by Zante, Lily
“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I promise you, I have no intentions. This is for old time’s sake. I swear. I would never…”
She left the cocktail glass untouched while blood coursed through her veins, making her dizzy. Determination steeled her. She was going to make a stand. He obviously had come here alone, for a reason. Well, she wasn’t going to fall for any of it. But he looked better. At least he seemed to look better, it was hard to tell in the soft glow of the fairy lights. “Did you get your medication back on track?” she asked, concerned as always about his health.
“I did.” He folded his arms, forcing her attention to those muscles again. She deliberately looked away, refusing to admire them.
“I’m back at the gym again, and back at work. Marie sends her love, as does Amanda.”
Her eyes widened to saucers and she turned to look at him again. “They knew you were coming here? They know I’m here?”
“Yes.”
Indignation swept over her like a tidal wave. “If you think you can just turn up expectedly and expect me to pretend that everything is fine, you are severely mistaken.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, me coming here and you being here”, he told her, in a calm manner. “Tobias said I looked as if I needed a break, and he invited me. Savannah let it slip that you’d be here this week.”
“And you decided to come this week?”
“Yes.” Why did that not make her as angry as it should have?
“Because?” she demanded.
“Because I liked the idea of being away from everything, and seeing you again.”
“But I … I…this was meant to be my vacation before I start my new job.”
“It’s a big island, Kay. I can stay out of your way if you want me to. If you still hate me as much as you did before.”
She didn’t have a ready answer to that. “When did you arrive?” she asked.
“In the early hours of the morning, before you got up.”
“And you’ve been hiding all day?”
“Tobias took snorkeling at the other end of the island. We chilled, catching up on things.”
Her lips pressed together. “Tobias and Savannah sat with me having dinner knowing that you were skulking around the island? Did Jacob know?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that little dude can keep a secret, but I’m happy to take him to the waterfall tomorrow, if you don’t want to.”
She wondered how much of her conversation he’d heard, and how long he’d been skulking around. “Have you been stalking me?”
“Only since towards the end of your dinner.” He paused, his eyes dancing with amusement. “This brings back memories,” he said, “You and me here. If I could take back time, I’d do it all differently.”
“You can’t.” She lifted her head, curious anyway. “What would you do differently?”
“I’d appreciate you more, be more grateful for you, recognize everything you did for me. But more than that, I wouldn’t push you away all those times you tried to get close to me.”
She folded her arms.
“I pushed you away, Kay, because I didn’t want to get hurt again, and you threatened me more than the others.”
“Threatened?” she asked. She didn’t want to give him the time of day, but she was curious to know how he’d felt threatened.
“You understood me more than anyone.”
She slid her fingers towards the cocktail glass, and circled the stem. “I tried to understand you.”
“But by the end you did, and you put up with my foul moods, and all those nasty things I said. You understood what I was trying to do and you didn’t let me. You should have walked away, but you didn’t.”
“It was Marie’s fault.”
He shook his head. “I think we both know that—as subtly persuasive as Marie is—you and I aren’t the type of people to go and do something if we don’t want to. You looked after me because you’re a nice person. You have a big heart. You cared for me.”
“You’re a hard person to care for,” she said, lifting the cocktail glass. “It hurt to be around you, sometimes. It hurt to care for you, to—” Love, she almost said. Then put down the cocktail glass without lifting it to her lips. “To try to get close to you.”
“And yet you stayed, right up until the end.”
“I was always ready for a good time, remember?” she said. “And before you got ill, we did have some really good times.”
“That’s not true, and you know it. We had good times, but that’s not why you stayed around, after I got ill. Don’t pretend you did it for a reason other than because…”
“Because?”
“Because I meant something to you,” he said.
“We exchanged bodily fluids,” she flung back at him, “So yes, we had a connection.”
He looked defeated, as if she’d thrown a knock-out punch at his face. “Don’t make it sound vulgar. We were starting to become more than that.”
He’d realized, had he? He’d realized to damn late. “But that’s what it was,” she insisted. “You told me many times. You pushed things too far, and maybe I’d had enough. And I deserve more.”
“I did push things too far, and you were right to have had enough, and you do deserve so much more. You deserve all the good things life has to offer.”
“Is that why you’re here?” she asked sarcastically. “To give me a few good things, for old time’s sake?”
He didn’t like that. Oh, she was loving this. Making him be the one to chase, to want more, and to feel the hurt. “I’m here because I saw it as my last chance to explain myself to you. I figured you’d have nowhere else to run on an island. No Dr. Santini to whisk you away.”
She peered at his face. “Is Dr. Santini as big a threat to you as Dean was?”
His hands went to his hips. “I am working through my issues. Maggie cheating on me was bound to have an effect. I was completely head over heels in love with that girl.” His confession felt like a thousand pin-pricks across her skin. “But I’m over it. It took me meeting you to realize that.”
She turned away. It was all getting too heavy, and too much.
“Please listen, Kay. I was a douche bag to use you as—”
“As your bullet-proof vest,” she said.
“I was going to say riot-shield.”
“Neither of them are complimentary,” she pointed out.
“But they serve a useful purpose. They save people. You saved me.”
She wasn’t sure what to make of it—his appearance, and what he was saying. But, like last week, it was nice to see him again, to be talking again, to address things.
Get a handle on it, she told herself. She couldn’t let the shock of seeing him unexpectedly move her to into doing something irrational. Out here, under the starlit sky, with the silver sea just behind her—well, it was the type of place to make her not think straight. She had already suffered enough with him. She had wrongly believed she could make him love her, and she was afraid of making the same mistake again. “If you think you can win me back, you’re wrong. You can’t.”
“I know,” he said, taking a step towards her. “I don’t intend to make you do anything you don’t want. I never have.” There was something in his expression she had never seen before, not even when he had been lying in his hospital bed. It was vulnerability. Not quite defeat, but a letting of the hardness which had been such a big part of him.
She stepped back, determined not to feel anything, trying to turn a blind eye to the soft tone of his voice. This man had cost her her self-esteem, her career, her project. All for nothing. This man whom she had thought once upon a time she could tame, had now come to her looking fully tamed. For all his pain, and messed up past, she had seen shimmers, and glimmers of hope, of the type of man he could be, but she had been hurt too many times, and this time she wasn’t going to back down.
She wanted more. She didn’t want a hookup. It had taken a while, and cost her more pain than sh
e had envisaged, but she didn’t need the sex, or the intimacy or the attention. What she craved all along was to have someone to care about, and to have that person care about her.
With Luke, it always felt as if she was the one doing all the caring. As if she was the only one hurting, and loving, and having feelings.
“I would rather we stayed friends,” she said, ignoring the way her heart was starting to thump inside her rib cage. It was nerves, and the shock, that was all.
“Friends? Of course. I hope we’ll always stay friends.” But the words didn’t line up with the way his jaw clenched.
She needed to make sure he understood her, that there was no miscommunication. The man had flown out here for a reason, and she wasn’t going to let him charm her panties off her this time. “That arrangement,” she said, looking around and lowering her voice, “It wasn’t the first friends-with-benefits-hookup I’ve had. You weren’t my first.”
That seemed to piss him off. “Okay,” he said, the muscle on the other side of his jaw twitching.
She wasn’t exactly telling the truth, either. He might not have been her first tawdry little secret, but he’d been the first man she had wanted something with. The others had been mere stones along the pathway, but Luke had been final destination. There had been times when she had believed that she could fix him, heal him, be his salvation—after all, what woman didn’t want to be the one for her man? For all his pain, and messed up past, she had seen shimmers, and glimmers of hope, of the type of man he could be, but she had been hurt too many times, and this time she wasn’t going to back down.
“But you were my first.”
That stumped her. That swarm of butterflies in her stomach suddenly started to spin around like crazy. “Your first what?” she whispered, while her heart thump-thumped with abandon.
“The first woman to reach inside,” his fisted hand knocked against his chest. Maybe it was his heart. But that wasn’t a Luke move. Was he really knocking on his heart?
“Friends,” she said, the word absurd, and deflecting from the moment. She couldn’t go there, back into that hothouse of complications and misery and bliss—the rollercoaster of being involved with Luke again. He was obviously trying to reel her in again, and she refused to give in.
“Friends, always,” he said, in that honeyed, husky voice of his.
Holy freaking shit.
Chapter 48
They talked for hours into the night. Even the staff had long retired by then. He’d gone inside and brought out a blanket, then laid it out for them to sit on over by the sand, with the sea a few yards away.
He’d moved the conversation away to other things—safe topics, about her new job, and her plans for the rest of her vacation—because clearly, talking about things between them only resulted in Kay putting up her barriers again.
It worked.
Her frostiness had slowly melted away. But he hadn’t come here with any indecent intentions. He wanted the real deal because she was the real deal. He had realized it in a roundabout way, via cancer, and much soul-searching, and losing her, but he liked to think it still wasn’t too late. He’d been prepared for her to tell him to get lost, to go to hell, but she hadn’t.
“We should go to bed,” he said, grateful that they’d had talked. She’d sat on one end of the blanket, and he’d respected her personal space, and sat at the other. This wasn’t going to be a continuation of what they had before, if she wanted, if and when she was ready, this could be a new start.
“Go to bed?” she asked, giving him an odd look.
“Not…not that. Just…sleep…in separate beds, in separate rooms.”
“Obviously. Where’s your room?” she asked, as they started to walk towards the main villa.
“Right down the other end of the corridor. I specifically requested it.”
“That was wise.”
“Tell me about it,” he agreed.
“Well, goodnight,” she said, as they came to a stop outside her room.
“Good night, Kay.” He stifled a yawn. “I’m tired, sorry.”
She nodded. “It’s a long flight. The jet lag takes a while to wear off.”
“I rested up before we went snorkeling. And then I spent a few hours taking care of the twins, before dinner.”
Surprise lifted her brows. “You took care of the twins?”
“With Tobias,” he clarified. “He showed me what to do.”
“Where was Savannah?”
“Watching a rom-com.”
She laughed. “The cheeky little minx.” She stared up at him again. “You and Tobias looked after the twins? What did you do? Watch them sleep?”
“They woke up when I switched on the baby mobile by mistake. But we gave them a bath, and that seemed to calm them down.”
Her mouth fell open. “You gave the babies a bath?”
He nodded. “I gave Lewis a bath. Tobias had Samuel.”
“How can you tell?”
“You can’t tell?”
“Not unless they’re wearing monogrammed clothing.”
That made him chuckle. “Lewis takes a hold of your finger. He’s a real grabber.”
“A real grabber?”
“You never noticed?”
“I’m better at looking after Jacob,” she replied, wincing. “And even then, I’m not so great.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing. They’re a handful, but they’re damn amazing. They react. Like you give them a finger and Lewis will put his teeny weeny hand around it. It’s freaking awesome.”
“Freaking awesome,” she parroted, obviously noticing that he’d taken her phrase. Pretty soon he was going to end up finishing her sentences. “I didn’t know you had a thing about babies.”
“Me neither. It kind of took me by surprised too.” Those fragile little things, a bundle of limbs and eyes and lips, had suddenly made him protective, and soft, and turned him into a complete wuss. Even Tobias had commented on it. Truth was, he’d never allowed himself to think about anything other than his business empire. Women and sex had been secondary, and there had been no need to think beyond that.
“Who would have thought Luke Hunter would be taking care of babies?”
“A baby,” he said, correcting her. “I don’t know how Savannah does it. I only had to take care of one. I’ll show you how to tell the difference between them tomorrow.” He paused because she was looking at him all shiny-eyed. “Are you okay?” he asked, because she looked like she wasn’t. Before she could reply, she tip-toed up and kissed him lightly on the cheek, for some crazy, unexpected reason.
“What was that for?” he asked, his insides tingling.
“For no reason,” she said, sniffling. She cleared her throat. “For being brave, I guess, because it must have taken some guts to come out here, not knowing how I would react.”
“I’d take a bullet for you. This was nothing.”
“A bullet?” she asked, sounding surprised. “That’s a bit over-dramatic, isn’t it?”
“But true.” Because he would. He’d do anything for her.
She leaned forward again, tip-toeing up again, and kissed him, this time on his lips. And just as quickly, she backed away.
But she’d set his pulse racing, and his insides raging. Before he could ask her what that was for, she told him, “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been thinking about some things, and I was hoping that in time we could move—”
But he didn’t let her finish. He only needed to hear the first four words. In one swoop, he leaned in and kissed her; it was almost a celebratory, seal-the-deal kiss that deepened and lengthened as the delicious seconds ticked by. He’d been dreaming about those plump lush lips of hers for ages.
This time she rested her hands on his shoulders, before throwing them around his neck. And then his hands were on her bottom, then down to her thighs. She jumped up, and wrapped her legs around him.
The speed of it left dust trails in his deeply aroused mind. She moaned in
to his mouth, hanging onto him, spurring him on with her delicious noises, and the feel of her pressed so snugly against him. His hands skated to her back, and he grabbed her butt, squeezing it gently.
“Wait,” she said, then opened the door to her bedroom. Somehow they made it inside, closing the door with her back.
If it wasn't for the fabric getting in the way, he would take her like this, with her up against the wall and her legs wrapped around his waist. Give her that slow comfortable screw up against the wall, only there would be nothing slow about it. The vision was like dynamite to his fire. She pressed against his erection, driving him giddy with desire.
Moving to the bed, he threw her down, then climbed over, retaking her mouth and tasting its sweetness again. Her hands came up around his neck and she pulled him close, their tongues dueling for dominance, until at the tipping point, the one which if crossed would be hard to come back from, he pulled away, gazing down at her with his heart racing like crazy. Slowly, he moved away and sat on the edge of the bed.
She lay on the bed, flushed, her eyes shining, then propped herself up on her elbows. “Freaking hell,” she said, in that breathless just-kissed voice of hers, “I thought I’d gotten you out of my system.”
“Thought?” he asked, his hopes rising. She hadn’t told him to get lost. Yes, actions spoke louder than words, but the two of them had this amazing chemistry, their bodies connected, and the sex was off-the-charts-amazing. But he didn’t want to go down that route again; he wanted a deeper connection, a meeting of minds. He didn’t want to rush it no matter what his body said, or hers.
“I didn’t come here to …to do this,” he said, then lay beside her on the bed. She lay down too, and then he took her hand and interlaced it with his. “Is this okay, or too much?” He wanted to hold her, but not come on too strong. The balancing act was killing him.
“It’s okay.”
They stared at one another. “I really only wanted you to hear me. I swear to you I never intended to end up kissing like this.”
“I started it,” she reminded him.
“So you did,” he replied, somewhat relieved. “I wouldn’t have started it, even though I’ve been dying to do that from the moment I saw you.”