Come Undone: Romance Stories Inspired by the Music of Duran Duran

by Kim Carmichael

  “Judging by your lab results, you’re the one who needs it. This isn’t a joke, Chase. You need to put down that phone and listen to me for once. Please.”

  He sighed and placed his phone on the bed next to him. John wasn’t just his fraternity brother and college roommate, he was his best friend and acted more like a real brother to him than that idiot George. So, if John wanted him to listen, Chase had no choice but to do just that.

  His friend sat on the chair next to the hospital bed and flipped through papers attached to a metal binder. “Although you didn’t sustain a concussion, your blood pressure after you regained consciousness in the ambulance was through the roof. It’s been okay since we admitted you, but we’ve noticed spikes in the last couple of hours. Something tells me that phone is the reason.”

  “So give me some pills to take, I’ll cut down on the red meat and I’ll take the stairs instead of the elevator. See? I can handle this.”

  John closed the binder. “I don’t think you understand what happened to you. You lost consciousness for a few minutes, because you hyperventilated. I suspect you had an anxiety attack.”

  Chase laughed. “Anxiety attack? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Anxiety isn’t just about nerves. It’s about stress. I know what you’ve been dealing with the last few months at the company. With your dad passing away and your Board leaning on you to take over while also handling all of the financials, it’s no wonder your body is freaking out. You need a break, Chase. Now.”

  “Yeah, like that’s going to happen. There’s too much going on. Things will start slowing down in the fall. I’ll take a few days off then.”

  “Look, man. You know I’d do anything for you, but I’m not about to sign your death certificate, because if you don’t slow down, that’s exactly what I’m going to be asked to do. I’m not saying you’re going to have a heart attack tomorrow, but with what just happened to your dad...”

  Chase winced. “Come on, John. It can’t be that bad.”

  “Not right now, but it’s going to be. That’s why I’m not giving you a medical release to go back to work just yet.”

  Heat rushed straight to his head. He wasn’t dizzy though, just royally pissed. “Are you fucking serious? Jesus Christ, John! The company needs me. Especially right now.”

  “I spoke to George and he’s going to hire a financial consultant to handle things while you’re off. He also notified the Board and they know they can be sued if they let you back into the building before I say it’s okay.”

  “I can’t believe you talked to my brother about this behind my back.” Chase clenched the hospital sheet next to him, not quite trusting that his fist wouldn’t go searching for John’s gut.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. Hopefully, one day you’ll thank me.”

  “Whatever, dude,” he spat out. “Just let me get out of here.”

  “Fine, but remember, I’m not signing that medical release until I’m sure you’ve followed all of my discharge instructions and that includes this.” John handed Chase a white paper folded in half. He expected to see a prescription form when he opened it. Instead, it looked like a print-out of an email from a hotel.

  Chase held the paper closer to his face and read it. He scanned his name and calendar dates and realized it was a reservation confirmation for a seven-day stay at some place called Isla Bonita Resort in Cancun, Mexico.

  Mexico?

  “What the hell is this?” He waved the paper in John’s face.

  “It says you’re confirmed for a—”

  “I can read, asshole. What I want to know is what the hell is this?”

  “Cassandra and I booked this vacation almost a year ago, but her company is in the middle of a big merger and it’s not a good time for her to go out of the country. It’s too late to cancel or get a refund, so I changed the reservation to your name. You fly out this afternoon.”

  “This is crazy. I don’t even know where my passport is. I have to make arrangements with the housecleaner and the gardener…”

  John waved his hand. “Cassandra and George have taken care of everything. Your brother is going to pick you up in an hour, drive you to the Beverly Town Center to pick up some resort wear and you can get the rest of your toiletries over there.”

  Resort wear? What the serious fuck? This can’t be real.

  Maybe it wasn’t?

  Chase began to laugh. That had to be it. He’d hit his head harder than he thought and this was probably some sort of weird coma dream. He’d wake up eventually and everything would be back to normal.

  “I’m glad you find this so funny,” John said.

  “All right, I’ll play along. What else is there to do, right?”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re finally accepting this.”

  Chase nodded and picked up his phone, but something was wrong. His emails had disappeared and his screen was black.

  “Guess they finally disconnected your phone. The island has no Internet service, but you never know. We can call the hotel if we need to get a hold of you in an emergency. In the meantime, I’ll hold on to it for you.”

  Again, thinking this craziness was still just a dream, Chase handed over his Smartphone.

  “Whatever you say, doctor,” he said with a chuckle, thinking he’d wake up any second now.

  It wasn’t until the pilot announced that they were about to make their descent that Chase finally admitted the whole thing wasn’t a dream at all and he was about to be on a very real vacation.

  His first thought should’ve been, “This is awesome.”

  Instead, he looked out the plane’s window and muttered, “I’m going to kill you, Rhodes.”

  Chapter Two

  SHE’D ONLY BEEN at the resort two hours and it already felt like she’d never left.

  Rio surveyed the beautiful view before her and breathed in the warm, tropical air. The scent of coconut mixed with salt water wafted over her and she sighed in contentment.

  How she’d missed this paradise.

  She put her sunglasses back on and made her way down the few stone steps to the private beachfront assigned to her villa. The warmth of the white sand and mid-day sun caressed her skin like an old lover—familiar and pleasant.

  It wasn’t as if she didn’t go to the beach back in California. It was just that there was something different about the beach in this place. And it wasn’t even the missing crowds or lack of discarded trash items tangled in washed-ashore seaweed.

  It was because this beach was hers, had been hers, every summer since she was a teenager. Last year though, she’d used it as a refuge, a place to hide away and lick her wounds. This year, she hadn’t come here to escape. She’d come to celebrate her new life and new career.

  And, of course, work on her tan.

  She arrived at the open-air beachside cabana. The white, sheer curtains had already been tied back on all four sides and she stepped easily onto the wooden platform. Rio set down her straw bag next to the large bed and untied her cover-up. When she looked around for the extra towels, she noticed the other bag sitting on the floor next to hers.

  Before she could reach down to pick it up and investigate, footsteps approached behind her.

  “Aye, Señorita Flores! You are already here!”

  Rio turned to see her favorite beach attendant, Gustavo, holding a small ice chest. He set it down on the floor and gave her a big bear hug.

  She hugged him back and smiled against his shoulder. The older man had been her savior last summer. The resort was basically his home and he knew how to get his hands on anything and everything she’d ever needed. “Hello, Gustavo. It’s so good to see you.”

  They broke apart and she noticed his eyes kept darting in the direction of the ocean. When he looked back at her, his bushy eyebrows had furrowed in concern. “Yes, it’s so good to see you too. But I not expecting you for a few more days.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, I ended up finding someone who could cover my classes at the st
udio, so I changed my flight.”

  Gustavo smiled and nodded and then glanced again toward the ocean. This time she looked with him. What she saw made her mouth drop open.

  An exquisitely chiseled six pack and the man it belonged to had just emerged from the still and turquoise water. With each determined step he took, beads and streams of water fell off his perfect body, most likely in protest.

  “Madre de dios,” she muttered, forgetting for a second that she wasn’t alone. Rio slapped her hand over her mouth and didn’t dare look at Gustavo. She could feel his knowing smile burning a hole right through her swimsuit’s cover-up. Warmth spread to her face and she was sure her cheeks were as pink as the time she’d fallen asleep on the villa’s private patio.

  But embarrassment soon turned to shock as she began to recognize the rest of the man.

  “Chase.” The name escaped her lips on a hush and was carried away with the ocean breeze.

  “Yes, I think you know him since he stay in the other villa this week,” Gustavo explained. “So I say it’s okay he use your cabana. The bed in his is broken.”

  She pulled her eyes away from the glistening wet body of Chase Simon to finally look at Gustavo. “The bed is broken?”

  He nodded. “Newlyweds stay—”

  Rio held up her hand to stop him. There was no more explanation needed. Besides, they weren’t alone anymore.

  “Hello, Gustavo,” Chase said with a curt nod in the older man’s direction as he stepped onto the platform. Then he turned to look at her and she watched his eyes widen, probably as big as hers when she’d first recognized him. “Rio?”

  She was grateful she still had on her sunglasses to shield her from his intense aquamarine-colored gaze. Those damn eyes of his always did something to her. “Hello, Chase,” she answered as coolly as she could, even as her nipples pebbled beneath her leopard-print halter bikini top.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking back at Gustavo for an answer.

  His accusatory tone needled at her. It kicked up old defenses. “I should be asking you the same thing. After all, this is my cabana.”

  “Your cabana? I don’t understand.”

  “This cabana belongs to that villa,” she pointed behind her, “and that villa is the same villa I’ve been staying in every summer since I was sixteen. I’m guessing that you’re staying in the villa that Cassandra and John usually stay in, so your cabana is all the way over there. Hence, this is my cabana.”

  She was annoyed. Beautiful eyes or not, she didn’t need to hide from them anymore. She removed her sunglasses and met his gaze full on and watched as the muscles in his jaw tensed.

  “No one told me you were going to be here or there,” he said and folded his arms across his still glistening broad chest.

  From the corner of her eye she could see that Gustavo was a wreck. He was wringing his hands and biting his bottom lip. She knew he took his job very seriously and prided himself on providing a perfect guest experience. She hated for this mix-up to tear him up even more.

  “Well, no one told me you were going to be here either. Seems like John and Cassandra have some explaining to do. But this cabana thing is not Gustavo’s fault. I arrived earlier than expected. So you take it for today and I’ll take it tomorrow, okay?”

  The jaw muscle flexed again and for a second Rio thought he’d disagree, or worse, storm off in search of Gustavo’s boss to complain. Instead, he nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”

  Reasonable, such a Chase word. Since she’d known him, he’d only done things that were reasonable or logical or practical. It made her want to scream.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she smiled. “Good. Well, enjoy your afternoon on the beach. I’ll just go back to my villa and lay out there.”

  Then she took off her cover up, draped it over arm and picked up her bag—making very sure that he got an eyeful of her leopard-print-bikini-bottom-covered ass as she bent over.

  Let him see what he can never have, she thought as she walked away. His punishment was for what happened between them two years ago.

  As soon as Rio got to her patio, she dropped her things and dove into the pool in an effort to cool off. She hated that Chase could still get her so worked up. Even Cassandra could tell that she acted differently whenever she was around him, but she didn’t know the reason why. Maybe if she did, her sister wouldn’t have stuck them together on a remote island for a week.

  Rio finally cooled and calmed down after a few laps in the infinity pool. She decided she’d do her best to stay out of Chase’s way. So what if he’d already ruined her plans for that afternoon? She wasn’t about to let him ruin her fucking vacation too.

  Chapter Three

  IT HAD TAKEN CHASE two cold showers to bring his body’s temperature back to normal. The combination of the Cancun sun and seeing Rio again nearly gave him a heatstroke.

  The first shower washed off the sand and cooled his skin, but when he couldn’t get the image of her perfectly curved ass out of his mind, he’d jumped back in and pumped his dick into a soapy washcloth until he found release.

  She just looked so damn good.

  Of course, Rio had always been beautiful. When they’d met at John and Cassandra’s rehearsal dinner two years ago, Chase had instantly been attracted to her, as had every other man in the room. Well, except for John, of course. His friend had thought of Rio as a little sister and was fiercely protective of her. But even he couldn’t stop the parade of men from stalking her that night and so he’d asked Chase, his best man, to stick close to her. When he told Rio that he had been sent by her future-brother-in-law, he’d expected her to be insulted. Instead, she shrugged and motioned for him to sit next to her during the dinner. They talked, mostly about John and Cassandra, and he began to enjoy his assignment.

  It wasn’t until halfway through his filet mignon that he realized he was sitting next to a celebrity.

  He finally asked, after the third request for an autograph, what she was famous for. She smiled at him, coy at first. Then the smile turned genuine and proud, and she simply answered, “Dancing.”

  And although she’d smiled at him today, it wasn’t the same smile she’d given him back then. It was forced, fake even. Just like all the other phony ones she’d showed him over the past two years whenever they’d run in to each other at parties or dinners at John and Cassandra’s house.

  He deserved them all.

  Chase shook the thoughts of Rio from his head and decided to take a quick nap before dinner. He hated to admit it, but John had been right. He was exhausted. It was as if the moment he walked into the resort, his body had let go of all of the stress and worry he’d been carrying the past few months. Now, all it wanted to do was sleep. So he closed his eyes and gave in to what his body needed, and tried not to think of what—or who—his body desired.

  It was almost nine when he finally awoke. After brushing his teeth and admiring the new healthy color in his cheeks, he left the villa in search of food. He jumped in the golf cart he’d been given to use during his stay and drove up the asphalt pathway toward the resort’s main buildings.

  He drove past what he assumed was Rio’s villa and noticed the lights were on inside and a golf cart sitting in front. She probably already had dinner, he thought. That meant there’d be no chance of running into her at any of the resort’s restaurants. It both relieved and disappointed him. Chase pressed on the gas and sped the golf cart toward his destination.

  After driving around for a few minutes and realizing that most of the restaurants were going to be closing soon, he remembered the resort’s concierge said a bar on the premises was open until two in the morning and it also served food. He was about to look for it on the map when the sound of music thumping in the night caught his attention. He drove toward the beat and quickly arrived at the Isla Bonita Bar & Grill.

  The bar was crowded and loud, too loud. Chase debated on whether to head over to the island’s mini-mart for a dinner of chips and candy
bars instead. But when a waitress walked by carrying a plate with a sizzling steak and giant baked potato on it, he decided he could sit through the noise after all.

  He took a seat at one of the only open tables near the dance floor. A fast Latin dance song blared from a nearby speaker as men in colorful camp shirts gyrated against women in tight, short dresses. “The food better be worth this,” he said as he looked over the menu.

  The waitress appeared and took his order then eventually reappeared with his whiskey on the rocks. Chase didn’t do fruity cocktail drinks with little umbrellas—even on vacation. The stiff drink warmed him instantly and by the time his steak arrived, he was tapping his foot under the table in sync with the music. He devoured it right along with the baked potato and ordered a second drink as his dessert.

  By now, the dance floor was packed. The crowd had formed a circle and different couples took turns showing off their dance moves in the middle of it. But when a new song came on, something happened that made even the people sitting down get up from the chairs and make their way to the dance floor. Whistles and shouts erupted along with a thunder of applause and he strained his neck to see what was happening inside the circle.

  When he couldn’t see, he asked his waitress when she came to clear his plate. “What’s going on over there?”

  She shrugged in obvious boredom. “Oh, they’re just watching that dancer who used to be on that TV show, you know the one where celebrities are paired up with professionals. She always gets an audience when she dances here.”

  Chase nodded, because he finally understood. They were all watching Rio.

  He downed his drink, threw a few bucks on the table and made his way to the circle. He told himself he’d just take a quick peek on his way out the door.

  But the more he caught flashes of her tiny red dress, the more he wanted. So he nudged his way past shoulders and elbows until all of Rio came into his full view.