Now she had to spend as little time with him as possible, given their circumstances. Call him only when absolutely necessary...and try to cool the act a little when they were together. Less touching. And kissing.
Less amazing sex.
Her body tingled at the memory of his touch. His fingers gently exploring and caressing every part of her. His lips against her skin. She sighed, squeezing her thighs together. There’d be no getting back to sleep now. Physical exertion was probably a good idea.
Complaining about the hour, she splashed water on her face and tied her blond curls into a high ponytail. She was already regretting the decision to leave the comfort of the bed.
Five minutes into the forty-minute spin class and her legs felt like jelly. On the bike next to her, Lila was having no trouble at all. “How are you...not...dying right now?” Hayley panted. If she could just get a full breath into her lungs, she might be okay.
“I take spin classes at the World Gym in our office building three times a week.”
There was a gym in her office building?
“Doesn’t the burn feel great?” Lila asked, increasing the tension on her own machine when the instructor yelled at them to do so through her little ear piece–mic thingy. She leaned forward on the bike.
Hayley kept her machine at zero. This was hard enough; she couldn’t imagine making it tougher. “No...actually it doesn’t. I...think... I’m having an asthma attack.”
“You’re not. You’re barely moving. You’ve traveled less than a quarter of a mile in seven minutes.”
“Not all of us are marathoners and health fanatics.” How many times had she said the same thing to James when he tried to convince her to try a new fitness routine with him? Biking, hiking, rock climbing, she’d done it all in the name of compromise.
“Try to think about something else. Stop focusing on the pain. A work case...or Chase,” Lila suggested.
“That works?” she asked, doubtful that she could focus on anything other than the burning sensation in her shins and her numb ass on the too-tiny seat. Whose ass actually fit comfortably on these seats anyway? Oh, right, Miss Size-two Lululemon pants in the front of the room barking out commands.
“Absolutely—it works,” Lila said, now standing as she pounded the pedals.
How did she do that and not fall off? “What are you thinking about?” Hayley asked, leaning forward against the thin handlebars.
“Chase,” Lila said with a wink.
“Very funny,” she mumbled.
“So where did you two go after the luau?” Lila asked.
“We went to meet his family.” Hayley stopped pedaling. What was the point? She was moving at a snail’s pace. It wasn’t worth the effort for the sixteen calories she’d burned so far.
“Were they horrible?”
“No. They were actually really nice.” Which made her feel guilty as hell to be deceiving them. Deceiving her coworkers or mainly her boss was one thing, but Chase’s family was another. She wasn’t quite sure she bought the story he’d handed her as his reason for wanting a “safety date.” He was a cop. Surely he could ward off the advances of his sister’s friends. Taser them if necessary. Besides, they’d all seemed to move on fairly quick, finding their own island flings by the end of the evening. No, there was more to it than he was revealing. “His sister, Kate, is a wedding planner for some of Hollywood’s famous couples...and one of his brothers is an NHL player, I think—he plays football.”
“NFL.”
“That’s what I said... And the other brother is a consultant.”
“Consultant? What does he consult?”
“No idea—I just know he charges a lot based on the Rolex he was wearing and the twenty-two-year-old he brought on the trip.”
“So, what you’re saying is you’re pretending to date the poor brother?”
No. The best-sex-she’d-had-in-her-life brother. “Money isn’t everything.” Chase may have the lowest-paying job among his siblings, but he had the most admirable one. He saved lives and protected the innocent for a living—holy sexiness.
“Yeah, right. Look, I love that my husband works with children, but I’m just glad he chose to do it as a doctor and not a teacher. And don’t give me that look—name one guy you’ve dated who didn’t make more or at least as much as you do,” Lila said, a small trace of exhaustion finally setting in.
“Um...” There had to be someone. James—dentist... Rob—stockbroker... Alan—neurologist... Mike—aha... “Mike Bishop from Staten Island. We dated for six months and he didn’t work the entire time.”
“Mike Bishop. You mean the son of Darryl Bishop—the real estate tycoon. The one who owns six skyscrapers in Manhattan?” She shook her head. “Doesn’t count—he was independently wealthy.”
“His father was rich. He wasn’t.” Hayley wasn’t quite sure why she was reassuring her coworker that she would be okay with dating someone who made less than her. After all, she wasn’t really dating Chase.
“Did you have to pay for dinner or a date with Mike—ever?”
She had her there. “No.”
“My point. Anyway, here’s my advice whether you want it or not. As adorable as Mr. Hartley is, keep your focus on what’s important. Marvin actually believes in these family values he goes on about, so having a piece of eye candy on your arm will only go so far. A real relationship is what you need if you want to prove you belong at the firm.”
She nodded. “Right. I know.”
“Just remember what you told me when we first met—that night we stayed at the office late in the law library, drinking wine and doing research for our respective cases...”
“Refresh my memory.”
“You said that you only date men you have no fear of falling in love with.”
She’d said that? Out loud? A lot of wine had been consumed that evening, so maybe she really had made that confession to a woman she’d barely known at the time. “Exactly. So there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She swallowed hard as she nodded. “Yes. Trust me, Lila. By next week, Chase—for all his lifesaving hotness—will be just a memory.”
* * *
HELP! WAS ALL the text message said, and Chase abandoned his plan to pick up the wedding boutonnieres and instead sprinted across the beach toward Hayley’s resort. He hit dial on her number as he went. Immediately his police instincts kicked in. Vacation or not, jurisdiction or not, his badge was never too far away. His heart rate matched his legs’ speed as he ran, careful not to knock over tourists along the beach walk.
“Chase?” she answered finally on the fifth ring.
“Where are you?”
“My hotel room.”
She didn’t sound as if she was in life-threatening danger. He slowed his pace a little. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going shark diving.”
He stopped running. “Who’s we?”
“Us. My coworkers and spouses,” she said, her voice an echo of pure panic.
He got that. “Oh, good...so not fake fiancés,” he said, only half teasing. Shark diving was the most dangerous, dumb idea in the world. Offering yourself as bait to animals that wanted nothing more than to rip your limbs off? Who thought of this stuff?
“Please—I hate to ask you to do this... And I’m sorry if I’m taking you away from family stuff, but I—”
“Need your fiancé.” He had no other choice, especially when this whole thing had been his idea. Besides, he still needed her help for his own crucial moment that week. He stood outside her room. “Let me in.”
* * *
“OKAY, EVERYONE, LISTEN UP. We’re going to do the safety briefing on land, because once we’re out there, everything I say is going to go in one ear and right back
out the other.” The dive instructor, a local man named Jeremy, was standing next to the demo cage at Shark Dive Maui’s dry dock.
“Once we hit the water, that’s going to happen anyway,” Hayley said, still unable to believe she was actually going to do this. Though having Chase next to her did help ease her anxiety—over the shark dive at least.
When she’d let him into her hotel room an hour ago, neither of them had said a word about the night before. She’d been relieved that his mind seemed to be on this disastrous outing and not on kissing her.
Keeping things simple going forward. No problem.
Now, if she could only get her body to stop betraying her with its desire to be wrapped in those big arms, straining against the confines of his dark blue LAPD T-shirt.
“Once we get on the boat, we’ll cruise out to deep cobalt water. The trip out usually takes about fifteen to twenty minutes and we will see turtles, dolphins and humpback whales...” Jeremy continued.
“All the nice sea creatures,” Chase whispered. “Why can’t we dive with them instead?” He paced back and forth behind her, every so often running a hand through his dark hair.
He was cute when he was nervous. Almost cute enough to make her forget her own frazzled nerves.
“At two hundred to four hundred feet we will anchor and start chumming. It can take anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes to get the sharks to come close to the boat. We are hoping to see them today, not the other way around, and they are wild animals and unpredictable, so patience is appreciated and required,” Jeremy said, stepping inside the cage to demonstrate their positioning.
“Huh, maybe we’ll luck out and they won’t show up at all,” Hayley said. She wouldn’t be disappointed if the guests of honor decided they’d already scared the crap out of enough tourists that week.
A few minutes later they stood at the rear of the boat, away from the others. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this, but I have to say I do feel safer with you here,” Hayley said.
“Why’s that?”
“You’re a cop—you have sworn to protect the innocent.”
He laughed. “Hey, I’m off duty. Besides, I’m pretty sure there was nothing in my oath that said I provided safety against wild predatory animals. I think what you need is animal control.” As he spoke, he removed his shirt, and any other thought she could entertain vanished, replaced only by “Oh, my God—he is sexy.”
Just that—on repeat.
He caught her stare and the wide, dimpled smile appeared. “Like what you see?”
It was only an image that had appeared in her mind constantly that day, driving her to distraction, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Smirking, she slid her white tank top over her head, standing there in a pale yellow one-piece suit that had the sides cut out to accentuate her figure. “Do you?” she asked.
In less than a second, Chase had crossed the boat toward her, his hands landing directly on her hips as he pulled her into him. “So far, I like it all,” he whispered against her lips.
So much for keeping her distance and a clear head.
Under normal circumstances, a move like that in front of coworkers would have embarrassed her and she’d have pushed him away. But they were trying to fool everyone, weren’t they? And right now his act was definitely succeeding. Even she was fooled, so she leaned closer and kissed him. His grip tightened and his fingers dug into the flesh at her waist as she pressed her mouth harder against his. His tongue teased her bottom lip and her hands crept higher up the back of his neck, until they burrowed in his hair.
Damn, the man could kiss... And those lips felt just as good everywhere. Heat rushed to her cheeks as he slowly pulled back.
“Thinking about last night, weren’t you?”
Every minute of the day so far. “Yes. It can’t happen again. Right?”
His gaze burned into hers. “Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen again. In fact, if we didn’t have an audience, it would be happening right now.”
She knew he was right and suddenly diving with sharks wasn’t the most dangerous thing she might do that day.
6
“SO, HOW’S THE retreat going?” Terri-Lynn asked.
“I went shark diving today,” Hayley said, tucking the phone between her ear and her shoulder so her hands were free.
“Isn’t that what you do every day when you go to work?” Her best friend laughed at her own joke.
“You’re hilarious.” Hayley removed her swimsuit and hung it over the shower stall door, remembering the look on Chase’s face when he’d seen her in it.
“Was it terrifying?”
Not as terrifying as the look in his eyes after their steamy kiss. For a brief moment everything had almost seemed real. His act, his desire, his affection—all perfectly believable. Even she was starting to mix up reality with fiction. She needed to get her head on straight. Despite his prediction that they’d be winding up in bed together again, with distance between them and her mind clear, she’d decided she couldn’t let that happen. In a few days, they’d be going their separate ways, and getting more involved with him was a terrible idea. They’d already crossed a line and they couldn’t go back, but she was determined to keep things cool and casual as much as possible.
“The sharks were actually cute.” Chase was definitely cute. And cute on top of that quarterback-shaped body was downright dangerous.
“Cute? Oh, my God—you met someone!”
“How do you know that just by me saying the sharks were cute?”
“You’re not even going to deny it?” Her friend sounded surprised.
“No point. You’re the only person I can’t successfully lie to. But it’s not what you think...”
“You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”
“You’re thinking that I had wild, crazy, drunken sex with my twenty-two-year-old Hawaiian bartender.”
“Wow—get out of my head.”
“Anyway, that’s not it.” At least not the Hawaiian bartender part. She glanced at the clock. Six fifteen. She was meeting Chase at the Sheraton resort, Cliff Dive Bar for dinner with her coworkers at seven. She had to hurry. “I met a guy on the plane...”
“Ooh, I dropped you off at the airport. Somehow that makes me feel like I had a part in this romance.”
“Look, I got six minutes to tell this story.”
“Okay, go.”
Terri-Lynn didn’t speak while she recounted the situation with Chase. Nor did she say anything for a long minute after. “You can speak now.”
“This is not going to end well. I hope you realize that.”
“When did you become Miss Negative? And aren’t you always telling me I need to loosen up and have fun? And I know it was you who said, ‘Have lots of vacation sex.’”
“With the Hawaiian bartender, not someone you might actually see again! Someone you are trusting with your career. Hayley, have you given any thought to what happens after this week?”
“Nothing. We go our separate ways.” Her boss couldn’t hold her responsible for a breakup, right? And by the following week, she hoped her latest plunge into hot water would be forgiven and forgotten about.
“Ha. Not going to happen.”
“Yes, it is. I know this is hard for you to understand, since you marry everyone you sleep with—”
“Not nice.”
“Maybe not, but true nonetheless.”
“Okay, fine. I’m a serial monogamist—make your point,” her friend grumbled.
“All I’m saying is that some people—like me—just don’t look at relationships and marriage that way, and I found a guy who shares my view on it, so we’re good.” She wished for her friend’s sake, she could adopt a more optimistic view of marriage and the whole idea of spending a lifetime in love
with one person, but she just didn’t think it was possible...not for most anyway. And the couples that did stay together—were they really still in love? The ones she knew barely liked one another anymore.
“Maybe...but then what? You go your separate ways until the next time he has a family event or you have a work function, then you hook up again?”
Huh, that actually wasn’t that bad an idea. She shook her head. No, they’d agreed one week—nothing more. “No, we’ll say we broke up when people ask.”
“I really don’t support this. But since you’re already in this mess, I guess the only thing I can say is don’t hurt this guy. From what you’ve told me he sounds really great.”
“Don’t hurt him? You’re my best friend and you’re worried about him?”
“Yes, because I know you and you never get hurt. You are too strong to get hurt by a man.”
Her friend was right—she was strong and she was more than prepared to walk away from Chase and his incredible body and delicious smile and off-the-charts sex skills...but probably not tonight.
* * *
“THERE THEY ARE,” Hayley said, noticing her coworkers at several surfboard-shaped bar-style tables near the viewing area for the nightly cliff dive and torch lighting ceremony. She turned to Chase. “And you’re sure there’s no way your family could be here tonight?”
“No. Kate planned a sunset dinner cruise for the group.”
“How did we get out of that?”
“I get seasick on boats. Kate knows that so she didn’t even blink when I said we’d pass,” he said, taking her hand.
Seasick? “But you weren’t sick on the boat today,” she said as she led the way to the group.
“I was scared shitless about the shark dive. There was no time to feel sick.”
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