by Rebecca Rode
She eyed him curiously, remembering how he used to do that when he felt insecure. The last ten days had been full of moments like this. Times when they acted like regular coworkers who didn’t have a history, followed by periods of awkwardness. Periods that gave her intense flashbacks. And there were those bursts of connection, the moments of sweet tenderness.
A part of her wanted to pursue those, find out if he’d changed his mind. And then she’d meet his gaze and all she saw was this new guy who just happened to live in Wade’s body.
The whole situation confused her, and she didn’t like being confused. Life should be straightforward and simple. Say what she thought and let the cards fall where they may. Then, just when she’d decided to do just that, there’d be that something in his expression. It’d disappear almost as fast as it came. It kept her from speaking up. She glanced at the drawing again; it niggled at her mind.
“It’s so beautiful,” Shelby said a little dreamily, allowing herself to be pulled into the memory. “It reminds me of when I was a little kid. I had a friend whose mom used to get free catalogs in the mail. They were nearly as poor as we were, except her mom took care of their things. I could tell her mom dreamed of a better life someday. She’d let us look at the catalogues filled with pictures of rooms with nice furniture and clever decorations. She’d even get gardening catalogs, even though we lived in the tenements. I used to dream of actually walking inside one of the rooms or gardens from those catalogs.”
“How could the daughter of Charles Grantham have been poor?” Wade asked, his voice soft.
“I told you about how poor I was growing up.” Shelby straightened, her face tightening. Had he forgotten all those times he’d comforted her over her pathetic excuse for a mother? He, who’d grown up in the stereotypical middle-class family.
“But, Shel, when you told me who your father was—” He looked down at his hands, as though gathering his thoughts.
“What?” All this time, she hadn’t been able to forget his expression. Plenty of people had hurt her, but nothing like that look had. Like she had somehow betrayed him.
“Suddenly everything you’d told me didn’t fit anymore.” He met her gaze then. “The only thing that made sense was that you’d been lying to me for years.”
“Lying?” Face flaming, Shelby jumped to her feet, her chair rolling at an angle and banging into the wall.
Wade had risen to his feet when she did. He reached out to her.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she spat, taking a step back. Wade dropped his hand as she said, “Everything I told you was true. I didn’t even know Charles Grantham was my father until I was almost sixteen when Alan showed up at my mother’s funeral. It’s been ten years, and I still haven’t met my father. He runs everything through Alan.”
“You—”
“Hello?” The Avalon Village foreman opened the screen door and peeked in, looking uncertain. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to Mr. Masters.”
“You’re fine. We’re finished here.” She handed Wade the garden plans. “If we keep it Disneyland-clean, it could be better than visiting the real France. I’ll talk with Alan after I work up some numbers. I think I can make the case that the ROI would be high enough.”
“I’m glad you liked my idea.” He tapped the plans against his thigh before pitching his voice low. “I’m sorry I thought you’d lied, Shel.” Wade turned to the foreman and indicated the door; the two men left together.
Shelby pulled a tissue from a box and blew her nose. Her stomach rumbled; she hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast.
After the initial anger, she felt oddly disconnected from herself, emotionally removed. Kind of like after she’d burned herself and she knew it was going to hurt like blazes. But it didn’t yet. She saw it coming, could almost analyze it as though she considered someone else’s pain. She recalled the expression on Wade’s face at graduation practice—because he believed her to be a liar.
She didn’t want to think about it.
Turning, she tossed the tissue in the trash. She had a job to do, and the sooner she finished it, the sooner she’d never have to see Wade Masters again. She moved her chair back to the desk and sat down to face the financials spread out for review. Yes, she had a job to do.
Shelby’s father had sent her to take care of bad project managers before, but Alan had always hinted at the problem before sending her. That first day here as she’d watched Conti load his hastily packed luggage onto the helicopter, she’d realized something. She’d “arrived.”
Charles Grantham might be a lousy father, but the world acknowledged him as one of the sharpest businessmen around. And that sharp businessman had trusted her enough to send her into this situation cold. The sense of satisfaction that had filled her also irritated her. What did she care if her father thought her capable? That was all she was to him anyway—a useful employee.
She picked up a piece of paper. Nothing in the old project manager’s second set of paper books showed evidence that he’d embezzled funds, but she hadn’t completed her review of all the project documents yet either. Maybe he’d just been incompetent. She’d completed the records for Yangshuo, the Chinese village, and Rochefort-en-fleur—she would not call it Rockford. She’d hoped to finish with Avalon, the Welsh village, today and be off to La Playa, the Canary Islands village.
The sound of raised voices outside her window pulled Shelby from her reverie. Wade and the foreman. She shifted in her chair to see better. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tone said plenty. The discussion had turned into a disagreement. What now? Unable to see clearly, she rose from her chair and went to the window.
With the backdrop of the beach and distant surf, Shelby watched the little drama play out. What had this confident man, who was holding his ground so well, done with the Wade she’d known? He’d changed from the young man she’d loved in college. He’d grown so much. In the past, his soft-spoken, dreamy manner had made people think him weak, an easy target.
The volume of Wade’s voice continued to rise as the disagreement turned into an argument. The louder the contractor got, the more forceful Wade’s words grew. Not angrier, just more forceful. Stubborn. He used to call her that.
What had she ever done to make his first reaction be to believe she’d been lying to him all that time? She’d confided in him about her compulsive-liar mother; he knew how much honesty meant to Shelby. When she’d finally trusted him enough to open up about her father, why had Wade’s first thought been that she’d lied? The horrible look on his face had made her think she’d never really known him. He certainly hadn’t known her.
The foreman’s voice got louder still; he knew he was losing. She wondered what they were arguing about. While she didn’t really have that much to do with the design aspects of the project, she tended to agree with Wade. He had excellent taste. His company had chosen well in sending him to take over the project.
Confident. Competent. Wade had grown into both. As she’d worked with him on the project, she’d come to see how little credit she’d given him over the years. The self-assured man who was staring down the contractor seemed so much more than the man she had known four years ago. Watching him, her heart ached with what she’d lost. She accepted the truth—she was still in love with Wade Masters.
The contractor gave in with a terse nod and headed toward Avalon. Wade folded up the plans.
Not for the first time since seeing him again, Shelby wondered what might have happened had Wade not been so appalled. What if she and Wade had married after graduation, as they’d discussed? She reflected on their relationship—she was always the protector, the bossy one who told him what to do. Not exactly the best thing for learning to stand up for yourself and be independent. She might have held him back, kept him from turning into this confident, competent man.
The thought humbled her in a way that no other had. All these years, in the back of her mind, she’d always thought about how much Wade had lost.
Had she inherited her father’s overbearing arrogance? The idea that Shang Senior had been correct left a bitter taste in her mouth. Once, years ago, he’d accused her of being as pompous as her father. The testy remark, one she’d considered the ultimate of insults, had resulted in her not speaking to him for weeks. Not until Alan had told her, “Knock it off. You’re being immature.”
Watching Wade stride across the sand, the ocean breaking behind him, she accepted the truth of Shang’s words. A wave of sadness washed over her, swirled with disappointment in herself. Wade had made the best choice by rejecting her and her unwanted connections. By himself, he’d done a better job of living up to his potential. Her stomach knotted. He was a better man today because she had not been a part of his life.
Shelby jumped to her feet, feeling a little sick. She had to take a break and quit thinking. With only the slightest hesitation, she picked up her flip-flops and headed out to the empty beach.
The amount of detail that had gone into the island’s creation had surprised her, though upon reflection it shouldn’t have. She knew her father had an excellent eye for detail, and his signature project deserved nothing less than his best. How much he’d invested in the actual transformation of the little stub of land sticking out of the Pacific Ocean, she had no idea. She only knew he had been working on it for years, maybe decades. Those budget numbers hadn’t been included in what she had.
Her father had designed each of the four cultural immersion villages to provide a unique and realistic experience for guests. She’d heard they had plans for a morning prep session at the beginning of the visitors’ stay where they would learn key words of their village’s language and some of the history and culture.
At the edge of the water, Shelby slipped off her flip-flops and squeezed the yellowish sand between her toes. The Welsh beach got the most wind of any part of the island, and the highest rainfall, which she imagined had been behind the reason to locate here. Not that Southern California would get as much rain as Wales did.
Shelby held her hand to her forehead to cut down the sun’s glare and took in the rocky terrain. Turning slowly, she faced out toward the beach where it seemed the tide must be coming in. She frowned, squinting to see better. It looked like dorsal fins in the distance, coming closer.
Chapter 8
WADE STOOD ATOP THE LA PLAYA tree house and surveyed the Canary Islands section of the island. He found it rather whimsical that Charles Grantham had specifically requested a tree house. A penthouse tree house, not that it came anywhere near that yet, still being under construction. It made Wade wonder if the famous recluse meant to make a visit at some point.
From his spot, he could see portions of the other three peninsulas that made up the resorts—or petals, as Shelby had called them. The imagery had stuck in his mind. Being one of the taller areas of the island, not counting the center, it provided a wonderful outpost.
He put down the binoculars and rubbed the bridge of his nose. How had he managed to do it again? The look on her face. Wade groaned.
Four years ago, when she’d dumped the tidbit about who her father was, Wade had felt like someone had jerked him into an old Twilight Zone episode. The reality he thought he knew—Shelby raised poor with a mentally disturbed mother—had been ripped out from under him and replaced by an alternate universe where she had a billionaire father. A father who owned businesses that ruined the lives of their employees. Poverty kid. Billionaire father. They didn’t match, so they couldn’t both be true.
He didn’t know if whatever nonsense he’d said that day had been better than what he’d said today. A liar. He knew what calling Shelby that meant to her. Would there ever come a time when the right words came out of his mouth?
Finally, Wade lifted the binoculars again and turned toward the beach at Avalon, where Shelby stood on the shore facing the ocean. He paid attention to the size of the waves, bigger than he’d ever seen them. The incoming storm must be doing it. Watching her with the binoculars didn’t make him a creeper.
She seemed to be staring at something out at sea. He shifted his focus and found a pod of dolphins. How he wished to be standing beside her, sharing that experience. He looked a little closer. The dolphins seemed to be swimming right up onto the beach.
Wade blinked, squinted, and focused the binoculars again. The lowering sun made it hard to see. She’d gone into the water, her dress wet at her knees. His heart rate sped up. She’d mentioned once that she didn’t swim very well. A quick scan of the surrounding area showed no bodyguards. Martinez must be getting dinner for them.
Without another thought, he hurried down the tree house ladder. He’d brought one of the few gas-powered jeeps to La Playa. Leaping over the door, he only knew he had to get to Shelby. He fired it up and sped along the gravel road toward the Avalon beach front.
With a screech of the tires, he slid to a stop where the sand met the parking lot. He stood on the jeep seat, searching the water, his heart racing so hard, it felt like it might explode. Had she gone under all those wiggling, flapping fins?
“Shelby!” he cried and leapt from the vehicle. “Shel!”
She shot up out of the water where she must have been trying to pull a dolphin out to safety. “Wade, call for more people to help. There are too many of them.”
He breathed again and searched his pockets. “I left my phone in Rockford.” He pulled the binoculars over his head. “Do you have yours in your office?” A kind of communal energy flowed through him as he kicked off his shoes and waded into the water beside her. Finally, something worthwhile he could help her with. “I don’t have a key. Let me see what I can do here while you go.”
“Thank you.” Shelby did a funny run/prance move through an incoming wave. Once clear, she dashed toward the office, her hair flying behind her. Not bad for running in sand.
Wade stood for a few seconds, watching her. She was so beautiful. When she’d looked at him, it’d been like the old Shelby met his gaze. For a few seconds, she hadn’t hated him.
He turned to consider the twenty or so creatures. The poor beasts had gotten themselves good and stuck. Wade did a quick evaluation of the situation. Rolling them out to sea wouldn’t work because of the dorsal fin. Once, he’d seen a movie or something where beached dolphins had been towed back out to sea by their tails.
Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the tail of the nearest dolphin. He’d expected it to feel slimy, but it didn’t. More like rubber. Once he had a firm grasp of the thing and had dragged it a few feet, the dolphin seemed to understand his intention and stopped fighting. The beast was heavy.
“Ava and Shang are coming,” Shelby called a few minutes later. He’d only gotten one dolphin free. She ran toward him carrying a vase that had held flowers in her office an hour ago.
“What’s that for?” Wade continued to tow another dolphin, a smaller one this time, and tried not to stare at her as she approached. That wet dress— Heat filled his body. He looked down and fixed his hold again. This one seemed determined to get away from him.
“We need to keep them wet.” Shelby filled the vase and hurried over to the dolphin that had managed to get the farthest up the shore. Once she’d emptied the water and smoothed it over the thing’s skin, she ran back to the water for a refill.
That was his Shelby, fighting for a cause she believed in. She was absolutely wasted working for a corporate monster like Grantham.
Wade had managed to get the second dolphin free by the time she joined him. Without a word, she simply appeared at his side. He moved his hands farther up the tail so her smaller hands could get a better grasp.
“Ugh,” she said after the first tug. “These things are heavy.”
This one was larger than the other two and took longer to understand what they intended. The dolphin gave one arch that sent them both flying back in the water. Sitting up to her neck and sputtering against the waves, Shelby burst out laughing. Wade got to his feet more easily and pulled her upright.
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br /> She splashed back to the dolphin and grabbed it again. Her head might only come to his shoulder, but it was obvious by the way her wet dress clung to her delineated muscles that she still worked out. Wade exhaled and hurried over to help her. He focused on the dolphin.
By the time they got the next dolphin swimming out to sea again, a woman’s voice called from shore.
“What have you been up to, Shelby?” Martinez grinned, already pulling off her shoes.
“Oh, shut up.” Shelby grinned back.
Another golf cart drove up. Shang took his time climbing out of it. Wade wondered if the guy ever looked anything but disapproving. Three other vehicles pulled up, filled with workers.
“Assign someone to wet down the driest ones.” Shelby pointed to the vase in the sand. Wade watched with interest as she gave instructions. She and Martinez made a good team, but Shang held back, looking cranky.
What followed turned into a lot of tugging and splashing and falling and laughing. By the time they’d freed the last dolphin, the sun sat on the horizon. Almost as a group they started cheering and slapping each other’s backs.
“We did it!” Shelby leaped into Wade’s arms, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Yeah, we did,” he finally said, releasing his breath. He held her close to his pounding heart for a second, feeling like a whole man again for the first time since she’d left him four years ago. Her hand around his neck loosened, and she slid down until her feet touched the ground again. He kept his arms around her, and she rested her head against his chest. Shelby in his arms again.
“We did it,” she said again, looking up at him, her eyes shining.
“Shel,” he whispered, his heart thumping hard. She pressed closer to him, and he leaned in. Had she forgiven him? He moved to press his lips to her forehead but her head flopped against his chest. She seemed to grow heavier in his arms, like dead weight, and harder to hold. She was slipping down, her dress slipping up.
With sudden understanding, Wade eased her unconscious body onto the sand. “Martinez!” He dropped to his knees beside Shelby.