Summer on Lovers' Island (Jewell Cove 3)

But he wouldn’t say the words. Not now, perhaps not ever. Because if he’d learned anything from his marriage, it was that sometimes love simply wasn’t enough.

“Josh?”

He blinked. Kissed her lightly and slid out of her body. But when he looked down, momentary panic froze his chest.

“What is it?” she asked, rising up to her elbows.

“The condom broke,” he said tightly. “Shit. Lizzie, I’m sorry.”

She looked up at him. “Not your fault. Don’t freak out.” She slid up the blanket and pushed her hair away from her face. “I can always Plan B it.”

Of course she could. And probably should. Neither of them wanted her to get pregnant, did they? And yet the straightforward way she said it left a bitter taste in his mouth. She wasn’t Erin, for God’s sake, and he knew that. And Erin had deliberately let him believe she wanted his babies when she hadn’t at all. Still, it stung that once again his genetic material was unquestionably undesirable.

Five minutes ago he’d been thinking he was falling in love with Lizzie and now he was faced with the knowledge that he still had way too much baggage to bring to a relationship.

“We kind of let our hormones get away with us, didn’t we?” he asked, trying to ease the mood a little. He reached for his shorts and handed over her jeans and panties.

“I needed the outlet,” she admitted, squirming into her panties and then reaching for her bra. She flashed him a smile, but it wasn’t the intimate, slightly emotional smile of earlier. “Josh, really, it’s going to be okay. We’re not going to end up accidental parents or something.”

“I know,” he answered. “I just…” But he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He didn’t want to bring his past failures into the conversation.

She’d fastened her bra and pulled her shirt back on. “We probably should talk about what’s happening between us. What this is going to look like, you know?”

He laughed a little. “It looks like we’re a couple of horny teenagers.”

She smiled, just a little bit, but some of the tension eased. “I know. Ever since that first day on the beach, I can’t stop thinking about it. But it’s physical, right? And I think we should make definite rules so that neither of us gets hurt down the road.”

Ah, the rules. Rules according to Lizzie, no doubt. But he’d hear her out, because he wasn’t at all comfortable with the direction his thoughts had gone this afternoon.

“Okay. What’s the first rule?” he asked. He grabbed his shirt from the blanket and pulled it over his head.

“Rule number one: either of us can call it off at any time, no hard feelings.”

“Ouch.”

She frowned. “Josh, we both know I’m not staying in Jewell Cove. Charlie’s going to want her job back. Therefore, this is a short-term thing. If it gets to be too much, I think we both need to know we can exit gracefully without a lot of drama.”

This was sounding more like a business negotiation than a relationship. Maybe he should be happy about that.

Then why wasn’t he?

“Okay,” he agreed. “There’s an opt-out feature. Got it.”

“Rule number two.” She ticked it off on her finger. “Our physical relationship can’t bleed over into our working relationship. We have to be discreet.”

“It doesn’t get more discreet than an island in the middle of the ocean,” he replied, starting to get annoyed at her rules. So far it was sex without consequences. Well, other than the broken rubber. And that annoyed him as well.

“Right,” she agreed.

“And what about number three?” he asked.

“Number three?”

He regarded her steadily. “Sure, isn’t there a number three to round things out?”

“Oh. Well, um…” She seemed momentarily flustered, and then she smiled at him again. “Let’s leave number three open. Either of us has the right to institute a new rule as we feel is necessary.”

Wow, this whole thing was sucking the romance out of the situation at a really quick rate. “So what you’re saying is, we’re having a secret fling that’ll be over the minute Charlie’s mat leave is done and we’re going to amicably go our separate ways.”