful, articulate, fierce woman, can never be summed up as strictly professional. Having you in this room is going to be like tempting a hungry man with a chocolate cake. I may as well be honest with you about that. But you’re safe with me. I’m capable of being as professional as you want me to be.”
“Good,” she said, as he pushed open the door, and again his hand fell to the small of her back as he ushered her in.
“Can I make you a drink?” he asked over his shoulder as he poured himself a tumbler of Scotch. “It’s fully stocked here.”
“I know,” she snickered. “I’m the one who keeps them stocked. I’ll pass on the drink. I think we should just get down to it.”
“I knew you’d change your mind,” he hissed playfully as he closed in on her and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Kidding,” he said, disarmingly tossing his hands up in the air. “Let’s sit and talk.”
She sank into the couch and rubbed her hand across the soft fabric of the lush pillows. “I’ve always loved this room,” she started, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. “It’s in my top three of all the rooms here. I love the view.”
Monroe moved toward the patio and pushed the doors open, letting the night breeze in. “You implied you were trapped here. Is it chained to the bed type of thing, or less literal?”
“It’s a systematic entrapment,” she said, her eyes glazing over as she stared at the wall. “It starts at the sales pitch, the recruitment. Have you noticed sixty percent of our staff are not from here?”
“I hadn’t hammered out the number exactly, but I did notice there seemed to be a disproportionate number of people from elsewhere.”
“And you’ve been to island resorts before, does that seem normal to you?” Aria eyed him as he thought it through.
“Labor costs to bring people from the U.S. would be astronomical. It’s common in a place like this to have your front-end staff brought in, but otherwise you’d be paying a fortune for something you can get locally. It would be impossible.”
“Unless you pay them less than what you could hire a local person for,” Aria challenged.
“That’s impossible too,” Monroe argued. “There’s no way they could build sixty percent of their staff on that model. You can’t convince that many people to work for such a low wage.”
“It’s their pitch,” Aria replied, resting her chin in her hands. “When you find desperate people, you can convince them of almost anything. A wordy contract is easy to sign when you feel you don’t have any other options.”
“What desperate circumstances were you in?” Monroe asked, a punch of worry hitting his gut. The idea of Aria in some sort of trouble made his jaw clench.
“My story doesn’t matter. There are others compelling enough to make the point. They go after people who are in the United States past their visas. They tell them ICE is on their trail, but they can give them an alternative. They sell the resort as a kind of haven.”
“If the alternative is deportation back to a place they were trying to get away from, then I can think of worse places to end up.” He waved around the room and she rolled her eyes.
“Because they end up in a room like this? I mentioned my bunk earlier. That isn’t like some campy way to describe our living accommodations. It’s an actual bunk. A bed on top of someone else’s bed. And those lucky people,” Aria let the sharp edge of her voice flare up, “have family in the states they love and family back where they’re from. They have none of that here. And the path to citizenship they were promised mysteriously disappears.”
“That’s shady,” Monroe agreed, but stopped short of pretending that was enough of an issue to warrant more outrage.
“Then there’s the people in trouble, the ones looking for refuge and safety. They didn’t know they’d be working day and night. They didn’t know they’d be stuck here.”
“Stuck?” Monroe asked, trying to stuff down the skepticism. There were circumstances that would have people feeling stuck. But these were adults, and he highly doubted anyone was truly here against their will.
“It’s a systematic process they have,” Aria explained with a humorless little chuckle. “They pay under a living wage. Then if you make a mistake or you break something there are demerits.”
“Like school?”
“Like prison,” she corrected. “They add more hours of work. They dock your pay. They wave the contract you signed out of desperation in your face every time someone decides to stand up to them. The working conditions are downright deplorable, and there’s no recourse.”
“Whistle-blowers,” Monroe said, knowing how dismissive he sounded. The information was valuable, but he’d learned a long time ago you had to scrub all the emotion out of things and find the bare bones facts. “If this has been going on as long as you say then there would be whistle-blowers.”
“That suggestion tells me how little time you’ve spent in oppression. The idea of whistle-blowing requires people to come out in the light of day,” Aria said with a long sigh. “Circumstances that brought many of them here would keep them from ever outing themselves or this place. The powerful people target with precision. They know what they’re doing.”
“I’m sure the resor
t owners wouldn’t leave themselves open to that liability. The contracts were likely written in a way to protect them, and it’s not like anyone was forced to sign them. Similar to the mortgage crisis. People signed up for mortgages they didn’t understand. But that doesn’t absolve them from the commitment they made.”
Aria looked on with such disappointment Monroe felt heat rise in his cheeks. “What are we doing here?” she asked, clearly not wanting his answer. “You acted like this was important, and now you’re dismissing everything I say.”
“I’m not dismissing,” he corrected. “I’m hearing you. It’s how my brain works. I need to process. But I can hear how serious this is.” He closed in on her and sat down on the couch. They were close, his arm against hers and her flowery scent wafted through the air. He still didn’t know what kind of trouble she’d been in to get herself here. It was nagging at him. “I’ll look into this. I can dig into the international labor laws. If you can get me copies of some contracts people signed, I can go over those too. Do you think anyone would want to talk to me more about their particular story? You are tight-lipped about your story. I’ll need to hear directly from some people who are willing to talk.”
“You’d do that?” Aria asked, her face lighting with excitement. “I can probably get a few people to talk to you. They’ll be skeptical, but if I tell them they can trust you, I think they will.”
“That would be helpful,” he said, rolling the ache out of his neck. “Are you sure you aren’t going to tell me why you’re here? You’re being very mysterious.”
“Sorry,” she said flatly.
“Mysterious is good,” he replied coolly, eyeing her with a grin. “You’ve piqued my interest though. It must have been awful to have you this far away for so long. The good news is I’m not going to leave you hanging. When this is all said and done I’ll make sure you can go back home.”
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