It wasn’t big enough, I discovered, because, while we weren’t joined by the flight crew, we were joined by several of the staff members that lived permanently on the island. It had come as a surprise when, after Joette and Tom, her oldest daughter, finished cooking the food, they carried it out to the table to be served family style and then sat down with us along with Mateo and his wife Sanyjah, Louvens, and Tom’s husband, Peter. Jeremy would never have dined with us in England. Edward had a strictly formal relationship with his staff there. Here, he was relaxed and familiar and almost friendly.
“You won’t mind if I redecorate it then,” I said, hoping his friendlier mood extended to me as well.
“Eh,” he finished swallowing the bite of rock lobster he’d just put in his mouth and washed it down with a swallow of chablis. “We really aren’t going to be here that long. Can’t you live with it for now?”
“Of course I can.” I knew the rules and didn’t want to argue in front of others.
But there was a difference between arguing and discussing. “I didn’t mean right now anyway. I’m sure we’ll be back here in the future though. I could take the measurements while we’re here and work on it from London. I’d spend my own money, naturally.”
His smile was forced. “We can discuss it more later.”
We couldn’t discuss it later, though, because dinner went long with Mateo and Louvens entertaining us with tales of island life since the last time Edward had been there. Then there were the updates on the family members that hadn’t attended dinner and the children—apparently there were fourteen kids under the age of eighteen. Shockingly, Edward knew the name of every one of them and asked about each of them by name.
So much for the notion that he hated children.
Then after dinner, he disappeared into his library to share a drink with the men, and though I’d meant to stay awake planning to attack him with my feminine wiles, the travel and the time change caught up to me, and I fell asleep in an armchair in my sitting room.
We have two weeks, I told myself as sleep closed in on me. I’d have my chance to be alone with him later.
Thirty
A week later, I still hadn’t managed any one-on-one time with my husband.
He was avoiding me.
Mornings he left early for a run around the island. When I asked to go with him, he allowed it, but he didn’t alter his pace and there was no way I could keep up with his long stride. Breakfasts he took by himself in his sitting room, and no matter how hard I tried to get him to let me join him, he always refused.
The rest of the day he spent working in the library. If I happened to come by for a book or some paper to write on or even if I decided to lounge on the patio outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the room, he’d move into his study and lock the door only opening it for Joette when she brought him his lunch.
With nothing else to do, I passed my time walking on the beach, swimming in the pool, and reading while lounging on the lanai. There wasn’t much else to do. The internet on the island was spotty at best, and I couldn’t even download anything to my ereader. Thank goodness Edward had a pretty extensive collection of books in the library or I would have died of boredom. After only a few days into our honeymoon, I’d finished four full-length novels and gotten a pretty decent tan. I was the picture-perfect trophy wife, exactly what my husband had wanted.
Dinners continued to be spent as a group, though the family members that joined us weren’t always the same. I soon met Erris and Dreya, Joette’s youngest son and daughter, as well as both of their wives, Marge and Eliana. The kids never came to the house, and neither did Azariah, but I had a feeling Edward snuck away to visit them all during the day when I wasn’t aware because of some of the things that were said over supper.
Evenings were always spent divided—the men in the library smoking cigars and drinking cognac and the women not allowed. It was old-fashioned and gross, and, though I had a standing invitation to join the ladies on the lanai, I usually retreated to my bedroom.
On day seven, I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d come here to seduce my husband. Not only did I need Edward to have sex with me in order to carry out my plan, but I needed him to feel comfortable having his kind of sex. Mean and sadistic kind of sex. And it wasn’t going to happen as long as we had guests encroaching on our time together.
Determined to kick everyone out, I stood outside the library and took a few deep breaths, trying to get up the nerve. He’d be mad that I made a scene, I was well aware. I could live with that. Maybe it would even lead to some kinky form of punishment.
One could dream.
“You must be furious at that one for spending so much time with them,” Tom said, coming up behind me. She spoke in the typical Bahamian dialect, dropping sounds, so what she’d said sounded like Ya mus be furious a dat one for spendin so much time wit dem. It had taken me a day or two to get used to it, but now I barely had to ask anyone to repeat anything. “You should do something about it.”
“I’m planning to. I was just about to go in there and tell everyone they had to go home.” I didn’t need anyone’s permission to do it, but it was so nice to have someone sympathize with my situation that I couldn’t help leaning on her for reassurance.
“Mmm,” she said with a frown. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? Edward doesn’t seem to take kindly to folks confronting him. Unless it’s Azariah. She has that man wrapped around her finger.”
I never thought I’d be as jealous of an eighty-five-year-old woman as I was of Azariah.
And now I was doubting myself. “What do you suggest I do? It’s our honeymoon, for crying out loud.”
“What you need to do is put on something really sexy like and flaunt around in front of those windows. He’ll take notice and kick the boys to the curb.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. I’d tried to do exactly that several times already, putting on a revealing swimsuit and prancing in front of the windows. But, since Edward had holed himself off in his study, he’d never been around to see.
I hadn’t considered trying it late at night. Now that I had...it was brilliant.
Thanking her, I excused myself and ran to my bedroom to change into my skimpiest bikini—I’d brought one for each day of our trip, all of them pretty risque. Red seemed to be my power color as far as Edward was concerned, and the classic string variety was never a bad choice.
A few minutes later, I strode out onto the lanai from my sitting room wearing nothing but my red string bikini and a strappy pair of Louboutin wedge sandals.
“Look at you!” Tom said, while the other women cat-called.
“I was just thinking I’d take a swim,” I said innocently, walking over to join them. They were sitting out of the sightline of the library, but I had to pass them to get there and it would have been rude not to at least talk to them first.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” Eliana said. “You’re here to catch the attention of that beefcake husband of yours.”
Everyone laughed—not at me in that awkward embarrassing way, but conspiratorially. The kind of laugh that was nice to get.
“Sit down and have a drink with us first,” Joette said. “The men are in there drinking brandy, but we have the good stuff—Sky Juice.” She held up a white-colored drink that looked like milk with ice. In other words, disgusting.
But the women were friendly, and it had been so long since I’d had companionship… “Sure. I’ll take one.”
“You can have mine. Just made it,” Tom said. “I’ll go whip up another for myself.”
I sat down on a lounge chair and took a sip of the concoction, which turned out to be a concoction of sweetened condensed milk, gin, and coconut water. Generally, I didn’t like sweet alcoholic drinks—and this one was particularly sweet—but, right now, with the sound of the ocean crashing on the nearby shore and the Caribbean breeze carrying the salty garden scent of the island, it seemed fitting.
I drank slowly, chatting with the
women while I did. They were very different than the people I usually spent time with, very down-to-earth and unbothered. Back in New York, everyone seemed to always be rushing around doing Important Things and swallowing down Xanax with their Phentermine like they were the secrets to success. Even though I’d been gone from that world for several months now, my brain still operated at the same speed. Talking to the islanders made me slow down, made my thoughts pause. It was nice to have the change of pace.
While we didn’t talk about much that was important, I did learn a few things, such as that Eliana was Dreya’s second spouse. She’d been married to Louvens previously, but once they’d all moved to the island together, she’d fallen in love with his little sister, which seemed pretty scandalous for such a tight-knit group. The strangest part was that they all still lived here.
“Because of the children,” Eliana said. “Louvens is a good father.”
“And we’d never want to split up the family,” Dreya agreed.
I also learned that the segregated after-dinner arrangement was new. Edward had apparently never employed it in the past.
“When Camilla is here, and when he was married to Marion, everyone usually hangs out together,” Joette said.
“If we even stay after dinner,” Tom added. “Most times we go straight home.”
It was because of me. He was definitely avoiding me.
But it was a relief to know that he wasn’t as archaic in his traditions as he’d made me believe.
The women seemed to realize it had to do with me, as well. “He’s nervous around such a pretty bride,” Dreya said.
“I doubt that’s it,” I protested.
“Maybe he’s forgotten what to do in the bedroom,” Joette giggled.
“No, he definitely hasn’t forgotten.” We’d only been together that one time, but he’d definitely known what he was doing.
At this rate, though, I was going to forget. “Well, ladies, I think it’s time to do my thing.” I swallowed back the last of my cocktail. I was just starting to feel the buzz—Tom made her drinks strong—and it was exactly the confidence I’d needed for my strutting.
“We’ll get ready to go,” Joette said. “I have a feeling we’re about to be sent home.”
I prayed she was right.
Throwing my shoulders back, I paraded along the line of the house, passing the rest of the family room windows, circling along the curve of the dinette, finally ending up at the library.
Here I paused to stretch, exaggeratedly, making sure all my best features were on display. I could feel eyes watching me, which could have been all in my head, because I refused to look. The outside lights were on, though, and the entire backyard was illuminated, so at least I knew I wasn’t being swallowed up in the dark of night.
Assuming I had his attention, I sat down on one of the deck chairs and stretched a long leg out and removed first one sandal than the other. When they were off, I stood up again, turning toward the pool so that my backside faced the library windows. I adjusted my bikini bottoms, pulling them out of my butt crack where they’d bunched up when I sat, then strutted to the pool and jumped in.
It was only five minutes later that our guests were gone. I was swimming laps, but I heard Mateo come out and call the ladies inside. A minute later the family room doors slid shut, the lights went off, and the whole middle section of the house was dark.
I finished my lap and, only then, did I look for Edward.
I found him immediately, standing at the library window, one hand holding a drink, the other shoved into his trouser pocket, his eyes pinned on me.
Even through the glass and the ten yards that separated us, I could feel his angry, rabid want. It was lasered in my direction like a death ray, ready to obliterate me at a moment’s notice.
I was instantly wet, and not just because I was standing chest-deep in the swimming pool.
We stayed like that for what felt like forever, our stares intense, each of us waiting for the other to call chicken. When it was clear he wasn’t going to make the next move, I decided that I would. I’d started this, after all. Might as well finish it.
Never taking my eyes off his, I stalked out of the pool. I’d forgotten to bring a towel—whoops—so I was wet and dripping as I moved toward him. As I passed the outdoor shower—a single pipe coming out of the ground with two heads—I decided I wasn’t done taunting him. I turned on the water and waited for it to heat up before standing beneath it, letting the spray fall over my hair and down my back.
Still, I watched him. Watched him watching me as I reached behind me and pulled the strings of my top and let it fall on the ground in front of me. Next, I untied first one side of the bottoms, then the other, until I was standing naked under the rushing stream.
He’d never seen me completely naked, and if I’d ever thought he never had the interest, that thought was proven entirely false when Edward pulled his hand from his pocket and braced it against the window above him, as if he needed the support to stand.
I understood the feeling. My knees felt weak, too, even as I felt stronger than I had all week. Bolder than I had in months.
I’d gotten him. He’d come to me now. There was no way he could resist.
Relishing in the early satisfaction of victory, I closed my eyes and threw back my head, bringing my hands up to cup my aching breasts then sweep down to rub against the swollen lips between my thighs.
And I waited. Waited for the sound of a door sliding open. Waited for his footsteps across the cement patio.
When a couple of minutes had passed with no sound and no Edward, I opened my eyes again. The library was dark. No one stood watching me at the glass. I was alone outside.
I scanned the windows looking for him inside. A second later a light turned on his bedroom. Then he was in his sitting room, and I held my breath, waiting for him to open his patio door and summon me inside.
But he only closed the curtains, cutting off my view to his bedroom. Cutting off my view to him.
And I knew without actually trying that, if I went to his patio door on my own, I’d discover that it was locked.
Thirty-One
I woke up the next day with new determination. The previous night hadn’t played out the way I’d wanted, that was certainly true. But it was the closest I’d been in a week to seeing Edward crack. My behavior had had an effect.
Obviously, that meant I should do more of the same.
I’d set my phone alarm extra early and dressed in short shorts and a sexy sports bra—not one of those ones that squished everything together, but a Brazilian design that resembled a bikini top with black mesh that showed off a whole lot of breast. I gathered my hair into a ponytail, put on my running shoes, and then, instead of asking Edward if I could join him on his morning run, I snuck outside and kept out of sight behind the trees at the end of the courtyard.
I had to wait around almost half an hour until he showed up, but when he did, I slipped out of my hiding spot and jogged up next to him. “Oh, hey. I was just taking my run too. I’ll tag along.”
He grunted, his eyes sweeping down my body, lingering on my cleavage, then, as I’d predicted, he took off at a sprint I couldn’t keep up with.
It was all good. Keeping up wasn’t the goal.
I’d only run with him twice since we’d been on the island, and I knew from that, and from watching him, that he went the same way every time, going east along the network of paths and then north until the trail ended. Then he took to the beach and followed the shoreline south until he returned to the house.
I also knew from my conversation with the women the night before that Erris and his wife Marge, were the official gardeners, and today, along with Louvens’ help, they planned to cut back some plants that had been damaged in the last big storm on the southwest shores of the island—right along the last quarter of Edward’s run.
So, instead of dragging behind Edward, I took my own course, veering west to the beach. I jogged along the coa
st until I spotted the three working in the brush. I waved at them enthusiastically, so enthusiastically that I “forgot” to watch where I was going and “tripped” over myself. I went down flat on my ass.
Yeah, I totally faked it. I was a pro at this shit.
The three gardners ran over to me immediately, making a big fuss with, “Are you all right?” and, “Do you think you can walk?”
I assured them I could, but Louvens and Erris helped me up anyway, and as soon as I put weight on my right ankle, I pretended to cry out in pain.
“I think I twisted my ankle,” I said, grimacing.
“I’ll help you back to the house,” Louvens volunteered.
Perfection.
He’d already been the one of the three who couldn’t take his eyes off my breasts. I mean, they looked good. It wasn’t his fault. He was actually a decent guy, and not that I believed that a woman’s clothing choice allowed men to do what they want with her, but, if I wore something provocative, I certainly expected people to look.
I’d assumed that when he offered to help, Louvens meant that I could lean on him as I hobbled back to the house.
Nope. He lifted me into his arms and proceeded to carry me. The man was so much cooler than I’d predicted. Stronger too.
And my timing was impeccable, because when we were just out of sight of the others, about halfway to our destination, Edward came running by, finishing up his course.
“What’s going on? What happened?” He was breathless from exercise, genuine concern etched in his features.
“Mrs. Fasbender had a fall and twisted her ankle,” Louvens said.
“Oh, Louvens,” I said, pouring on the sweetness. “You should really call me Celia.” His face happened to already be at chest level, but I pushed my shoulders back so my breasts would be even closer. As a reward for being so heroic, of course.
He really was an attractive guy, I noticed now. Very muscular. The kind of muscular that was earned by good old-fashioned hard work and outdoor sport rather than scheduled exercise.
Slay One: Rivalry Page 21