The Wedding Band (7 page)

Locking herself in, Chris leaned against the door, and for the first time in weeks, she thought about Jason.

After a year together, they'd broken up last April, when the Dodgers traded him to Boston. Now she wondered what would have happened if she'd gone with him, or if he'd stayed in L.A.

Would they be married? Happy?

She'd never know, because when push came to shove, neither of them was willing to sacrifice their career for the other.

Still, they'd had fun together. She missed him sometimes. And she definitely missed having a man in her life.

A six-­month dry spell wasn't helping her resist Kota's charms.

Back in the cabin, she found everyone waking up, rubbing their eyes, raising the shades to look out. She took her seat, and a few minutes later the plane banked to the left. Dawn broke across her lap, glinting off the choppy sea.

Kota leaned across her to point at the archipelago curled in a comma to the east. Most of the islands were overspread with dense foliage from sea to sea.

But the largest had a house on either side, a landing strip at one end, and a wide swath of meadow dotted with . . .

“Sheep?”

“Mmm-­hmm. And horses.” He pointed out a small herd. “Goats. Chickens. You name it.”

The window was small, their heads close together. His bristles grazed her ear. His hair tickled her shoulder.

She drew a deep, secret breath through her nose, taking in his scent. Not cologne but the man himself, spicy and exotic. She licked her lips. Would he taste as delicious?

Tri hopped from Kota's lap to hers and propped his foot on the windowsill. The three of them couldn't get closer unless they all went down her shirt again.

Then the pilot said to buckle up. Kota sat back in his seat. Tri tucked himself between their hips. It was all so cozy.

Too cozy. Too tempting.

A great big mistake waiting to happen.

Unless . . .

Chris smiled over at Maddie and Adam. “So, where are you two heading from here?”

 

Chapter Seven

C
HINA.
T
HE ONE
place Chris wouldn't dare test her passport.

Twenty years ago, the Chinese had cordially but categorically invited Emma Case to leave their country, and to take her entourage of cameraman, editorial assistant, and ten-­year-­old daughter with her.

While it was unlikely they'd continue to bar Chris at this point, she'd certainly be pulled out of line for questioning. When Adam inevitably tried to intervene, he'd discover under the worst possible circumstances that she was a journalist.

He'd then inform his good friend Dakota that he'd been harboring a spy.

Chris couldn't let that happen, not while a chance remained to preserve her anonymity. Her own self-­respect had been an early casualty in this ruse, but she couldn't stomach Verna and Roy—­and Kota—­knowing she'd deceived them.

As Adam's plane disappeared in the distance, Kota revved the golf cart. “You ready?”

She'd better be, because she was stuck.

Tri hopped from the backseat into her lap, and Cy hung over her shoulder, fanning her cheek with hot breath while Kota gave her the tour.

“The island's five miles long and two miles wide. The big house looks out on the bay.” He gestured off to the right, where Tana and Sasha had disappeared along a rutted lane in their own golf cart. “They get the sunset.”

Kota took a hard left onto a similar lane, carved through a sea of ferns and canopied by coconut palms. “The guesthouse is on a pretty little inlet. We get the sunrise.”

He looked over and gave her a smile, and she noticed he looked lighter, more relaxed. Not that he ever really seemed stressed. Just the opposite; he radiated laid-­back confidence. But now that she knew him a little, the contrast was marked.

He seemed looser, happier. His drawl was deeper.

And his eyes couldn't be bluer without extending the spectrum to include a shade previously unknown to man.

“The guesthouse is half the size,” he said. “Cozier. And the truth is, I like it better than the big house. But keep that under your hat.”

“It's a secret?”

“Hell yeah. My brand depends on Dakota Rain demanding the biggest and the best. The most expensive everything.”

He spoke as if Kota and Dakota were two different ­people.

“So you spend a fortune on big houses you don't want to live in? That makes no sense.”

“Nothing about celebrity makes sense,” he said, the most sensible thing she'd ever heard him say.

“But you love it, don't you? The women, the fawning, the obscene amounts of money?”

“Any man who says he doesn't want women falling in his lap is lying through his teeth. And the money's great.” They emerged from the foliage to pause on a rise overlooking the sea. “How many ­people own a tropical island?”

“Not many,” she admitted. She drank in the view: water sparkling like diamonds; waves lapping at white sand on a crescent beach; and in the curve of the cove, a villa-­style house with flowering gardens, wide covered porches, and an Olympic-­sized pool. All of it, the entire lovely estate, was surrounded by palm trees on three sides and the endless ocean on the other.

“It's paradise,” she said.

“Damn right.”

“Who takes care of it?”

“Selena and Jaime. But they went home for the week to visit their folks. We've got the place to ourselves.”

Oh no.
She'd counted on a housekeeper, a cook. Even a gardener would've been some kind of chaperone.

She should've known better. Kota was famed for hedonism. In full swing, this place probably made the Playboy Mansion seem like Disney.

Pointing the cart downhill, Kota picked his way over rough ground as Chris fought down panic.

“There's really no phone?” she said. “What if there's an emergency?”

“There's a satellite phone we can call out on in a crisis, but my folks are the only ones who can call in. Even Em doesn't have the number.”

“And no internet? What's that like?”

“Relaxing.” He said it emphatically. “No checking e-­mail or Twitter or CNN. No looking up every word you don't know, or checking who starred in what TV show from back when you were a kid.” He braked in the courtyard. “It reminds you everything doesn't have to happen this minute.”

While the dogs hopped out and commenced sniffing, he sat still, gazing at the hibiscus that bloomed outside the back door. “It reminds you,” he said, “to pay attention to what's around you.”

Chris didn't need any help with that. Her challenge was to
ignore
what was around her.

As if to drive home just how impossible that would be, he tipped his head back and finger-­combed his mane off his forehead, a careless move that bunched his shoulders and flexed his forearms and could have sold rumpled white shirts by the thousands.

He seemed unaware of his own hotness, but it scorched Chris like a blowtorch. Seven days! They closed in on her like the fires of hell.

There was no time to waste. She had to get to her room, lock the door, and stay there, living off the three granola bars in her purse until the plane came back and carried her away from temptation.

Throwing both legs out of the cart at once, she forgot about the five-­inch heels she'd never bothered to change. They sank into the dirt and she fell back against the cart, cracking her elbow so pain sang up her arm.

“Ow!” She clutched her funny bone.

Kota sprinted around the cart. The dogs came running. Her face flamed, and embarrassment pushed her already jumbled emotions into full-­fledged chaos.

“I'm fine,” she snapped, shaking off his hand, shooing the dogs.

“Did you twist anything?” Kota dropped to his knees and wrapped his warm hands around her ankles.

“No!” She yanked a foot from his grip, whacking her heel on the running board. “Ow!”

He looked up at her like he was assessing her sanity, and his squint only emphasized the azure of his eyes. The sun kissed his streaks and caught the blond in his stubble. And his frown was as heart-­stopping as his smile.

No wonder her sanity was on the line. The magnitude of her bad decision had grown blindingly clear.

Then in one fluid movement he rose, and suddenly she was looking up at him. He cupped her sore elbow. “You don't have to be nervous.”

“I'm not nervous.” She jerked her elbow, but he had a firm hold on it.

“Well, whatever you are, you better get a grip. I've got a first-­aid kit here, but the way you're going, we'll have to call in the navy.”

He was right; she had to calm down. This was only Day One.

Slowly, deeply, she sucked in a breath, then blew it out through her nose. Carefully, deliberately, she took possession of her arm and sidestepped out of his aura.

“I'm overtired,” she said curtly. “And I didn't expect to be stranded on Gilligan's Island. I assumed there'd be other ­people.”

How could he have left out such a crucial detail?

It must have been premeditated. And premeditated seduction, like premeditated murder, made the perp more culpable.

Which gave her every right to push back. She was on her own with no backup. She'd have to shoot first and make it count.

“I assumed,” she added in her most condescending tone, “there'd at least be someone
interesting
to talk to.”

K
OTA TOOK THE
bullet straight through the heart.

Christy's message was clear:
You might be hot. But you're dumb as a stump.

Well, why should she think any differently than the rest of the world?

He hoisted her suitcase out of the cart and headed for the house. “Sorry to disappoint,” he said over his shoulder. “I'll stay out of your way so I don't bore you to death.”

He felt her eyes on his back. His big, strong back. He was a meat suit to her, nothing more.

Storming through the back door, he charged through the kitchen without appreciating it, even though it was his favorite room. He'd designed it to be the heart of the house, state of the art but cozy, opening to the courtyard in back and the covered porch in front.

“Your wing's this way.” He left her to trail behind as he took a hard right. Courtesy was beyond him at the moment. He had nothing to prove to Christy Gray.

As long as she screwed him, he couldn't care less what she thought of his mind.

He strode down the hall. “You can work in there.” He chin-­pointed at a den and kept going, dropping her bag on the floor of an ocean-­view sitting room. “There's three bedrooms further down. Take your pick. Meanwhile, you can sit in here and talk to yourself so you won't be bored.”

Appalled at his own bad manners but too stung to fake it, he turned his back and strode out.

He kept walking, going out the way he came in, through the kitchen, the courtyard. He passed by the golf cart, long legs eating up ground. The dogs swung in alongside him, Tri struggling to keep up with his furious stride.

Scooping the innocent dog up to his chest, he forged into the ferns, covering the narrow path to the meadow in under a minute.

When it opened before him, he made himself stop and take it in.

And then he simply stood there and let them come to him.

The chestnut found him first, seventeen hands, as sleek as a seal. She poked his shirt pocket with her blaze-­white nose. He scratched her chin. “Sorry, Sugar, I left 'em in my suitcase.” A Ziploc full of Jolly Ranchers, her favorite.

A second horse gave him a shove from behind. Blackie, of course. The big gelding liked to swap shoulder bumps with him. Kota gave him one back and Blackie nodded as if to say,
Glad to see you've been working out.

From all across the meadow they drifted toward him. Nosing his pockets, snuffling his hair, lip-­nibbling Tri, sidestepping Cy, who crisscrossed underfoot.

Tana would laugh if he saw it. He'd call him “Kota the horse whisperer.” Kota didn't mind. He let them love him. He drank it in.

When they'd all had their chance and he'd had a word with each one, he tucked Tri down his shirt, grabbed a fistful of Sugar's mane, and swung onto her back.

And he let her run, racing the wind through the meadow, the herd thundering around them, Cy running wide on the flank.

Stretched out over Sugar's neck, Kota forgot everything but the wind strafing his cheeks, tearing at his hair, stripping the dregs of frustration and disappointment from his mind.

His body was one with Sugar's, muscles taut and straining. His legs gripped her sides. They urged each other on, and on. Tears streaked his cheeks. He blamed them on the wind.

When Sugar pulled up, breathing hard, they'd left the full length of the island behind them. Kota wiped his face with his sleeve and tipped his head to soak up the sun.

He was back where he belonged. Back in control. And feeling better than he'd felt in weeks.

C
HRIS KNEW A
pissed-­off man when she saw one.

Towing her carry-­on into a bedroom fit for a princess, she tried not to add guilt to the list of things to despise herself for. She'd only meant to brush Kota back, not cut him to the bone.

Who knew he was so sensitive? After all, he made a fortune playing brawn-­over-­brains on screen. He wouldn't choose those roles unless they came naturally.

Still, he probably didn't like being reminded that he was no Einstein, especially since his brother had hit the genetic jackpot in both looks and IQ.

In any case, she'd rather have him pissed off at her than chasing her around the kitchen. Because, let's face it, now that she was out of testosterone range, she could admit that three granola bars weren't going to cut it. She was already starving, and the bowl of fruit she'd spotted on the counter was too tempting to resist.

But first she'd take a few minutes to unjangle her nerves.

She started with a warm shower and a leisurely dry-­off with a fluffy bath sheet as big as a bed. Then she took her time getting dressed in one of the two sundresses she'd packed.

Things looked brighter already. More manageable. Less stressful.

She hung the other sundress in the walk-­in closet and tossed a pair of capris, a T-­shirt, and a handful of panties in the twenty-­drawer bureau. So much for buying what she needed when she got where she was going. She'd have to make do. Things could be worse. As long as she stayed calm—­

“Aagh!” A brush of fur on her calf scared her out of her shoes. She leaped up on the bed, heart pounding, eyes frantically scanning the room.

A black cat sat, sphinxlike, beside the bureau.

“You.” She gave it a slit-­lidded stare. One of those freaky earless cats she'd seen on Facebook.

It blinked bored emerald eyes.

Refusing to concede to a cat, she dropped her butt down on the bed and jounced a few times, like she'd been planning to test the mattress all along.

Yep, it was firm. With just enough give to make it perfect for sex. And wide enough for half the football team to join in.

Or one supersized underwear model.

Gee thanks, devil kitty, for starting that train of thought.

At that, the cat rose abruptly and strutted out, as if to say that its work here was done.

Flopping back on fluffy pillows, Chris stared at the ceiling, where a slow-­thwapping fan stirred the warm, humid air.

Gone was the illusion of equanimity she'd constructed in the shower. She was back where she started, her nerves sizzling and snapping like electric lines brought down in a hurricane.

Seven days.

They yawned ominously.

Seven days to resist the irresistible Kota.

Seven days to write the story that would salvage her career.

Seven days to pretend she was someone she wasn't.

Good times.

K
OTA'S SHIRT CLUNG
to his back. He peeled it off.