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She tried to ignore the romantic atmosphere and the fact that her mouth was still sort of humming from the casual, too-quick kiss he’d given her for Chad’s benefit. So, despite the fact that she really wished he were serious, that she really wished he did want her, Caitlyn steeled herself against her own desires.
“Jefferson,” she said as the waiter delivered her fresh raspberry martini, “tell me what’s really going on.”
He leaned in closer, keeping his gaze locked with hers and heat poured through her in a thick ripple. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I’m here because I missed you? Because I realized that you were … more than just my admin. That you were important.”
Caitlyn blew out a long breath, lifted her drink and took a sip of the icy liquid. It didn’t affect the roaring heat within her, but it did help ease the knot in her throat. “We worked together for three years, Jefferson. If I’m so important, why did it take you so long to notice?”
He gave her a smile that was wicked. “Because it wasn’t until you’d gone that it hit me.” He reached across the table, took her hand and smoothed the pad of his thumb across her skin in slow strokes. “You’re … important to me, Caitlyn.”
Her stomach jumped and her heart jolted hard against her ribs. Oh, if she thought for even a moment that he was telling the truth, she’d leap across the table and kiss him as she used to dream about doing. But how could she believe that? How could she trust that a man who changed women with as much ease as he changed shirts could suddenly want only her?
She pulled her hand free and shook her head. “No, Jefferson. Whatever it is you’re up to, I’m not going to fall for it.”
“Right now,” he said, standing up, then drawing her to her feet, “what I’m up to is a sunset stroll on the beach. Would you like to join me? Or do I make you too nervous?”
Six
She didn’t go on the moonlight stroll with him.
She didn’t feel sorry for him as he complained in a barely concealed mutter while he tried to fall asleep on the too-short couch of her suite.
She didn’t feel guilty as she stretched luxuriously in her wide, empty king-size bed the last few nights. Especially if she wished—maybe—for company in that bed.
Caitlyn knew Jefferson all too well. He was up to something, whether he was forced to admit it or not. He wasn’t a man to come crawling after a recalcitrant employee. He wasn’t the type to crowd his way into her life without a self-serving reason.
And whatever he had planned, Caitlyn had no intention of making it easy on him. She was through with Lyon Shipping and Jefferson Lyon.
Now, if only he would go away.
Because nothing short of that was going to keep her sane. Three days of his constant presence, his persistent … attention, and Caitlyn was weakening. She felt it. The man had more charm, more personal power than anyone she’d ever known. And when he chose to focus that power on one woman, he was nearly irresistible.
When she went for a swim, he was there. When she stopped in the bar for a drink, he was there. When she took a surfing lesson and spent more time facedown in the ocean than standing on the board, he was there.
Which was exactly why she’d left the resort that morning for a walk into the small village the owner of Fantasies had had built for his employees. The only people on the privately owned island were the hotel guests and the resort staff, who lived in postcard-perfect cottages sprinkled across the island. The village contained both necessity stores and opulent gift shops where tourists were tempted to spend whatever money they had left after paying their hotel bill.
The only vehicles allowed on the island were electric golf carts and bicycles, so the main street made of brick was mostly empty and almost pristinely clean. The sidewalks were neatly swept and lined with flower boxes, spilling brilliant color and heavy scent into the sun-warmed air. Shop windows gleamed and displayed everything from fashionable clothing to designer jewelry. Tourists wandered, cameras firmly fixed to their eyes and shoppers loaded down with brightly colored gift bags made their way back up the hill to the resort.
Caitlyn ignored all of it. “He’s making me crazy,” she admitted into her cell phone.
Janine sighed heavily. “He’s got a plan.”
“Well, yeah. I just don’t know what it is.”
“I wish I was there, but— Damn it, Michael, the ferns go in the box first, not on top of the roses—I just can’t get away from here early.”
“I know.” Caitlyn sighed, too. If Janine and Debbie were here, she’d be able to keep herself busy with her friends. She’d be able to avoid Jefferson much more easily than she could now. Of course, she’d still have to deal with him being in her room every night, but at least she’d have the daytime hours to keep him out of her mind.
“He’s still staying in your room, isn’t he?” Janine demanded.
“I checked with the front desk just this morning. They claim to be full up, so there’s nowhere for him to go.”
“You could still toss his butt out and make him sleep by the pool or something.”
A good thought, she admitted, then shook her head and stepped around a cranky toddler being dragged along the street by his mother. But she knew she’d never do it. “No,” she said. “I can’t do that.”
“So … what?” Janine asked. “Instead, you’ll let him ruin your vacation? You don’t owe him anything, Cait. You quit, remember?”
“Of course I remember, but—”
“No buts,” Janine cut her off neatly. “He’s working you for a reason, Cait— Michael, for the love of God, go up and wait on customers. If you keep trying to arrange those flowers I’m gonna beat you to death with ‘em.” She blew out a breath, then said, “I swear, if I don’t get to that island soon, this shop is going to be a bloodbath.”
Caitlyn laughed and it felt good. “You talk a good game, Janine, but we both know you’re just not the violent type.”
“I could learn.”
“Caitlyn!” A deep voice called her name and she stopped dead on the sidewalk.
“Oh, god,” she whispered into her phone as she turned around to watch Jefferson striding toward her. “He found me. Damn it, he tracked me into town and he found me.”
“It’s a small island,” Janine reminded her. “How hard could it be?”
“Oh, he looks so good,” Caitlyn said. He’d come to the island in such a hurry he hadn’t packed many clothes. Instead, he’d bought a new wardrobe here in the village. And these clothes were nothing like what she was used to seeing him in.
Normally, he was a three-piece-suit kind of man. Elegantly cut. Perfectly tailored. The ultimate alpha male in charge of his world. But here on the island he was wearing casual clothing that managed to make him look amazing and all too … approachable. Today, he was wearing summer-white slacks and a short-sleeved dark red shirt, open at the collar to display a vee of tanned skin that had Caitlyn’s fingertips itching to touch it.
His tawny hair looked a little lighter from all the sun and his eyes looked even bluer than usual. He was clutching a cell phone to his ear, though, and the frown on his face didn’t bode well for whoever he was talking to.
“Earth to Caitlyn!”
“Huh?” Janine’s voice shrieked in her ear, but all Caitlyn heard was an annoying buzzing of sound. How could she think about anything but Jefferson when he was walking toward her, spearing his gaze into hers?
“Caitlyn, get a grip. Don’t let him get to you. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to—”
“I’ll call you back,” Caitlyn said, and folded up her phone in the middle of Janine’s tirade.
Jefferson stopped in front of her, held up one hand to keep her from speaking and said with an exaggerated patience, “The Peterson contracts are in the file, Georgia.” He rolled his eyes, blew out an impatient breath and demanded, “Look again.”
Caitlyn winced in sympathy. Poor Georgia. The older woman was as nervous as a fire walker when she had to speak directly to Jefferson. No doubt, Georgia’s nerves were making her even more helpless than usual.
“No,” Jefferson said, and gave Caitlyn a glare that plainly said, This is all your fault for quitting. “I don’t care if you’ve already looked and can’t find them. Look again. The contracts were to be sent to Legal this morning. If you can’t find—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, give me the phone.” Caitlyn wiggled her fingers for it, and when he handed it to her, she said, “Georgia, hi. This is Caitlyn.”
Instantly, the other woman started babbling about broken copiers, a secretary who was out sick and the three letters she still had to get out before the end of the day. Panic trilled across the phone lines and had Caitlyn sighing.
“Relax, okay? Everything will get done.” She looked at Jefferson, who was watching her with barely concealed fury. Forgetting about him, she focused on the woman hyperventilating on the phone. “First thing, though, you need to get the contracts down to Legal. The Peterson contracts are in the file, I put them there myself. It’s okay. Go look again and take your time. I’ll wait.”
“The woman is incompetent,” Jefferson muttered, and shoved both hands into the pockets of his slacks. Irritation stamped on his features, he looked like a king who needed to lop off someone’s head.
“No, she’s not. You make her nervous.”
“She makes me crazy,” he countered irritably.
“That’s because you’re so impati— Georgia!” Smiling, Caitlyn nodded at Jefferson. “Good. You found them. No, don’t worry. Just take them down to Legal yourself. There’s still plenty of time. You’re welcome,” she said. “And it was good talking to you, too.”
Closing the phone, she tossed it back to Jefferson with a shake of her head. “Crisis averted.”
He tucked his phone into the breast pocket of his shirt. “Only because you took care of it.”
“You could have done it, too,” she said, turning away and continuing on her walk up the narrow street. Pausing now and then to look in a shop window, she slanted him a glance. “You just don’t know how to talk to people.”
“Excuse me?”
She faced him, tilting her head back to look him directly in the eye. “You give orders, Jefferson. You don’t talk.”
“I’m the boss.”
“And trust me when I say everyone knows it.”
“Everyone but you.”
“You’re not my boss, anymore,” she pointed out, and ignored the tiny, tiny, tiny twinge of regret that pinged inside her. Then she started walking again, determined to enjoy the sun on her face and the cool ocean wind that rushed through the tidy village.
“I should be,” he muttered, and shortened his long stride to keep pace beside her. “You shouldn’t have quit, Caitlyn. That phone call only defines the fact that you have your finger on the pulse of my company.”
She had to admit it was good to hear him say so. Everyone wanted to know that their efforts were appreciated. That their work was noticed. Too bad she’d had to quit to get him to realize it.
“You belong with me, Caitlyn.”
“What?” She stopped dead outside a jewelry store and looked up at him.
He scowled at her. “You heard me. You belong with me. With Lyon Shipping.”
“Aah …” Idiot, she told herself, turning her gaze from him to the shop window. Of course he’d been talking about her job. He hadn’t meant that he’d wanted her for himself. That’s what all of this was about, she knew it. Whether he was willing to admit it or not, he was here, on this island, tempting her, because he missed his trusty assistant.
Here she’d been torn over the lusty, needy feelings ripping through her like lightning strikes, and he was simply trying to woo her back to work. Well, she was done. He could do his damnedest, but she wasn’t going back to her old life. This was the new and improved Caitlyn. She wasn’t going to bury her own wants and needs anymore for the sake of everyone else.
Jefferson watched her expression change from surly to needy in a blink. And he smiled to himself, suddenly feeling on surer ground. Talking to Georgia had had him ready to tear out his own hair. Then watching Caitlyn disarm the situation with almost no effort at all had only served to feed his own conviction that he needed to get her back and he wasn’t making any headway.
Now, though, he had another idea. “What are you staring at?”
“Those,” she said, and tapped a fingernail against the glass. Gold earrings dazzling with drops of emerald and topaz shone in the sun, and Jefferson knew exactly what to do. What he should have done from the moment he’d arrived on this blasted island.
He wanted to seduce her, not annoy her. He should have been pulling the big guns out from the beginning. But it wasn’t too late to start.
“Come on.” He grabbed her upper arm despite her token protests, opened the door and pulled her into the shop.
A few minutes later they were out on the street again, leaving a delighted shopkeeper toting up his profits. The earrings hung from Caitlyn’s ears and winked at him when she turned her head.
“You shouldn’t have bought them,” she said, reaching up to touch them, stroking the cold, beautiful stones as if they were alive and needed petting. “And I shouldn’t have taken them,” she added.
“Why not?”
She blew out a breath and turned her face into the wind. Her hair lifted away and the earrings caught the sunlight, dazzling against her skin. “Because. They’re too expensive.”
“If you’re insisting on quitting, consider them severance pay.”
“I already got my—”
Irritation flamed. “Caitlyn, for God’s sake, it’s a pair of earrings. They look good on you. Enjoy them.”
She smiled and shook her head just to feel the earrings dance against her neck. “Okay, then. Thank you.”
A tight knot inside him eased as she accepted the earrings, and he didn’t look too closely at the reason behind his pleasure. After all, what mattered was that he continue seducing her into trusting him so that he could get her back to work. Where she belonged.
The earrings looked better on Caitlyn than they had in the display case. And as much as he knew jewelry, he knew women better. The earrings had been just the right touch. All women responded to gifts. And spontaneous gifts most of all. She was softening toward him, even if she didn’t want to.
And judging that the time was right for another move, he made it before she could close up on him again.
“You can thank me by having dinner with me tonight.”
Her surprisingly luscious mouth curved in a reluctant smile. “You mean, on purpose? Not just because you happen to show up and chase off whoever else might be at my table?”
“Do your admirers a favor,” he said, bristling slightly at the memory of just how many of the men at this resort kept homing in on Caitlyn. Despite the fact that he’d introduced himself as her husband. “Give them a night off.”
“Why should I?”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him in the slightest. “The question is, why not? You’re not afraid to be alone with me, are you?”
She should have been afraid. She could feel her insides softening toward Jefferson, and Caitlyn knew she was on dangerous ground. The moment she stepped out onto the moonlit patio to find that he had arranged for them to have a “private” dinner, she realized that the ground was even more dangerous than she had suspected.
It was a beautiful setting. The full moon shone down from an inky black sky speckled with stars. The ocean’s dark surface reflected the light in hazy patterns and a soft breeze made the flames on the twin taper candles dance and sway.
Jefferson was standing beside the table, wearing the suit and tie he’d arrived in. His hair was neatly swept back from his forehead and he looked the very image of a rich, powerful playboy. When he smiled at her Caitlyn felt her knees go to water and she deliberately locked them into place to keep from falling onto her face.
The heels of her sandals clicked against the flagstone patio as she walked to join him. She shivered slightly when the breeze slid across her shoulders, bare in the strapless deep-green-colored dress she’d purchased in the village. Her new earrings hung at her ears and brushed against her neck with every step.
He’d bought her jewelry. Just as he had all the other women in his life. The ones he’d been trying to seduce and the ones he’d been trying to get rid of. She’d seen firsthand how Jefferson used charm and gifts to sway women into his way of thinking. And she was determined to keep from becoming just one of the masses at his feet.
Steeling herself with that thought, she stopped beside him and accepted the glass of chilled white wine he handed her. “This is beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said, his gaze moving over her in a slow, deliberate sweep. “You are.”
A hum of something electrified stirred within her and Caitlyn had to fight to remember why she wasn’t going to be seduced by a man who had way too many exes already. “It’s not going to work, you know?”
“What’s that?” He leaned back against the scrolled iron railing and smiled at her.
“Seducing me,” she said, and took a sip of wine to ease her dry throat. Then she took another sip to try to still the frantic race of her heart.
