Approaching the ocean, she stopped as the cool water washed up over her bare feet. It was then that the magic happened. The rising sun started illuminating the sky in beautiful pastel shades of blue, pink and purple. The palm trees and boats in the harbor were black silhouettes against the horizon.
Paige took a few photos, then watched as the shape of Diamond Head crater grew more pronounced and the sun rose above it. Daylight had finally arrived in earnest. The whole island seemed to wake up then.
As Paige turned back to the hotel, she noticed employees setting up chairs and putting out towels around the pool. A larger crowd was walking up and down the jogging path now, and some were sitting on benches along the beach with their cups of coffee.
She suddenly had a burning need for a skinny mocha latte. She’d have to soothe the urge with a vanilla steamer to get that calcium in.
Back on the sidewalk, Paige rinsed the sand off her feet at the provided foot wash and slipped back into her sandals. She followed the winding path through the dense, dark foliage that would lead back to her room. At some point, she took the wrong fork in the sidewalk and ended up in an unfamiliar area of the resort. There was a large stretch of green lawn, and beyond it was the sandy lagoon where guests could paddleboard or practice snorkeling.
She also found the owner of the hotel and his dog out there. Paige almost didn’t recognize Mano in his jeans and a fitted T-shirt. He seemed like the kind of man who wore a suit to sleep in. Then again...why would he go to all that trouble just to take his dog downstairs for an early morning potty break?
She certainly didn’t mind seeing him again. She’d relived their encounter all evening. Just the sight of him again made her cheeks burn with embarrassment and her body tingle with the memory of his innocent touch. She’d reacted to him instantly in a way that was extremely inappropriate for someone she’d just met. Paige didn’t know if it was the pregnancy hormones getting the best of her or the superromantic environment, but she’d lain in bed all night, aching and unfulfilled with thoughts of the hotel owner on her mind.
His muscles were even more defined than in the suit he’d worn yesterday. He might be blind, but he clearly knew how to find his way to the hotel gym. His brown, nearly black hair was mussed but swept back from his face as though he’d combed through it quickly with his fingers. From a distance, she could make out some kind of tribal tattoo on his left forearm. Just the thought of tracing her fingers over the design made her stomach clench with a renewed need.
Paige immediately tried to suppress the feeling as she
had the night before. The last time she’d let herself fall prey to her desires she ended up pregnant and alone. She couldn’t get pregnant this time, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do something else stupid.
Before she could turn and try to find her way back to her room, she noticed that Hoku saw her standing there. His cheesy Labrador grin was wide and his tail wagged so frantically his whole bottom wiggled from the force of it. Paige realized that Mano recognized the change in the dog and knew she needed to make her presence known.
“Good morning, Paige,” he said before she could greet him.
She walked the last few feet across the lawn to where Mano and Hoku were standing. “Good morning,” she said, patting the dog on the head. “How did you know I was out here?”
“You’re wearing the same sandals you had on yesterday. They make a very distinctive clip-clop sound when you walk. I could also smell you coming.”
Paige frowned and tried to sniff discreetly at her armpits. She hadn’t taken a shower yet that morning, but it couldn’t be that bad. Could it? Here she was fantasizing about the sexy hotelier while he was noting how bad she smelled. She was marching straight upstairs and scrubbing every inch of her body with the provided coconut soaps.
“Relax,” Mano added when she didn’t respond. “It’s not a bad scent, just a distinctive one.”
She wasn’t sure how he knew she was silently panicking, but she was glad she wasn’t recognizable by her trademark funk. “Thank goodness,” she said with a sigh.
Mano smiled, revealing his blinding white teeth against his rich, tanned skin. He truly was an amazingly handsome man. Last night, she’d wondered if perhaps she’d embellished him in her mind. No man could really be that attractive. But now that she looked up at him again, she realized it was true. Paige had thought Wyatt was good looking, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Mano. Not even the T-shirt and slightly askew morning hair could dampen his masculine appeal.
He was a strange juxtaposition of traits that seemed incompatible in her mind. He had heavy, sharp eyebrows over his sunglasses, one with a scar that sliced through it. It made him look more like he should be an ancient warrior or in some badass motorcycle gang instead of the suit-clad owner of an exclusive hotel. Upon closer inspection, she could see that his forearm tattoo was of some kind of black triangle design. That sealed his bad-boy appeal in her mind. It also made her wonder what else his professional suit and polite demeanor were hiding.
Paige had always had a thing for the bad boys. It wasn’t practical, or really even smart, but most of the time they didn’t give her a second glance, so she couldn’t get herself in too much trouble. Wyatt had been the first bad boy to look back at her. Giving in to that attraction had landed her on the path to single parenthood. Even knowing that didn’t make her take the step back from Mano that she knew she should.
He never looked at her directly, but she could feel his attention completely fixated in her direction as though he knew she was admiring him. “Do you have plans this evening, Paige?”
Paige frowned. She really didn’t have plans for the week. The only thing on the books was the memorial service on Friday. “I don’t have plans at all. I figured I would talk to the concierge about booking a few things this week, but right now, I’m winging the whole vacation.”
“Are you the kind that normally wings a vacation?”
“God, no,” she admitted. “I’m a super planner, but this was a bit of a last minute adventure for me. I read some of a travel guide on the flight over, but that’s about it.”
“A last minute trip to Hawaii to stay in the penthouse suite, eh? There are worse things, I suppose.”
Well, she supposed that some people lived a life with random tropical vacations, but Paige wasn’t one of them. “I’m not complaining, that’s for sure. I do feel a little like I’m flapping in the trade winds, however. I’ll feel better once I have a plan.”
“Well, start your plans with having dinner with me tonight,” he said.
Paige narrowed her gaze at him, wondering if perhaps she’d heard him wrong. It was one thing for her to fantasize about him, but why would a Polynesian god like him want to have dinner with her? Was he just being polite because he knew she was here alone? “You want to have dinner with me?”
Mano chuckled and shoved his free hand into the pocket of his jeans. “Why is that such a ridiculous proposition? You eat, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, of course I eat. It’s just—”