by Rachel Woods
“Why right now?” D.J. asked, and Sione suspected his cousin was glad for the chance to deflect and redirect the conversation away from his problems.
“All these issues with the land deal,” Sione said, doing a bit of redirection himself, deciding to blame his need for distraction on the continued delays in securing land for his “guest tree houses” at the resort. “And speaking of that, I’ve got some proposals to go over.”
D.J. got the message and after his cousin left, Sione found himself thinking about his cousin’s initial question.
Did you talk to your dad about his visit to Moana?
A week ago, when D.J. had told him about Richard’s visit to Moana, Sione had been harassed by the idea of going to see his father, and he couldn’t shake the thought. Dealing with Richard was the last thing Sione wanted to do.
Ben’s response to the reason Kelsey Thomas had been sent to search his casita had been ask your father. Sione had decided he didn’t want to ask Richard anything and had told himself to forget about it. He didn’t really care what Kelsey Thomas had been sent to find, what the hell his father had been looking for, or why his father thought it was somewhere in his casita.
Then Moana had called him, accusing Richard of wanting her dead.
Your father came to visit me in prison. He wanted me to steal something from Ben Chang.
Moana claimed she’d refused to fulfill Richard’s request, but was that really true? Or had she convinced his cousin Peter to steal what Richard wanted?
An envelope that belonged to Ben Chang.
Peter had told him where the envelope was hidden, and Sione had confirmed that it was there, but he hadn’t opened the envelope. He’d left it where Peter had stashed it.
Standing, Sione walked to the windows and stared out at the jungle. Since hearing Peter’s story of the hidden envelope, Sione had been thinking about Kelsey Thomas. He’d caught her searching his casita office, and when confronted, she’d claimed to be looking for Sione’s passport. Maybe she’d lied.
Supposedly, after finding the passport, she would get further instructions from Ben. The next steps. She’d claimed she had no idea what those next steps were. But, again, maybe she’d lied. Maybe Kelsey Thomas’ next steps had something to do with what Richard had wanted Moana to steal from Ben Chang, which Sione assumed was the envelope Moana had told Peter to hide.
The idea of a connection between Kelsey Thomas and the hidden envelope was both taunting and teasing. Maybe Kelsey Thomas had been sent to retrieve the envelope Peter had hidden.
But, no, that didn’t make sense.
Ben had sent Kelsey Thomas to look for something in his casita, but only because Richard had told Ben to send the woman on some scavenger hunt. Why would Richard tell Ben to have her search for an envelope that Richard wanted to steal from Ben?
Sione turned from the window and walked back to his desk. If he wanted answers, he would have to question his father. All roads led back to Richard. But those were dangerous roads, leading straight to hell. Roads he had to avoid, at all costs.
chapter 77
San Ignacio, Belize
Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita
In the kitchen, Sione loaded plates and glasses in the dishwasher beneath the large island, feeling like a damn fool. Over veal and wine, he and Spencer had talked about a variety of things—mostly safe topics such as movies, books, television shows, and art.
Spencer hadn’t been very forthcoming about her life back in Texas, which didn’t surprise him, considering the painful memories she’d reluctantly shared with him. But she’d shared several entertaining, hilarious stories about her adventures with the girls, mimicking their voices and mannerisms and antics perfectly in her delivery.
Sione had talked about his life on the Pacific island of A’arotanga, where he’d lived for eight years, learning the real estate business from his uncle. He’d even told her about his ideas for the tree house expansion, giving her chapter and verse about all the highs and lows.
Not once had Sione brought up the fake passports and money.
While making dinner, he’d tried to decide how he would broach the subject with her and had figured he would just confront her. With no hesitation, or reservations, he would tell her that he knew she’d lied about the contents of the banker’s box. And if she tried to deny his accusations, he’d tell her that DJ had found the Xanax box she’d delivered to Maxine Porter.
Dinner with her tonight was supposed to have been a good opportunity to demand answers, except he hadn’t demanded answers. and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe his reluctance had something to do with the very short skirt and the very revealing tank top she was wearing, but he couldn’t blame his cowardice on her good looks.
Her beauty aside, he should have demanded to know what the hell was going on. He didn’t know what his damn problem was when it came to Spencer. Yes, she was beautiful, but many girls looked just as good, and maybe even better, but whenever she came around, he lost focus, couldn’t seem to concentrate, couldn’t make sound decisions.
Disappointed in himself, Sione stacked more dirty plates into the dishwashing rack and then slammed the door. Taking a deep breath, he turned, catching sight of the refrigerator at the opposite end of the center island. On the door was the picture Spencer had been drawing when she suddenly burst into tears. Sione stared at the picture held in place by a magnet.
Spencer had been drawing palm trees and a blue sky and seemed to be outlining what might have been a boat in the ocean, if not for the long, incongruous pencil mark. The jagged line was like a scar against the paper, and for some reason, he thought of his own scars, the ones no one could see.
Little gashes and nicks kept hidden were always the deepest, most painful. Those emotional wounds had driven him halfway around the world to a place of swaying palms, blue skies, and turquoise water—a tranquil paradise where he’d began to heal.
Sione hadn’t told Spencer the real reason he’d moved to A’arotanga. He’d made it sound like a well-thought out decision. The truth was, he’d fled there, escaping a brutal, violent destiny, the broad road leading straight to hell.
His uncle always said Sione had been snatched out of the fire. But “snatched out” meant he’d been in the fire, and he hadn’t escaped unscathed—he’d been burned. He’d turned his life around, but he knew there was still an opportunity for the flames to flare up again, and it had almost happened with the Asian guy who’d attacked Spencer.
He’d been angry, and it had been so easy to abandon his progress and turn back to the old way of solving problems. For a split second, he could see his hand around the bastard’s throat; he could see himself squeezing every breath from the man’s body.
Sione shook the disturbing, depressing thoughts away, pissed that a stupid unfinished picture drawn by a crook could make him ruminate on things he liked to avoid. Exhaling, he turned.
Spencer stood in the arched entrance of the kitchen, staring straight ahead, almost transfixed, and when he followed her gaze, it led him to the refrigerator to the same unfinished, crudely drawn picture he’d been contemplating.
chapter 78
San Ignacio, Belize
Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita
“What is that?” Spencer stared at the picture she’d been drawing with John’s little second cousins, heart pounding as she focused on the crooked line trailing toward the edge of the paper.
In her mind, she’d imagined a tropical deserted island where a girl was all alone, but then she’d planned to add a man in a sailboat, maybe coming to rescue her, but she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t decided. Maybe he was coming to stay on the island with her. Maybe she would hit him in the head with a coconut, steal the boat, and leave him deserted.
“That’s the picture you were drawing.”
Spencer closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them. “Why is it on the refrigerator?”
“The girls wanted me to put it up there,” he said. “They
were hoping you would come back and finish it.”
“I can’t do that.” She walked toward the refrigerator, thinking of how she’d always wanted to see the pictures she’d drawn as a child, proudly displayed, but that had never happened.
“Why not?” he asked.
Spencer looked at him, but his hazel eyes were too sincere again, and she had to look away. She didn’t want to lie to him, but there was no other option. The truth was too painful, but it was her pain, exclusively for her, and she couldn’t expect anyone else to understand it. She didn’t even want anyone feeling sorry for her—especially not a man who would probably be the perfect hero, wrapping his strong arms around her while she cried.
She wasn’t going to long for that kind of understanding and protection. She couldn’t be weak and helpless. She wasn’t going to start crying every time some bad memory showed up to torment her.
“Why didn’t you finish the picture?” he asked. “Why’d you get so upset? You and my cousins were sitting there, having a good time, and then something happened, and—”
“Maggie asked me if I was going to give my picture to my mommy,” Spencer snapped, frustrated and pissed by his damn questions. “And the answer was no, I would never give the picture to my mother, but I couldn’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because …” She stopped, desperate to come up with some version of the truth that wouldn’t reveal too much, that wouldn’t leave her collapsed on the floor in tears. “Because my mother doesn’t really like hand-drawn pictures, and ...”
John looked worried and too damn concerned. Spencer feared he was about to unleash another attack of questions she couldn’t answer, questions she refused to answer, because she wasn’t going to fall apart in front of him.
“Tell me why you got so upset that day?”
“Why do you have to know about that?” she asked, irritated. “Why does it matter why I got upset?”
“Because …” John took her hand. “I want to know more about you, I want to understand you.”
Sighing, she said, “Can’t you ask me something else? I mean, I don’t even really remember why—”
“Okay, then tell me why you don’t want to tell me,” he said.
Cursing softly, Spencer looked away, desperate to avoid the sadness that always accompanied memories of her mother’s abuse, mistreatment, and neglect.
Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tell me,” John coaxed.
Spencer glanced at him. The concern and compassion in his hazel eyes encouraged her, made her a little less apprehensive. “I got upset when Maggie asked me if I was going to give my drawing to my mother”—Spencer tried to keep her voice even and her emotions in check—“Because it made me remember this time when …”
“When?”
Blinking, she looked away toward the wall of French windows that looked out toward the jungle. “My mother was angry and sad a lot.” She cleared her throat. “She suffered from bipolar disorder. I realize that now, but when I was a little girl, I couldn’t understand her mood swings, one minute she’s happy and then she would get so furious.”
“It’s okay,” John said. “You don’t have to—”
“No, I do.” She looked at him and then went on. “One time, when my mother was upset, I wanted to make her feel better. I decided to draw a picture of the two of us, holding hands, and … she used to stay in her room with the door closed, and she would tell me not to bother her—”
“She told you not to bother her?”
“She just meant that she needed to rest.” She was quick to explain, hoping he wouldn’t judge her mother too harshly. “Anyway, I knew I was supposed to let her rest, but I just wanted to show her the picture I’d made for her. I thought it might make her feel better, but …” As the tears welled and then slid down her cheeks, an overwhelming heaviness settled in Spencer’s chest.
“Listen, it doesn’t matter why you got upset,” John said. “We don’t have to talk about this right now—”
“I went into her room, and I told her I had drawn her a picture so she wouldn’t be sad.” She continued, unable to stop, even though the memories were brutal, almost killing her. “But she screamed at me, she told me that she needed to rest, and she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just let her rest, and she said I was such a disappointment, and then she grabbed the drawing and ripped it to pieces, and she told me to go back to my room and to not come out until she told me to, and …”
Gently, John pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her, and she tried to lose herself in his strong embrace, sobbing quietly as she remembered the rest of the story, the part she didn’t want to tell him, the part that still terrified her.
As she’d watched the pieces of torn paper float to the ground, her mother screamed at her to get out and go back to her room. Eventually, she turned around and ran to her room. She’d closed the door and curled up in one of the corners, crying and trembling and confused, wondering what she had done wrong and wishing she could just disappear.
Moments later, her mother had entered her room. What happened next was still fuzzy in Spencer’s mind. She only remembered the screaming curses and the excruciating pain. Then there was darkness. And then, light …
She’d opened her eyes to find her grandmother sitting next to her, clasping her hands as she whispered prayers, tears streaming down her cheeks. Much later, Spencer learned her mother had beaten her so severely, she’d suffered head trauma. Subsequently, she slipped into a coma and had woken up five days later.
A next-door neighbor had heard the terrifying commotion and called the police, but by the time the authorities had shown up, her mother had disappeared. She didn’t return until five years later.
“I’m sorry,” John said.
Sniffing, she lifted her head to look at him, knowing why he was sorry. John regretted asking her, regretted having to deal with another chapter from the book of her abusive, neglected childhood. Spencer regretted telling him. What the hell had she been thinking? What the hell was her damn problem? She had no right to share emotionally, gut-wrenching memories from her past with him. She had no right to act as though they were in some sort of relationship where the point was to get to know more about each other.
John wasn’t some guy she was trying to build a life with. John was the man Ben had forced her to get close to, but not too close, so she could sneak around his casita looking for a damn envelope. She had to concentrate on getting the favor done. Then she could move on with her life.
It would be a life that didn’t include John; a life that couldn’t include him because they weren’t right for each other. Good guys and bad girls only hooked up in those romance novels her sister Shady was always reading, and her life was not some romance novel.
Spencer didn’t know what it was about the resort owner. Yes, he was handsome and sexy, very much so, but so were many guys. His muscles and good looks didn’t give her license to forget she could go to jail if she didn’t find the envelope.
Panicked by her wayward thoughts, Spencer put her arms around him. She would have to kiss him again, the way she had the last time they’d gotten too close to the topic of her mother. It was an incongruous act, considering the tension of her emotional turmoil, but kissing him was easier than struggling to think of some lie to steer him away from that painful subject.
She pressed her lips against his. He complied, but she sensed his reluctance and wasn’t surprised when he removed her arms and broke the kiss, giving her a look she couldn’t understand.
“I’m sorry.” Embarrassed by her impulse, she slid off his lap and walked to the table, turning from his piercing gaze and trying to catch her breath. She’d only kissed him to distract him from the horrible story from her childhood, but kissing him was distracting in all the wrong ways. “Listen, I need to explain,” she began and turned.
In the intervening moments, John had moved closer to her, elimi
nating the space and the strange tension that separated them. Their bodies were inches apart, and when she glanced up, the look in his hazel eyes was an intoxicating brew of desire and indignation.
Spurred by his gaze, without preamble or permission, Spencer stood on her toes, and this time John didn’t hesitate to bend down so she could put her arms around him and press her mouth against his, letting her lips linger there, allowing the sensations to build and surge and float through her body. Feeling brazen, she parted his lips with her tongue, licking his bottom lip, pinching it softly between her teeth, giving it a few quick nibbles and gentle pecks before sliding her tongue deep into his mouth, circling her tongue around his. The kiss continued, unbroken, her hands moving over his muscles, along his pecs, and down his abs while their tongues swirl slowly.
Spencer felt John’s fingers against her neck, moving over her collarbone. He touched her left breast, his index finger circling the swollen nipple, and then he broke the kiss, bending his head toward her neck, his mouth following the trail his fingers made.
Still in brazen mode, Spencer grabbed his other hand and led it beneath the hem of her flowing, gauzy miniskirt, pressing his hand against her leg. Taking her lead, John moved his hand along the inside of her thigh. His other hand was busy pulling the thin strap of her tank top off her shoulder, exposing her breast. Dipping his head lower, his mouth hovered over her nipple, his breath warm.
Spencer’s heart slammed, and she bit her lip, the anticipation building between her legs, and when he pulled the crotch of her panties to the side and slid his finger near the opening of her vagina, she moaned, marveling at the pleasure of such a hesitant touch, so concentrated and searing.
Abruptly, John removed his fingers to untie his sarong, letting it fall to the floor. Spencer looked down at him, and her gasp was so loud, it was almost a scream. Was that a penis or a damn python? She half-expected a forked tongue to slither out of the head, and she imagined that when he put it in her, she’d feel it licking the inside of her walls as its huge thickness moved within her. Probably, as soon as he put it in, she’d feel the head teasing her cervix.