Private Paradise (21 page)

He'd learned the hard way that wanton
destruction and violence for its own sake didn't get you much more
than bruised knuckles and a hefty bill to pay. It wouldn't chase
away the crippling ache at the realization that the only woman he'd
ever loved found it impossible to take his feelings seriously.

Impossible to take him seriously.

Just like his father predicted.

He brought his fist down on the desk, but
stopped it there. Not only would trashing the place not bring any
relief, it would only give Carla more evidence that Sam was still
the immature, impulsive fuckup who was too charming for anyone's
good.

It would be so easy to leave now, leave her
high and dry and scrambling for a new security director as the
board of directors breathed down her neck.

But contrary to Carla's lower than dirt
opinion of him, Sam had changed. And despite the devastation he'd
wrought his conscience wouldn't allow him to do this any way but
the right way.

###

The next morning Carla was groggy and gritty
eyed, her body aching with exhaustion. She hid her eyes behind over
size sunglasses as she stepped outside. She was greeted by the low
rumble of the generators they'd brought in to power the repairs.
She went to first to the main building where the repairs were
starting. Sam wasn't there, she noted, with equal parts
disappointment and relief.

She wasn't quite ready to face him after last
night, yet she craved the mere sight of him like a junkie craves a
drug.

She grabbed a latte from the bar―now that the
generators were online the espresso machine worked―and did a walk
around the resort property. There was no sign of Sam anywhere.
Finally, she went to his office.

It was empty. She started to get a panicky
tightness in her chest. Sam hadn't put out much in the way of
personal items, and the office looked much as it had the last time
she'd been inside. No reason to think he'd bolted on the first boat
he could catch over to St. Thomas.

Besides, she chided herself, Sam wouldn't be
so upset about last night that he'd take off like a thief in the
night. He'd been angry, sure, that she'd called his bluff, but it
didn't go any deeper than that.

Did it?

Still, as she worked through the morning and
into the afternoon with no sight of him, she couldn't shake the
feeling that something was very wrong. And even as she told herself
it was a good thing he was keeping his distance―God knew she'd
shown herself incapable of controlling herself around him―she found
she missed his constant presence, the closeness of the last two
days.

That was the exception, not the norm, she
reminded herself. For this to work, she was going to have to find a
way to work with Sam without giving in to his constant seduction
and her own uncontrollable urges to jump his bones every ten
seconds. To do that, she needed to maintain as much space as one
small island would allow.

She ate a quick lunch and consulted with the
contractor over the cost to replace the damaged floor in the
restaurant. Afterwards, she went back outside to the deck
overlooking the beach. Off in the distance she saw two large, male
figures. Breath she didn't realize she was holding whooshed from
her lungs as she recognized the outline of Sam's powerful
shoulders.

Then se felt a spark of curiosity as she
recognized the other man―her cousin Chris. Who wasn't scheduled to
come back to Holley Cay for several days as he had to manage the
minor repairs needed at the other resort.

As they got closer, Carla could see the grim
lines on both men’s faces. Her stomach clenched. Whatever they were
talking about, it wasn't good.

They caught sight of her as they approached
the stairs leading up to the deck, exchanging a look as they jogged
up the steps to join her.

Carla's smile of greeting withered as Sam hit
her with a look so icy she shivered in the hot tropical air. She
turned to her cousin, but what she saw in his eyes didn't offer any
comfort.

His dark blue eyes, usually sparkling with
humor, regarded her with something she'd never seen, not directed
at her anyway.

Disappointment.

She swallowed hard. “What's going on?”

Sam cocked an eyebrow at Chris. “You want to
tell her, or should I?”

Chris held up his hands. “You handle it. I've
had enough stress for the week. I'm going to grab a drink.” He
motioned with his thumb to the bar on the other side of the
restaurant's French doors.

“
I'm leaving,” Sam said
curtly.

Carla felt the words like a punch to the gut.
So her first instinct had been right. He was bailing on her.
“You're just going to leave me high and dry?” She threw her hands
up in the air. “You decided screwing me in the bedroom isn't
enough? You have to leave me in the lurch and make me look bad to
the investors too, just because I called you on your bullshit.”

Sam gave a harsh laugh, his face tight with
derision. “Of course you would think that. You know, I somehow got
it in my head that you were putting up a front, trying to protect
yourself. Stupid idiot, now I finally get it. You really do think
I'm still a worthless asshole who would screw you over and never
look back. You don't get it, Carla, and you never will. I'm not
that guy any more. I would never do anything to hurt you, no matter
how shitty you treat me.”

He started to brush past her.

“
Wait, what do you mean?” Carla stopped
him with her hand on his arm, and felt it like punch to the gut
when he snatched his arm away as though he couldn't bear her
touch.

“
After I left your place, I spent most
of last night on the phone with a buddy of mine who works with my
old firm who's willing to make a six month commitment. I already
cleared it with Chris.”

Carla felt like the earth was shifting under
her feet. “But the board―”

“
He's got all the same qualifications
and two more years experience than I do. Your board is going to
cream their panties over him.”

“
You can't just expect me to swap you
out like a fork, hire this person sight unseen. I don't even know
him, how he'll be to work with―”

“
He's not me,” Sam said grimly. “Isn't
that all that matters?”

He pushed past her again and this time she
let him. She watched, frozen, as he went inside and said something
to Chris. A few moments later he walked out again, not bothering to
spare her a glance as he walked purposefully toward the main
building.

Common sense told her this was a good thing.
Having Sam out of the picture now rather than later would
drastically reduce the damage he would do to her heart. Right now
it was just a little bruised. But she knew if he stayed she'd never
be able to resist him. Never be able to stop herself form falling
headlong into love.

And when he inevitably moved on, she would be
annihilated.

Yet the prospect of him leaving, the idea
that she'd probably never see him again, created a tight, panicky
feeling in her chest. Like her life was about to careen horribly
off course if she didn't do something about it.

Her head told her to let him go. But her feet
were moving of their own accord, taking her to the main building
and down the hall until she found herself at Sam's office door.
Inside, she heard muffled thumps and the occasional curse.

He was packing up to leave. She should let
him.

Even as she had the thought, her hand was
twisting the knob and pushing the door open. He looked up and met
her gaze for only a split second, but it was long enough for her to
see something in his eyes that made her breath catch in her
throat.

Pain. Soul deep, the kind you never truly
recover from. Carla recognized it easily. She'd seen it in her own
face in the days and months after Sam had tossed her aside.

She peered at Sam's face, the hard, neutral
expression, and told herself she must have imagined it.

“
Do you mind?” he snapped. “I need to
finish packing and write up a list of protocols for my replacement
and I'd rather not do it with you staring at me like I'm some zoo
animal.”

Carla stepped over the threshold. “I don't
get why you're so upset, why you think you have to leave―”

Sam froze in the act of slipping a paper into
a file folder. “You don't get it?”

One second she was standing just inside the
door, and the next Sam had her pinned against the wall, her feet
dangling several inches from the floor as he pulled her up to his
eye level. She recoiled from the anger in his face but there was
nowhere to go.

“
I told you I love you and you laughed
in my face!” Sam yelled. The pain in his eyes was back, and this
time he did nothing to hide it. Carla felt it burrowing inside her
chest, squeezing around her heart until it hurt to even
breathe.

“
I―”

Sam cut her off. “You accuse me of using
lines to get women into bed, and you're right. I've told a lot of
women a lot of things. But I've never, ever told a woman I love
her. Until you.”

“
You can't mean it. How can you mean
it?”

Sam released his hold on her and she slid to
the floor. He pushed away from her and let out a strangled sound.
“I know deserve this, after the way I treated you . After the
things I've done, after the way I treated you, it serves me right
that the first time I hang my ass out and tell a woman I love her
she doesn't even believe me.” He shook his head, his lip curling in
self disgust. “I know you won't believe this either, but I've only
fed you a line once in my life. And that was when I told you what
we had didn't matter and that I was just hooking up.”

Carla's brain whirled as she processed what
he was saying. She felt like the world was careening off its axis,
the hard truths she'd accepted a long time ago upending all around
her.

His eyes met hers, hard, resigned. “I don't
know if it was your intention to get me back for hurting you. My
guess is no, since you don't think I really care about you anyway.
But be happy knowing you got your revenge.”

He turned away and started to empty another
desk drawer. Carla's tongue finally unstuck from the roof of her
mouth. “How?” she asked again. “How am I supposed to believe that
you would show up here and all of a sudden you're in love with me
after only a week?” She didn't believe it was true, yet she
couldn't keep the hope from surging in her, straining against the
tight rein she kept on it.

Sam turned to her again, and this time there
was no anger, no disgust on his face. Instead he looked rueful and
a little sad. “You don't get it. It's not all of the sudden. It's
been all along. I fell in love with you that summer. And when I saw
you here, that first day, I realized I still am.”

Her heartbeat echoed in her head. God, she
wanted to believe him. “If you really loved me, how could you treat
me like that?”

Shame darkened his features. “Because I was a
an immature coward, afraid my father was right. That if you ditched
your scholarship for me, pretty soon you'd realize I was a loser
who was going nowhere, and totally unworthy of a girl like you. I
couldn't face that, so I made sure I pushed you away before you
could leave me.”

“
Your father said that to
you?”

His mouth pulled into a humorless smile.
“Every chance he got.”

Suddenly the years between them disappeared,
and she remembered that day his father came to visit, how
everything had changed after that. Remembered too, Sam's comments
about being stupid or never amounting to anything. All along she'd
dismissed them, thinking someone as hot, charming and so obviously
confident couldn't truly believe that about himself.

Was it just a front? Used to cover up the
scars left by a father who told him over and over how worthless and
unlovable he was?

Her already battered heart ached for the
vulnerable boy he'd been. But as hurt as that boy had been, that
hadn't given him the right to pass the trauma onto her.

As though reading her mind, Sam said, “I'm
not trying to make excuses for myself. I know what I said was
unforgivable. And I know it was stupid of me to think now that I've
done something with my life I could show up here and get a do-over,
get you to fall in love with me again.”

“
That's really why you came? For a
do-over?”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Not exactly.
When Chris first told me about your situation, I thought I could do
you a favor, make up a little bit for the way I treated you.” His
smile faded. “Then I got my first look at you in over ten years and
I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.” His eyes turned molten,
and she felt her skin flush with an answering heat. “I realized in
that moment I'd never stopped loving you. That I'd never wanted
anything more than I wanted to be with you.”

Carla took a step closer even as her brain
frantically analyzed the situation, trying to figure out his angle.
It wasn't more sex―he'd already landed her in bed without stories
of heartbreak and wanting second chances.

It wasn't the job―he was clearly ready to
resign.

The only other possibility was that this was
all part of a plot to pull her back into his web, make her fall in
love with him all over again, all the while planning to crush her
again. Which would make Sam unbelievably cruel, even
diabolical.

Everything inside her rebelled against that
idea. Yes, Sam had hurt her, but she could easily imagine pushing
someone away to avoid getting hurt and causing collateral damage in
the process.

Hadn't she done the same, she realized in a
burst of enlightenment, when she'd laughed at Sam when he told her
he loved her? Dismissed his words as meaningless because she was
afraid to believe, to open herself up to hurt.