Her Holiday Fling

by Jennifer Snow

  “Yes, and now he’s probably deaf,” Cooper mumbled, shooting Kate a look before heading toward the bar.

  Weird. Cooper never treated Kate that way, Chase thought before brushing it aside and turning to Hayley. “Adam and Kendall, this is Hayley.”

  “Great to meet you both,” she said, shaking his brother’s hand and offering a small wave to Kendall.

  “I love your dress,” Kendall told her, admiring the blue fabric that hugged her body in all the right places.

  He would love it more in a few hours when it lay in a heap on the hotel room floor.

  “Thank you. I bought it today... Kind of a meet-the-ex-girlfriend nervousness purchase,” she said and the group laughed.

  He squeezed her hand. She was perfect. He was screwed.

  “Before we head over to the beach to go through the rehearsal, I just want to thank you all for being here,” Kate said. Picking up her glass to make a toast, she continued, “Our lives are all so crazy busy that coming together like this doesn’t happen as often as it should, but I cherish every moment we get to spend together.” She glanced at him and his brothers.

  He nodded.

  She stared at him expectantly. Most eyes stared at him expectantly.

  “I think you should say a few words,” Hayley whispered.

  What? He’d been so worked up about coming face-to-face with Adam and Kendall that he hadn’t exactly prepared a speech.

  But they were all still staring at him. He cleared his throat, taking Adam’s beer and raising it. “I’d like to congratulate Kate and Cooper. I still can’t believe my baby sister is getting married, but I couldn’t be happier...that it’s her and not me,” he said, earning a raised eyebrow from Kate and an odd, unreadable look from Hayley.

  Shit. His attempt at a joke had made even his own stomach uneasy. “In all seriousness, Kate was right when she said spending time with all of you has been wonderful. Being here on the island brings back amazing memories. And I know that Kate and Cooper, you guys are going to build some new memories of love and family together.” He glanced at Adam and Kendall and raised his glass to them, as well.

  Kendall smiled, her eyes filling with tears, and Adam nodded his thanks for his unspoken blessing.

  “So, if you’ll all raise your glasses and join me in wishing my sister and her soon-to-be husband a lifetime of happiness,” he concluded, his gaze falling on the woman he knew didn’t believe in happy-ever-after.

  * * *

  THINGS SUDDENLY FELT DIFFERENT.

  Naked in bed later that evening, things were different. He’d slowly removed her dress and shoes. Taking his time to kiss her stomach, arms, legs...every little inch of her before removing her bra and underwear. He was in no rush. The intense look of desire was still on his face, but there was something more. Something that terrified her as she reached for him, drawing him closer to lie on top of her. She spread her legs as he settled between them, his thick thighs pushing against hers. “You were wonderful tonight. You made your sister really happy.”

  He nodded silently as he touched her face, her neck, then trailed his fingers the length of her body. He gripped her hips as he thrust forward, his own hips pushing into her inner thighs as she raised her legs to wrap them around him.

  She squeezed her thighs tighter and held on to his arms, wanting to feel him closer. Needing to savor their time together, knowing it was quickly coming to an end. “Your family is really great. You are lucky to have them.” Why did she need to talk? An odd nervousness at the emotional connection she was sensing from him was making her fill the silence.

  He kissed her neck and shoulder, and shivers danced over her body. “I don’t want to talk. I just want to touch you, kiss you, feel you, with every inch of my body.” His voice was hoarse, full of need as his lips met hers.

  She swallowed hard, feeling her heart come alive inside her already buzzing body. “Make love to me, Chase,” she whispered against his mouth. Knowing this time it wasn’t just sex...

  He rocked his hips, plunging deeper inside her. Then he withdrew slowly, deliberately making the moment last, creating such a strong sensation, she clutched the bedsheets at her sides. His gaze never left hers and in his eyes she saw everything they were both not saying.

  His body shook and her legs trembled around his waist as they climaxed together moments later in a wave of passion and ecstasy.

  His weight collapsed forward as he rested his forehead against hers. “I’m not sure how I’m going to live without that,” he whispered.

  She wasn’t sure how she was going to live without him.

  10

  AS CHASE WALKED along the beach toward his resort in the early-morning heat, stress played on his mind. Since meeting Hayley, he couldn’t prevent his thoughts from wandering to what if... What if he could commit to another woman? What if Hayley was the one who could handle the demands placed on him by his job? Back in LA, her work kept her busy, as well. She was career focused and driven and she meant it when she said she wasn’t looking for a husband and children to make her life complete.

  Maybe she was the one woman who would complement his life in a way he hadn’t realized he’d been missing until that week. Maybe she’d be okay with his inability to be more than what they were right now in this tropical paradise. As much as he was tempted to offer her more, he knew he couldn’t. Loving her and committing to her were two different things.

  Strolling along the beach didn’t help ease his conflicted, tortured mind as he saw couples lounging together on beach chairs and families playing in the ocean waves. A few feet away, several young boys buried their father in the sand, giggling as the man’s body was trapped beneath layers of the golden sand. He’d given up on the idea of kids a long time ago, refusing to put a family through what his own had suffered.

  Losing their parents had been the biggest challenge all of his siblings had faced and while he’d done his best to raise them, he knew he couldn’t come close to providing the same love and support they’d received from their parents. Standing in for his father to walk Kate down the aisle that day would be met with mixed emotions from them all. The dress rehearsal walk had brought tears to just about every eye. But at least he could be there for her.

  Arriving at the resort, he took the elevator to his sister’s room. As he raised a hand to knock, the door swung open and her eyes were wide, her mouth set in a thin, firm line. He knew that look—he was in trouble. “Hi,” he said, hoping maybe someone else was the cause of her flared nostrils.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she said, her hands on her hips beneath the big, plush, terry-cloth robe with the resort logo on the chest. Her hair was set in wide Velcro rollers and her face was covered in a green clay mask.

  “I hope you’re planning to wash that off before the wedding,” he said in an attempt to ease the angry tension in the air. He wouldn’t assume the worst. With Kate, it may have been something as simple as forgetting to pick up the boutonnieres from the florists...which he actually had...

  “Don’t, Chase, I’m seriously pissed at you.”

  “About?”

  “Hayley.” She dragged him inside the room.

  “What about her?” He frowned.

  “You met six months ago?” She raised an eyebrow.

  He nodded.

  “Really? Are you sure you didn’t just meet on the plane ride down here?” she asked, peering at him with her intense dark eyes. She was a better interrogator and intimidator than any of his coworkers at the department. With Kate and Cooper as parents, Chase already pitied his future nieces and nephews. They would get away with nothing.

  Sighing, he sat on the bed. “How did you find out?”

  “I got a call this morning from a client whose wedding is in two weeks, stressing over a delay in her wedding dress alterations,
so I called Terri-Lynn O’Shea at The Perfect Gown.” She paused.

  Was that supposed to mean something to him? He shrugged.

  “The owner, Terri-Lynn O’Shea... The name doesn’t ring any bells?”

  “No. Kate, can you just get to the point?” His head hurt, his heart was conflicted and he was in no mood for guessing games.

  “She’s a friend of Hayley’s.”

  His mouth went dry.

  “When I told her I was in Maui for my own destination wedding and that I needed her to call the client directly about the dress, her response was, ‘Oh, my friend Hayley is on a corporate retreat in Maui this week...’”

  Damn it. They’d totally forgotten to check the six-degrees-of-separation trail to make sure the dots couldn’t connect and screw them over somehow. But of all the coincidences... He’d never thought his sister, whose business was all about love and forever, would somehow be connected to a woman whose business was helping to dismantle relationships.

  But before he could say anything, she continued, “Once Terri-Lynn said it, I remembered where I’d seen Hayley before.” She crossed the room and picked up her copy of Los Angeles Woman magazine.

  Things immediately went from bad to worse.

  Flipping it open to the article on Hayley, she handed it to him. “Have you even seen this?”

  He nodded, ignoring the stunning picture of Hayley in a pin-striped business suit, her blond hair in a tight bun. That woman looked nothing like the one he’d spent countless hours in bed with. The woman he was learning more about and connecting with each day. The woman he was falling in love with. He set it aside. “I read the article.”

  “And yet you still decided to introduce her to us as your girlfriend?” Picking up the magazine, she read, “‘Men are often the reason that women lose their own identities...’ What the hell, Chase?”

  He cringed. He’d read it, but hearing it again was painful. He just couldn’t connect the woman on the pages of this article to the one he’d gotten to know.

  His sister continued. “Another direct quote—‘Marriage is no longer a lifetime commitment but an elaborate event for two people who have lost all common sense.’ Seriously?”

  His sister was furious. He had a hard time remembering when he’d last seen her this worked up. And he knew why—she liked Hayley. Or at least she had. And she’d been hopeful for his sake. He stood and took the magazine. “Look, I don’t care what the article says—”

  “Oh, that’s right, because you’re not really dating her!” His sister threw her hands up. “I can’t believe you lied to all of us.”

  “I just didn’t want to be the victim of your setup attempts this week. I don’t see the big deal. Except for the lie about how we met—I’m sorry for that—all I really did was find my own date for your wedding.” He shouldn’t have lied about his relationship with Hayley, but what he said now was true. “Aren’t you the one always pressuring me to date?”

  “So this is my fault?”

  In a small way, yeah. If his sister had been content to let him live his life the way he wanted, he’d never have felt this need to put her off and if she wasn’t best friends with his ex-girlfriend, maybe he wouldn’t have needed to save face at this event. But in truth, all this had worked out so much better than he could have hoped. The problem was he had no idea where to go from there and his sister’s rage over his deceit didn’t help his already-troubled mind. “No, I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m just asking you to give me a break once in a while. Let me worry about my own life.”

  “That’s the problem, Chase. You don’t worry about your own life. You worry about me and Eric and Adam...but you never stop to think about what you want. What’s the right thing for you?”

  His sister was right. At least she had been up until that week. Now all he could think about was what he wanted.

  “What is she getting out of all of this?” Kate asked in his silence.

  He sighed. Telling her the truth would only make her more annoyed at Hayley. “A Maui wedding?”

  She scoffed. “I seriously doubt—” she picked up the article again “—the woman who thinks weddings are ‘a tacky competition between desperate women’ would be interested in attending my wedding.”

  “She needed me to stand in as her fiancé at her corporate retreat.” He hated admitting the truth. How could Kate so easily dismiss the person she’d spent the day shopping with? The woman she’d admitted to liking. The woman he wasn’t sure he could walk away from... And that really sucked if his sister now held so much contempt for her.

  He didn’t think there was anything he could say to convince Kate that what had started as a mutual platonic agreement had spiraled out of control into something so much more. And he wasn’t even sure he wanted to admit it yet. At least not until he knew what he was willing to do about it.

  “Wow, I can’t believe this.”

  He refused to let Hayley take the heat for this. He was the one who should feel guilty for lying to his family. “Look, I agreed to help her, okay. In fact, this was all my idea. She didn’t even want to go through with this, especially after getting to know all of you. So if you want to form an ill opinion of someone, I’m your guy.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not impressed with you, either.” She placed her hands on her hips. “She’s not coming to the wedding,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. She wiped her cheek as a tear threatened to destroy her face mask.

  He moved toward her and wrapped his arms around her. He hated hurting his family. Damn it, that hadn’t been his intent. “Kate...”

  She shook her head. “The worst part is that I really like her.”

  He did, too. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She studied him. “She’s perfect for you.”

  He knew that, too.

  * * *

  HAYLEY TOOK A sip of her coffee. She was having a late breakfast on the deck of the Coronade Café, overlooking the resort pools, before heading over to the conference room for their final meeting.

  This place really was paradise. She’d never had a week like this. What she’d expected—a stress-filled retreat, fighting to convince her boss that she fit into the company ideals—had turned into a romantic getaway, filled with passion...and love?

  “Hayley, there you are.” Marvin’s voice behind her made her jump, spilling the dark liquid onto her tan sleeveless blouse. She dabbed at it with a napkin as she answered.

  “Hi, Marvin. You’re up early.”

  “Have to enjoy this place as much as possible,” he said with a smile.

  She nodded. She wished she could stay an extra few days. With Chase. With no one else around forcing them to lie, to pretend to be anything. Just the two of them being what they were.

  “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” Marvin said.

  Her eyes widened. “Sorry?”

  “For having the wrong idea about you. That article was unfortunate and I’m not sure where it came from, but it certainly doesn’t reflect the person I’ve seen here this week.” He touched her shoulder. “You have a wonderful, committed relationship and I’m glad we all had a chance to see that.”

  She swallowed hard, the truth on the tip of her tongue. But she hesitated. Would telling him make anything better? And saying that her relationship was fake might actually be a lie now. It certainly felt real. She needed to talk to Chase. “Thank you, sir,” she said as her cell phone rang. “Oh, excuse me.”

  “See you at the meeting,” he said as he walked away.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. I’m calling from the room phone because my cell battery is dead.”

  Her pulse raced at the sound of his voice. “Hi,” she said, feeling relieved that he’d called. He’d seemed a little off when he’d left the room that morning, and she
was looking forward to their time together that evening. Their last night together.

  “We’ve been outed.”

  “What? By who?” She lowered her voice as she scanned the pool deck. What did he mean? Did his family know? Did her boss? He hadn’t seemed to just now...which meant it must be his family. Which somehow was a million times worse.

  “Your friend Terri-Lynn spoke to Kate this morning,” he said wryly.

  “Terri-Lynn? How did she—”

  “My sister is planning a wedding and the bride bought her dress at The Perfect Gown.”

  Oh, shit, she thought as realization dawned. How many times had she heard her friend say Kate says this... Kate suggests that... Kate, Kate, Kate—she’d never have thought they were the same Kate. But wait. “How did she know I was the same Hayley?” Sure, it was a stretch, but maybe there was more than one Hayley in Maui that week...who happened to be a lawyer... Crap.

  “She reads Los Angeles Woman magazine.” His voice was void of emotion.

  Oh, no. “I assume she was angry?” she croaked out, resting her head in her hands. This wasn’t supposed to go like this. The last thing she’d intended was for Chase to get in trouble with his family or put a damper on Kate’s wedding day. And the fact that she’d disappointed them, too, made her chest hurt. She hadn’t expected to get close to anyone that week, but she had.

  “Let’s just say you’re off the hook for the wedding...but more than anything, she’s disappointed, because she really liked you.”

  Normally, any opportunity to avoid a wedding would have her squealing for joy, but not this time. This time she was disappointed, too. “I’m sorry, Chase,” she whispered. So that was it, then. He didn’t need her as a date for the wedding. Their time together was over. The idea of not seeing him again made her chest tighten.

  “It’s not your fault. I should have never lied to them. You were right.”

  “It is my fault. You never would have lied if I hadn’t told you about my problem on the plane. I feel awful. Please tell Kate I’m sorry.” She was. The truth was she liked Chase’s sister, his entire family, in fact. She liked Chase. More than she’d expected to. More than she wanted to. And definitely more than she was capable of acting on now. How did she tell him she wanted to see him again after the mess they’d created?