Caribbean Casanova (2 page)

He stood beside the open passenger door, studying her as she sashayed his way. The girl was built like a pin-up model, all curves and attitude. The contrast between her voluptuous figure and the willowy models wasn’t lost on him.

He would love to talk her into slipping off the white sundress so he could get to know her properly, but he wasn’t going to bother. He only needed a minute to put her in her place. He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the people she worked with. But he’d be damned if some chick was going to sail onto his island and run game over him as if he were her whipping boy.

Holly stopped in front of him, a confident smile lifting her features. “We can do this two ways.”

“Can we?” He held tight to the urge to school her on proper negotiation techniques.

“In one you can pretend you’re outraged that I decided to stake a claim on you as a way to ensure our models won’t be tempted by your
charming
reputation. You can tell me it won’t work and blah, blah, blah, by the time we’re in West End we’ve had a lovers spat and the entire crew sees you as an asshole.”

“You have a vivid imagination.” His gut tightened and he narrowed his eyes, ready to tell her his ideas for how things would go. He wondered how she’d react to being told to shove her adolescent scheming up her shapely ass.

“Or you can do the right thing and make yourself scarce for the next four days and let us do what we came to do. Without the threat of corrupting the people we’ve hired to do a job into one of your all-night orgies.”

“Orgies? You Americans and your puritanical sexual morals are so hypocritical.”

“Have I actually offended you? I wouldn’t have thought it possible.” She pressed a hand to her chest, right where her white sundress had been exposing a healthy dose of cleavage. “I may not know a lot about how things go in Holland, but I doubt it’s routine to stumble across one man amidst four naked women.”

He fought the wince. He knew it was going to come down to that awkward first meeting sooner or later. “What I do, and whom I do it with is my business. Especially when it is behind a closed door. You and Saskia barged into my home without invitation as part of your scouting mission. If you’re offended by what you saw, learn to knock.”

“I don’t care what you do, so long as it doesn’t interfere with my business.” She gave a guiltless shrug. “Kissing you was an insurance policy. I hired these models and can help them get more work. They won’t risk betraying me, no matter the juicy island gossip about your prowess.”

“You think you have this all worked out.” He stepped closer, too close for a casual conversation. With the wedged heels she wore, she almost looked him in the eye.

“Don’t I?” With one hand, she smoothed her long brown hair. “You don’t want any part of this photo shoot, aside from annoying Saskia. I’m suggesting you act like an adult instead of an overbearing big brother and stay out of the way. Surely there is something you’d rather be doing.”

An hour ago he could have listed hundreds of things. But the unmitigated gall of this woman had changed his mind completely. No one told him how it was going to be, especially some know-it-all American who thought a college psychology class meant she could figure him out.

“Oh, Holly.” He moved even closer, so not even a piece of paper could have slipped between their bodies. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

Chapter Four

“So prove me wrong.” Holly refused to back down, though her tummy trembled with trepidation. She’d grown up surrounded by alpha males. Her father, brothers, uncles and cousins had taught her that like feral hunters, men capitalize on the first sign of weakness. “Don’t do anything to jeopardize this photo shoot, and I’ll give you my heartfelt apologies for misjudging your noble intentions.”

He pushed a hand through his too-long hair, tugging the dark ends that curled against the nape of his neck. “No wonder you and Sassy are partners. You’re as narcissistic as she is.”

She couldn’t hold in the laugh. “I know English isn’t your first language, Prinsen, but you really ought to know the definition of a word before you use it.”

“Funny, you’re acting as if taking pictures of girls in string bikinis is the most important thing to happen to this island since running water. Bigger companies than yours have done shoots here without any of the drama you two bring.”

“You mean like the lingerie shoot two months back where three models got into a catfight on the beach over a certain someone?” Her pulse raced, her body vibrating with adrenaline. She wanted to push him away, keep him from standing
that
close.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, the honed muscles of his torso rippling like a waterfall. “You believe every trashy morsel of gossip Sassy feeds you?”

“That bit came from one of her friends. Someone she grew up with who had more stories about the Prinsen brothers than we had time to hear.”

His posture straightened, giving her an inch more room. “Which friend?”

“Does it matter?”

He didn’t answer, just pinned her with his piercing dark gaze. His heady male scent must be laced with pheromones and truth serum because she found herself replying. “We had lunch with Janny. She’s not a fan of any of the Prinsens. She thinks you’ll ruin the shoot out of spite, and that Joe is going to break Saskia’s heart for sport.”

He pulled his cheeks in and shook his head, anger flickering in his dark gaze. “She has no right.”

“She’s concerned about her friend. Your brother, Antonnis, had a love-’em-and-leave-’em relationship with a local. You and Joe troll the resorts for women to party with, and your father–”

Harm held up his hand just to the side of her face. Really, the man had no concept of personal space. “Stop right there. She has this all twisted.”

“So Joe isn’t planning to toss Sass over for someone else as soon as the wind changes?” Her pulse thundered. The relationship had gotten serious so fast, she felt the need to protect her best friend.

“As much as I’d like him to, I think I’m stuck with Sassy.”

Holly let out a breath, tension easing from her shoulders. “Why don’t you like her? The two of you fight like brother and sister.”

“She’s a spoiled brat who thinks the world revolves around her.” He reached into the pocket of his black board shorts and pulled out his sunglasses.

“She’s one of the sweetest, most genuine people I’ve ever known.” Her shoulders tightened. She was going to need a massage just from talking to Mr. Sex-on-Legs.

He slipped his thumbs into the waistband of his board shorts, settling them even lower on his hips. “Says the woman she convinced to move to the Caribbean.”

He had her there. “I’ll be in New York most of the time once I know you’re not trying to tempt Joe into his old ways every time Saskia flies away.”

He pursed his lips, shaking his head again. “Is that what Janny said? She has no right to interfere in Joe’s life.”

Holly shrugged. “You’ve both earned your reputations. Decent women don’t find that kind of philandering the least bit attractive.”

“I guess that makes you indecent.” His gaze poured over her body like warm honey and a heaviness settled into her breasts and between her thighs. He slid on his sunglasses and the mirrored lenses blocked her from reading anything from his dark eyes. “There are two problems with this plan of yours.”

“I’ve bruised your ego and blocked your game? I’m sure you’ll have no issues finding someone willing to make it all better. Someone who doesn’t need to appear flawless in Sassy V beachwear.”

He shook his head. “No one tells me what to do, and I’m not playing a role in your soap opera.”

Her phone chimed to life. She stepped back and reached into her handbag for it.

“We’re still talking.” His voice grated like asphalt on bare knees.

She held up her hand as she answered the call.

Her assistant’s voice rang with excitement. “Wake Up America! Friday. They want Sassy V for their swimwear show. And the Ricki Rivers show too. You have to come right back.”

“Carly, honey, slow down.” Her pulse raced as fast as the words hitting her ear and exploding in her mind. The biggest morning program and hottest talk show? She had to turn off the Kermit flail going on in her head and turn on the businesswoman brain that had made this happen. “It’s Wednesday, and we have a photo shoot for the rest of the week. Reschedule with them for next week.”

“I tried, I swear. But Wake Up’s producers have the segment planned. They’re only adding us in because they saw the swimsuit edition cover. The same thing with the Ricki Rivers show. We don’t have anything for sale on the Mendelssohn’s website. But we can’t say no to this kind of coverage, right? Even though we don’t have anything to sell?”

Oh, they’d have pre-orders available. She’d make sure of that. “This will be a lot of work, but it will be worth it.”

Harm shook his head and circled the truck. Holly took it as her cue and climbed in, barely getting her seatbelt fastened before he took off down the narrow road. “Book a ticket for Sass. I’ll have to stay here and run the shoot myself. Find out if they are providing models and how many. We need to know how many suits to showcase, as well as cover-ups. Email me all that info. I’ll handle Mendelssohn’s and pre-orders. Oh, and send a press release of the new appearances to the people at Music Channel. They have a couple of our styles as alternates for their spring-break bikini contest next week. This should get us on the show.”

She got off the phone feeling like she’d won the lottery. No, better, since she’d started this snowball of success rolling.

“That was rude,” Harm grumbled beside her. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”

Holly looked up at his stern profile and shook her head, refusing to let him bring her down from cloud eight. Nine would be when she pulled this off. “I’m sorry, but it was very important. One of Saskia’s designs made the cover of the swimsuit issue that comes out this month.”

“You should know better than to answer your phone when you’re already talking to someone.”

“I wasn’t confirming a manicure appointment, Harm. This is a huge opportunity. I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers. Would I rather have taken the call back in New York? Of course. Do I wish these interviews could be done next week when I don’t need Saskia’s input on the photo shoot? You bet. But I don’t have the luxury of selecting the time frame.”

“That’s a weak apology.” He laid the annoyance on thick and kept his eyes on a road that should have been repaved a decade ago as they rambled past sandy paths woven between scrubby bushes and grassy patches where goats grazed.

Though she tried to focus on composing urgent emails, his disapproval and threat to the project loomed larger than his oversized presence. She’d been on a cotton-candy cloud, and he’d managed to darken it. She refocused on creating a list of things she’d have to delegate, because his opinion should not matter. But the part of her that found it hard to say no, the part that needed to make all the people happy all the time, fidgeted and squirmed until she had to put the phone down.

The tension climbed higher in her chest, tightening her neck until it choked out a confession. “I can’t afford for anything to go wrong this week. Without Sass here, I’m going to need your help.”

“I’m not interested in helping someone who thinks that manipulating people is the best way to get what she wants.”

“Okay, I probably deserved that.” She shifted in her seat, turning towards him. “Wasn’t there a time when you were starting out that you would do almost anything to stay on the path to success? It’s so close for us. I can’t risk even the smallest thing going wrong. Sassy V was supposed to do a soft launch this year, let us build some brand recognition before a major push next summer. But with the swimsuit issue everything is fast tracked. When you’re moving this fast, speed bumps can cause you to fly off course.”

He nodded. “I’ll help because it’s important to my brother and godfather that Saskia’s business succeeds. But that means having me around. And I don’t think you can tell everyone the truth about jumping me at the dock. It makes you sound like a nut job.”

She had to bite her tongue to keep from trading insults. She’d need all the help she could get, and the only other person she knew on the island was Saskia’s old salt of a dad, Dutch. Even Janny was away doing a medical-school rotation.

“I only see one way out of this for you.” His deep voice rumbled through her like a bass.

She tucked her hair behind her ears, ready for anything. “Do tell.”

Chapter Five

“He’s already at it!” Saskia stomped into the guest bedroom Holly had claimed at Harm’s villa and threw herself backwards onto the king-sized bed, white pillows jumping and settling with the dramatic motion. “We haven’t even unpacked and Harm had his tongue down one of the models’ throats.”

“Which one?” Holly looked away, her stomach tensing as she knelt on the polished teak floor in front of one of the open trunks. Sass had styled each suit with shoes and accessories and packed them together. Thank goodness, because Harm’s proposition had knocked her off-kilter.

“I don’t know.” Sass propped up on her elbows and sighed. “I overheard some talking, but they hushed as soon as they spied me.”

“I’ll handle it. Don’t you worry.” She couldn’t let Sass in on her strategy, or Harm’s proposal. The game they played would keep Sass from being able to concentrate on her interviews. She needed to be her sparkling self, not a preoccupied mess.