Rian adjusted himself on the floor until his leg was pressed up against mine, the heat from his skin seeping through his jeans and right into mine. I closed my eyes with how good it felt, just to be here with him like this, and then adjusted myself as well, leaning up against the wall of the cabin next to him.
He reached down and took my hand, giving it a squeeze.
“The story’s going to be that we fell in love in China,” he said. “But we didn’t act on it. Instead, we went home, tried to go back to our lives, even tried to keep from seeing each other. But one thing led to another, and we did see each other at Fashion Week. Just for a second. We knew that we couldn’t keep lying to ourselves, yada, yada, yada, but we didn’t have any way to contact each other. People who were in love but were being blocked by powers outside of their control. So, you came to my show to try to talk to me about what we were going to do. All on the up and up, right? Haley breaks this whole story, and now we’ve gone off on this whirlwind vacation, and we’re going to come back even more deeply in love.”
“Love?” I asked, turning to him at the word. It seemed like such a strong word, especially for something that he was making sound like little more than a publicity stunt.
But when I looked into his eyes, I could see that they were wide open and completely honest. And the vulnerability there almost broke my heart.
“Yeah, well, that part was my idea, too,” he whispered. “I mean, I figure we might as well go all-out, right? And I’ve got to say, it’s a little selfish on my part, but it feels like an excuse to get to spend some time together. See whether we have the potential for more than just a few nights together.”
I stared at him, trying to figure out whether he was being serious or not. Trying to figure out whether this was just a game, like the thing with Haley had been…or if it was how he really felt.
Either way, one thing was clear: we were going to be alone again—and together. And I didn’t know what to do with the butterflies that filled my stomach at the thought.
Rian
When we got off the plane, it was even more beautiful than I’d expected it to be. We were on a runway in the middle of a jungle, nothing around us but the bright green of vegetation, interspersed with the bright reds, pinks, and yellows of blooming flowers, along with one small building that must have housed whatever airline personnel they kept on this seemingly uninhabited island. I could hear the ocean in the distance and smell the tang of salt, but we couldn’t see it from where we were.
The place felt completely deserted.
“Where are we?” Alexis asked, circling slowly to take in the view. “And have you brought me here to kill me?”
I laughed and took her hand, and though she glanced down at it with a question in her eyes, she didn’t pull it back from me.
“I would never take you anywhere under false pretenses,” I told her softly. “Besides, I happen to think that the world would be a whole lot less interesting without you in it.”
I watched the blush creep up her cheeks, turning her face an alluring shade of pink, and smiled to see it. Alexis Taylor was one of the most ravishing creatures in the entire world—and she had the career to prove it. But she acted like she’d never been truly complimented in her entire life. Every time I said anything the least bit nice about her, she blushed like a schoolgirl.
You would think the woman didn’t have any self-confidence. I knew that couldn’t be true, but then I stopped myself. Did I really know that? Everything I’d seen of her made me think that it might be true. That somehow, she’d traveled up the ranks of the modeling world to end up at the top, and still managed to be positive that she wasn’t quite enough.
I didn’t think she was concerned about belonging there. She knew what she was worth as a businesswoman. But when it came to confidence about how other people felt about her…
I added it to the list of questions I wanted an answer to while we were on that island. A list that was quickly growing. But a list that I wasn’t going to push her on. Not yet. Something told me that pressure made her want to run. And I was finished with letting her get away from me.
Okay, so I sounded overly confident in myself to think I could dictate that. And maybe stupid and a little bit naïve to believe that I could actually do it, after she’d run out on me. Twice. What can I say? On my list of characteristics, “stubborn” is very near the top.
And once I found something worth wanting, I didn’t let it get away from me that easily. This opportunity with Alexis had fallen right into my lap. And I wasn’t going to waste it.
“A client of my publicist owns this island,” I said. “When I came up with my oh-so brilliant plan, and I needed a place to take the most beautiful and successful model in the country, where the rest of the world wouldn’t find us, my publicist made a call and got us the keys to the mansion. Her client thought the whole thing was terribly romantic.”
“Only the country?” she asked sharply, turning to me with one eyebrow raised. “I’m just the most beautiful and successful model in the country?”
I drew back, shocked for a moment, but then I saw the smile hiding at the corner of her mouth, and gave her a grin of my own. Instead of answering immediately, I threaded my arms around her waist and brought her toward me, until her chest was pressed against mine.
“The most beautiful woman in the world,” I whispered, putting my entire heart into the reply. “I just didn’t know if you wanted to hear that sort of thing from me anymore.”
She put two fingers up to my temple and drew them slowly down my cheek to stop at my mouth, where she brushed them back and forth several times.
“I’ve never stopped,” she answered. “Boy, we’ve sure made a mess of things, haven’t we? Though, I guess it was more me than you.”
“You said it.” I leaned in, but instead of kissing her lush, pink lips, I turned my own face slightly and brushed my lips against her cheek.
I was serious about not rushing her. I wanted to be sure that she wanted the same things I did before I fell in, this time. I wasn’t interested in being hurt again. I definitely wasn’t interested in hurting her. We needed to take this slow, so we could make it permanent.
“Speaking of that,” I said, drawing back so I could look her in the eyes. “I’m thinking you owe me a few answers.”
She gave me a ghost of a smile. “I do. And I promise you’ll get them. But first…do you suppose we could find some food? I’m starving.”
I laughed out loud at that, too surprised to do anything else, and remembered how she’d eaten when we were in China, and then at that Italian all-night café. She ate nothing like a model trying to watch her weight. Nothing like someone who made a living based on her body. And everything like a girl who loved life and wanted to get the most out of it.
If she was truly pregnant, I suspected it made that appetite even more voracious.
And I wasn’t only talking about her appetite for food. Hey, I’m a guy. We were on a deserted island with one goal: to get to know each other better. Again.
I would have had to be dead inside not to be thinking about how we got to know each other in China—and how far it had gone. And I sure wasn’t dead inside. My body was already reminding me of how attractive I found her.
Inside the building, we found the man who took care of the one estate on the island.
“I have orders to take you up to the main house,” he said, taking our bags and loading them into his Jeep. “There is one village here, but you won’t have to go there unless you want to. I will take care of everything. My wife is in charge of keeping the house, and she’ll cook for you—anything you want. If you need a ride, you have only to call me.”
“A vacation and a chauffeur and a cook?” Alexis asked out of the side of her mouth. “I should come on vacation with you more often.”
I took her hand, lifted it to my mouth, and kissed it. “You absolutely should,” I answered. “Let’s start planning our next one tonight.”
&n
bsp; The blush in her cheeks told me that she understood exactly what I was saying.
We climbed into the Jeep and buckled ourselves in, grabbing for the handles when the driver took off, navigating the road like it was second nature and taking everything—including bumps, potholes, and rocky areas—as if they were there specifically for him to hit. Alexis and I took turns laughing and clinging to each other for support, and by the time we arrived at a stop in the massive driveway of what had to be a truly palatial home, she was practically sitting in my lap, her arms wrapped around me for security.
“I’m scratching road trips off the list of activities for as long as we’re here,” she whispered.
I grinned and nodded my agreement. As far as I was concerned, the more time we spent in the house—and alone—the better.
David, our never-to-be-used-again chauffeur, grabbed our bags from the back of the Jeep and led us around a corner of the driveway to a point where we could look down across the valley, and I saw the most breathtaking house I’d ever seen. It had to stretch for at least the size of a basketball stadium, all white stucco walls and red tile roof, arches and pillars and a fountain the size of a swimming pool. It was surrounded by more of the lush green jungle, though it had a wide green lawn immediately around it, and it was situated so that its view was of the bay beyond.
A bay, I realized, that belonged to the people who owned the house. The wealth boggled my mind, and I was just trying to calculate how much it had to all cost when Alexis took my hand, surprising me.
“Definitely, definitely coming on vacation with you more often,” she said from beside me.
I nodded, squeezed her hand, and started walking down the hill toward the place where we were going to be staying until our publicists decided we could go home.
And where, I had no doubt, we would finally start asking—and answering—some questions. Maybe even figuring out whether we could whatever was between us a forever thing.
Alexis
“You first,” I said.
We were in the kitchen of the enormous mansion, having quickly decided that as decadent and beautiful as the place was, we felt more comfortable in the smaller areas.
One quick tour around the house, and we’d laughed and decided that the kitchen was our favorite place, with the colorful tiles on the floor and counters, the open seating area, and the stove and oven, just waiting to be used.
We’d started by slicing up the pineapple we found in the refrigerator, taking out a pitcher of iced tea, and settling in to talk.
I thought we probably both had things we needed to ask. And those things were going to need to come first, if we were going to figure out whether this was going to work or not.
Rian took a long sip of his iced tea, set the glass down, and then turned his eyes up to meet mine. “Why did you leave?” he asked simply. “Twice?”
I took a deep breath, staring at him. “Well, you really do jump right in, don’t you?” I said.
“It’s the only way I know,” he said with a shrug, “Now talk.”
I reached out and took his hand, needing the anchor if I was going to get through this. “In China, I was scared,” I admitted. “Things went so quickly, and though I’d started it thinking it could just be a fling, just be something fun that happened while we were bored and alone together, I woke up that last morning and realized…”
“That you were falling harder than you meant to,” he finished softly. At my nod, he nodded as well. “I felt the same way.”
“And I’ve never felt that way before. About anyone,” I said. “It scared me. And when I get scared, I run. I always figure it’ll be less trouble to just take care of myself, rather than having to lean on anyone else. I’ve been doing it since I was sixteen, and at this point, it’s just sort of natural. I’m a loner. But then I got home and I missed you, missed having you next to me, missed being able to count on you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I actually called my agent and asked her to get your number for me, maybe two weeks after I got home.”
“You did?” he asked, clearly surprised. “But I never heard from you.”
“That’s because she told me no,” I said, my voice wry. “She refused to get it for me because you had a reputation to uphold, and she wasn’t willing to sacrifice it. Cared more about your rep than she did about my feelings, I guess. I found out later that she even knew your agent. She just flat-out blocked me.”
“That’s—” Rian shook his head, looking mystified. “That’s crazy. And you let her get away with it?”
I leaned toward him. “She’s not my agent anymore,” I whispered. “At the end, right before I went to your show, I told her to get your number for me or I’d end things with her. She didn’t move quickly enough. So, I ended things.”
He whistled softly. “Remind me never to piss you off. And about that second time you left…”
“That time wasn’t about being scared,” I said. “I knew exactly what I wanted, and it was you. More than anything else in the world. Finding you was like coming home again, and it was so wonderful that I could hardly believe it. But I couldn’t stop hearing what my agent had said, about risking your career by being with you. And I wasn’t…I wasn’t sure that Haley was just a fake girlfriend, like you said she was. I thought maybe she was the real thing, and that I could majorly screw things up for you.” I reached out and brushed my fingers through his messy blond hair. “I cared about you too much to take that risk. I didn’t want to screw up your career, or your life. So, I left.”
He took my hand, turned it, and kissed my palm, letting his lips linger there until I was squirming in my seat, the warmth between my legs seeping into my panties and making it impossible for me to sit still.
“Rian,” I whispered.
He was around the counter and taking me in his arms before I could say another word. I knew he wanted to kiss me as badly as I wanted to kiss him. I knew he felt it.
The need for each other.
But it wasn’t time yet. I reached out and laid my fingers across his lips. I still had questions to ask.
“Why didn’t you find me?” I asked softly. “If you felt what I felt in China… why didn’t you come find me?”
“I tried,” he admitted. “I was obsessed with finding you again, couldn’t rest until I’d figured out how to do it. I was so proud of myself when I got tickets to your show. The front row, even. But when I saw you turn away from me on that runway, I figured you didn’t want anything to do with me. I’d already been afraid of that, after the way you left in China, and it seemed like that confirmed it. After that…I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t try again. I should have.” He reached up and brushed his own fingers along my bottom lip, pulling it down a bit. Staring at it like he wanted to devour it. “Can you forgive me?”
I got closer to him, until my lips were only inches from his, my eyes straining with the attempt to stay locked with his.
“I guess that’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it?”
We slept in the same bed that night, but we didn’t have sex. Instead, I turned on my side and he curled around me like a protective layer, his arms locked around my middle, his mouth on my neck. And we talked. About who we were when we were younger. Who we were before we became the names and reputations we were now. Who we wanted to be when we got older. He told me he’d always wanted to have a garage where he did rebuilds of hot-rods and old cars, but that he’d never told anyone else about it before. He hadn’t wanted to share the dream.
“I want to take them and make them new again,” he said. “I went to a garage where they did that in San Diego, when I was young, and it sort of stuck with me. Taking that classic car that was deserted or misused and giving it life again, you know? I’ve always thought it was what I’d want to do if I could get free of the music business. If I ever want to get totally free, which I’m not sure of yet. I might want to do a solo career. Play small gigs. Just acoustic stuff. Actually get to use my voice.”
&nbs
p; “That sounds amazing, Rian. You deserve that, to live that dream. For me, it’s photography,” I told him. “That’s where I want to go. I’ve already started taking classes. Bought myself a proper DSLR camera and everything. I want to be able to capture that moment, get the world captured in a picture so I don’t lose it.”
He pulled me somehow closer and snuggled into me. “You’ll be brilliant at that,” he said, as if it was a given. “You see the art in the world. You can put it on paper.”
“You see the art in the world,” I responded. “Listen to you, talking about restoring old cars and giving them wings. I’d almost think you were a romantic or something.”
“Shh,” he said, his voice getting sleepy. “That’s top secret. Don’t tell anyone, or my cover might be blown.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” I whispered. “The real and true Rian Cassady is only for me.”
But there was no answer, and a part of me hoped that he hadn’t heard me at all. I hadn’t meant to say it. I’d only meant to think it. But my guard was coming down, and I was losing that grip I generally kept on my words. Losing the grip I kept on my feelings.
I closed my eyes and pressed back into him, turning my brain off on that thought and just letting myself be as I enjoyed his warmth, his scent enveloping me, and fell asleep.
Alexis
When morning arrived, I stretched luxuriously in bed, enjoying the smell of the ocean coming in through the window. Then, I remembered where I was and tensed. The island. The conversation we’d had last night. I remembered the last thing I’d said to Rian—and how I’d awoken in the night to find his arms still wrapped around me—and the tension left my body, replaced by a sense of safety and well-being that I’d never experienced before.
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