Their Festive Island Escape

But she was due to spend the evening with him in a couple of short hours. The next item he had her writing up was a formal dinner cruise followed by live music and dancing aboard the boat.

What a fun, romantic evening it would have been if only it was all real. She had no idea what they would say to each other. The only words they’d spoken had been awkward and forced during their mostly silent drive back to the hotel yesterday morning after bidding Uma and her children goodbye. And then Reid had disappeared without a word to her except a brief text this morning confirming the time of the cruise. She’d been tempted to feign illness, to say that she wasn’t up for it. But any fool would see right through that excuse.

Maybe he was avoiding her after what had happened in Uma’s spare bedroom. Or perhaps he was busy with whoever had arrived that evening when the two of them couldn’t return to the resort as expected. A pang of hurt she didn’t want to identify as jealousy lodged in her chest.

The most probable explanation was that he was indeed avoiding her. He was no doubt embarrassed that things had gone so far between them that night. Heaven help her, she would have let things go even further if he hadn’t suddenly stopped their kiss and walked out.

But he had walked out.

Reid had been the one to come to his senses. They had nothing in common, a shared brief past history which only complicated things further, and the chances that they would run into each other again once this trip was over were slim to none.

Unless, of course, she took him up on the free lifetime vacations he’d offered in return for her services. But she wouldn’t. Her heart wouldn’t be able to handle doing it. Seeing him every year, being tempted by a man she could never have.

A glance at the ornate clock on the wall above the sink counter told her she only had about half an hour left to get ready. With a sigh of regret, she stood and stepped out of the tub. There was no avoiding the inevitable. She could do this. She could dress the part, paste a fake smile on her face, and act like the all-business marketing professional that she was.

Toweling off, she walked over to the closet and removed the one formal dress that she’d packed. A silky black number that reached midthigh with red spaghetti straps and trim. Red leather high-heeled sandals and ruby earrings would complete the look. She’d included the outfit just in case when she’d packed, convinced she’d actually have no occasion to wear it.

If she’d only known.

About twenty minutes later, she was dressed and walking out the door of her suite to meet the man she’d somehow developed a devastatingly shocking attraction to.

This was a disaster in the making. The evening would no doubt be a lesson in self-torture. How was she going to playact the part of objective observer when the whole night all she’d be thinking about was how much she wanted him?

And heaven help her, she did want him. So much that she’d been aching inside ever since the other night. If she were honest with herself and looked deep within, she’d have to acknowledge something much more worrisome and disturbing: beyond the physical attraction, she’d developed feelings for him. Somehow, in the course of a few short days, she’d started falling for a man who was completely wrong for her. How many times in her life could she make the same mistake?

There was no denying that mistake when she reached the resort marina and found him waiting for her by the water. Celeste had to remind herself to breathe. Dressed in pressed dark pants and a midnight black fitted jacket with a collared shirt, he took her breath away. Against the backdrop of the luxury yacht and sparkling water, Reid could have been posing for a men’s cologne ad. In fact, if she ever worked on a cologne campaign, this scene before her would serve as ample inspiration. She might find a way to use this image in the very project she was working on for the resort.

That’s it, girl. Stay focused on the business aspect. Steady now.

Some protective instinct must have kicked into gear in her head. The survival skills she’d built and developed as an inner-city latchkey child were coming through for her as they so often had throughout her life. She could do this, she could get through this evening as an unemotional, unaffected, driven businesswoman who was simply attending this event as part of a job commitment.