Rivals in Paradise (6 page)

C
icely stood out on the balcony of her hotel room and inhaled. The sweet island air was intoxicating. From her balcony she could see the white sand beach and miles and miles of the brightest, most serene turquoise waters she'd ever seen.

When she'd visited Dahinda a few years back as a port of call on a cruise, she had only had a few hours to explore the island. She and her grandmother had taken a bus excursion that gave them a tour of just about the entire small island, from the lush inner island to the miles and miles of beaches.

The people were so friendly and the food, much like the food on the other Caribbean islands she had
traveled to, was absolutely to die for. She'd known then that she would one day come back and stay for a longer period of time. She just didn't know that one of Dahinda's native sons, her archrival, would insinuate his way into her trip.

She exhaled and inhaled again.
Chase Yearwood.

She smiled almost ruefully and wrapped her arms around herself. She still remembered the first argument she'd ever had with him, when she was a sophomore in college and full of wide-eyed idealism. She wasn't normally prone to outbursts or arguments, so her intense reactions to Chase always kept her just a little bit off-kilter.

Hearing the knock on her door, she left the balcony to go and answer it. She couldn't contain the grin that crossed her face when she saw Chase there.

He'd said he'd give her a driving tour of the inner island and take her to his mother's rum shack that evening. She doubted that she would find her potential fling partner in the rum shack, but she didn't want to be rude. And she also didn't want to rule out the chance that her fling could be waiting to be found in Chase's mother's rum shack.

She'd put on a light and airy maxi-style sundress in bold shades of red, orange and yellow with some red, medium-heeled strappy sandals. She'd pulled her hair up in a quick French twist with some lose
tendrils around her face to relax the look. She was glad she'd taken the time to shower and dress up a little when she got a look at Chase.

He wore a short-sleeved, cream silk shirt and perfectly pressed cream linen shorts with a very expensive pair of brown leather sandals. The cream of his clothing and the warm, earthy russet-brown tone of his skin combined to make one amazing package. The short sleeves of his shirt and the length of his shorts revealed just enough of his very muscular arms and legs. The bit of skin that she could see hinted at more and more muscles and more and more delectable brown skin.

She blinked as she tried to rid her mind of the image of those toned, muscular and very fit arms and legs wrapped up with her own arms and legs.

What would that feel like?

She shook her head as she smiled.

She would never know.

“Hi” was the only word she could come up with.

“Hi.” He stared at her and for a minute she felt like time had ceased to move. His almond-shaped eyes seemed to caress her. She could feel his eyes' movement on her skin as they roamed her body. She felt her pulse quicken as she noted the subtle rise and fall of his massive chest.

“Are you ready to ride around some of the island?”

“Yes, let me grab my purse and we'll be good to go. I can't thank you enough for this, Chase. I know I'm not your favorite person. So it means a lot to me that you are willing to give me a tour and help me find my way around the island.”

“Like I told you before, it's definitely my pleasure. We have a lot to catch up on.” His smile seemed genuine, and it put her mind at ease.

She followed him to his convertible, and he held the door open for her. Once they started rolling they let the silence speak. She didn't trust what she might say, and she had no idea what he was thinking. The way he had looked at her a few minutes ago made her feel hotter than she had ever felt for any man, ever.

That was a big problem.

Massive
.

No matter what kind of attraction they were feeling, there was still the fact that they didn't like one another. They may have called a tentative truce, but in reality she still didn't believe that he trusted her.

And she knew she would be a fool to trust him.

“If you look over to your right you'll see one of the old sugar cane plantations. The government turned the mansion into a museum. And the land no longer produces crops for mass harvesting and sugar production. But tourists can come here and get the
experience of chopping a piece of sugar cane, tour the old mills and refineries.”

Cicely smiled because she and Gran had toured the plantation as a part of their cruise excursion, and she had actually held a machete and chopped a piece of sugar cane.

“I did the tour during my short visit. It was very informative. And the pictures and artifacts of the slaves and indigenous people…wow! What they must have gone through back then. It really breaks your heart.” Cicely shivered at the memory. Thinking about the way the colonists had systematically murdered native island people and enslaved African people to work on the island always made her sick inside.

“Yes, there is a lot of rich and painful history on this small island.” Chase seemed a bit shaken by the cruelty of the history, as well. “Now, this area here is pretty much a small residential area. My mom and aunts have homes here. I had them built for them.”

The homes were gorgeous. Some were built of white stones while others were coral pink and peach stones. They were one- and two-story homes with intricate island designs and were clearly meant to withstand hurricane seasons and look good while doing so.

“Did you grow up in this area of the island?”

“No. We lived in a much poorer section where mom still has her rum shack. No matter how much
money I make and send her, that woman still won't give up her business.” Chase chuckled. “At least she took the house here and let me remodel her business. I wanted to build her a house near mine on the beach, but she wouldn't hear of it.”

“She sounds like my grandmother. My sister and her husband have been trying to get her to let them build her another house in Miami, but she refuses to leave her little house in Overtown. She's like, ‘I worked my fingers to the bone to pay for it, and it's mine.'”

“Sounds like my mother. I had to build the house and have her sisters furnish it the way my mom would like before she agreed to move into it.”

“That sounds like my gran. I purchased a cruise for her a few years back—that's when I first visited Dahinda. Anyway, before that, she would never get on a plane and she darn sure wasn't getting on a boat and sailing across the ocean. She was of the, ‘God put me on land and made me from the earth. I'm gonna stay on the ground until the good Lord sees fit to have me returned to the earth' school of thought. She wasn't trying to be in the air or in the sea.” Cicely laughed remembering her grandmother's colorful arguments about why the only thing she was getting in was a car and how she didn't totally trust those, either.

“But I went and purchased a cruise for the two
of us anyway, and my sister and I both talked her into going. Since she didn't want to see me waste my hard-earned pennies, she went. The only thing she couldn't stand worse than the thought of getting on a boat or plane was wasting hard-earned money. Now girlfriend takes at least one cruise a year, maybe even two. And my sister has Gran flying now. She's a regular jet-setter!”

Chase chuckled at Cicely's depiction of her grandmother. She sounded a lot like his own grandmother. That woman had never stepped off of Dahinda because she had refused to get on a plane or boat. Once again he felt the pang of guilt that came whenever he thought about her and the fact that he hadn't been able to be at her bedside when she died because he'd had a big merger to oversee at work.

“Sounds like we both come from humble beginnings and have managed to do better for ourselves and our families.” He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

The less he found himself identifying with the very tempting Cicely Stevens the better. She was probably the same as all the other scandalous women he had dealt with in the past, maybe even worse. She had actually beaten him before, and she might have done so by nefarious means. He still wasn't sure he bought the theory they'd come up with on the plane.

Without proof of who took the picture and why,
Cicely and he had an uneasy truce, at best. He needed to keep that firmly in mind.

Chase parked the car beside his two-story home, located on a private beach.

They had driven around the island chatting and had pretty much forgotten about the tour part of it. They were just riding, talking and letting the island breeze entice them with the possibilities that lay ahead.

“This is my home. I usually stay here when I visit. I don't get to make it back often, but it's still nice to have a place that's all mine on the island.” He turned to her and smiled. “Would you like a quick tour of my home before we go to my mom's spot?”

He could see that she seemed to be at war with herself as she tried to decide how she was going to answer his question.

He smiled as he watched her put one foot in front of the other, slowly.

Did she dare walk willingly into the wolf's lair?

Things were not going exactly as Chase had planned. He had offered to show Cicely around his small island in hopes that spending time with her would either get him to come to his senses and not want to pursue her
or
get her to see that the man she needed to be having an affair with was him. His mind fluctuated between the two, and he was determined
to find some type of closure or solace in one or the other.

Her dress, however, wasn't helping him keep a clear head.

He never would have thought that something so long and flowing could look so damn sexy. But it was kind of low-cut. And it did show her beautiful, long, elegant arms. And her hands…her hands with that neat and proper French manicure that gave no hint at all that when your eyes traveled to her pretty little feet you'd find blazing red nails on the toes sticking out of those sexy sandals.

Man, he had it bad.

He just hoped it didn't come back to bite him in the behind. And now he was inviting her into his sanctuary, a place sacred to him even though he barely ever came here, a place where the only other women who had ever set foot in had been relatives. He had a feeling the place would never be the same again once Cicely stepped inside. But damned if he could stop his hand from reaching out for hers and leading her inside.

He let her walk slightly ahead of him and watched the gentle sway of her hips as she made her way through the entryway. He shook his head and again wondered if he was doing the right thing. Maybe he should just call things off and let her fend for herself this week. No need to tempt fate and give
Cicely Stevens the chance to get the better of him yet again.

He cleared his throat. “I don't get to spend a lot of time here at all. In fact, it's been several months since my last trip home, for my grandmother's funeral. The job kept me really busy. But I always knew I had this place to come to whenever I needed a break.”

“I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your grandmother, Chase.” Cicely reached out and stroked his arm.

She smiled at him as she looked around his home. “This place is absolutely amazing. How do you manage to stay away? If I had a place like this overlooking that beautiful beach, I'd be here every single day.” Cicely walked around, taking in the sparsely decorated room.

He'd gone for a minimalist design because the real beauty came from outside of the home. There were several open, airy areas and lots of windows. The furniture was all white with bold splashes of earth tones—from clay to deep mahogany—acting as accents. A white sectional sofa flanked the living room, and the walls were all off-white with a few select Caribbean-inspired paintings gracing them.

They walked through his home in silence. She marveled at various points along the way. Her eyes were appreciative, and her smile seemed to make the already bright and airy home even brighter. As he
surveyed his home through her eyes, he couldn't help pondering her earlier question and wondering why he didn't make a point of coming home more often.

When they reached his bedroom she touched the king-size mahogany four-poster bed and grinned.

“Okay, that has to be the most comfortable-looking bed I've ever seen. How do you manage to keep all this white clean? You must be some kind of neat freak or something.”

He grinned back at her feeling more at ease than he should have. It was on the tip of his tongue to invite her to try out the bed and see how comfortable it really was. He imagined her spread out on the plush white comforter. He knew if he actually saw her in his bed, they wouldn't make it to his mother's rum shack. So he tried his best to get the image out of his head.

“Actually, I'm not really that neat. I'm hardly here, and when I am here, the white furnishings make me extra careful.”

She giggled. “That bed is so plush it makes you want to just dive into it, like a cloud or something.”

He could see diving in all right, and it wasn't her into his bed but rather him into her.

He shook his head. “So, we should probably head on out to my mom's place. I should warn you, it's not very fancy. But the people are really nice and the food is the best you'll probably get on the entire
island. There's a small dance floor, and some nights she even has karaoke.”

“Sounds like fun, especially the food part. I'm ready for some Caribbean fare.” She rubbed her virtually nonexistent belly.

For some reason he held out his hand for her again, and when she took it he felt that electric charge again. As they walked out of his home hand in hand, he knew it was going to be a long week.

 

As soon as they walked into Chase's mother's rum shack, Cicely relaxed. It was jam-packed with people, and everyone was just casually having fun. Some people were at the bar having drinks; others were at tables eating, talking and playing cards. Some people were even on the very small dance floor swaying to the reggae music that wafted from the back corner of the dance floor where a deejay was playing.