by Honor James
“Gigi, why do you dress so poorly?” her mother asked as she tugged on the sleeve of Gigi’s dress.
“Ah, well Mother, I guess that it’s because I don’t have the money to have my body reconstructed, so instead I take care of my body through natural ways like diet and exercise? As for my clothes—” she stepped back—“Mother, this is designer, so if you don’t like it, I’m sure you can figure out which one that it is and you can give them a call.” Her mother the socialite. A woman that was so unlike her father, it was stunning that they had ever been married.
“Well please do something about yourself. At least your hair.” She looked down her nose at Gigi.
“Date someone your age instead of mine?” She loved her mother, but the woman always seemed to know just which buttons to push to make Gigi fighting mad.
“Gigi,” the woman said with a high voice.
“Daddy?” Gigi said then in shock and stepped around her mother. She walked to her father and threw herself into his arms. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the scent that was all her father. The clean and crisp scent. The oil that he used on his military dress shoes, the starch in his dress uniform. All of it. “I didn’t know you would be here.” He was her father and Sandy’s uncle, but not one well liked at all. He was a four-star general for the military and served on more than one presidential panel in his years. He was ten years older than her mother but he didn’t look a day over fifty.
“Hello kitten,” he said affectionately. “Your mother giving you a hard time again?”
“Well you know.” Gigi shrugged and wrapped her arm around his middle. Giving him another hug, she looked to her mom. “Mother, we will catch up later. For now, I’m going to go and catch up with Daddy.” It was funny, her mother had forbidden her from calling her Mom or Mommy, it had to be Mother and only mother.
“As you wish.” She waved a hand in the air and sighed. She looked up at Ralph and said, “Children.”
Gigi just looked at Ralph as if to dare him to say something about that. Especially when the man was her age.
With her arm around her father’s waist, she walked away from her mother, talking to her father and catching up with him as she did so.
* * * *
Two days later...
Gigi stood in the lineup there in the front of the sham of a wedding. She shifted slightly because the dress she was in was beyond uncomfortable. It was stiff and so ugly that she could just scream. Gigi was a redhead with very pale skin and the dress was fire engine red as well. It was very unflattering, and a shock to be in honestly.
She tried to recall just how she had been trapped into being a bridesmaid, and then laid it at the feet of the hunky man that she had bumped into while trying to escape her aunt and mother’s machinations on trapping her into being a bridesmaid since the one who was supposed to do it ran off with Ralph, her mother’s boyfriend.
That thought had Gigi giggling, her eyes turning, and seeing her mother with red-rimmed eyes. Yes she was sad for her mother, but she was also doing a fist-pump mentally because her mother finally got what she deserved.
That fast though Gigi stopped giggling and sighed. Crap, she hated this. She hated weddings. She thought that marriage and real love were fictional memes that were only created so that people like her could write and make money from those that read the drivel they put out.
She looked over the people in the crowd and her gaze landed on the reason she was standing in front of these people in the hideous red dress she was in. He was, well, he was spectacular. He was also a service man and good lord, he was drop dead gorgeous. His body was one that would make the gods weep in envy, but it was his eyes that danced with laughter and goodwill that made her nearly melt at his feet like all the other women did.
She tried to look away, but she couldn’t find it in herself to do so. Lordy, but she wanted to see if his body was as perfect under the dress BDUs as it looked like it would be. The fact that her father seemed to know him, as well as her godfather, well that was something else altogether.
Taking a deep breath she forced herself to break the connection that seemed to form with the too-handsome Marine, Master Sergeant if she wasn’t mistaken, and back to the rest of the wedding party. God, she hated this.
She licked her lips and cringed. She forgot that she had on some nasty-ass lipstick that had a glaze of glitter on top of it until she licked her lips, that was.
Once more, she forced herself to focus on anything but the here-and-now. She needed to get off the island. A wedding getaway, her mom told her a week on an island without cars or internet was just what she needed. Gigi snorted. Yeah right. She had a deadline and needed to meet it. Instead she was on the flipping island for another five stupid days.
She looked around and saw that everyone was shifting and beginning to whisper. She wondered where the hell Sandy was, and then realized it was just her and her drama-rama ways. She was pranking everyone the way that she had pranked Gigi last night.
Right, note to self, Gigi thought, need to make sure to get the letters and dead flowers that were sent to her into the trash before anyone else saw them and thought that I was trying to rain on Sandy’s parade. Yeah right. She knew that the disgusting things had come from her cousin. The woman hated that Gigi had her own career and turned her back on the family money and instead forged her own way in the world.
Nope, she needed to dispose of all of that and then she needed to go down to the dock and talk to the locals to see if she could possibly get one of them to get her off that bloody island before she killed someone.
When the wedding waltz started, all eyes turned to Sandy, thank god, and the bride started down the aisle. About damn time, too, in her mind.
Chapter Three
Gigi danced with her father, a smile of pure happiness on her face as she moved around on the dance floor with him. “I’ve missed you, Daddy. We need to make sure to see each other more often. You know that, right?”
“I know, kitten.”
“But for now I need to get out of here. I have got to get out of this freaking dress.”
He laughed. The sound was warm and rich, robust just like the man. “Red never was your color.” He touched her silky red curls and smiled. “Except for your hair. Beautiful, my little princess.”
Gigi’s heart melted for her father. She might not believe in the forever kind of love between a man and a woman, but she fully believed in the love a daughter and father share, or mother and daughter and whatever. A child and parent’s love was one that was pure and forever, unlike the love of a man for a woman. God only knew she understood that. Her mother was on her seventh husband, no, wait they had divorced and she was now looking for number eight.
So, therefore, she didn’t believe in that. At all.
“I will see you at dinner?”
“Of course you will,” he told her and danced her around to the hall. “Go. I will keep your mother from hunting you down.”
“You are the best, Daddy.” She gave him another hug and kiss on the cheek before racing off, kicking the shoes off so that she could actually run instead of teetering in six-inch spike heels.
* * * *
Sidling up next to the four-star general, Michael nodded to the man. “Sir,” he said quietly. David’s boss was coming toward them, so he nodded to the man as well. “Sir,” he added for the gentleman.
“Having fun?” the General asked.
“Define fun, Sir,” he said.
The director of David’s unit chuckled into his glass. “Not enjoying all the women flocking your way because of your pretty uniform, Son?”
Just thinking about the women he’d had to fend off in the last twenty-four hours was enough for Michael to break out in hives. Yeah, he’d never had trouble attracting a woman, but this was entirely different. He felt a lot like a lamb thrown into the cage with six very hungry lions that were all eyeing him up. Not a comfortable feeling in the least.
“I’m going to have to go with
a no on that one, Sir,” he told the man.
“Leave the lad be, Sid,” General Fletcher said with a chuckle. “These society women are a whole new kettle of fish. Trust me when I tell you this, Michael. They are circling sharks all waiting for that first whiff of blood in the water. Don’t let them see you sweat. They will attack, and they won’t let up either.”
“Understood, Sir,” he nodded. Looking around, he noticed that the redhead, Gigi, as he’d learned her name to be, was nowhere to be seen. Another piece of intel he’d managed to pick up was that she was the four-star general’s daughter. His one and only daughter, no less.
“Anything of note we need to be aware of, Son?” the Director, one Sidney J. Hackerman, asked.
Taking another look around, Michael met the man’s gaze finally. “So far, it’s a big load of nothing.” But his neck was starting to itch and he was getting one of those warnings from his gut that something wasn’t quite right. “If you will excuse me, Sirs. I’m going to go and do a quick sweep.”
“Smart plan,” General Fletcher said. “I’d head through the kitchen though, not a one of these women would be caught dead in there for anything more than appearance’s sake, or a photo-op.”
Taking the man at his word, Michael left the men to chat as he wound a path toward the kitchen. He could feel a number of hungry gazes on his back, lower actually, as he tried not to scurry like a rat off a sinking ship toward safety. It was a close thing, and he even had to do some fancy footwork to put a poor sucker between him and a hungry-looking woman.
Slipping through the doors to the kitchen, he let out a relieved breath. Setting the glass of water aside, he kept on moving straight through and out a back door. He’d do a quick recon of the exterior and then return to sweep through the rest of the resort. Something was off, and he knew better than to ignore his gut in any sort of situation.
* * * *
Gigi had made it to her room without any sort of issue at all. Thankfully there had been no one really in the halls other than the staff. When she made it to her bedroom, she stripped out of the dress and wadded it up and tossed it into the trash. “What an ugly freaking dress. I can’t believe that she wanted everyone in red damn dresses. Hooker colors,” she grumbled.
She walked to the closet and pulled on a light summer dress, the light mint color a perfect color to compliment her hair and skin. She tugged her hair out of the intricate braids that had taken two horrific and torturing hours to complete. She then brushed it with her fingers and pushed it back instead of putting it back up. Her head ached, her feet hurt, and she wanted nothing more than to climb into the massive tub that was in her room and relax.
She couldn’t though and knew it. Taking a deep breath, she slipped on her soft and comfortable deck shoes and smiled. “Mother is going to have a kitten when she sees how I’m dressed.” Her mother was as snotty as they came and she knew it.
When Gigi looked up she tilted her head to the side and frowned. “Wait, that was closed,” she said as she stalked toward the double French doors that stood open now.
She was about two feet from the doors when she heard the shouts and commotions—the screams from the wedding party—and stalled mid-step. That’s when she saw it, a shadow as it slid across the floor, a shadow that came from something or someone behind her.
She twisted around so fast that she caught her feet on each other and screamed. A large gloved hand closed over her mouth and handcuffs snapped closed over her wrists.
She was shocked. More than a little. Then she began to fight. She pulled out every dirty trick her father and his men over the years had taught her, taking the surprise from the man in front of her as her cue and running to the doors. Her hands were in front of her locked in the handcuffs, but she was tackled to the floor before she made it off of the cement patio.
Her chin hit the hard concrete first. Stars exploded before her eyes and pain ricocheted through her whole being. Son of a bitch, that hurt!
The heavy body that had fallen over her back lifted and she was roughly pulled to her feet. She felt the blood pouring down her chin, from her mouth and nose. She was then gifted with a gag around her mouth, the ends tightening around her head so much that her teeth hurt even more and her hair was knotted in the scarf or whatever had been used to keep her silent.
She cursed herself now for not screaming, making more noise, so she did all she could.
She grabbed the vase and tossed it awkwardly at the cement, anything to make noise. But she heard it, the screams from the bridal party, the chaos that seemed to be a part of that hall at the moment, and knew she was so screwed. Whatever was going on in there was louder than she could ever be, and she wasn’t going to be saved or have someone find her. Not with that happening, too.
Shit! She had to think. She grabbed a piece of the vase in her hands, the glass cutting into her fingers, but she held it all the same. She sliced at the man as he came for her again. She sliced the shard of glass into his chest and down, cutting him deeply, and then was relieved when he stumbled back from her.
Once more she got to her feet. Her vision was wavering, but she began to run all the same, one shoe on and one off.
She stumbled again, and into the arms of a seriously hunky Marine that stepped from the side of the property and into her.
Chapter Four
When the petite body slammed into his, Michael almost didn’t recognize her. Only the red hair saved her from anything he might have done given his training. But he did recognize her, even with the bloody mess she was.
“I’ve got you, shh,” he said. He looked around and assessed the situation quickly. Lifting her off her feet, he moved out to the sand and under a tree. Kneeling, he put her down under it, shrugged off his jacket, and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Stay right here. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” he said.
Tugging at his tie, Michael began to roll his sleeves up as he stalked toward the large shape peeling itself up off the cement of Gigi’s patio. Stuffing the tie in his pocket, he rolled his head around to loosen up the kinks.
When the big man got to his feet, he grinned. “Care to try picking on someone more your size?” he asked. The big guy seemed to think about that, for all of two seconds. Then he charged, aiming low.
Amateur. Rolling his eyes, Michael sidestepped at the last minute and threw a hard punch down that caught the guy right behind the ear. Big guy hit the sand and stayed there. “Well that seriously sucks ass. I’d have thought you’d at least have had the energy for maybe a second round.”
Going to the guy, Michael patted him down and found a keycard, and a cell phone. Flipping the phone open, he saw two numbers programmed in and nothing else. Burner for sure. He tucked that away in his pocket for later as he pulled his tie from the other pocket.
Quickly, he tied the guy’s hands behind his back in a way he wouldn’t be getting free anytime soon. Getting up, he went to her open balcony door and yanked the tie back from the curtain free. Michael used that to tie the guy’s feet together, and then looped it through the tie around his wrists, effective hog-tying the man.
One problem down, now to deal with the larger issue. A very bloody four-star general’s daughter. Taking long strides over the sand, he approached so she could see him coming, his hands up and away from his body. “It’s just me. I’m going to scoop you up and then take you to my room to get you cleaned up. Are you okay with that?” he asked as he knelt by her side. With gentle fingers, he pushed her hair back from her much-too-pale face to get a better look at her. “Gigi, are you okay with that or do you want me to call your father to come and look after you?”
She tugged at the gag that was around her mouth and shook. “Please tell me you can get these off of me. While I love silver, these hurt.” She held her wrists up, noticing just how badly she was shaking. “No, Daddy will lose his mind if he sees me like this.” She hurt, god help her, but she hurt so badly that she was ready to pass out from it. “The party, wh
at happened?” Her head hurt, every inch of her body hurt actually.
She lifted her hands when he picked her up and looped them oddly around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. “I think I’m going to pass out now.” She confessed to him and continued to shake. “Your room, please?” She whispered and felt the world starting to turn black around the edges.
“No, damn it. You need to stay awake, Gigi. You likely have one hell of a concussion and there will be no sleeping for you, at least not right away. I need you to stay conscious for me, honey.” He was moving quickly over the sand in a way that wasn’t bouncing her around. Thank goodness, she didn’t think she’d survive any more abuse. “I’m going to get you to the room and into the shower where you are going to strip down and clean up. While you do that, sitting down if need be, I’m going to go back and clean out your room. So no passing out at any time,” he ordered.
“Trying not to,” she grumbled. “Son of a whore, that hurts.” Her teeth hurt, her chin hurt, everything hurt. “Michael, right? Marine?” She had to think of something other than the pain, needed to focus on moving. She pulled back and looked up at the skies when the first fat drop of water fell on them and then laughed. She couldn’t help it, not when the skies opened up and began to pour. “Of course,” she muttered when the wind picked up and the lightning cracked the skies like an angry two-year-old throwing a tantrum. “Why not storm on this night?” Once more she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. “Thank you,” she whispered then.
He stopped outside a sliding door, and after a bit of work got it to slide open. They were inside moments later, getting them out of the rain. Through the darkened room, they went into a bathroom with a light on. He gently sat her on the vanity and slipped from her arms. “Yes, my name is Michael and I am a Marine,” he said. Gently, he lifted her arms to look at the cuffs. “Give me a minute, I’m going to need a couple things to get these off you. Are you okay to sit here a minute alone?”