Between chortles, I shook my head and blurted, “No!” I paused for a moment, debating my admission. Hesitantly, I added, “I was going to be a farmer.”
Adrian stopped subtly swinging his legs and turned his head to look at me full on. “A farmer? From an East Coast walkup? Interesting.”
“Don’t mock me, sir. I was serious. My… My father even got permission from the landlord to put a little potted garden on top of the building for me.” I closed my eyes and sniffed the air. “To this day, when I need to relax, I remember the smell of the fresh lavender just coming into bloom. There’s nothing like the scent of lavender when it’s lush and oily on a hot afternoon.”
“I don’t think I can argue that,” Adrian admitted softly and leaned near to press against me, shoulder to shoulder. “Still, a farmer?”
“Or a botanist. Or a businesswoman with my own nursery. Stop teasing me. I had a talent for it, from my father. He might not have graduated high school, but he had a way with live, growing things.” I couldn’t resist muttering under my breath, “And not just women.” If Adrian caught the stray remark, he didn’t comment on it. Whatever he might have said about his lineage, there’d been some value in his breeding. “Every spring and summer…” Well, every spring and summer my father had been around… “We’d spend all evening watering and grooming plants, picking worms off leaves, sniffing at the vegetables to see if they were ripe.”
Before I knew it, I’d spent twenty minutes waxing nostalgic about those precious few hours with my father, no drama between my mother and him, no turmoil over other women, no wondering when he’d leave us again. I wanted to say it had been ages since I’d thought about this, but I couldn’t think of
any
time I’d let myself recall my father with anything but bitterness. And now here I was, a childish smile on my face as I related all my stories of that simple rooftop garden to a man who owned a twenty-thousand-acre tropical island. But Adrian was smiling along with me, not even the barest hint of a patronizing edge to his voice as he asked me about this detail or that and laughed with me over the ridiculous botanical experiments I’d concocted instead of joining my friends jumping rope or riding our bikes through congested city streets. It had been my little harbor of calm.
“You really sang to the plants?” he asked. “No, now don’t get shy and defensive with me, Miss Bloom. I think it’s cute. But did you seriously have to have different songs for every kind of flower? Because that could cause problems with interplanting in the raised beds.”
He was still mocking me playfully all the way up the path to the garden site, in the golf cart all the way back to the villa, all the way down the hall to the shower, which we shared. It was hard to say mad at the man while focused on bathing him, soaping his muscled body with my bare hands as he played with my wet hair and distracted me with kisses along my jaw.
Only reluctantly did I turn off the water and follow him out to the bedroom to dress for dinner. I tried to pay attention to my own preparations—choosing a short, sequined black dress, then putting on a smoky eye and pale gloss and the amber and iris perfume he so enjoyed—when all I really wanted to do was watch Adrian Knight. From the way he combed back his wet hair with his fingers to the silky slide of the tailored white tuxedo shirt he slipped over his shoulders. I helped him with his tie without being asked and despite the fact that he didn’t need assistance. And he let me.
He insisted on distracting me, of course, tracing his velvety lips along the curve of my eyebrow. His warm breath swirled against my skin, leaving goose bumps. I still wasn’t completely used to going without underwear, and beneath my short dress, the abrupt wetness of my eager sex made me feel chill and exposed. Adrian’s fingertips traced the underside of one of my breasts, and I felt my nipples rise and stiffen painfully against the thick lining of the cocktail dress.
“Do you
want
me to beg to skip dinner, sir?”
“I’d enjoy hearing it,” he said but then took in a slow, bracing breath. “But guests await, and duty calls. Both of us, Miss Bloom.”
We walked out of the villa, nodding to the guard who had been posted at the door since the incident with the IBAMA investigator had shaken Adrian’s confidence in the safety of his haven. Up a winding cobble path and into the resort, through the kitchens bustling with busy staff and the Heyday Hollywood, starlet-sexy voice of Manuela calling out instructions, I trailed my dark Dom. And only as we emerged onto the upper balcony, awash in guests and music and the pleasures of good food and drink, did I realize he hadn’t wound my arm around his, as was usual. We were holding hands.
My head fogged at the thought, at the intimacy. At the promise. But shouldn’t I have been more concerned with the defeat of my purpose for being here? How could I entwine my fingers so casually, so perfectly, with Adrian’s and hardly even notice because it seemed so natural? How could I believe for a moment longer I would spend another two months here on Ilha de Flor and not fall in love with the man?
I greeted guests and laughed at quips and drained the first glass of champagne I could catch off a passing tray, then sipped at a second. There was no analyzing how I felt. I could barely manage the rush of my realization. My head started to buzz with the clamor of samba music and raised voices and the distant roar of the ocean, and all I could do was anchor myself with the feeling of my hand in Adrian’s.
“Boa noite, Mr. Knight. I trust you remember me?”
The rumbling voice and boisterous gestures of the short, portly man who accosted Adrian and me as we crossed the dance floor finally broke my stupor. I felt Adrian’s grip tighten over mine and noted the subtle stiffening of his posture.
“Yes, Mr. Rego, I remember you,” Adrian answered in a tight voice, “but I thought you returned to Sao Paolo last week.”
The swarthy, meticulously dressed businessmen agreed, “Oh, yes, I did, and quite dejected, Mr. Knight. I had to explain to my client that you had shown no interest whatsoever in entertaining his offer on Ilha de Flor.” He wagged his finger at Adrian. “Despite it being very generous. I thought he would be disappointed, but it would seem he is not put off at all. In fact, he is with me tonight, and I really must introduce the two of you.” Adrian began to shake his head, those rebellious strands at his crown falling out of place along his forehead, but Rego would not be put off.
I leaned in close to Adrian to whisper, “Let’s just go with him. Otherwise, he’ll dog us all night, and I refuse to miss another of Manuela’s dinners.” Already, my stomach was growling after too light a breakfast and lunch in my haste to discuss the eco park project with Gabriel.
Knight pursed his lips for a moment, as his irritated smirk struggled with a polite smile until propriety triumphed. He swept his hand out in a gesture to proceed. “Lead on, Mr. Rego.”
We wound through the press of dancing, mingling bodies to a broad, round table spread with fine crystal and china over a thick, cream linen cloth, beside the balustrade and with a commanding view of the forest as it sloped down and bowed to the ocean. A small group, some seated and some standing, clustered around a central figure who stood with his back to us. I recognize the way they threw their heads back to laugh, the way they perched forward in exaggerated attention, pandering to someone they saw as being above their station. The ultra-wealthy amid the merely wealthy.
The little details I observed of the stranger supported my theory. A fine black suit so well fitted that it had to have been custom-made, in a material that shown just enough to befit eveningwear without being crass. Cufflinks that picked up the glimmer of the dim mood lighting as only the finest grade of white diamonds would have, set in platinum, by the look of it. And perfectly styled, dark golden hair that suggested weekly trims by a private barber who likely flew to meet the client wherever the demands of international business called him.
As we approach the table, a new flurry of hurried Portuguese spilled out of our rotund escort. Slowly, Rego’s client disengaged himself from the gaggle of admirers and pivoted to greet us. It didn’t register for a moment…who this was I was looking at. It was just that unlikely, that ill-timed, that unwelcome. His blue eyes fixed on the broker, and he nodded that perfect, chiseled face as he followed the man’s rapid speech. I heard Adrian’s name several times and assumed Rego was filling his client in on exactly whom he was about to meet. Little by little, I retreated behind Knight, behind the shelter of his broad shoulder, as my stomach began to ache.
I peered warily around Adrian just as Rego’s client shifted his gaze to meet us. Was it my imagination, or did Adrian immediately tuck me further behind him?
“Well, goddamn. Adrian Alexander.”
Adrian
Alexander
?
“Penn Fucking Ellison,” Adrian responded in a smooth, polite voice. “What are you doing on my island?”
My former boyfriend, the man I’d fled four thousand miles to avoid, cast back an equally insincere grin. “Trying to buy it, though I didn’t realize it was yours. You don’t have any more business sense now than you did back in college, turning down that last offer. Why are you jerking me around? Fraternity brothers are supposed to be closer than the blood kind, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Adrian said hesitantly. “I didn’t know it was you, Penn. And I don’t remember us being that close, actually.”
The dimples on Penn’s sculpted cheeks twitched, which was a familiar tell that he was just as irritated with this surprise as Adrian appeared to be. Still, those lush, heartthrob lips crooked at one corner in a passable semblance of a smile. “Well, now that we know our enemies, let’s have a drink, talk over old times, and narrow down your price.”
Before Adrian could respond, to tell him to go to hell, I hoped, the blond playboy waved someone up from behind him. A young platinum beauty, dressed stylishly but conservatively enough that I recognized her effort to be taken seriously, stepped up to flank Ellison.
“This is Whitney Yarborough. Finest international holdings consultant money can buy, so naturally she’s mine.” Penn’s smile wasn’t exactly lascivious, but it left little doubt as to the finer points of the young woman’s job description, at least for those of us familiar with the vocabulary and body language of wealth culture.
Her long, sleek ponytail swayed gracefully as she stepped forward and offered Adrian her hand in greeting. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Alexander. I’m well-acquainted with your family’s corporation, but I hadn’t expected to find you here. You’re rather an enigma, even as billionaires go.”
Alexander… Alexander… In my panic seeing Penn again, I grasped out futilely for any reference I could remember to that inexplicably familiar name. More pressing, however, was the fact that both Penn and his assistant had noticed by now that Adrian wasn’t shaking her hand…because his was occupied.
There was a tick along Penn’s groomed brow. “Ah, I see you have your own—” He took a sidelong step, far enough to see what Adrian was hiding behind his back.
If I expected a cool, clipped greeting, I was wrong. The few feet between Penn Ellison and me disappeared in two quick steps, and the man I once thought I would marry, before he’d broken my heart with his public unfaithfulness, was looming closer to me than the man who still held my hand.
“Chloe,” Penn murmured in an unexpectedly soft, vulnerable voice. “Is
this
where you ran off to?” A quick glance in Adrian’s direction brought a twitch of disgust to the corner of Penn’s mouth. “It’s been a month. That’s a long time for us not to see one another. I’ve been waiting for a chance to speak to you.”
The bile in the back of my throat, burning its way up from my sour stomach, choked off my response. So I stared, dumbly, silently, hardly able to breathe. I wasn’t sure it was a rescue when Adrian used his hold on my hand to drag me away from Penn to his side.
“So you know Chloe? She’s staying with me here. She’s my—”
“Assistant,” I interrupted despite my doubts that I could speak in front of these two men, in the presence of
both
of them. I couldn’t let Adrian introduce me as his girlfriend, mortified now at the ruse it represented. But I couldn’t look at him, either.
“Assistant?” Penn repeated, and those beautiful but confused topaz eyes shifted back and forth between Knight and me several times. “Chloe, you didn’t leave Ferris & Hale? Someone would’ve mentioned that to me.”
Numbly, I shook my head no. “It’s a…temporary position.”
I felt sick as Adrian let go of my hand.
Ellison, still so close that I could smell the mandarin and spice of his cologne, peered hard at me. “Halfway around the world, and you end up working for one of my old fraternity brothers. What are the chances of that?”
“It’s not that big a world for One Percenters, Ellison,” Adrian snipped. “You know that.”
I listened to their banter and the pounding in my head and utterly forgot to breathe. Never having suffered from high blood pressure, I could only assume such a spike was causing the painful throbbing in my chest and the sudden blur to my vision. That or standing before the two men I had been most intimate with, feeling their sharp gazes fixed intently upon me, and finding myself unreasonably convinced that each knew what I’d been doing with the other.
Under my breath, I murmured, “I’m not ready for this.” Not to test the strength of the scar tissue still forming over the wounds Penn had inflicted. Not to examine the inexplicable loyalty I felt at this moment toward Knight or this horrible feeling of guilt, as though I were betraying him.
“Chloe?” I heard someone whisper, but it was distant, behind the roar in my ears that was not the ocean. In slow-motion, so like my reaction to having been struck to my knees by the investigator who had come to the island to solicit a bribe from Adrian just recently, I glanced up reluctantly to find both Penn and Adrian staring at me, waiting for me. To do what? Explain myself? Explain them to one another?
“Chloe,” I heard again from behind me, just as I wavered. My chest had seized as though filled with concrete, and my arms had gone leaden at my sides. Stars started to appear and pop along the outskirts of my vision.