by Lauren Smith
He blinked, and that cold arrogance returned. He stepped back and left her clinging against the wall, trying to catch her breath.
“Was that proof enough?” He buttoned two buttons of his shirt back up and smoothed his dark hair back with one hand.
She managed a shaky nod. Yes, that was proof enough—almost too convincing.
“Well, are you in, Miss Ashworth?” Denver retrieved his coat and tossed it over one arm.
Blair instinctively pulled the collar of her top closed like a shield. Could she do this? Fake a relationship with Denver Ramsey, a believable, epic romance with a man who saw her as his mortal enemy?
“Yes. I’m in.” The words came out surprisingly firm despite how much she was trembling inside at the thought.
“Then meet me in the lobby tomorrow morning at seven for breakfast.”
“Seven.” She nodded.
He packed up the remnants of their dinner and put them away in the metal carrying case. Blair rushed to open the door for him, and he stepped outside.
“Good night, Denver,” she suddenly called out, glad that the shadows on the porch hid the rising blush in her cheeks.
He halted a few feet from the porch steps and glanced over his shoulder at her.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he turned and walked away into the night.
Denver set the metal case down inside the massive kitchen at the back of the Seven Seas’ restaurant. The chef and a few of the staff were cleaning up from dinner.
“Evening, Christian,” Denver greeted the chef as the man collected the metal travel container from the counter. Christian Michaels was one of his friends from Princeton, a man who’d worked his way up to an Ivy League school without a check from a rich parent’s bank account. He’d gone on to a culinary school in France afterward, but Denver had stayed in touch with him, and he’d been thrilled to offer Christian the head chef position at the resort last year.
“Well? How did she like the sea bass?” Christian’s blue eyes filled with excitement as he waited to hear about Blair’s reaction.
“She said she’s never tasted anything finer,” Denver said.
He honestly didn’t know whether Blair had liked it or not. Odds were, knowing Christian’s incredible culinary skills, she had, but Denver had been extremely preoccupied with his proposal of a fake relationship and hadn’t once thought about the perfect dinner his friend had prepared for them.
“Thanks for making the two plates. I know the kitchen was about to close,” Denver said.
“Happy to do it. I heard you sort of ran out on dinner earlier, so I was glad to make them for you.”
He had run out—more like stormed out!—of his private booth like an angry child. He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d made it right tonight at the Siren bungalow.
“I’m glad she enjoyed it.” Christian beamed. “I heard from Simon that she’s stunning. You always find the best ones.”
Denver usually enjoyed his womanizing reputation, but something about lumping Blair in with his “usual type” felt wrong. And the fact that his two friends from college, Simon and Christian, were swapping stories about Blair and how gorgeous she was made him feel strangely territorial and possessive . . . of a woman he hated. And wasn’t that just fucked up?
“Yes, she is rather gorgeous.” Too gorgeous, he thought with a frown. He thanked Christian again and headed to his office, where he dug out a bottle of scotch. Simon was standing in the outer waiting area of the office as though he’d known Denver would come back.
“She said no?” Simon asked as he joined him in Denver’s private office. Denver poured them both a glass and handed one to Simon.
“She said yes.” Denver tipped his glass back and let the scotch burn his throat. The next glass would go down smoother.
“Then why are we drinking from our ‘bad day’ whiskey bottle?” Simon sipped his before rolling the glass between his palms as he studied Denver.
“Because I honestly wasn’t prepared for her to say yes.” He filled his glass with more scotch.
“You didn’t try to talk her out of it, did you?” Simon asked.
“No, I laid out the plan. She knows what to do and . . .”
“And?” Simon prompted.
“And she’ll be good—more than good.” Perhaps a little too good.
When she had sauntered over to him, those big brown eyes of hers promising endless fantasies to come true, he’d been rooted to the spot, fascinated. Then when she had called him honey and put her hands on him, he’d been a goner. She had already been a temptation before, but now he was certain of his theory: Blair Ashworth would be a firecracker in bed. He had wanted to bed her from the start, since before he had known who she was. But he couldn’t go there, not now. They just had to play the game. A few hugs, a few caresses, one or two strategically timed kisses, and that would be all they needed to convince Jack Hudson they were a couple.
“So what has you worried, then?” Simon asked.
“She’s an Ashworth. It’s a bad idea to trust her, so it makes me nervous.”
It was a lie. He was worried that he like the game he and Blair were about to play too much, because the last thing he wanted was to start liking the woman he despised.
“I think it will turn out well. Stay positive,” Simon suggested.
Positive. Denver huffed.
He was positive of two things: Blair was trouble, and he wanted her in his bed with a hunger that scared him.
4
Blair reported to the lobby exactly at seven, wearing her favorite pair of white shorts, a loose bright-pink linen blouse, and comfortable boat shoes. She wasn’t sure what Denver had planned for her, so she had dressed for relative comfort and ease of movement.
He was already there, speaking with the front desk staff, when she arrived. Her eyes dragged over his form, soaking in the casual perfection of him in khaki shorts and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms flexed as he leaned against the counter. Blair swallowed hard as a wave of feminine hunger rolled through her like a tide.
She forced herself to examine the rest of him, studying his clothing choices. Good couples often wore complementary outfits, not intentionally, but if she wanted the Hudsons to buy their story, she needed to make sure her clothing style worked with his so they looked natural together. Like her, Denver wore boat shoes, a pair of navy-blue Sperrys.
“Ah, there you are.” Denver smiled at her, a winning expression that startled her until she remembered last night. They were supposed to play besotted lovers.
“Breakfast is this way.” He nodded toward the restaurant, and they fell in step beside each other.
“Are they here yet?” she whispered and casually looked around, even though she had no idea what they looked like.
“Not yet. They’ll arrive around dinnertime this evening. But I believe we need to practice.”
“And get our story straight,” she reminded him. “If one of them starts asking, and I guarantee they will, we’ll need a romantic story, and we’ll have to be ready to address the tiger in the room.”
Denver shot her a confused glance as they reached his private booth on the other side of the aquarium.
“Tiger? Don’t you mean elephant? And I wasn’t aware we had one.”
She rolled her eyes. “They will look me up, Denver. They will make the connection about our fathers. We can’t ignore the truth, and we need to be ready to address it.”
“You’re right. Jack will notice that for sure.”
“Hence the tiger, because it will be messy and dangerous.” She opened the menu to peruse the breakfast selection and was grateful that the glossy, leather-bound menu shielded her face from him. Reminding him of their negative shared history wasn’t something she had wanted to do, but it had been necessary.
Denver pulled the edge of her menu down. “I recommend trying the Belgian waffles with fruit.” There was a hint of mischief in his eyes that she hadn’t expec
ted. A waiter came over to them to take their orders.
“Orange juice and the Belgian waffles with fruit for me.” Blair closed her menu, and Denver retrieved it from her.
“I’ll take the same, Milo, thank you.” Denver passed the menus to the man, and Milo walked away.
“Do you know everyone here by name?” she asked.
“Of course I do. I meet every new hire at Seven Seas. My operations manager does the heavy lifting of résumé sorting with our human resources officer, but they bring me in for the final interviews.”
“Even for waiters?”
He nodded. “Everyone who works here matters. I want my employees to know that they are valued. I pay them more, and yes, my revenue isn’t as high as some resorts, but staff loyalty and happiness affect the mood of my guests. Excellent service makes for happy guests who return often.”
“Well, that’s one thing we have in common,” she said.
“What is?” He lounged back in the booth as Milo returned with their orange juice and two glasses of water.
“We both believe in respect in the workplace. It’s a start.” She removed a small notebook from her purse.
“I suppose we do.” Denver stared at the notebook. “What is that for?”
“We’ll need to craft a detailed story about how we met. I want to write it all down. The details, I mean, so I won’t forget.”
Denver shifted, sliding across the rounded seat in the booth until he was right beside her. She could actually feel his body heat, he was that close. The scent of his skin and a hint of aftershave awakened everything feminine inside her.
“You don’t need that.” He placed one hand on the notebook as his fingers lightly covered hers.
“I—”
“Close your eyes, Blair.” It was a command, but his tone was soft.
She did so reluctantly. His hand slid up her forearm, lightly stroking it with his fingers as he began to paint a picture for her.
“We met at a very boring business conference in Chicago. You and I were the only ones in the elevator, and we didn’t know each other. You were wearing killer heels that made me stare at your legs and follow the line of your stockings, which had one of those black seams that go all the way up the back. I was hungry for you then. I didn’t even know you, but I wanted you.
“When you stepped off the elevator for your room, your heel got caught in the space between the elevator and the floor. Naturally, I came to your rescue, but the elevator tried to close on me as I pulled you and your shoe free. The grease from the elevator doors marked my suit. When you saw the damage, you insisted on helping me contact the hotel dry cleaner. So I followed you to your room, and you invited me in . . .” He painted such a normal, believable image of a first meeting that she could see it happening in real life.
“Once inside,” she continued this time, “I helped you remove your coat, and we bumped into each other in the narrow hall of the hotel room, and I laughed, but you didn’t. You stared at me in that burning way that left me a little crazy and wanting to rip your shirt open and make all the buttons fly off.”
“And what did I do then?” he asked, his voice husky and low.
Blair kept her eyes closed, still basking in the fantasy. “You pressed me against the wall and kissed me. It was the sort of kiss where the entire world could implode around us and neither of us would notice.”
“And after that world-ending kiss?” He trailed his fingertips over the back of her hand, making light swirls that made her drunk on so small a touch.
“We were never the same,” she replied, thinking of last night in her bungalow and how they had both tortured each other with what could have been. If only the past had been different.
“It was a day later before we finally left your bed,” he continued. “When I found out who you were, I was angry but couldn’t find it in myself to care. I was too addicted to you and the pleasure of being inside you. What I felt for you erased the past, and all I could think about was the next time I could be with you.”
How could he sound so genuinely besotted? So thoroughly in love and desperate for her? Maybe it was true what they said about a fine line between love and hate. Maybe Denver knew how to cross it to play this game and switch right back. She was having a harder time of that.
Because I have never and could never hate him.
“So.” She cleared her throat. “We’ve been dating for four months, and this is the first time I’m visiting the Seven Seas and seeing the resort.”
“And because I’m so in love with you, I plan to propose to you soon, but you don’t know when. It will be a surprise.” He moved his hand from hers as Milo approached the table with their breakfast.
Blair, her mouth suddenly dry, hastily drank half of her orange juice and a third of her water. All the while, Denver watched her with that smug grin. He knew exactly how he affected her. She clenched her thighs together, inwardly mortified that her panties were wet just from the fantasy they had spun together.
“Enjoy.” Milo placed a short vase of flowers on the table before he left them alone again. The blue hydrangea blossoms in the vase accented the deep red of the sliced strawberries scattered on top of the large, perfectly cooked Belgian waffle. She cut into the waffle and took a bite, even though she felt guilty about destroying something so beautiful.
“Well, what do you think?” Denver waited for her reaction.
“I think it’s perfect, just like everything here.”
“Good.” He relaxed slightly. “A friend of mine from college, Christian Michaels, is the chef here. He’s a master at reinventing normal recipes. Like this one. It has nutmeg and sea salt in the batter.” Denver took a bite and closed his eyes, smiling. “Damn, the man makes me love food.”
“I assume he did the sea bass last night?” She had been barely aware of the food then, but looking back, she had to acknowledge it tasted fantastic.
“Yes, he did.” Denver’s tone was proud but full of affection for his friend and not for himself.
“So, we have our meet-cute worked out, and our general dating background, but we’ll need to memorize some other details, like personal stuff.” She reached for her notebook again.
“Such as?” His eyes strayed to the notebook.
“You know, basic relationship stuff. What color is your toothbrush? What side of the bed do you sleep on? How do you like your coffee? That sort of thing.”
“Pale blue, the left, utterly black like my heart.” Denver’s grin was wolfish.
“I’m serious.” She bit her lip, trying not to laugh.
“So am I. What’s yours, then?”
“Those were just examples.” She took another bite of the waffle.
“I told you mine. You have to tell me yours.” Something about his boyish challenge made her flush.
“Fine. Bright pink, the right, and I prefer green tea, not coffee.”
“Noted.” Denver finished his breakfast quickly.
“You don’t want to write anything down?”
He rolled his eyes. “Your favorite color is bright pink. How’s that for a detail?”
“It’s not my favorite . . .” She halted as she realized she did actually own a lot of pink stuff.
“I like pink. I used to hate it when I was a kid. Blue was my favorite—still is—but when I got to college, I realized I sort of wanted to reclaim pink. I had always shied away from it because it was pushed as a girl color, and I didn’t want to be defined by a color. But now, I really like pink. The bright, flowery cheeriness of it just makes me smile, even though blue is still my favorite. Pink is a color that asks for no apologies.” Blair paused when she realized she had been rambling and Denver was staring at her.
“Sorry, that was a long-winded explanation.”
“You must stop that,” Denver said, his tone quiet.
“Stop explaining?”
“Apologizing. You don’t have to.”
“I’m sorry, I—” She halted as she realized she ha
d been about to apologize for apologizing.
“Come on. I have an idea.” Denver slid out of the booth.
Blair followed him, half afraid, half excited. If only this thing between them wasn’t fake, because at times it felt wonderfully real, and wasn’t that the problem? She wished the past between their fathers was a bridge she could burn down and never look back at again.
Denver fired up the engine of his speedboat and put his sunglasses on. The summer sun was already hot, but he would cool off soon enough with the wind. The boat roared like a charging tiger before he throttled the engine and steered the vessel out of his private dock at the end of the Seven Seas private beach. He glanced toward the back of the boat to check on Blair, who was seated on the farthest back seat, her dark hair flowing out behind her.
“It’s time you see my islands,” he called out to her. She got up once he reached a good steady speed and joined him at the wheel.
“The Bahamas are really an archipelago comprised of seven hundred low-lying islands and cays,” Denver explained as he nodded toward the coastline. Paradise Island was one such island north of Nassau, one of the more famous ports in the Bahamas. As they sailed past the beaches and docks of Nassau, she saw that the island was dotted with rows and rows of colorfully painted houses just a dozen feet from the docks and pathways.
“That’s Nassau.” He nodded at the island to the south. “Paradise Island, my island, is rather like Nassau’s hedonistic little sister, the wild child of the Bahamas.”
“The wild child, hmm?” Blair smiled, and the sun seemed to make her glow.
Denver tried not to think about that, about how absolutely pure her smile was. He had been with a lot of women, and few smiled, at least for natural reasons. Blair was the type of person who didn’t use her facial expressions to control and manipulate someone. Not for the first time today, he had the stray thought that maybe she wasn’t like her father.
“You up for a ride?” he asked.
“A ride?” Her lovely brown eyes filled with suspicion.