His stomach clenched. Before he’d met Addie his mantra for living had been simple: work hard, play harder. By sheer effort and determination he’d transformed his family’s casino business from a debt-ridden mess into a global brand. And to relax there had been women. All beautiful, sexy and disposable.
Until five years ago. Until Addie.
When, despite knowing exactly how damaging and abusive marriage could be, he’d gone ahead and married her. And he still couldn’t quite understand why. It didn’t make sense, not after his childhood with its ringside seat at his parents’ marriage. Watching helplessly as they’d let sex and passion twist their lives—and his. He’d sworn never to do the same. A muscle tightened in his jaw.
But Addie had been so beautiful, so tempting, with that glorious red hair tangling about shoulders, her blue eyes pulling him in and under her spell, and just like that his promises had turned to air. Ignoring all his instincts, and every promise he’d ever made, he’d followed his libido up the aisle and married Addie, justifying it as a commercial decision: a merger of bodies rather than business.
It had sounded good inside his head—so good that he’d let himself believe it was the whole truth until, too late, he’d realised the scale of his mistake—and how badly sex had clouded his judgement.
But he wasn’t going to let that happen again.
This time he held all the cards. He wasn’t blind to the allure of her body, but this time it would be safely contained. Their arrangement would last a month, and there would be no meaningless romantic gloss. It would be like any other business arrangement. Only instead of paperwork and conference calls it would just be the two of them on a deserted island and a month of pure pleasure, designed to exorcise the sexual hold she still had over him.
Feeling suddenly immensely satisfied, he leaned towards Addie and pointed to where the dark clump of palm trees and other green foliage was rapidly growing larger.
‘That’s it. That’s where we’re going. Bar Jack Cay.’
She nodded and managed to give him a small, polite smile. But her head was spinning, her skin flushing hot then cold. It felt like seasickness but it wasn’t. It was humiliation. Sitting in silence, gazing out across the water, she’d been able to pretend that she was on some other boat, maybe with friends. Those blush-making moments on the plane pushed to the back of her mind. But now that he’d spoken to her, his body leaning in, the faint smell of his cologne mingling with the sea spray, the whole embarrassing scene filled her head again.
What had she been thinking? She couldn’t have made a bigger fool of herself if she’d planned it. Shrinking back against the seat, she felt her stomach twist with misery as she remembered her frantic behaviour, how desperate she must have looked. She might as well have worn a huge sign saying ‘My sex-life is non-existent’ around her neck.
But far worse was the way she’d let him manipulate her all over again. Just as she’d done five years ago. She felt a rush of anger. Everything was such a mess, but one thing was clear. That despite what he’d said, or what they’d agreed, this arrangement clearly had more to do with power than desire. His power over her.
It was the first time she’d really understood what she had actually agreed to.
Her heart gave a jolt as the speedboat began to slow. Looking up, she found him watching her, and something in his cool, speculative gaze made her lift her eyes to meet his.
‘Are we slowing down for a reason?’ Her voice sounded curt, not at all like a bride on her honeymoon. But she didn’t care. He was paying for her body—not for her to look as though she was madly in love with him. And it wasn’t as though he woul
d comment on her manner. He shied away from conversations that even hinted at the intimate or the personal.
With a chill, she remembered how he had refused even to acknowledge her doubts about their marriage. Like when she’d tried to find out why his parents weren’t coming to the wedding. At first, he’d ignored her questions. Then finally, when she’d made it clear she wasn’t going to drop the subject, he’d simply walked away. It had been the same at the reception, when having overheard a conversation about his motives for marrying, she had attempted to discuss it with him. He had withdrawn not just physically but emotionally and that was when she had known their marriage would never work.
But there was no point in thinking about any of that now and, feeling his gaze on her face, she curled her arms around her waist, flattening out the emotion inside her.
‘There are rocks up ahead.’ He smiled, his eyes dancing maliciously. ‘You can’t see them, but they’d scuttle a boat this big. So we have to transfer to a dinghy.’
Ignoring his hand, she stepped past him into the smaller boat and, laughing softly, he sat down next to her, trapping her thigh against his, his arm draping around her shoulder as she stared mutinously down at the sea.
‘I know the water’s tempting, sweetheart, but don’t you want to look at where you’re going to be staying for the next few weeks?’ he teased. ‘Or are you trying to work out if you can swim home?’
Gritting her teeth, Addie lifted her head reluctantly and gazed at the island.
Up close, it wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting. It was beautiful in a rugged kind of way, but truthfully, she had been expecting something a little more Robinson Crusoe.
But so what if the island was a little less pretty than her mental image of paradise? It was obviously completely untouched, which was surely closer to the true meaning of paradise. Surprised that Malachi would be sensitive enough to recognise that fact, she felt some of her anger fade.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said stiffly, managing a small, tight smile.
Smiling back at her, he reached out, and before she could protest he had taken her hand in his. ‘I like to think of it as a little bit of Eden. Somewhere I can be completely uninhibited.’
Mesmerised by the shimmering molten heat of his voice, she wondered how such a short sentence could contain so much promise of pleasure and danger.
But of course paradise wasn’t perfect, she thought dully. As well as cool streams and sunshine there were snakes. Or in this case one particular snake.
But as the dinghy slid through a narrow gap in the rocks she completely forgot her doubts, for in front of her was the most beautiful beach she had ever seen. At the end of a shell-shaped pool of clear blue water was a large curve of pale gold sand, fringed with picture-book palm trees. For a moment she stared in silence, struggling to find words to put into a coherent sentence as Malachi watched her stunned reaction.
‘Is it a lagoon?’ she said finally.