Blake caught a cab with a new driver this time and headed straight over to the Magnolia. There was a team of workers assembled, which surprised him somewhat, and he strode over, in full business mode. “Who’s in charge here?”
He looked from one confused face to the other, then one of the men pulled out his radio. “Boss, there’s someone here to see you.”
He looked at Blake as he spoke into the device, then as the reply came through, he made a show of clicking it off and putting it back in its holster. “That would be Bubba. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Blake thanked him for his help, then crossed his arms as he waited. The workers wandered around aimlessly, like background actors who hadn’t been given actual roles in a play. Finally, a guy emerged from the shack and ambled over to Blake.
“Mr. Parker! I heard you were going to be paying us a visit. The name’s Bubba; what can I help you with?”
Blake laughed humorlessly. “What can you help me with?” he said in disbelief. “Maybe you can help inform me where my hotel is. That would be a big help.”
Bubba gave him a confused look. “We’re just gettin’ started on it.”
“Obviously,” Blake said impatiently. “The question is why? You should be halfway to finished.”
Bubba looked at him incredulously. “Mr. Parker, you do realize this island gets bad hurricanes three months out of the year?”
No, Blake hadn’t realized that at all, as a matter of fact.
Bubba went on, “Three months of hurricane season, a minimum of three months to make the plans, a few more months to assemble the equipment … sir, I’m sorry if you expected substantial progress by this stage, but there was no way. That should’ve been made clear from early on.”
Even though Blake was still convinced the development could’ve started at least a couple months back, it was hard to fault Bubba’s logic. At least not before he did more research.
“Thanks for your time,” he told the foreman. “I’ll be back in touch shortly. Meanwhile, get started. You have all the plans in order now, right?”
“Sure. The other Mr. Parker reviewed them. I think you did too, at some point?”
All three brothers had gone over the blueprints in detail, so that, at least, was definitely in order. Nevertheless, Blake was now nervous enough to second-guess even that.
“I’d like to go over the plans with you myself. Would you have time today?”
“Sure,” the amiable foreman said yet again, gesturing at the shack. “Right this way.”
***
Thankfully, at least the construction details were all right. Blake breathed a sigh of relief as he got in the taxi an hour later and sped back to the hotel, mulling over next steps. Cole had turned out to be right. There were revisions that could be easily made at this stage, without affecting the bottom line excessively, now that Blake knew more about the project.
With the beginnings of the project beginning to settle in his mind, Blake’s thoughts drifted back to Kelly for a moment, and he wondered what she was doing with her day. The memory of how quickly her smile had vanished left him cold all over again, in spite of his surprisingly successful morning.
He was still feeling the chill, remembering the few hours of total ease and warmth he’d felt around her, warmth that went even beyond the arousal she’d stirred in him, when he sat down for lunch at the hotel’s restaurant. As he did, he glanced around the room at the various beautiful women. Though it was hard not to stare at any one of them, none of them caught his attention the way Kelly had. There was just something different about that girl that he couldn’t get out of his mind, no matter how badly he wanted to. It didn’t make any sense for him to be reacting this way, besides feeling bad for offending her somehow—
Blake’s eyes widened as he spotted Kelly in the back of the room, carrying a tray full of food in her hand. She set it down at a table filled with people and then, before he figured out what was what, she made her way over to Blake.
She was wearing the ugliest uniform he’d ever seen, but even the washed-out khaki couldn’t dim her beauty. Her hair was in a ponytail today, and a new necklace, this one of a gecko, carved out of what looked like some kind of stone. It rested in the hollow of her throat and Blake felt an urge to lift the small pendant and press his lips to the warm spot beneath.
“What can I get for you?”
Kelly’s voice snapped him back to reality.
Her tone was polite enough, but there was a flatness to it that utterly lacked yesterday’s life and vibrancy.
Damn it. I did insult her. It wasn’t my imagination. But … how?
“I’ll take the salmon patty, please, on a wheat bun, mayo instead of tartar, and the house salad as my side. Ranch. Are you a waitress, too?” he asked. He hadn’t intended to be so abrupt, but the words just came out of his mouth. She looked at him with raised eyebrows for a second, then began jotting down his order on her notepad.
“What do you mean, too?”
She gave him a cold stare, and he scratched the back of his neck. Somehow, he’d lost all control of his mouth. “I mean, did you find a guy who would make up for the money I didn’t pay you? I mean, so your evening wasn’t a bust?” Blake blurted, immediately kicking himself every which way.
He wanted to sink into the floor as she looked at him with a defiant, hurt look scrawled across her face. Even so, her tone remained quiet and measured, consummately professional.
“If that’s the impression you got from me last night, I’m glad the date ended the way it did. I thought you were different. My mistake, Mr. Parker.” She walked away, the rigid slant of her shoulders the only thing that betrayed her mood.
Blake watched her go, shame washing over him. He felt foolish for blindly assuming things, but at the same time, he felt that he had the right to the confusion. Dammit, he’d seen money changing hands among more than one party. And there was no denying the come- hither looks from half the women who seemed to appear in the building only toward evening.
Then Kelly was walking back toward him, a glass of ice water in her hand. She set it down on the table, her eyes suggesting she’d much rather have thrown it in his face, and Blake fumbled again for some kind of apology.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Kelly. I shouldn’t have made the assumption. It was wrong of me, and I would love to take you out by way of a better apology. Just let me buy you dinner. Please.”
The words came out of his mouth before he even realized what it was he was saying and hung in the air. He had just asked her out on a real date, and now it was up to her whether to accept or not.
Kelly straightened silverware on the table that didn’t need straightening and messed with the condiments on the table for an endless moment, her face still so blank that it made him ache.
“Fine,” she said suddenly, stepping back. Blake didn’t even have a chance to process his relief before she added in a monotone, “I’ll be ready at six. In front of my place.”
The intensity of his relief was shocking. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her hand, to try to somehow add to the weight of his words. It mattered to him that she believe his apology, more than he could remember that kind of thing mattering with almost anybody.
“Thank you, Kelly,” Blake said quietly. “You won’t regret it. I’ll make it up to you.”
She gave him a curt nod, then flipped her hair over her shoulder, the light catching in its dark strands, making them gleam. Then she walked away.
Chapter Nine
Kelly
“Ouch!” Kelly yelled as she stabbed her eye with the mascara wand for the second time. Cussing a blue streak, she reached for a face wipe and decided to give up on anything but basic foundation, eyeshadow, and lipstick. She was still too angry and hurt, apparently, for fine motor skills to kick in.
A prostitute. That’s what he’d thought of her. Of course, she’d halfway known that already. He’d offered her money that first time they’d talked in the
hallway, after all.
But damn it all, she wasn’t. Call her an escort, if you had to, but she’d still always clearly drawn the line between the oldest profession and her own, until Blake had brought the curtain crashing down. Was there really that much of a difference between what she did and what the other women in the hotel did? So she didn’t have sex with guys for money. But she took plenty of their money for the privilege of her company.
Am I no different?
She rarely cried, and cursed as tears gleamed in her eyes suddenly, threatening her freshly applied makeup. “I pay the bills,” she said aloud, talking to her dead mother as she sometimes did. “I do what I have to, Mom. Just like you did.”
Except her mother had crossed the fine line, and it had resulted in her death. Rubbing her arms against the cold, lonely chill, Kelly fixed the damage to her face and walked over to her expansive closet. It still hugged every curve, because she didn’t own one that didn’t, but everything except some fairly intense cleavage was covered.
Taking a step back, Kelly looked at herself in the mirror. She looked good, she knew, but all she could see was her mother’s face in the mirror looking back at her sadly.
You did what you had to, Mom. So do I. I’m not ashamed. We all do what we have to. Damn it. I’m not ashamed!
She looked up at herself in the mirror once more and gave herself a harsh stare.
“You are not going to lose your head here. This is just a man who is taking you out on a date as an apology. So don’t go out there and do anything stupid.”
She gave herself a solemn nod, and when the phone went off again, read the text and saw that he had just arrived. Kelly took in a deep breath, then let it out again slowly, doing her best to gather what confidence she could manage while she got ready to head outside.
The truth was, she was excited for the date and the time she was going to have with Blake. She’d had a blast the previous evening, until he’d blown up everything with his offer at her doorstep.
“It’s going to be what it’s going to be,” she said aloud as she walked outside.
From a cab, Blake waved to her and she walked over, warning herself sternly when the butterflies starting in his stomach like they always did when he was nearby.
She gave him a sharp smile and slid into the cab next to him. “No luggage yet, I take it,” Kelly commented coolly, noting the same suit yet again, starting to look less than crisply pressed. It was a low blow, but what the hell.
Blake absorbed it graciously. “None. You look beautiful. You always do.”
In spite of herself, the compliment made her feel good, even if she suddenly, desperately wanted him to see beyond the outside.
“Thank you.”
“Where do you want to go?” he asked, and she shrugged.
“You’re the one taking me out,” she replied, and he shook his head.
“No, this is your night. Yesterday was all about me. Tell me somewhere you like,” Blake urged, and she had to smile a little at his earnestness.
“There’s a great crab shack just up the road. But you’ve really got to stop with this taxi thing.” She pushed the door to the car open. “Come on.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Blake pay the cab driver for the two-minute ride from the hotel to her house, then he caught up with her.
They walked in uncomfortable silence toward the restaurant, before Kelly finally had pity on the guy. “You’re good. You screwed up. You owned it. Let it go. Okay?”
The look of relief on his face made her smile slightly. He really cared. Wow.
“I am so sorry,” he said quietly once more, touching her shoulder lightly. “I got my signals entirely crossed. You could’ve slapped me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t go in for melodrama. Not much, anyway.”
Stopping at the door to the shack, she walked in and he followed, straight into the warm, smoky atmosphere.
“Hi, Nell,” she called to her friend at the bar, which fronted a surprisingly large kitchen. “Newbie with me tonight. Set him up with the best.”
“Done, sweet pea,” Nell called back, and Kelly grinned, turning back to Blake.
“You drink?”
“Way too much lately,” he said wryly, and she laughed.
“Awesome. They have a house beer to die for. But you have to promise to complete another challenge …”
“Oh god. Is this like one of the massive food challenges where you get a meal free if you finish everything?” he asked in alarm. “Because I’d much rather pay than puke, frankly.”
Kelly shook her head in amusement. “Such a nervous wreck. The challenge is just to out-eat me. Think you can?”
His eyes swept over her slender finger and she hid a smirk as he underestimated her completely.
“Challenge accepted.”
“Oh, honey,” she drawled, sweeping her own eyes over him in retaliation, and enjoying every sexy inch. “You wish this challenge was as easy as an all-you-can-eat …”
Chapter Ten
Blake
Two weeks later
“You sound relaxed,” Cole informed him, and Blake rolled his neck over his shoulders as the warmth of the hot tub in his suite moved over him.
“Two weeks of paradise turned out to be pretty good after all,” he admitted, listening to his brother talk about Dana’s pregnancy with one ear, while the rest of him was entirely focused on the reason the last weeks had gone so well.
Post crab-shack odyssey, during which he’d just managed to beat Kelly by one crab, which she was still annoyed at him for, Blake had found that his days quickly fell into a pleasant routine.
He’d given up and bought some new clothes, buying beachwear which allowed him to walk comfortably around the construction site each morning. Then he’d attend to other business as needed in his room, on the terrace, at his laptop, or on the phone. Then, in the early afternoon, or occasionally in the evening, he’d meet up with Kelly for a drink, a walk through the dunes, another hour of sand surfing … she planned all their outings, since she knew the place, and Blake was more than happy to let her lead.
And that was it, the very thing that sometimes left him lying awake in bed at night—the other thing, besides hot fantasies of Kelly that he’d given up on trying not to have. He was happy. Plain and simple, for the first time in years, Blake was relaxed, at peace enough that his thoughts weren’t whirling constantly at 700 miles per hour. Work was proceeding rapidly on the Magnolia, things were going well back home, according to Cole, and all in all, the pace of life was just about perfect.
“You met a girl.”
“Huh?” Blake tuned back into his brother.
“I said, you met a girl. You must’ve, the way you’re completely moony.”
“I am not moony!” Blake protested, hauling himself out of the hot tub to go get ready for a late afternoon walk with Kelly. She loved to watch the sun just start to set, and he loved watching her face in the soft rays as evening began, just before night took over completely. She was the most beautiful person he’d ever known, in more ways than one.
“You are completely moony,” Cole corrected. “Take it from a moony guy. I act that way around Dana. So why haven’t you said anything about her?”
“There’s no girl,” Blake insisted, not quite sure why he didn’t want his brothers to know anything yet. “I’m just more relaxed than you’ve probably ever known me.”
“Yeah. Because of a girl …”
“Fuck off,” Blake muttered. “I’ll call you back later. I have a meeting with Bubba.”
“Sure you do …”
He hung up and lobbed the phone at the bed, heading in for a fast shower. As always, thoughts of Kelly filled his mind and he didn’t hesitate to reach down and give himself a hand, rubbing one out hard and fast as he imagined holding her naked in his arms, her endless legs wrapped around his waist, his mouth fused to his and her breasts pressed to his chest as he took her hard right in the same shower where
he was standing.
***
Even after he finished and rinsed off again, then got out to get dressed, Blake felt the stirrings of arousal all over again. Kelly had that effect on him, he’d come to accept. What he couldn’t get his head around was how she’d ever fit into his life after he had to leave paradise, and that was the one thing he refused to think about.
The guy who always faced responsibility square on absolutely would not confront the reality that first of all, what he and Kelly had was a friendship. He suspected she might feel more—he’d seen her stealing glances, seemingly hungrily—but didn’t dare assume anything again. And even if she did and they were somehow … more … how could that more last, when they were practically from different planets?
Thankfully, his thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door. Blake hurried over and opened it, and as he did, his fantasies rushed to the fore and all logical thoughts or worries fled.
Standing before him was a tropical goddess, dressed in a coral bikini top that she filled to damn near bursting, her cleavage so full that he almost salivated, and a skimpy sarong that gave him the barest hint of what might be an ultra-high-cut bottom half of a suit.
“One thing we haven’t done is swim,” Kelly said with a grin. “Interested?”
The little control Blake had remaining snapped clear in half and he reached out and snagged Kelly around the waist, hauling her into the hotel room. He kicked the door shut and then yanked her into his chest, his eyes feasting hungrily on her all over again, before he claimed her mouth for the first time.
To his abject relief, she wound her arms around his neck and pressed in even closer, her tongue meeting his in a hot, hungry dance, coupled with dark moans that drove him halfway insane. Somehow, he managed to wrench away just enough to warn her,
“If you don’t want this, say something right this second, Kelly. I’m fucking dying for you—”
Dared to Love (The Billionaire Parker Brothers Book 3) Page 4