by Wanda Edmond
Leaving the moment of passion she shared with her brother Ian was the right thing to do.
Kristina checked her flight on her mobile phone and she realized she was running late. She looked for the concierge, the manager Chemise, and she couldn't find a soul. Kristina pressed her fingers to her temple and she massaged her forehead.
If there was such thing as "luck", Kristina was sure she'd run out of any. If luck was real, she and Ian would have found a way to remember only the good times, probably. Though the moments they had stolen together before their parents had gotten involved, had been the most scintillatingly sexy times Kristina had ever felt.
If anyone who knew her at the time had asked, Kristina would have confessed she loved a man she could never have.
Kristina’s thoughts flashed to Ian's firm hardness pressed against her naked body and she shivered.
"Where is that concierge—?" Kristina looked at her phone and then she used a computer on the spa desk to ping for a shuttle.
Kristina had minutes to get away before Ian found her. She promised herself she wouldn’t let it happen. Kristina knew Ian would shake earth and sky to make her fall for him if she gave him the chance. She decided no one would make that happen again. Not her dad, not her stepmom. She’d roamed from family to family with throughout foster care—and love wasn’t the life she’d witnessed.
Kristina Layne-Knight was persuaded fully there was no such thing as, "They lived happily ever after".
Just look at Prince Charming. He had the prettiest girl in all the kingdom. Then they wed and Cindy spent all her time wandering around a castle, and she was the same little waif that she always was.
Kristina had enough of fairy tale wishes and princes who slayed a mighty dragon. She decided she would make her own happy ever after real and live her life real. That was sensible, and infinitely safer.
Best, she wouldn't think about her gorgeous, sexy, and muscly stepbrother.
So what if Ian was a cute, software-designer, whose smile made his bronzed cheeks dimple?
Kristina guessed Ian had confessed he was a self-made programmer so he could try and impress her. Ian was probably a playboy who enjoyed playing with women's hearts and then ripping them out of their chests and feeding them to the sharks.
Were there sharks off the Miami coast where she and Ian swam? What if the beasts had attacked? Oh, why did she always have to act on impulse when she let her guard down?
Kristina stood at the spa desk waiting for somebody to come. She wasn't going to think about Ian Knight again. Kristina crossed her arms puffing out air over her lips.
So Ian was rich. People like him usually hoarded their wealth, or, they flaunted it. Besides, six years had passed between her and Ian, and she knew money wasn't Ian's problem. Her brother was stuck in the past, and Kristina told him he should get over it.
Kristina searched he outdoor spa patio, looking for someone to tend to guests.
So her stepbrother was fine, well-built, and he ran a successful business. Lots of people did.
Kristina smiled at a middle-aged couple who waited at the spa desk for somebody to come.
So what if her brother Ian was practically perfect in every way; she didn't care.
Kristina signed her vacation voucher when she saw the spa attendant coming.
Kristina didn't care if Ian was a billionaire, a billion times over...
Not today, not tomorrow…not ever!
Chapter 1
Kristina slung her tote over her naked shoulder, scurrying inside the Miami International Airport, suitcase in tow. She had another weekend she could have spent at the Spa; she’d hoped she would have be able to relax on her vacation.
The lifetime of coffee she had won from the Tango Tango café, and the complementary spa and message she'd been given by the café owner Nacho Richards, had been the ultimate surprise.
The tote Kristina ran with slipped down her arm. A bag of Nacho's wonderful coffee rolled out onto the Airport floor. Dozens of French vanilla coffee beans spewed from the colorful coffee bag and whizzed across the floor.
Each bean she stuffed into the coffee bag slipped out with oodles more.
"Oh, don't let me miss my flight," Kristina prayed, reaching across the Airport floor to pick up the beans.
Kristina pinched at the coffee beans, wondering if the weekend could get any crazier. Kristina was desperate to get away from Ian. She'd given her spa vacation to a French couple, hoping they would enjoy the warm Miami coastal waters more than she had.
‘You are such a darling,’ the fiftyish wife said.
‘You sure you don't want to spend the rest of your vacation here?’ The woman's husband asked. ‘We've stayed at resorts around the world, and here is one of the finest.’
His wife nodded. ‘Are you sure you really don't want to stay?’
Kristina handed her card key to the attendant at the desk and she handed her complementary weekend voucher to the couple. ‘I’m sure.’
Now here Kristina was, in the middle of her long overdue vacation, and she was spending it snatching vanilla coffee beans like the preschool game, Hungry Hippos. As if nearly sleeping with her one and only stepbrother Ian Knight couldn't have made things any worse.
Oh, how could she have let herself take things so far with Ian?
Kristina saw a child fall down while his mother struggled with a travel case that looked like it weighed a ton. The mom got her son up right before he sailed off the walkway Skyride. Kristina could have been the one chasing beans on an auto conveyor. The trip could have gotten infinite worse, she realized.
Kristina gathered up the beans when she saw herself on an overhead security monitor. Her short-shorts in her bum and her new Wedges she'd decided to splurge for, displayed in High Definition for everyone in the North Terminal to see.
"I was absolutely mortified," Kristina stood with her tote and luggage, waiting to board her flight.
"What? You won a spa package?" Jasmine said through the Airport phone. "And you left?"
"I gave my package to a nice middle-aged couple, staying a week in town before they go back home to France," Kristina smiled at the security man, pretending she hadn't just stuck her butt in his face, big and bold, and in digital.
"I can't wait till I get back home."
Kristina heard her flight announce and she grabbed her things. "Goodness, I think I took the Skytrain to the wrong gate."
"Call me when you get in?" Jasmine said.
"I wouldn't bother you with picking me up." Kristina said.
"No bother at all. I'm assigned to you, now that Promotions is wining and dining the next round of writer talent."
Kristina had forgotten all about the PR. She guessed something great did come out seeing Ian. Daydreaming about him the past some odd years, and seeing him naked in the Miami surf was about all Kristina could stand. Just two hours with her stepbrother, and Kristina had laid in the sand with him, and she was ready to hand him her soul. What the heck was wrong with her, anyway?
"I need to get a grip," sighed Kristina.
"What you need is a stress-free vacation," replied Jasmine.
"Stress-free? What is that?" Kristina laughed.
"Ain't it the truth?" Jasmine said. "Krissy, I just searched all the arrivals into Georgia, and none of them say the gate I saw on your e-receipt."
Kristina looked at her smartphone and she reread her airline boarding receipt. "I think I know why. Jasmine, can I ring you back?"
"Text me your flight deets when you can," asked Jasmine.
"We'll catch up as soon as I'm in town," promised Kristina.
"Not if Elise gets you first. PR is swamped with the new arrivals. Krissy, you're not going to believe who's been assigned to you—."
"Assigned?" Kristina said as the minutes on the Airport phone counted down. "Jasmine, to whom..?"
Chapter 2
Jasmine picked up Kristina; then they arrived at the Syren Agency as Kristina rolled down the window of the compan
y car.
"Can't see what's going on." Kristina stuck out her head.
The Agency was peppered with photographers and microphones in front of an outdoor stage.
"Since when has the Syren started giving public press speeches?" Kristina asked, leaning too far out of the car.
A photographer spotted Kristina.
"There she is!"
Kristina looked right and then she looked left. She didn't see anybody; only her reflection in the passenger's side mirror. "I don't see anybody important." Kristina said, tucking her head back into the car.
"What gives?"
Jasmine peeked in the rearview mirror and she told Kristina to strap herself in tight.
"Why," said Kristina.
"Hey, girl in the car. Stop, we want to talk to you." Kristina stuck her head out of the company car again and saw two photographers snapping pictures.
"Jasmine, who are they taking pictures of," asked Kristina.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Jasmine said. "Didn't you get my texts?"
"I've been on vacation. Or what was supposed to be a vacation. Elise told me no lolllygagging around the Agency website, or reading about the Agency's latest client roster, remember?" Kristina said.
"Elise is out of the country."
Kristina stared at Jasmine. "Are you kidding me? Who's going to run her side of Promotions when she's gone?"
"Glad you asked—." Jasmine punched numbers into the company car's video and Kristina screamed when the photographers reached the passenger side of the car.
"Kristina Knight?" A nerdy-looking photographer puffed against the glass.
"Do you have any comment about your taking the reins of the junior talent division of the biggest PR agency in Georgia--?"
Kristina turned from the photographer-reporter to Jasmine.
"Anything you want to tell me?"
Jasmine connected the company car video to Skype.
Kristina and Jasmine were greeted by Elise, their boss.
"Hello, Krissy."
"Hi, Elise. Before you ask, I cut my vacation short."
"The Agency's has plenty to keep you busy, and Jasmine, and the entire PR division too," said Elise.
"What is so red alert to make the agencies hustle for new talent?" Kristina peered into the background behind Elise. “Is that—the Gehry Museum, in Spain?"
"Bilbao, to be exact," replied Elise. "The Agency is introducing its first playwright.”
“I've been given extra PR as the liaison for the Agency," said Elise," while the Agency co-partners have settled in to their digs. Yours and the PR team's leads on our latest talent additions has positioned us into the top 50 PR firms on the eastern seaboard."
“You brought us the leads, Krissy, and thank you," Elise said, leaning close to her Skype screen. "If it wasn't for your research stealth, the Agency would have never brought its newest find Miguel, into the fold."
"Miguel de Una?" Kristina stared incredulously. "The Agency scored, 'De Una'?"
Kristina whistled low, glancing at Jasmine, as Jasmine rounded the Agency, heading uptown.
"The one and only," Elise said.
"That is amazing."
"Tell me about it," said. Elise. "Dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s to get here was short of a miracle." Elise pinned Kristina with a genuine smile. "The contacts you made and handed us before you went on vacation, are outdistancing the rest of the PR agencies from Georgia, to New York."
"The Frank Gehry Guggenheim Museum is Agency partner's Bo's idea. Your hustle deserves more than the paltry gift card you got before you left for your vacation. And how was Miami?” Elise asked, “anything exciting happen?"
"Somehow I think you already know." Kristina slanted her eyes to Jasmine and Jasmine pressed her lips together trying not to let out a chuckle.
"We do. What happened with the cafe in the news was nothing short of, genius. The backlinks the Agency got from surrounding agencies back in Georgia on our PR site were enough to get us a write up in the Digital Heat section of the Hollywood Reporter." Elise held up a copy of the trade magazine to the screen.
"Fantastic. Congratulations," Kristina smiled at Elise.
"We know everyone in PR, and you, have been working your buns off, Krissy. I've been working with the co-partners to get you something more than a hundred-dollars for expenses, and a serendipitous lifetime supply of vanilla bean coffee."
Kristina untied her pigtails, and she let her long hair cascade over her shoulders.
"Which brings me to why I sent for you, the moment you arrived, as promised," said Elise. "The partners and I would like to make all of your hard work pay off for you."
"About that," Kristina said. Kristina had shrugged out of her short shorts, and she donned a sarong over her black LAgent and Monica mini brief.
"Why were a couple of photographer-like news guys running after Jasmine in the Agency's car?"
"Yeah, right," Jasmine grinned softly.
Kristina slipped on a pair of open-toed evening sandals she had packed in her carryon. The black-onyx ankle straps and curved instep fit her petite feet like a dream.
Kristina passed by the shoes when was laid over at Miami International. She saw the pair sitting on a high white platform haloed like they were a gift from heaven. Kristina had tried them on and the instant her toes touched the sleek frame, she sighed, happy. Kristina used her own Platinum card; she knew better than to mix business with pleasure.
One day she planned to indulge in a whole lot more extravagances. Buying shoes and couture on a whim was infinitely more fun that feeling guilty about ravaging her stepbrother.
How could she have been so aggressive with her brother Ian and act like she wasn't completely infatuated with him?
"What do you mean, Jasmine?" Kristina said.
"Those slash reporters weren't following Jasmine. They were stragglers sniffing out a lead somebody planted." Kristina watched Elise enter something into her smartphone.
"They were following you." Jasmine said.
Chapter 3
Kristina looked at her mobile phone screen and she yelped.
The text Elise forwarded was a news clip of her. Goodness, Kristina had a write up about herself in the Georgian Atlanta-Journal-Constitution.
Kristina slipped off her bikini she had forgotten to change out of, after hightailing it from her almost-tryst with Ian. She snapped off the top only to freeze like a doe startled by a pair of car headlights. Kristina smiled ruefully into the Skype screen and she shrugged.
"You do this pretty often, do you, Kristina?" Elise noticed, her eyebrows raised.
Elise watched Kristina adjusting her top mini bra, hunched forward in the company car, while Jasmine drove through a jam-packed boulevard.
"I had to change." Kristina said defensively.
"Is it my imagination, or are you reading my mind?" Elise smiled.
"Okay. Will somebody tell me what's going on?" Kristina said.
Kristina knew she should have just stayed at the Miami Airport's International Hotel. The airport had its own mini city anyways, including a spa, and Kristina realized she could have lazed in the lap of luxury right at the Jetsetter Spa. The place did ‘manis’, ‘pedis’, and massages as good as any other frou-frou spa. According to what Kristina overhead from a group of college co-eds from Princeton dish about anyways. They’d giggled about playing hooky between classes, and Kristina was jealous.
Kristina could have gotten a spray tan but was afraid she would have missed her flight. She was too pale, and a tan would have made her feel good. Like she’d had time to sunbathe. She could have nixed Nacho’s cute café and had as much coffee as she wanted at the MIA Café Versailles.
What did she have instead? A whole lot of specialty coffee she'd had too much of and would probably share with everybody at the Agency, and nothing else except OJ, because she was too nervous to keep anything down.
She could never eat anything solid when she was stressed.
/> Kristina got a twinge in her stomach whenever she worried. Especially when it was about a certain someone. Ian had leaned out in his chest and waist, when the two of them finally did meet; and he had grown up and become devastatingly handsome.
No, Kristina couldn't let herself be around Ian. What would happen if she wasn't able to control what happened between them, if she did?