Private Paradise (14 page)

“
I never said it wasn't.” Sam
retorted.

“
Really? Like I'm supposed to believe
you, the guy whose personal mission in life is to break Wilt
Chamberlain's record for number of women screwed.” Carla drained
the rest of her beer and set the bottle down with a
thunk.

Sam's eyes narrowed and his mouth pulled into
a tight line. The muscles in his shoulders pulled tight and she got
an uncomfortable feeling like she'd just poked an angry lion. “Not
wanting it and never believing you can have it are two totally
different things. At the risk of sounding like a fucking broken
record, I'm not like that anymore.”

“
Sure,” Carla said. “Next you're going
to tell me that before tonight you've been celibate for the last
eleven years.”

Sam shrugged and sat back against the chair
back, his hard chin jutting out ever so slightly. “More like nine
or ten months.”

“
Bullshit.”

“
I'm not twenty-one any more. This may
sound corny, but I've realized sex is a lot more fun when I
actually care about the person I'm doing it with.”

She felt a jolt in her stomach as his words
registered. Was he trying to imply that he cared about her? Oh
right, who was she kidding. “Uh huh. And I bet you've 'cared'”―she
made air quotes with her fingers―“for a lot of women over the
years.”

She picked up the second half of her
sandwich, not so much because she was still hungry as to distract
herself from the hard set to his jaw and the turbulent emotions in
his blue gaze. Almost as though she might have hurt him with her
little jab.

He got up and she heard a cork pop in the
kitchen, followed by the glugging sound of glasses being filled.
Sam returned to the armchair and set a glass of red wine in front
of her as he brought the other to his own lips.

The storm shutters rattled against the
windows, and for a second Carla questioned the wisdom of getting a
buzz on while a hurricane raged. But as she caught Sam's intense
stare she took her glass in hand and took a deep drink. Now that
the eye had passed over, the worst of the storm was over. The villa
had held up and they were safe as long as they stayed inside.

And God knew, if she was going to be stuck in
here with Sam for several more hours, she needed something to take
the edge off.

“
What about you?” Sam asked curtly. He
sat back in his chair, one foot draped over his knee as he held his
glass loosely in one hand. Though his posture was relaxed, Carla
knew from the tightness of his muscles in his shoulders and neck he
was anything but.

“
What about me?” she said.

“
What happened to your plan to get
married and have a couple of kids before you turned
thirty?”

Carla felt her face heat and she stared at
the dark depths of her wine so she wouldn't have to meet Sam's
probing gaze. She wanted to kick herself for ever revealing her
hopes and dreams to him in those secret, starlit conversations. She
wanted to kick him for throwing it back in her face.

She cringed inwardly, remembering how she'd
told him things about her mother and her string of loser
boyfriends. How Carla had vowed to never be anything like her
mother, how she would be smart about who she gave her heart to so
she wouldn't end up alone with two kids to raise, her heart so
bruised and battered it was a wonder it even beat anymore.

How the man sitting across from her was
living proof that when it came to bad boys who flashed a sexy smile
as they said all the right things, Carla was just as foolish as her
mother.

“
I haven't made the best choices,
relationship wise,” she said, trying to sound
nonchalant.

Sam's eyes narrowed. “I assume you're
referring to me.”

“
I'd hardly call our summer fling a
relationship,” she said, throwing his own words back in his face.
“But yeah, that probably should have clued me in. There were others
after that who did their own damage.”

Sam leaned forward. “Like who?”

Carla took another sip of wine, felt its
warmth pour through her limbs, relaxing her body and her tongue as
the liquor went to work. “Let's see,” she stared at the ceiling and
wiggled her fingers as though mentally counting.

“
Jesus, how many have there
been?”

Carla hid a smile at Sam's irritation. Was it
possible he was actually jealous? “Let's see, after you there was
Carl, who I dated my sophomore year of college. He's the one I
finally had sex with, in case you're wondering. We were together
for a year before I found out he was also sleeping with one of his
fraternity brothers.”

Sam choked on his swallow of wine at
that.

“
Then Jason, who I dated part of junior
and senior year. We were going to move to New York together after
graduation, where he had a job with a major hotel group. While he
backpacked through Europe I sold all my stuff to buy a
non-refundable plane ticket to New York and put a deposit on an
apartment in Manhattan. Only by the time he got back to the states
he had found another roommate.”

“
Not another dude?”

Carla shook her head and drained her glass.
“Nope. Tina from Australia. Five nine, waist length blond hair,
legs up to her armpits, and a 'hey no worries mate’ attitude,
although I think that was as much because of her fat trust fund as
being from Australia. Either way, somewhere over the summer Jason
realized what he really wanted was the anti-me.”

Despite her light tone, Sam's expression was
anything but, his dark brows knit and his mouth turned down in a
scowl. “That it?”

Carla gave a sharp laugh. It was either that
or cry. “One more. The biggie.” She paused for a moment, wondering
why she was telling him all of this. She waved her hand
dismissively. “This is stupid. You don't really care about any of
this.”

Sam leaned forward and rested his elbows on
his knees. “Tell me. I want to know.” The way his eyes focused on
her, full of what looked like sincere interest and sympathy, just
like they'd been all those years ago, compelled her to keep talking
even though it wasn't in her nature to share.

After he'd dumped her, she'd convinced
herself he'd probably come out of the womb knowing how to give that
look, knowing on some instinctive level that women were more
inclined to give it up for men who listened – or pretended to.

Even knowing that, she still wasn't immune to
it. Combined with the effects of the wine, it sent the sordid truth
spilling out. Or an abbreviated version, anyway.

“
His name was Greg. He was the chef at
Holley Cay. He asked me to marry him after six months and I was
over the moon, convinced I'd found someone who could deal with my
dedication to my job and handle living resort life full time.
Which, you'll soon find out, isn't all it's cracked up to
be.”

Sam nodded and indicated for her to go
on.

“
So I started putting together plans
for us to get married during the low season.”

“
Please don't tell me he left you at
the altar.”

Carla flashed him a rueful smile. “No.
Thankfully things didn't get that far. As it got time to send out
the invitations, he started acting weird. Distant, uncommunicative,
I'm sure you know the drill.”

She shot a look at him and saw that he had a
slightly chagrined look on his face.

“
Then one night I went to check
something on the computer―the personal one I kept at my place, not
the office one―and he'd left his email up.”

Sam brought his hand up to his face.

“
I didn't snoop! I swear! But as I went
to close it I saw an email from the manager of Curtain Bluff.” At
Sam's confused look, she clarified, “It's a resort on Antigua. I
told myself there was probably nothing to it. Greg was―is―very
talented, and people were always trying to woo him away. But I
couldn't stop myself from reading it.”

She reached for the bottle and refilled her
glass. “And that's how I found out he had taken a position as the
head chef and was expected to start only days from then.” She
remembered the shock that had coursed through her, her heart
pounding so hard she thought she was having a heart attack, her
fingers going cold.

“
When I asked him about it, he told me
he'd regretted asking me to marry him almost immediately, that he'd
realized he wasn't nearly as in love with me as someone who's
getting married should be. So instead of telling me that and
keeping me from mooning around this place like an idiot chattering
about wedding plans, he quietly went off to find another job. He
told me he thought it would be better to wait to end it when he
could leave right away. Clean break and all that.”

“
What a dickhead. That must have been
awful.”

Carla shrugged. “It was for a while.
Not so much because I was so heartbroken. In retrospect, Greg was
onto something there about being in love enough to get married. I'm
not sure I was either.uard down.
摘
veryone knew what an idiot I
was except for me.

No,” Sam said, sharply enough to make her
meet his gaze. “They're the idiots for being stupid enough to screw
up with you.” His hand was clenched so tightly around his wine
glass she was afraid it might shatter in his grip, and his eyes
were stormy with what looked like fury. On her behalf.

She had no doubt if any of the men she'd
mentioned walked into this room, Sam would deliver an ass kicking
none of them would ever forget. The idea that he would be so
protective of her and her feelings gave her a primitive thrill.

“
Total, fucking, idiots,” Sam said.
“And don't think I don't lump myself firmly in that category. I
should have never screwed things up with you. I should have never
let you get away.”

Carla felt a weird twisting in her chest,
tried to chase it away by reminding her that he'd been the one to
push, that she hadn't been looking for the exit. When that didn't
work she took another sip of her wine. “And think about what a
disaster that would have been if you'd actually let me follow you
to the Army.” Her laugh sounded forced, hollow.

Sam took a drink of his own wine,
contemplating her over the rim. “Or not. We might be happy together
with a couple of kids by now.”

She knew she shouldn't go there, but her mind
was suddenly flooded with visions of what life would be like, had
she married Sam. She probably would have never come to work with
Chris, would have probably found work close to wherever Sam was
stationed.

Work she would have given up, at least
partially once she had kids since she'd told herself she wouldn't
work full time as a parent if she could help it. That long ago
summer she'd fantasized dozens of times about what their future
children might look like. Would they have had boys, tall and rangy
with their daddy's devilish blue eyes? Or determined little girls
with dark curly mops of hair and big brown eyes? A combination of
the two?

The tightness in her chest told her she had
to get off this track, and fast. “Or I would have ended up a single
mother, either because you were killed in combat or because we got
divorced after we wised up and realized what idiots we were to
think a summer fling between two kids could ever lead to something
meaningful.”

The words tasted bitter coming out of Carla's
mouth and she saw the bitterness reflected on Sam's face. “In any
case I wouldn't have ended up here, living in paradise, doing
something I love that keeps me way too busy to worry about marriage
and all that nonsense.”

She waited a beat, but Sam didn't respond. He
just sat back in his chair, his muscular torso gilded by the
flickering lamplight, his pensive stare never wavering from her
face. Like he could see straight through her bluster to the dream
of a family and children she still held secreted away in her
heart.

“
I'm going to get some of that ice
cream,” she said, desperate to break the tension. “You want some?”
she called over her shoulder as she hurried to the mini
fridge.

“
Why not?” Sam asked, though his tone
sounded like she'd just offered him rat poison.

She took the tub out of the refrigerator and
scooped two portions into coffee cups since she couldn't find any
bowls. She spent unnecessary time making sure the amounts were
equal, perfectly shaped little balls, stalling as she tried to get
control over the twist of emotions Sam had stirred up inside
her.

She couldn't let herself get carried away.
Whatever she'd felt for him―and assuming he wasn't full of shit,
what he'd felt for her―was firmly in the past. She couldn't let
herself fall for Sam's game just because they still shared an
undeniable and explosive attraction to each other.

She gave one cup to Sam, felt the frisson of
heat pulse up her arm and straight to her core as her fingers
brushed his. She curled up on the couch and brought the spoon to
her lips, not so much because she was hungry as to give herself
something to do.

Nevertheless, the instant the creamy, fruity
ice cream hit her tongue, Carla closed her eyes and moaned. The
cold, the sweetness, saturated her senses and sent a rush of pure
joy through her.

Some people had booze, some people had
heroin. Carla DeLuca had ice cream.

She took another bite, moaning again as she
bit down into a chunk of frozen mango, its tart flavor the perfect
balance to the rich vanilla of the ice cream.

A choking sound jerked her from her blissful
haze. Her eyes snapped open to see Sam, still staring at her, his
own ice cream forgotten in his hand. But the pensive tumult was
gone from his eyes, replaced by a heat so intense she could feel it
sizzle across the skin.