Still Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 10)

by Anne Marsh

  When Dorrie asks/orders me out to celebrate the plethora of good news, I agree to go. After all, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be but work. When I answer the door to my loft, however, she pushes past me carrying a pizza box and a six-pack of wine.

  “Change of plans,” she announces.

  Do I care? Nope. Not at all. Today’s simply another day that ends in y, and I can do pizza in my sleek, little black romper just as well as I could do tapas and two-hundred-dollar wine. I kick off my heels and trail her into my living room. The sleek, industrial space is super modern and chic. The realtor promised me it would be a good investment, so I bit. Light pours through the skylights in the thirty-foot ceilings and lights up the expensive, cream-colored leather couch. Or it would, if I hadn’t buried the couch in all my clutter. Fabric swatches and trim samples are mixed up with empty diet soda cans and chip bags. Yes, I’ve been subsisting on comfort food. The network forgot to write the size of my ass into my new contract, which is another piece of happy news.

  Dorrie eyes the ungodly mess I’ve managed to create and then gives up trying to find an empty spot for the pizza. She sets it down on top of a pile of fashion magazines and motions to me. “Eat.”

  While I obediently pick at a slice of pizza, she pops the top on one of the bottles and hands it to me.

  I can’t help but eye it suspiciously. That’s a lot of red wine. “Are we renegotiating our contract?”

  “Nope.” She opens a bottle for herself and settles in. “We’re going to discuss you.”

  Oh. Goody.

  I take a healthy swig from the bottle as Dorrie looks me up and down. I should care about her opinion, because she’s one hell of an agent. Just think of agenting as the shark tank at your local aquarium. Dorrie’s not the cute little sand shark and she’s not the harmless black tip cruising the reef. She’s the great white, the tiger shark that takes a bite out of the oblivious surfer and his board, the bull shark. You do not mess with this woman.

  “You know why I signed you as my client?”

  I swallow and reply, “Because I could make you money?”

  “That too,” she says with a wave of her hand. “But there are plenty of money-making fish out there in the ocean and I didn’t want them. I wanted you.”

  News flash? If Dorrie’s the shark, I’m the chum she uses to bait the water in order to reel in the network. Trust me. It works.

  “Because you knew I’d be a star.”

  She snorts. “I’m an agent, not a soothsayer. There’s no way of predicting the future in this business. You had the goods even when you first drove up to the set in that godawful, broken down, smoking green van. You had a spark about you. Made people want to look at you. Even then, I could see you were going places. You were hungry, too, which always helps. Can’t sell a full man on a buffet.”

  I poke at the cheese on my pizza. She’s right. I was hungry then. I wanted success more than anything, because it felt like the right thing to want. Success meant safety and never having to worry. It means my dad was wrong, too. That I could make something of myself.

  “You came back from the Florida Keys wanting something else,” Dorrie continues. “The show isn’t enough anymore.”

  I set my pizza down. “Maybe I do want more.”

  Have you ever sunk into a bathtub only to find out when your butt hits the bottom that the water’s only lukewarm? And then you don’t know whether you should just make the best of it or if you should drain the tub and go for the do-over? New York City is still fabulous, but I’m not quite so hot for it as I once was. I want something else.

  Someone else.

  “Good,” Dorrie tells me, satisfaction filling her voice. “If you know what you want, you go after it.”

  Out of character? Sure it is. But I’ve always suspected that beneath her toothy, Donna Karan-wearing exterior, Dorrie is hiding a heart.

  “It’s not that simple.” And it really, really isn’t. “We’re getting a divorce. We’re over.”

  I don’t have to tell Dorrie who I’m referring to. After all, she’s already read all the gossip sites. The funny thing about divorces is that they’re generally considered final. We all know plenty of people who’ve married and then split—but how many of them hooked back up with their original spouses? Right? When you’re done, you’re done.

  Dorrie levels a gaze at me. “Do you want him? Give me the magic words.”

  Yes, she’s going for blood. I think back to my weeks in the Florida Keys with Ro and then to that week six years before. We were good together. I made him less rigid and he made me more… me. He grounds me and I provide a jolt of excitement. But it’s more than that. Somehow, we’re real together. He makes me want to stay and fight, even if I’m no good at either, and he might just probably, definitely, one thousand percent be the love of my life. It just took me two tries to realize it.

  I clear my throat. “Yes.”

  “And?” Dorrie’s uncanny (or inexorable, depending on who you’re talking to) ability to push is legendary in our field.

  “And I love him.”

  I didn’t tell him, did I? I should have asked him for another chance at us. Should have apologized and then shown him how I feel, I don’t mean naked and in bed, although I bet he’d have liked that plan, too. I took the easy way out and now nothing’s easy at all.

  “I screwed up.” Yes, I sound sad and weary. I also sound more than a little pathetic, which needs to stop right now.

  Dorrie’s already on it. “Yes, you did. But don’t wallow in it—fix it. You’re going to have do the hard stuff. Open up. Show him that you care.”

  And since Dorrie is apparently an expert on negotiating contracts and fixing people, I ask the obvious. “How do I do that?”

  Yes, I want a magic answer.

  A plan.

  A gigantic, pulsating ray of hope.

  “Buy a self-help book. Send him a dozen roses—and dirty pictures—every day. Look it up on Pinterest, because they’ve got a million ideas and all you need is one good one. You try. If it doesn’t work, you try something else. You don’t have to be perfect—you just have to be perfect for him.”

  An hour later, the pizza box is empty and Dorrie has put away her bottle. I make sure she’s got an Uber back to her condo, and then I stagger into bed. I consider and discard the idea of drunk dialing Rohan. I’m pretty sure I’d kill to hear his voice right now, but Hello? Or How did you get this number? aren’t going to cut it.

  If I want him, I have to fight for him.

  Now all I need is a plan—and as I eye the swatches scattered all around us, I just might have an idea.

  Rohan

  I can spot an asshole at twenty paces. In my glory days, I shot them. Sure, Uncle Sam had rules of engagement and there were the obligatory steps between the sighting and the shot. Stand down, drop your weapons, warning shot, kill shot. Each stage is spelled out and carefully defined—and it’s good to know where the lines are. That way, when you decide to cross a boundary (or drive a fucking Humvee over the center line), you know exactly where you stand. The middle-aged guy in the slick suit has dick written all over him. He gets out of the black BMW and assesses Search and SEALs. I don’t move from where I’m sprawled on my back on my porch, Jack beside me. Jack growls and I know exactly how he feels.

  Search and SEALs is my territory. Señor Dick can take his smug fiesta for one and leave. And yes, I’m torn between the need to run around and pee on a few palm trees to mark what’s mine and the urge to just wave my dick around. It’s definitely bigger that what that guy’s toting. The slick, expensive suit belongs to a man with a very small penis and a correspondingly huge ego. I look forward to punching a few holes in him.

  “Rohan MacCarthy?” The Dick moves toward the porch, hand out. Oh look. He’s going to pretend he has manners.

  “That’s me.” I turn my head to meet his gaze head-on, but I keep my own hands stacked behind my head. No way I touch him. With the exception of punching, of cou
rse. Knuckles and fists are fine with me.

  “I’m James Alvarez.” When I say nothing, his eyes narrow. “Hindi’s father.”

  Father is such an interesting word. For instance, when I look at my visitor, I see no relationship to Hindi at all. She’d mentioned issues with daddy dearest in passing, but I’d ignored the hint. I’d like to tell you that I look at him and I see Hindi, that there’s some kind of similarity between them. Eyes, nose, hair. I’d take anything, but it’s like looking at a stranger because there’s no one like Hindi.

  James sighs, drops his hand, and drops the act. Thank fuck. “You’re married to my daughter.” When I nod, he continues. “I’m here to fix that.”

  “Good luck with that,” I tell him.

  He gives me a polite, tight smile and then he looks around him again. “Is there a place where we can talk?”

  I pat the deck beside me. “Pull up a seat in my office.”

  You ever see someone’s face when he walks past a grate in a city and catches a hit of sewer gas? James’s lip curls and the emotion crossing his face is pure disgust. My father-in-law doesn’t like me—cry me a river. Fortunately for him, he’s getting his wish about the happily-never-after. Ava’s on the case.

  James turns out to be a stubborn son of a bitch. He advances until he’s standing next to me, looking down on me. He seems perfectly comfortable with the position.

  You sensing a pattern here yet?

  “Hindi wants a divorce,” James announces.

  I close my eyes because I kind of hate this guy. Yes, it’s instinctive and completely illogical. Sue me and call it the Hindi Effect. “You talked to her?”

  James doesn’t hesitate. “No. I’m her father, however, and I’ll always clean up her messes.”

  Great. Now I’m a mess. I certainly feel like a pile of dog shit, so maybe Jamie Dearest isn’t so far off.

  “So how do you know that she wants a divorce?”

  “My daughter is impulsive. She doesn’t know how to pick a course and stick to it. She makes mistakes.”

  The implication, of course, being that I am the mistake to end all mistake. The cherry on top of a veritable banana split of a mistake. The twelve-inch porn dick that Sir Saintly Dad wants nowhere near his darling daughter. No. Pause right there. Because I’m hearing a whole lot of criticism and not a word of love.

  “If you didn’t talk to her, you don’t know what she wants.”

  James actually sighs. “Mr. MacCarthy, I’ve got my lawyers on this and I want your word that you’re not going to contest the divorce. I want this over with as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

  “For Hindi’s sake,” I say to him, cracking an eye.

  I’d really like the answer to be “yes,” but his face doesn’t change. It’s all one big, fat nope. He still doesn’t look loving—he seems more constipated than caring. You know how it’s practically obligatory for politicians to take those smarmy, self-satisfied photos of themselves cutting ribbons and letting the rest of us know how we’ve fucked our shit six ways to Sunday but everything’s going to be fine because they’re either on the job or will be as soon as we cast our votes? Hindi’s dad has them all beat. He radiates self-satisfaction.

  He’s not here for her.

  He’s here for himself.

  And his next words just prove that. “Hindi has always been a disappointment to me. I have a reputation to maintain and she’s a liability. She’ll never be a success, but I will always be here to catch her. You, Mr. MacCarthy, are an aberration. A mistake.”

  You know how there are diets that call for eight thousand calories in a day because you’re working out so intensively? And you’re supposed to pound so much good-for-you protein and carbohydrates that just the thought of another mouthful or super shake makes you want to puke and head for the nearest drive-through window for some greasy, salty goodness? Good behavior tastes fucking awful. It’s fuel and it gets the job done, but it’s no fun. James Alvarez is so full of righteousness that I’m amazed he can swallow another mouthful of his own bullshit.

  “I fixed her first husband,” James tells me when I don’t respond. “Alain was happy to take a check and leave. I can do the same for you.”

  I sit up. “You have money?”

  “Yes, Mr. MacCarthy, I certainly do.” He smiles, certain he’s got me now.

  “So why is Hindi worried about paying her bills? Why, when I met her, was she so broke that she was eating the fucking cherries from the bar because she was hungry? Why is she so worried about the network not renewing her contract?”

  “Hindi creates her own problems,” James pontificates and that’s it. I’ve had enough. I’ll make her a new family here in Angel Cay. She doesn’t need this asshole in her life. She may not need me either, but getting rid of James is the least I can do.

  I shove to my feet. Yes, I am a big, pissed off motherfucker. Don’t tell me James doesn’t have it coming. “Hindi’s an amazing woman.”

  He opens his mouth, clearly under the misapprehension that we’re having a conversation. Nope. Done with that. You watch enough super hero movies and you learn how this goes. First the evil villain holds forth. He monologues about his general awesomeness and everything that’s wrong with the rest of the world. He throws a pissy temper tantrum like he’s two and life just ran out of cookies. And then the hero gets his shot.

  Not that I’m a hero, but you get the idea. It’s my turn to talk and I’m taking it. I hold my palm up when he acts like he’s about to advance. I’m going to make this short and then he’s getting the fuck out of my life and off my island.

  “Hindi has a successful TV show.” I fold down my thumb. “She sings like nobody’s listening and she’s not afraid to jump into anything feet first.” I tuck my pinky and my index finger into the fist I’m building. “She rescues stray cats and sailors.”

  My ring finger joins the rest, and hey, wouldn’t you know it? That’s my pointer finger giving Mr. James there the bird. Sums it up, so I roll into my conclusion. “She’s fucking awesome.”

  “You’re a Fan-Di.” Dickhead looks like I’ve got some fatal disease, one of those horrible tropical ones that give you the runs and that leaves you barfing to death. I want to hit him so badly that I can almost feel my knuckles crunching into his perfect nose.

  Except I don’t.

  Hitting James would make this about me and how I feel—and then I’d be no better than Dickhead Dad.

  “Get off my island,” I tell him. And then yeah, because I can be a vindictive bastard, I make things a little fun. For me. “You’ve got five minutes before I turn the dogs loose.”

  Apparently, he must knows what Search and SEALs does for a living because he blusters a little more and then retreats to his car. Seconds later, he’s gone. Thank. Fuck.

  “I would have hit him,” growls a voice from behind me. Vann vaults onto the porch.

  “I would have helped,” Finn adds, following close on Vann’s heels.

  They both turn and look at me. What? Do you think I have a plan? Know what to do now? I wish I did, but we all know that I’m lost.

  “She’s amazing.” I know I sound pathetic and needy, but I like to think I also sound genuine. Because it’s true and she doesn’t need my affirmation. Hindi Alvarez is an amazing woman—end of story.

  Vann looks at me. “Did you tell her that?”

  I open my mouth. Close it.

  You know what?

  He’s got a point.

  A point the size of the Matterhorn and as pointed as the Space Needle. Did I?

  “He didn’t.” Finn slaps me on the back. “Man doesn’t like to talk, Vann. He sticks to the essentials. Hello, good bye, and where’s the toilet paper.”

  I want to protest that it’s not true. Absolutely not. I do so talk. And about stuff that matters—not just the kind of crap you cover in a first-year language class. Surely Hindi knows that I care about her and that I have nothing but admiration for who she is and what she’s accomplishe
d. We’ve talked about do-overs, but she’s already good at so many things. The show, life, living, loving. Being herself, being Hindi, being… my heart.

  I didn’t tell her that.

  Didn’t show her that.

  Didn’t do the one thing I needed to do to convince her to be mine.

  Vann nudges me. “Are we going on a mission?”

  “Yes.” See? That sounds decisive—and then I remember. I don’t know where Hindi lives. I want to howl and scream like a two-year-old. Addresses are such a simple thing. I need to find her now. Go to her. Grovel before someone else snaps her up and I’ve lost her for forever and not just way too many weeks.

  I should have got her address from Lilah. I shouldn’t have said what I did on our last day together in Angel Cay. Hindi screwed up, but so did I. When the person who loves you says she’s sorry, you listen, you love, and you forgive. Life’s one mistake after another—and it’s also one big, happy, sunshine-filled slice of paradise if you hang in there. Like surfing, there are ups and downs. One minute you’re riding the wave and here comes the beach and the best ride of your life, and the next your ass is biting sand and the water slams into you. But that’s okay. It’s actually pretty fucking awesome, right? Because you come up for air, find your board, and get back on for another ride. Who really wants the best ride of his life to be over? Looking forward is better than looking back and hanging ten and loving the ride? That’s the best thing ever.

  Hindi’s my best thing and I need to get her back.