“It definitely was. It was taken at my dad’s company picnic.” Her voice remained soft, loving. “We all had a great time that day, especially my sisters. They were only a year apart and were really close. Sometimes people mistook them for twins, and they always got a kick out of that.”

“I had two sisters, too. Only, they were older. I was their pesky little brother.”

Her light green eyes locked on to his. “How old were you when...?”

“Twelve. How old were you?”

She let out her breath. “Eleven.”

His heart dropped to his stomach. He knew that her family had died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty appliance in their home. But he didn’t know the details. “How did you survive when the rest of them didn’t?”

“I wasn’t there. I was at a neighbor’s house. It was my first slumber party. I was younger than some of the other girls, so my parents were hesitant to let me go, but I begged them, so they gave in.” She breathed a little deeper. “Not being home that night saved my life.”

“It was different for me. I was in the car when it crashed. The impact was fast, brutally quick, but I remember it in slow motion.” It had been like an out of body experience that never ended. “I have a scar.” He pushed back the pieces of hair that fell across his forehead. “Here, just below my hairline. It was noticeable when I was young, but it’s faded over the years.”

She approached him and reached out to touch the scar, running her index finger along the pale line. She was painstakingly gentle, and it made him want to kiss her. They were standing so close he could’ve leaned forward and captured her mouth with his. But he didn’t take the liberty. They stared at each other instead, steeped in a strange kind of intimacy.

“I’m glad you survived the accident,” Carol said, smoothing his hair across his brow.

“So am I.” But before things got unbearably awkward, Jake stepped back, trying to restrain the tenderness between them. “After the crash, I used to pray to Uncta, a deity from Choctaw mythology who steals fire from the sun. I was the only one who was rescued from the car before it went up in flames.”

“Did you think Uncta had saved you?”

“No, but I wanted to steal fire, too. To have his powers.”

But that wasn’t going to help Jake now. He’d already jumped straight from the frying pan and into the flame, feeling things for Carol that he wished he didn’t feel. He still wanted to kiss her, as passionately as he could.

Two

Carol wondered what had gotten into her, touching Jake the way she had. She shouldn’t have traced his scar or tried to subdue the unruly strands of his hair. Those types of things were reserved for lovers, not your boss.

But she wasn’t going to apologize. That would only draw attention to what she’d done. She could already feel the discomfort it had caused.

Breaking the silence, she said, “I’ll go get my new clothes so you can see them.” It was the purpose of his visit, after all. But she wasn’t going to offer to model them for him. That would be way too weird.

Carol dashed into her room and grabbed the garments.

She returned to the living room and laid them out on her couch. She went back for the accessories, and then lined them up on the coffee table.

“That’s a cool bounty,” he said.

Yes, it was, with at least two different outfits per day, along with shoes, purses and beach bags to match. “I have you to thank for it.”

“As long as you’re happy with everything.” He reached for a hanger with a flowing fabric draped around it. “What’s this?”

“That’s my party dress. It’s a sarong.” It was made from the finest silk in the world, decorated with a hand-painted design and trimmed in shiny glass beads.

“The material is beautiful, but how does it work?”

“There are lots of different ways to wrap it. Millie showed me how she thinks it will best suit me. This goes with it.” She grabbed a big sheer scarf and swished it back and forth. “It’s called a body veil. It goes around the dress for a fluttery effect.”

“A body veil.” He spoke softly. “That even sounds pretty.”

She forged ahead. “Both pieces are from a Brazilian designer who just exploded onto the scene.” She’d already memorized his name in case anyone at the party asked who she was wearing. “Millie said that they don’t use beach towels in Rio. Instead, they lay a sarong in the sand and the women use them as cover-ups, too. But you probably already know that since you go there every year for Carnival.”

Before she envisioned him doing wicked things in the streets of Rio, she quickly added, “My outfit was created as an evening gown and is much fancier than the sarongs they use at the beach. It’s from the designer’s most recent collection and hasn’t even hit the stores yet. So I was wrong about not wearing something straight off the runway.”

Jake put down the dress, treating it gently. “It has a romantic quality.”

She supposed it did, especially with the inclusion of the body veil, but dang if she could come up with an appropriate response.

Was Jake as attracted to her as she was to him? Was that even possible? It was sure starting to feel like it.

He was now eyeing her new bikini. It wasn’t an itty-bitty, stringy thing, but the design was nonetheless sexy. Millie had talked her into it, saying that the low-cut top and high-waist bottoms showed off her curves. Thankfully, Carol already had a bit of a tan from hanging out at the pool. It wasn’t summer yet. It was still spring, when the Southern California weather varied from day to day, so sometimes she cheated and used a tanning bed at the salon, preparing for the hotter months ahead. However, she was cautious about not overdoing any type of UV exposure. She never did anything in excess.

Jake did, though. He was the king of indulgences. She couldn’t imagine two people being more opposite, aside from the loss of their families, which had been their tie from the beginning. She’d first met him when she’d applied for a job at his Caring for Fosters Foundation, the organization he, Garrett and Max had created that provided financial and emotional support to foster children. She hadn’t gotten the job, as her experience in nonprofits was limited. But Jake had made it up to her, offering to hire her as his personal assistant, a position that was also up for grabs at the time. And now, here she was, two years later, trapped in feelings she couldn’t quite define.

“I should put everything back,” she said. She wanted that bathing suit out of sight, out of mind. Which was foolish, she knew, considering that eventually he was going to see her in it.

“I can help.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“Really, I don’t mind.”

“All right.” Carol gave in. Otherwise, letting him handle her belongings might seem like a bigger deal than it was, even if it was making her nervous.

With both of their arms full, he followed her down the hall. They entered her room, and she placed her load on the bed.

He followed suit, then said, “It’s girlie in here.”

“I guess it is, to some degree.” Along with textured wood furnishings, the decor consisted of dried flowers, lacy pillows and a tufted headboard upholstered in blue velvet. “But what can I say?” She made a goofy joke. “I hit like a girl, too. So you better watch out.”

He laughed. “There’s no such thing as hitting like a girl. My sisters used to pummel the crap out of me. But most of the time, I had it coming.”

She teased him. “You were a troublemaker even then?”

“I used to embarrass them in front of their dates, telling the guys stupid things about them.”

She kept up the banter. “Remind me not to have you around when I go on my next date.”

His expression sobered. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Carol. I’m not a kid anymore.”

Boy, didn’t she know it. He was about as grown-up as a man could get, tall and strong, with the deepest, darkest brown eyes. When he smiled, they twinkled, but when he was being serious, like now, those eyes could pierce a part of your soul.

Anxious to get him out of her room and back to neutral ground, she said, “I never even offered you anything.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Anything?”

“A refreshment.” She knew that he favored seltzer water, with ice and a twist of lemon. She did, too, a habit she’d picked up from him.

“A refreshment? Who says things like that?” A smile returned to his face. “Except for those old TV sitcom housewives. All you need is a ruffled apron to complete the picture.”

“Smarty.” She shrugged it off. “Maybe I was born in the wrong era.”

“Maybe I was, too. Only, I would be a greaser.” He slipped on his sunglasses, peering at her from beneath the tinted glass like a rabble-rouser. “Me and my fast cars.”

She’d never been to one of his races, but she’d gotten used to knowing where he went, who he socialized with, even which women he took to bed.

Was it any wonder she was antsy about him being in her room? She’d spent far too much time beneath her covers thinking about the hot and sexy things his lovers sometimes said about him. One overzealous starlet had even blogged about her naughty escapades with him. Of course, he wasn’t the only playboy who’d rung this woman’s bell or who’d been mentioned in the blog. But he was the only one Carol cared about.

“So, do you want something to drink?” she asked.

He removed the glasses. “Sure.”

They went into the kitchen, and she poured the drinks. When they returned to the living room, she was still fighting her wayward thoughts.

She just hoped that she was able to relax and enjoy herself on their trip, without her fantasies going wild. Because there was nothing tame about the battle raging inside her or how badly she needed to contain it.

* * *

Time went by in a busy blur, and now Jake was sitting beside Carol on his private jet, en route to the Caribbean. Normally he slept on long flights, shutting out the boredom, but he was wide-awake on this journey, fascinated by every move his traveling companion made.

With her reddish blond hair falling against her summer-white blouse, she looked soft and pretty, framed by the intermittent clouds billowing past her window. She’d been peering out the glass for a while, gazing at the ocean.

Finally, she turned back to him. She wasn’t a frantic flyer. But she wasn’t as comfortable in the air as he was, either. The aircraft was too big to land on the private island where they were going, so they’d be landing on another island, then taking a helicopter to their final destination.

“I researched the Caribbean,” she said.

“You did?” He leaned a little closer, getting a deeper whiff of the fragrance she wore. It smelled crisp and fresh, like grapefruit, mixed with summer greens. “For what kind of information?”

“All kinds.” She exaggerated a shiver. “You should have seen the snakes and spiders and scorpions I uncovered. Luckily our island doesn’t have any of those things, at least not poisonous ones. No crocodiles, either.”

He shifted in his seat. “Did you think Lena would choose a location with all that?”

“I just wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to get bitten by some scary creature.”

If he could get away with sinking his teeth into her, he would do it. “We’re going to be fine.”

“I packed a first-aid kit, just in case. We still need to watch out for jellyfish and things like that.”

The only safety precaution Jake ever packed was condoms. Of course he’d skipped them this trip since it wasn’t going to be a romantic adventure. Then again, he probably had some stored away in the side zipper compartment of his luggage, where he normally kept them. But none of that mattered since he and Carol weren’t going to be together. Nor should he even be thinking about it.

“Speaking of scary creatures,” she said.

He snapped back to attention. “What?”

“You have lots of strange beings on you.”

He glanced down. Clearly she was talking about his tattoos.

She gestured to his right arm, which was the one closest to her. “What’s the spidery-looking thing in the middle?”

“That’s a depiction of Uncta.”

“The deity who steals fire?”

Jake nodded. “And he is a spider, of sorts. He was able to appear in both human form and as a giant bronze spider. In his human form, he would entertain in his big fancy lair and offer advice to his guests. He told prophecies, too.”

She gave Uncta’s image a tentative touch, using the very tips of her nails. “I wonder what advice he would give you.” She followed the lines of the drawing. “Or prophecies.”

“I don’t know.” Jake wished her fingers on his flesh didn’t feel so damned good. He imagined her clawing his back with those neatly manicured nails.

She moved on to another one of his tattoos: a beautiful young woman draped in a white gown, her long black hair blowing in the wind. “Is she a deity, too?”

“Yes.” He tried to focus on his answer, instead of how Carol was making him feel. “Her father is the god of the sun and her mother is the goddess of the moon.”

“And what’s her specialty?”

“She introduced corn to the people, providing the first seeds that led to the first harvest. Even today, she still wanders through cornfields, blessing the crops, looking like an angel from above. Or so the legend goes.”

“And who is this?” Another question. Another touch.

One by one, he explained who each of the deities on his arms were. The two gigantic birds that created lightning and thunder. The hunting god who taught wolves how to howl. The female ruler of the swamplands who provided vegetation that was safe to use for medicine. Overall, he had ten mythical beings tattooed on his body, each with their own purpose. Carol seemed particularly fascinated with the human grasshopper goddess who ruled a subterranean world known as an earth-womb.

“She’s the mother of the unliving,” Jake said. “Not the dead, but the spirits who are waiting to be born.”

“What’s her name?”

“Eskeilay.”

Carol repeated it, using the same rhythmic inflection he’d used. Then she asked, “Do you think your future children are with her, waiting to emerge?”

Jake shot her an incredulous look. “Seriously? Can you see me being a dad? There’s no way I’m ever having kids.”

“I suppose it was a silly question.” She smiled like an imp. “But it seems like a waste of Eskeilay’s powers, to just sit there on your arm in her bendy grasshopper pose, with her antennae poking out of her head, with no little Jacob Waters babies floating around.”

“Listen to you, being funny.” He rubbed the spot where Eskeilay was. It was starting to tingle, almost as if the goddess was coming to life. “It wasn’t like that in the beginning. The first spirits waiting to be born weren’t babies. They were just people, living in Eskeilay’s world. But when it got too overcrowded, they evacuated, and on their way to earth, they accidentally trampled some grasshoppers, including Eskeilay’s own mother. Needless to say, she was pissed. So the opening to earth was blocked, and the rest of the people trapped underground were turned into ants.”

“Oh, that’s just great. Now whenever I see an ant, I’m going to think of that.”

“Sorry. But you know how mythology is. Something disturbing always happens. But in this case, it also explains how ants came to be and why they live in holes in the ground,” he explained. “These stories are based on what I was told. There are other Choctaw myths that don’t coincide with what I was taught. But that’s common with folklore. Stories are apt to change, depending on who tells them, and my dad liked to put his own spin on them. Sometimes my mom even got in on it, adding little details.” He paused in remembrance. “Mom was a blue-eyed blonde with French and English ancestry, but she used to joke around and say that was she part Choctaw. Or that she had been for nine months when she was pregnant with us kids. And that’s what gave her the right to horn in on those stories.”

Carol smiled. “That’s cute.”

“My dad thought so, too. They were this ridiculously happy couple. I used to think I was lucky because they didn’t scream and fight like some of my friends’ parents. Or they weren’t getting divorced or whatever. Then they ended up gone in the worst possible way.”

“I know just how you feel.” She fell silent, her gaze locking on to his. Then she said, “Except that I want to get married and have children someday. That’s really important to me.”

“I figured as much.” She struck him as the wifely sort. “You seem like you need all that homeyness. But I don’t. For me, it’s easier to be unencumbered.”

“Yes, I can tell.”

He glanced away, his thoughts slipping back in time once again. “My sisters used to talk about the kinds of weddings they wanted to have.” He frowned, his dead siblings’ broken dreams burrowing uncomfortably in his brain. “They went on and on about how romantic it was going to be. But I suppose it’s common for teenage girls to do that.”

She heaved a heavy breath. “I can’t even tell you how many times I thought about it when I was young, even before I was a teenager.”

He envisioned her, a lonely little girl in foster care, longing for the big day. It made him want to comfort her, to make the child she’d once been feel better. But it made him want to pull away from her, too.

But even so, he asked, “What kind of men do you date?”

She sat a little more upright. “What type do you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He turned cavalier. “Big hairy bikers?”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Jake. I’m being serious.”

In spite of his joke, he wasn’t feeling particularly humorous, either. “Okay, then how about nice, proper guys who would make good husbands?”

She folded her hands on her lap. All she needed was a pair of tidy white gloves to complete the ladylike picture.

“Exactly,” she said.

Yes, he thought. Exactly. He already knew the answer before he’d posed the question. And now that she was being so prim and marriage-minded, all he wanted to do was get to the island and sweep her into the debauchery that had become his life.

Where nice, proper guys didn’t exist.

Three

It was breathtaking, Carol thought. The mansion where she and Jake and the rest of the partygoers were staying was a sprawling French Colonial–style estate, amid a gorgeous sandy white beach.

The caretakers, an older couple local to the area, escorted Carol and Jake to their rooms. Lena had brought the rest of the staff over from the States, along with a beauty team to provide in-room makeup, hair and nail services to her guests. Massage therapists could be had, as well.

No one had seen Lena yet. She wouldn’t be making an appearance until the party. But she was the type who liked to make a grand entrance, so Carol wasn’t surprised.

Carol’s and Jake’s rooms were located on the second floor and were next to each other, with adjoining doors in the center. For now they were open, making it one huge suite.

“We’re going to have to lock those as soon as we get settled in,” she said.

“We will,” he replied, going onto his veranda.

Carol’s balcony had the same view. But she joined him on his, standing beside him on the airy structure. Beyond the oasis-style pool was the ocean. In another direction, she spotted a mountainous terrain, surrounding a lush green glimpse of rain forest.

She thought it would be a wonderful setting for a destination wedding. The caretakers had already given them a bit of history on the custom-built mansion, which could be rented out for weddings. Not that she should be thinking about that. But after the discussion she and Jake had had on the plane, her mind was still immersed in marriage.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said as a breeze stirred between them.

Jake turned toward her. “You’re not afraid of getting bitten by something scary anymore?”

“I already told you they don’t have superscary things on this island.” Except for him, she thought. The look in his soul-stealing eyes was filled with danger. Or lust. Or something she was too chicken to identify. He was actually giving her goose bumps.

He kept staring at her, and she crossed her arms to ward off the sexy chill.

Trying to stay focused on their schedule, she told him, “The caretakers said that the chef was making seafood for dinner, with lots of vegan dishes on the side for the people who prefer that.” Their meals would be served in their rooms. After that, they could rest before they got ready for the party, which was scheduled for later that night.

He kept looking at her. “I’m getting a little hungry. Are you?”

She nodded. She definitely wanted to keep her mouth busy. But she didn’t have to wait for the meal. Baskets of fruit and nuts and other snacks had already been provided, along with fully stocked portable bars. A glass of wine sounded good about now. But Carol would be indulging in alcohol at the party, so she figured it was best to wait until then.

“Before I forget, I have something for you,” he said. “I’ll go get it.”

She remained on the veranda while he rummaged through his luggage. He returned with a trim white box.

She lifted the lid and uncovered an elegant gold bangle encrusted with round-cut diamonds surrounded by multicolored stones. There was also a pair of starfish-shaped earrings, also glittering with diamonds.

Her pulse quickened. “They’re magnificent, Jake.” The pieces were going to look stunning with her dress. “Are they on loan?” She knew that jewelers sometimes let their rich and famous clients borrow from their inventory.

“No. I paid for them.”

Oh, my. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I wanted to. Besides, I checked with Millie to see if you’d gotten any jewelry to go with your outfit, and she said that you hadn’t.”

“I didn’t want to go overboard and spend more than was necessary.” She gazed at the gems. “But this is way too much. I should return them to you after the party.”

“Seriously? That doesn’t make any sense. They were purchased to complement your wardrobe, and you’re keeping the clothes. So why would you give the earrings and bracelet back? They’re just part of the mix.”

She studied each piece again. “They really are amazing.”

“Don’t be too impressed. I had Millie tell me what to get. I’m not good at giving women gifts.”

That was true. Sometimes he even relied on Carol to decide on what type of flowers to send to his lovers. But she shouldn’t have used that as a comparison, not with the way he was making her feel.

Had she made a mistake, coming on this trip with him? It was certainly the most impetuous thing she’d ever done.

She closed the box and held it against her chest, where her heart was thumping much too madly. She liked being in his company, far more than she should.

“So it’s settled then?” he asked. “You’re keeping the jewelry?”

“Yes, thank you. I’ll accept it.” What good would it do to argue the point, when she was already losing ground?

“I should go unpack now,” she said.

He gestured to the pool. “Maybe I’ll go for a quick swim before the food gets here.”

She didn’t want to think about him diving into the water in nothing but a bathing suit, but her imagination went haywire just the same. No doubt his naturally bronzed body would be a sight to behold.

Attempting to make a graceful exit, she said, “I’ll see you when it’s time for the party.”

“I’ll see you, too.”

He didn’t turn away and neither did she. They just stood there, immersed in each other. So much for a graceful exit.

Finally, she ended the connection and headed to her room, closing and locking the door on her side that separated their living quarters. She heard him close the door on his side, too, and turn the bolt.

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