Bird of Paradise (9 page)

He looked at her hand, then stood to wrap his long,
warm fingers around hers. “I am completely at your mercy, as you
well know,” he said stiffly, his eyes dark and unfathomable. “As
such, I have no choice but to agree.”

The words cut through her like a hot knife. It was
clear that he was only agreeing in order to remain a part of the
show, not because he found any pleasure in the idea of dating her.
Still, it was better he be honest about it than try to make her
believe he really found her attractive.

She just wished that honesty didn't have to hurt so
much.

“Thank you,” she told him, pulling her hand from
his, aware of a profound sense of loss with the severing of
physical contact.

He left shortly after that, taking his cat and the
gecko (much to her relief) with him. She took a tepid shower, had a
rest on a bed that was a bit too soft for her taste, and spent the
remainder of the time alternately reliving the wonderful feeling of
being held by Adam as he kissed her, and remembering the simpering
looks on the women's faces as they clung to his arms. Why had her
mind chosen him to snap over, the one man who would have at least
half the women on the island fighting for his attention? Well, at
least she had his agreement to one date a day. He might not have
chosen her of his own free will, but she suspected he was too much
of a gentleman to ignore her during the dates themselves.

A few hours after the téte-a-téte, she
headed off toward the ballroom and the evening group date.
Cameramen dotted the walkways, filming contestants as they emerged
from their cabanas, talking and laughing together in groups as they
meandered toward the main complex. Hero paused at the door when her
name was called. She smiled as Sally, dressed in a slinky gold and
black dress that left more of her exposed than covered, hailed her
from the arm of a large, beefcakey man with no visible neck and
skin-tight pants that looked like they'd been painted on him.

“Isn't this a wonderful place? How was your room?
Mine looks over the salt-water pool. This is Greg, he's from
Chicago.”

They exchanged pleasantries for a moment before
Sally added, “Come sit with us at dinner, unless you have someone
else you'd like to sit with.”

Hero looked over Sally's shoulder and noticed Adam
and his cat bearing down on them, a grim look on his face. She knew
she shouldn't say yes, she knew that although she liked Sally, it
wasn't for the sake of a friendly face that she wanted to agree.
She couldn't even begin to pretend to herself that her true
motivation was not in the fact that wherever Sally went, Adam was
sure to follow.

Since there was no use denying it, she might as well
give in.

“I'd love to join you, if you truly don't mind,” she
said with a grateful smile, and followed them past a barrage of
cameramen into the brightly lit ballroom. It was a bit unnerving
knowing that her every movement was likely to be caught on camera,
a fact that had her checking obsessively in the small mirror in her
bathroom to make sure that she didn't have a spot or something
horrid hanging from her nose, or that the back of her tiered gauze
skirt was tucked up into her knickers. She tried not to look at the
cameras, and took a chair next to Greg. He was grinning right at
one, flexing his thigh-sized arms.

He probably ate steroids for lunch.

A minute later Jesus was deposited on the chair next
to her, Adam taking the seat beyond that. “Evening everyone. Sally.
Hero, you look lovely. Hi. Name's Marsh,” he said to Greg, leaning
across Jesus and Hero to hold out his hand. “And you are…?”

She blinked at him as Greg introduced himself. Sally
sent him a menacing glare, then ignored him, putting her hand on
Greg's huge arm to draw his attention back to where she wanted
it.

“Notice you have a cat,” Greg said
casually, but casually in an
I don't want
you to see just how interested I am
sort of
way. Hero wondered if Greg, noticing Adam's interest in Sally, was
preparing to go territorial.

Adam's lips twisted wryly. “He's a bit hard to
ignore, but yes, he's my cat.”

“Brought him through quarantine, did you?”

Hero froze, not daring to look at Adam. How would he
handle the question?

“Yes,” Adam drawled, apparently unconcerned. Hero
let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and glanced
over at Adam. He was scratching the cat's chest, much to Jesus's
satisfaction. “Spent six months in there, poor old fellow.”

Greg tapped on the side of his plate with his
fingernail. “Rather odd, isn't it, to put your cat through six
months of quarantine for a six week vacation?”

Adam smiled, showing a great many white teeth. “Not
odd at all. I'm hoping to settle in the area, and once your animal
has cleared through one quarantine in these islands, they can
travel to the others with immunity.”

“Huh. Is that so?” Greg replied, a shuttered look to
his eyes.

Hero wondered if what Adam had said was true. It
didn't sound right, but then, she knew he was lying. It might very
well do as a cover story.

“So,” Adam said, smiling at her and not too
noticeably changing the subject, “what's the game plan for this
evening? Dinner and then a group date, eh? What sort of a date will
it be, do you think?”

Hero nudged the small card in front of his plate
toward him. “The card says tonight will be an icebreaker date. I
imagine that means silly party games.”

Two more people wandered over, introducing
themselves. Sally greeted them, her smile almost as bright as the
arc lights shining down on them. Immediately two cameramen honed in
on them, one camera on Sally, the other on Jesus who was sitting at
the table with a serious expression on his face, looking for all
the world like a guest who had been invited to a dinner party. The
gecko was still perched on his head. Hero stared at it for a
moment, then glanced up at Adam.

“Thought he needed a bit of sprucing up,” Adam
whispered to her. “Jesus and I have our evening clothes on, so
thought it was only right Gecko should fancy himself up, too.”

She looked back to the cat. She had to admit Adam
was right. The gecko did look much more festive with a bright red
bow around his neck. Jesus wore a different collar from the one
she'd seen him in earlier. That was plain brown leather—this one
was hot pink with little black charms dangling from it. She looked
closer.

“They're mice. Friend of mine made it for him just
for the dinners,” Adam said. “Makes him feel like he's dressed up,
too.”

She wanted to tell him that he was the only man on
God's green earth who would think of his cat's feelings during a
dinner date, but the camera was pointing at her now so she just
smiled and murmured something non-committal.

Dinner was a bit of a trial. She realized midway
through the escargot that the dinner in itself was an event—the
food presented had to be the most challenging to eat politely in
public. Each place setting had an appetizer fork, shellfish fork,
salad fork, and main dinner fork, not to mention two spoons, two
knives, and something that she thought was a tool to eat escargot,
but might possibly be a gelding device. She giggled at that
thought…until the snails were placed on her plate.

She slid a covert glance around the table. Everyone
was laughing and eating and chatting quite amiably, and no one
blinked an eye at the thought of eating escargot. Except Adam. He
stared at his plate in horror, then looked up and caught her
eye.

The urge to giggle was strong. “I'm from a working
class family,” she leaned over Jesus to whisper. “Where I come
from, snails are destroyed in the garden, not eaten.”

A look of profound relief lit his eyes. “Thank God
for you. I thought I might actually have to eat them.”

“Do what I do when faced with something I don't wish
to eat—say you're allergic to them.”

“I have a better idea,” he said with a wicked grin
that lit all sorts of little fires inside of her. He picked up the
gelding device and clamped it around a shell, then dug around
inside until he pulled out the meat, and with a quick look to make
sure no cameras were on him, placed the food on Jesus's plate. The
cat sniffed at it, batted it around a bit with one heavy paw, then
finally chewed on it with an indescribable expression on his face.
Hero and Adam watched him carefully.

“He's going to spit it back up.”

“No he's not, he likes it. If he didn't like it,
he'd knock it on the floor. There, you see? He ate it. Your
turn.”

They got rid of most of their snails in that manner.
By the end of the meal Jesus was curled up on his chair, looking
sated and sleepy. The gecko, evidently warmed by the cat below him,
was quiet as well. Only occasionally did he rouse himself to flick
his tongue, capturing an unwary moth or fly that flew too near the
duo.

One cameraman or another was lurking around their
table during the entire meal, making Hero feel even more nervous
than she would in normal circumstances, but since most of the time
the cameras were either on Sally, the three other women, or Jesus,
she started to relax. Perhaps the party games wouldn't be so bad
after all.

“Oh, how naïve I can be,” she muttered a short time
later as she and ninety-nine other women paraded around two lines
of chairs that had been placed back-to-back. Loud Caribbean music
blared throughout the ballroom. Lights from the ring of cameramen
around them caused beads of perspiration to form on her brow.
“Naïve and downright stupid. Of all the silly things I agreed to
do—”

The music stopped suddenly. She lunged for the
nearest man, plopping herself down on his lap even as she excused
her herself. “I do hope you don't mind if I—oh, I am sorry. I
didn't realize that was your…erm…yes. I'm sure it won't cause any
permanent damage. You weren't planning on starting a family right
away, were you?”

He didn't return her tentative smile.

Despite wishing she hadn't been so quick to find a
free lap in the embarrassingly intimate game of musical chairs, she
stayed perched on her unwilling host until the ten women unlucky
enough to find themselves without men to sit on were excused, and
another ten men and chairs were removed.

The music started again. She made it through three
more excruciatingly embarrassing rounds, then finally was excused
and returned to her table to watch the rest of the game with Adam's
cat and the tablemates who were also unlucky enough to be caught
without a man's lap to sit upon.

During the second round, in which the women sat on
the chairs and the men raced around them, she was surprised to
suddenly find Adam in front of her.

“Do you mind?” he asked with a wry smile.

Some of the smaller women, afraid of being squashed
by larger male companions, had taken to scooting over to inhabit a
tiny fraction of the chair, thus leaving the men room to park
themselves on a corner, but Hero was no tiny woman. She filled her
chair. During the two rounds before, both men who had claimed her
had sat on her without the slightest qualm. She couldn't help but
be a little touched that Adam asked permission first.

Then again, he was a very large man.

“No, be my guest,” she said, moving her hands from
where her fingers were laced across her stomach. He sat down on her
carefully.

“Am I too heavy?”

“No, although I will admit this is a novel
experience for me.”

“Never had a man sit on you before, eh? What a
sheltered life you must lead.” He grinned. She wanted to grin in
response, but knew she shouldn't give in to his patently false
charm.

But it was so very hard, especially when he was
sitting sideways on her with a wicked glint in his eye, and an even
more wicked grin curving those warm, soft lips. He looked like a
rogue, a devil, a man who was the sort of trouble every woman
loved. She doubted if very many people were allowed to see this
Adam, the real Adam.

“I shouldn't humor you,” she told him sternly,
feeling her own lips twitch.

“Sure you should. I love to be humored.”

“Heaven only knows if I do, it might make your
nipples explode in delight.”

The grin faded from his face. Hero wanted to kick
herself the minute the words left her mouth. How stupid could she
be? With a few ill-chosen words she had reminded him of the true
nature of their relationship—blackmailer and blackmailee.

He opened his mouth to say something, but one of the
show staff came up to tell her she had to relinquish her chair. She
walked back to her table, reminding herself that this whole idea
was hers, and she had no one to blame but herself.

It didn't help.

Adam lasted a few more rounds, giving her a curious
look when he returned to the table, but other than asking her
quietly if he had been too heavy for her, he said nothing.

Until the orange incident.

“I'm sure most of you are familiar with the orange
game,” the Eden host, Asterisk, said a lead-in to the next event.
Short, balding, famed for his comedic roles, he seemed to enjoy
performing before the crowd of contestants, cracking all sorts of
terrible puns and jokes riddled with double entendres that had the
crowd howling and applauding wildly.

The cameras filmed every moment of it.

Asterisk held up an orange. “The
object of this game is to pass the orange from one person to
another—without using your arms or hands, and without letting the
orange touch the floor. Each table will form a line, man, woman,
man, woman, and pass the orange from one person to another. Points
will be awarded to each contestant who does
not
drop the orange. So here's your
chance, ladies and gents, to get a head start on the point count.
Ready? Maestro, mambo music please!”