What if her boss found out about the auction? Or her family? What if he let slip during one of his press interviews that he'd won the virginity auction and revealed her identity to the entire world media?
Oh God. A rock star had bought her virginity. She'd never be able to show her face in public again.
Ten
Xan breathed a sigh of relief. She'd managed to persuade all the staff except six essential personnel to take time off at Easter, when the resort was closed. Just her, the two IT guys, Jackie from Housekeeping, Lee from Maintenance and a chef whose name she could never remember. Peter? Patel? Something beginning with P, anyway. She'd considered not approving the IT guys' application to stay at the island during the shutdown, but they'd insisted on the need to install some long-overdue upgrades to the operating system. After several minutes of listening to their spiel on bugs, fixes and a whole lot of technical gibberish that made her tune right out, she gave in just so that they'd stop talking. It was probably best to have some IT staff on the island. After all, if the film crew got into technical difficulties downloading the day's footage, she didn't want to be trying to do tech support. Let the IT guys handle it.
A chiselled chest caught her eye, moving down the beach, and Xan cursed. Not six people – seven. If rock stars counted as people. Maybe if she hurried, she could catch up to him and persuade him to leave the island for Easter so she could breathe easily about the film crew. If he passed out drunk in one of the public areas, she'd need more than Jackie and Lee to clean up the mess before the video crew stumbled upon it. On him, more like – he'd be right in the middle of the mess. She'd babysat better behaved toddlers.
"Jay!" she shouted, moving at a brisk trot along the boardwalk until her shoes sank into the sand. "Jay, I need to talk to you!"
He slowed, turned and spread his arms in an open invitation. Did he seriously expect her to hug him? Jay evidently didn't realise the geeky IT guys were more her type.
As Xan drew closer, she realised that his broad smile wasn't his usual smarmy one, with the slightly raised eyebrows and that look in his eye that said the lurking sex maniac would surface the moment he smelled desire in the water. Or the forced one he adopted when his sister, Jo, called. Instead, he looked…positively cheerful.
Let it mean that he had plans for Easter which would take him far away from here, she prayed to any deity listening.
"What are you doing for Easter?" she blurted out, crossing her fingers.
"Why? Are you planning on asking me out for a dirty weekend, Xan?" He laughed. "I never would have believed it, but to hear it from your own lips…" He had that wicked look in his eyes again, the one he got when he was teasing his sister. Like he knew he was a shit stirrer and he was just saying things to get her to explode.
"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. For a moment, she wished he'd look hurt or something. Did nothing dent his monstrous ego? "I'm asking because the film crew will be here on Good Friday and they're filming over the weekend. I need to know you'll behave yourself and not do anything stupid while they're here. It costs a lot of money to shut the hotel down for a week of filming and I don't know when we'll be able to do it again, if at all. We can't have them here when the place is full of guests because of the hotel's reputation for privacy." She took a deep breath.
"You'll barely see me, I promise." He laughed again, as if at a private joke.
Xan turned his words over in her head. "I'll barely see you because you'll be off the island, enjoying yourself somewhere else, or I'll barely see you because you're going to pretend the island is a nudist colony so you can show off your bare arse?"
He looked smug. "Oh, my arse will be bare, all right, along with the rest of me. I'm having a friend over for the Easter weekend and we'll probably spend most of our time inside my villa. We'll be much too busy to even notice your camera crew."
"Another mail-order bride? Did you get a Russian one this time?" The words were out before Xan had thought them through, and she regretted them instantly.
Now she'd hurt him. Jay's voice was chilly and distant. "No." He started to walk away.
Xan considered doing the same, but couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead, she hurried to catch up to him. "I'm sorry. That joke was in poor taste. I shouldn't have said it. But whoever she is, if you don't know her all that well, at least make sure you've done a security check on her first. I don't want…" Actually, she couldn't quite work out what she didn't want. Him killed? She wanted to strangle him almost daily, but she didn't want him dead.
Jay's eyes looked more human than she'd ever seen them as he stared directly at her. For a second, she could have sworn he was just a man and the rock star didn't exist. "Yeah, me neither." Xan had never heard his tone sound so soft. He lifted his chin in that peculiar way guys did instead of nodding like normal people. "I'll call the band's security consultant and get him to check her out."
Chaya had a security consultant? Or they did have. Normal bands had managers and groupies and roadies and maybe PR people, but what sort of band had a security consultant? Maybe all the big ones did and no one talked about it, Xan mused, deciding to ask Dennis from Security about it when he got back from leave. Not until after Easter, though.
Maybe when the girl arrived, she'd call the guys at Broome Police Station to run a quick check on her, too. The last thing she needed for the photo shoot was a murder scene. If Xan wasn't going to kill Jay Felix over the Easter weekend, then no one else was allowed to, either.
Eleven
Violet threw herself on Flavia's bed. "So, what excuses has the dirty old man come up with for why he couldn't get all your documents to you in time?"
"None. They were in my inbox within five minutes of the auction ending. Everything. Even a signed confidentiality agreement." Flavia swallowed. "And there's more. He wants a police clearance from me to make sure I'm not a murderer, he says." Her laughter sounded slightly hysterical.
Violet evidently didn't notice, because her giggling sounded sane. "Well, there's your way out. It'll take you weeks to get one and Easter's less than a week away."
Flavia shook her head. "They say that, but it only takes weeks if they have to check old records and stuff. I've lived my whole life here in York. Sergeant Ford had it ready for me in less than an hour."
"He won't know that, your would-be punter. Just point him to the police website. Weeks," Violet insisted.
"It won't work. I think he knows who I am. I think he wants me to work for him." Flavia's voice died so that the last words came out in a strangled whisper.
"You have a job. One you're good at. Why the hell would he think you want to become his permanent mistress? The auction was for one night. One time. Say you can't. Say you got drunk last night and slept with someone you met at the pub. Really get drunk and pick up some bloke at the pub." Panic widened Violet's eyes. "You can't seriously be thinking of going through with it!"
Flavia swallowed. "I checked the confidentiality agreement. The only way I can guarantee he can't talk about me is if I go through with the auction. No deal, and he can tell the world my name and where I live."
Violet shook her head. "You can't. You just…can't sleep with some wacko stalker. Some reclusive psycho who just happens to be able to afford to spend a million dollars to sleep with a virgin. Is he some sort of oil baron from the Middle East? An American business tycoon with a fetish for all sorts of kinky stuff? Or some ageing rock star souped up on Viagra because he's had so much sex his downstairs is all worn out?"
Flavia cracked a smile. "He's not any of those things, though you're close with the last one."
Violet screwed up her face in concentration, then smacked her hand against the bedhead. "You'll have an agreement about no kink, right? Make sure it says no performance enhancing drugs, or any drugs at all. No Viagra, no hard on, no worries!"
Jay Felix didn't need Viagra, or any other drug to make girls happy. Dozens of his happy bed-partners had told the media that much and more. The gory details
had made Flavia blush until she couldn't take it any more, so she'd stopped searching the internet for the rock star who wanted to take her virginity. No, who wanted to pay her a premium so she'd give it to him. Would that be so bad?
"I don't think it'll be that easy, Vi," Flavia said. "Even if it is, I'll still have to show up at the hotel so we can both sign it before we…if we do it." She couldn't bring herself to describe the deed aloud.
Violet enveloped Flavia in a fierce hug. "Don't worry. You'll find a way out of this, and you'll come join us in Bali for the hen's trip turned girls' trip of your life. We'll laugh about this over cocktails at the hotel bar. Talk about happy hour. It'll be a whole happy week. You'll see."
And with that, they said their goodbyes, leaving Flavia alone with her thoughts. Which naturally turned toward the irresistible naked man lying on a beach in her inbox, who wanted to pay her a million dollars for one night. Other girls would be willing to pay him that for fifteen minutes, if the tales were true. If that picture was accurate…
Flavia slid onto her desk chair, bringing her computer back to life so she could search for images of rock god Jay Felix. Always grinning, always sexy…sometimes winking, rarely wearing a shirt and even if he did have a shirt or jacket, he wore it wide open. Chiselled abs, glistening with…well, it was hard to tell. Her first guess would be sweat, but in some of the photos it looked more like oil. Idly, she wondered how much they paid the makeup artist who got to oil him up in preparation for the shot. She could imagine a line of volunteers forming every time that shirt came off…
What would it feel like to spend a night with a man who had a body like that? A body he knew how to use to make a woman feel wanted, if his reputation as a legendary lover could be believed.
The thought hit her like one of the trucks barrelling along the highway.
Would it be such a bad thing to lose her virginity to Jay Felix?
Twelve
At seven on the dot, Xan heard splashing. "Don't you own any pants?" she shouted.
Good thing there were no guests left at the hotel to see, what with them being officially closed for the week and all. Not like that had ever stopped him before.
Jay merely grinned and waved as he stroked his way across the lagoon on his back. Even with his bits on display, Xan couldn't take her eyes off him. What unfeeling deity wrapped the quintessential wanker in such perfect packaging?
One look and she craved bacon. The taste of salt from the sizzling hot flesh on her tongue…not the bowl of cardboard cereal currently sitting on the bench, waiting patiently for its milk.
Maybe it was time to cave to the pressure and buy herself some sex toys from one of the online shops. Watching him every morning only made her crave company more. A battery-operated boyfriend like the American romance heroines all seemed to have. It's not like she needed any other bit of a man to satisfy her.
More splashing as Jay did a lap of breaststroke, sticking his Adonis arse in the air with every kick. She didn't need this kind of temptation right now – least of all from him.
"You know the lagoon's full of sharks," she hollered. "They like biting soft flesh."
She watched in satisfaction as he flipped from his front to his back again.
"Not mine!" he called back. "Besides, how am I supposed to get into shape and work on my tan when half of me's covered up? Got to look my best for my friend arriving this arvo."
Bloody Australian slang. "It's afternoon, you idiot!"
"Nope. Still bright and early in the morning. You're still in that see-through t-shirt you love to sleep in, watching your favourite breakfast show before you dig into your cereal. We both know you love watching me swim, Zzzzan." Jay laughed as he swam out of sight.
Xan's hands balled into fists, ready to smack him. He could see her shirt from that far away? Hang on, see through her shirt? Shit. She'd better wear a darker shirt tomorrow morning, then. How many mornings while she'd been perving on him had he been laughing at her boobs? Bloody rock star. He was a plague on this otherwise perfect island. A blight. A curse. A…
She watched him rise from the water, still stark naked, and walk past her window. He waved jauntily before heading into the jungle, his arse swinging with every step.
Stop looking. Stop looking at him, damn it! That's what he wants!
A clump of pandanus hid him from sight, bringing Xan back to her senses. Breakfast. Then she had a whole day of work ahead of her before she could knock off for the rest of the long weekend. She couldn't forget the film crew, either – their flight would arrive just after lunch.
The approaching storm would be gone by tomorrow morning, revealing blue skies over the picture-perfect paradise that was Romance Island Resort.
That brought the smile back to Xan's face. Even with the odd rock star rat, she still had the best job in the world.
Thirteen
"You take care of yourself in the city tonight. Don't you back down on a single one of the conditions we wrote into the contract. The lecherous old man will call off the deal and all this will be over. Get the hell out of there and call me the minute you arrive at Denpasar Airport, all right?" Violet enveloped Flavia in a fierce hug. "Promise?"
Flavia forced a smile as she nodded. Part of her wanted to tell Violet that she wasn't going to a city hotel to meet some old man at all, but meeting her would-be…deflowerer? Was that even a word? Whatever he was, she'd meet Jay or the man pretending to be him at Romance Island after landing at Broome Airport in a few hours' time. This whole mess might be over and done with before Violet and the other girls' plane landed in Bali.
It had to be. If Flavia had one more sleepless night like the last few, she'd go certifiably crazy. If she hadn't already. Jay Felix, with his far-too-perfect body, had invaded her dreams and a large proportion of her waking thoughts, too. She didn't dare tell Violet that she'd considered going through with the deal, conditions or not. Or that most of the conditions were a list of all the things she'd already done with James. Well, not the kinky stuff, obviously, but anything up to actual sex. She was a virgin, not a nun. And she suspected Jay would be a million times better than James at making her heart race. She only had to close her eyes and she could almost feel Jay's hands on her, sending her soaring to undreamed-of heights.
Violet didn't seem to notice her distraction. "Au revoir, then!" And with a wave, she vanished through the departure gate.
Flavia waited a few seconds until she was certain Violet was out of sight before she headed outside. Instead of taking a taxi to the city, she wheeled her case over to the shuttle that transported passengers between the international and domestic terminals. Oh, she had a whole suitcase of clothes in the boot of her car for Bali, but that could stay there until tomorrow. She wouldn't need any more clothes except the change in her overnight bag where she was going.
If she needed clothes at all.
A vision of having sex on the beach with Jay as the sun set over the tropical ocean made her feel all warm inside. At least until she realised that the shuttle driver was shouting at her that they'd reached the terminal. Blushing furiously, Flavia stumbled off the bus. It wasn't until she reached the terminal doors that she realised she'd been dragging her case along the side without wheels. She quickly flipped it around, hoping no one had noticed. Anyone would think this was her first time on a plane. She was a travel agent, for God's sake. A professional who knew the travel industry inside out.
Throwing her shoulders back, Flavia marched through the automatic doors and joined the check-in queue. Whatever her evening held, she'd face it head-on like the professional she was. A travel agent and not a sex worker, she reminded herself.
Her boarding pass told her she had the window seat she'd requested, bringing a smile to her face. Her case was small enough to qualify as carry-on luggage, so she strode past the luggage drop-off counters with a scornful glance at all the tourists who packed way too much. One man had so many cases they threatened to fall off his luggage trolley.
"Watch out!"
The warning came too late. Flavia tripped over the wheels of a second overloaded trolley and flew forward to prostrate herself on the airport carpet.
"Are you okay?"
Flavia jumped to her feet, smoothing her dress and hoping she hadn't flashed her knickers to the whole airport terminal. "Fine. I'm fine," she snapped at the man who didn't look much older than she was.
"You should watch where you're going," he said, shoving his trip-hazard trolley closer to the luggage scales.
"So should you." Without another word, Flavia tilted her suitcase and set off for the departure lounge, biting back the names she wanted to call the overpacked idiot. She hoped the airline charged him a fortune for the excess baggage and lost half of it in transit. No one needed that much stuff for a holiday.
She sailed through security with no problems, dodging between the minesite staff taking off belts, shoes and watches to make it through the metal detectors without beeping. There was a slight delay when the security officer decided to check her for explosives, but Flavia gritted her teeth and endured the vacuuming of her shoulder and bag before the bored guard gave her the all clear. Finally. Flavia ascended the escalator to the departure lounge and surveyed the sea of fluorescent yellow and orange. It was evidently shift change day at many of the mines. She'd heard about this, but it was different to be one of the drab passengers caught in the crush of high visibility site uniforms. She'd never thought a simple grey dress could stand out so much.
Oh well. So much for blending in. Flavia found her gate and threw herself into one of the plastic seats. Air hissed out of the thin vinyl cushion beneath her in a sigh she felt like echoing. To distract her from the upcoming ordeal when she landed, Flavia flipped to a random game on her phone that quickly absorbed her attention.
The calming sequence of matching, moving and making pieces disappear occupied her so completely that the boarding call for her flight took her by surprise. Flavia stared at the time displayed on her phone – yes, she'd been sitting there for almost an hour while her butt cheeks grew numb against the unforgiving plastic. She wanted to rub the circulation back into them, but she was hardly going to do that in front of a terminal full of men. Instead, she tried to ignore the tingling as she joined yet another queue.
The Rock Star's Virginity (Romance Island Resort #3) Page 5