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Ashley leaned forward. “I’ve been monitoring traffic in and out, but she’ll likely keep copies on her laptop. Unfortunately, our resident wedding blogger has been experimenting with time-lapse photography. Even more unfortunately for us, her photos got picked up by a national travel site.”
Ashley flipped her tablet around, exhibiting a series of sunrise photographs shot over the pier. The first half dozen shots were harmless unless you had a thing against waves and pretty colors. The next-to-last picture, however, was a problem. It showed a Zodiac shooting through the opening in the reef and heading toward the dock. Mason had a bad feeling that if he zoomed in, he’d see Marcos’s bodyguards bouncing over the water in that Zodiac. Worse, there was no sign of the Zodiac tied up to the dock in the next and final frame. The boat had disappeared in the thirty minutes between shots.
Gray nodded slowly. “We need to see what else she got.”
“There’s more,” Mason said. “Maddie mentioned she was planning on shooting a wedding later this week and the bride’s and groom’s pictures are a match for Diego Marcos and Julieta Ortiz. She’s been emailing Julieta and she expected them to show up yesterday. She doesn’t know their real names, but she knows their faces.”
Gray pointed to Ashley. “Have the resort notify Maddie that the wedding has been canceled.”
Ashley nodded. “Got it.”
“She also mentioned Santiago,” Mason divulged. He relayed what she’d told him about Santiago coming to the island to attend his brother’s wedding. “What do we know about him, and do we have confirmation on his current whereabouts?”
“He could have been part of the advance team we took out. I’ll reach out to command and see what they’ve got for us. In the meantime, no one breaks cover until we’ve got a bead on where Santiago is currently. Mason, you stick by Maddie’s side. Use the time to find out exactly what she has—or doesn’t have—on her laptop and to re-verify the identities of the other guests on the island. Make sure no one slipped past us, because if Santiago is here, he knows that Diego isn’t and that’s a problem.”
“Smash and grab on the laptop?” Levi stepped up like he was ready to volunteer.
“Do I need to define undercover for you?” Gray crossed his arms over his chest. “You steal or break her laptop, and she’s got a problem that becomes our problem. How much crime do you think there is on a luxury private island? The first people she’s going to point a finger at will be staff.”
“We could bring her in,” Mason suggested reluctantly. “Interview her. Or ask US Customs to intercept her on her return trip.”
If Maddie had had her camera trained on the lagoon overnight, there was a very good chance she’d captured faces. Given what even amateur photo-editing software could do these days, leaving any images in Maddie’s hands was a security risk. Put it together with the rest of her vlogging and... Diego’s brother could connect the dots. Plus, if Santiago was here, Maddie could ID him, and he’d bet Santiago had come undercover if he’d come at all.
Gray nodded, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “Worst-case scenario, that works. The customs boys can seize her laptop and go over it, although she’ll be asking questions.”
“Okay, then, let’s go with plan A. I’ll find out what she’s got. If she’s got anything.” For some reason, he wanted to play nice. After all, he’d already scared her once, and she’d almost hyperventilated on the spot. She was a civilian, not collateral damage.
Ashley examined her fingernails. “She’s here for another week.”
Good to know the timeline.
“I’ll make sure she didn’t record anything.” If she had, Mason would wipe whatever device it was.
Gray frowned. “Be discreet, okay? Scrub her media and shadow her in case there’s any blowback from Diego’s people or Santiago.”
Levi whistled as the meeting broke up. “You just scored bodyguard duty. Enjoy.”
Playing bodyguard wasn’t exactly the worst job in the world. He was all for sticking as close as possible to Maddie—up to and including getting naked. No. Wait. Resist that thought, sailor.
Ashley rummaged in her bag. “I’m helping, too.”
“Really?” Levi smirked, and even Mason recognized condescension when it stared at him. “How are you going to do that?”
Ashley pointed to Mason. “Penis angle.” And then she pointed to herself. “Girlfriend angle.”
“You think Maddie’s going to make Mason her new boy toy?”
Mason punched Levi in the shoulder when his teammate snorted. Sure, he was an introvert and no flirt, but he’d dated as recently as this year. He didn’t need Levi’s lousy dating advice. The guy had a different woman for each day of the week, and he seemed perfectly happy that way. But that wasn’t the way Mason planned on living his life.
“Read this.” Ashley shoved a magazine into his hands. The cover was one of those bright pink numbers with a too-perfect model. A brunette with spectacular boobs, her hair flying in an artificial breeze while she gave the camera a come-hither face.
No, thank you. “This is waiting room material.”
Ashley grinned at him. “Maddie has a serious magazine addiction. She loves the quizzes, so think of this as enemy intel. X marks the spot, big guy.”
He paged through the magazine. He’d been on the receiving end of intel more than once and it had never smelled like perfume before, or—he paused—scratch-and-sniff ads for tropical air fresheners. When he hit Ashley’s Post-it note, he stopped reading.
“You think I should take a quiz on how to be the perfect guy?”
Mason had four sisters. Surely that ought to qualify him as something of a girl expert? His jaw tightened. On the other hand, he’d also been married and divorced, so his credentials were rocky.
Ashley slapped his shoulder. “Read it. Then ask questions.”
Since Ashley had to be one of the most tenacious people Mason knew, he read. It was quicker that way. And she was right—it wouldn’t hurt to find out what it took to be a keeper guy. Mason’s sisters loved that crap. So did his cousins. A road map couldn’t hurt. He read the first quiz question.
You kiss her for the first time. After you break your lip-lock, you:
A) Tell her you’ve been fantasizing about kissing her for days—and that the reality is even better than the fantasy.
B) Whisper that she’s the hottest kisser ever—and you’ve got a list of other places you’d like to kiss her.
C) Praise her kissing skills and beg her to do it again just so you can be sure.
Jesus. What had happened to just kissing? “This stuff works?”
Levi ripped the quiz out and tucked it into the pocket of Mason’s pants. “Take notes and have fun, sailor.”
3 (#ulink_ede19515-270f-5bf7-92ea-a2e3dfba026f)
This girl might just have the best job in the world! I’m hanging out on a tropical island, the cocktails are free and hotness is a basic job requisite. Because did I mention the good-looking guys are everywhere? Yum. I even ran into a bona fide single guy yesterday and he’s got yours truly thinking that a vacation fling should be part of my plans. Fantasy Fodder—let’s call him FF for short—accidentally bumped into me when I was snapping you some gorgeous photos of the lagoon at sunrise (ladies, you’re totally going to want to do your wedding photos here, although I recommend a less obscene hour than the ass crack of dawn). Then he jumped right into rescue mode and kept yours truly from going over the edge of the cliff. So there I am with my very own white knight and rescue hottie, and he’s not even mad that I may have christened him with a venti white mocha. A guy with a sense of humor and strong, manly hands? Sign me up, ladies!
—MADDIE, Kiss and Tulle
THERE NEEDED TO be a fourth, hidden option for people who wanted to increase their odds of hooking up because Maddie wasn’t an A, B or C girl. Her generous coating of SPF-100 sunscreen—thanks, Mom, for the redheaded gene—and a blue-and-white-checked retro two-piece definitely didn’t fall into the string-bikini category, although the buttons marching down her hips were a sassy touch she loved. She also appreciated her curves, even if they didn’t always fit into a standard-issue bikini. There was a whole lot of her recently thanks to a post-layoff diet of wedding cake and favors. She needed to plan on buying new clothes or minimizing the sweets.
A mental image of Mason popped into her head. He’d be anything but sweet. Bad girl. Maybe she’d been single long enough to recover from her last disastrous relationship or maybe it was something about Fantasy Island itself, because the resort certainly encouraged her erotic daydreams with their hunky help. She’d posted about her hot man on a hillside early this morning. If she couldn’t get an orgasm from him, she’d at least get a blog post. So far, the yeas outnumbered the nays two to one in her “Would you have hot vacation sex?” poll.
Since it was the low season, Fantasy Island didn’t have many guests at the moment. There had only been two other women on the seaplane that had brought her here. Laney Parker had been using up her honeymoon reservation after her fiancé had ditched her, and Ashley Dixon had won a free getaway in some sort of Facebook contest. The low occupancy was undoubtedly the reason why Fantasy Island’s owners had been willing to fly her here free so she could blog about their awesome resort offerings.
This was her big break. If Fantasy Island bought banner advertising on her blog, she’d be able to keep the lights on in her condo for at least six more months...and having one high-profile client would attract others. Business was like dating. The more popular a girl was, the more guys lined up to buy her drinks and share their contact info. So far, her blog had been a wallflower, but she was determined that those lonely days were over.
And writing about the pool scene was certainly no hardship. The pool itself was all sleek curves. Private cabanas offered guests superb views of the sea, and staff moved discreetly among the loungers, offering fruit kebobs and Evian water spritzes. Ashley waved from a cabana. She wore an electric-pink string bikini and held a paperback that almost outweighed her.
Ashley shoved her sunglasses up on top of her head. “Are you here for the cooking lesson?”
Not intentionally, but it sounded like fun, particularly if it came with a side of Mason. She dropped onto the cushion beside Ashley, taking care not to slosh the mango margarita she’d acquired at the bar.
“I could be,” she agreed. “I like free food.”
Ashley nodded. “We’re making mango-raspberry crepes with honeyed goat cheese.”
Yeah, that sounded pretty good. “I’m in,” she decided.
And then, wouldn’t you know it, Mason strode toward the pool, and he was the cherry on the sundae. He wore black linen plants that clung to his muscular thighs as he moved. Instead of looking silly in the white chef’s jacket and hat, he looked in control. Confident. He’d rolled his sleeves up, revealing powerful forearms. She was almost certain she was holding her breath, damn it. He was just one guy. One really hot, supersexy guy. His dark gaze slid over her, stopped, and he nodded. She had no idea what that meant. Hi? Glad to see you? Wait, there’s the woman I almost knocked over a cliff? The man should come with a secret decoder ring.
Ashley sat up cross-legged and closed her paperback. “Do you think we have to cook in order to eat?”
Maddie would bet the answer to that was yes. Mason wasn’t the kind of guy you took advantage of, and while she hadn’t asked his policy on free lunches when they’d run into each other at the lookout yesterday, she could certainly venture a guess. While she stared, Mason started dicing mango with easy confidence. She was all thumbs when it came to knives. Mason...was not.
“He’s going to make us work for it,” she said with a petulant frown.
Ashley sighed. “You think he’s a hard-ass about everything?”
“Probably.” If she took her friend’s words at face value, she had to admit that the man certainly had an amazing butt.
“Remember the drinks menu,” Ashley said impishly. “You could take him for a test drive.”
The rumored drinks menu, she reminded herself. The menu existed. She’d spent far too much time flipping through the twelve laminated pages of drinks with sexy names like Leather and Lace and Kinky Sex. The question, however, was whether those drink names were really not-so-covert code names for naughty sex acts that could be requested from the staff or other guests. Laney Parker had certainly made a good case for the menu being fact rather than fiction. She’d hooked up with the resort’s super-sexy masseuse and, from her blushes, done some menu exploring with him. It was too bad the other woman had been unexpectedly called home when a new job had opened up for her at a local emergency room, because Maddie had questions. Like, could you really just point and pick? For some reason, the notion felt kind of slimy. “Do you really think Mason’s available for that?”
Ashley shrugged. “Ask him.”
“A guy who looks like that isn’t available.” Not in her universe and not with her dating bad luck.
Ashley ogled Mason. “Are you offering him to me?”
No. She really wasn’t. “He’s off-limits,” she blurted, surprising herself. She hadn’t decided yet if she was going for him, but she knew she didn’t want to watch Ashley making a move on her chef.
“He’s all yours,” Ashley said, looking at her over the top of her sunglasses. “But you have to tell me what you’re planning for him.”
“He may not be interested,” she warned.
“Oh, he’s interested.” Ashley grinned and, although they both knew she had no way of being certain about Mason’s interest, Maddie appreciated the support.
Maddie didn’t want to explain how many times she’d met a guy and gone after him, only to learn that he thought of her as the fun friend. At the last wedding she’d attended, the usher she’d been paired with had spent the evening reception hitting her up for the maid of honor’s phone number. His patent disinterest in her own charms had rankled, too, because she’d thought they had good chemistry. Clearly, her dating radar was broken.
“Remember,” she said lightly. “I’m always the bridesmaid and never the bride.”
“How many times?”
It took a minute to do the math. “Thirteen. And gig number fourteen is coming up in a month. I have enough bridesmaid dresses in my closet to open my own bridal shop.”
Ashley made a sympathetic face. “You think they’d notice if you recycled and wore one more than once?”
“They’d notice,” she said with feeling. She’d dealt with more than one bridezilla.
Ashley nodded. “So. What’s the plan?”
She didn’t have one.
“Pick a drink,” her friend advised. “Imagine the possibilities. I’ll get you started. Dirty Girl Scout. Sex on the Farm. Sexy Alligator.”
“You made that one up.”
“Right here on the menu.” Ashley stabbed the plastic with her finger.
“Alligators aren’t sexy,” she protested. And sex on a farm didn’t sound particularly exciting, either. She was more of a sex-on-a-yacht-with-a-billionaire type of gal.
Ashley shrugged unrepentantly. “Imagine Mason’s face if you asked for that. You could get him to do anything.”
They both turned to stare at him. Nope. Imagining that was even harder than finding the sexy in an alligator. Ashley wasn’t deterred.
“Pink Panties. Sex in the Driveway. Long Slow Screw Against the Wall.” Ashley waved a hand. “Stop me when I get warm.”
“That sounds so cheesy,” she objected. But it also sounded fun. Her stomach hurt from laughing.
“Think of all the ways to improve your love life.” Ashley smirked at her, as if finding an improved sex life was that simple.
Maddie stared at her margarita. No easy answer in the mango-flavored cocktail. Even though she was technically here on a working vacation, she’d been encouraged to sample everything the resort had to offer. So she could better describe it for her blog followers. She’d been more than happy to comply. A free week of R & R at an all-inclusive luxury villa? Sign her up. She could do whatever she wanted. Check out the beach. Go to lunch twice. Spend all her afternoons lazing in the sun or lying out at the spa.
Alone.
She hadn’t considered the implications of being a party of one until her seaplane had been wheels down—did seaplanes even have wheels?—surrounded by happy, honeymooning, we’re-having-fantastic-sex couples. Truthfully? She was lonely. Envious. Horny. As she watched other couples kissing and holding hands and generally getting started on happily-ever-after, she was feeling more than a little left out.
She clutched the mango margarita, fighting the urge to make a face. She had nothing to complain about. Hello, free vacation? It was just that she had kind of imagined that someday she would be the bride and that there would be a Mr. Maddie by her side to frolic on the island with her. Instead, she had another bridesmaid gig lined up for next month, and her lunchtime companion was another singleton she’d met on the seaplane.
Not that Ashley wasn’t fantastic. She was.
A shadow fell over them. “Ladies,” a familiar deep voice said. Mason stood over them, big and stern. Oops.
* * *
MADDIE KNEW HOW to follow orders. Sort of. And definitely in her own unique, impulsive way. Mason probably shouldn’t read anything into Maddie’s attendance of his cooking class, but she was trouble and he had a feeling they both knew it.
After he broke up her gossipfest with Ashley, she bounced up to the temporary cooking station he’d pointed her to as though he hadn’t just interrupted a conversation about her dating life. Her bikini hugged her gorgeous curves and made his fingers itch to touch her, to smooth the fabric away and uncover bare skin. Her red hair was pulled up in a ponytail that brushed her shoulders with each jaunty step she took, and she had a pair of big white sunglasses pushed up on top of her head. Her cover-up was some kind of wrap thing with fringe on the sleeves that made him think of bedrooms. And getting naked. He thought a lot about getting naked when he was near Maddie.
She didn’t seem to be mad at him about his startling her yesterday, which was a plus. On the other hand, she wasn’t exactly paying all that much attention to him, either. Apparently, she wasn’t harboring teacher fantasies.
Still, he couldn’t help stealing glances at her and envisioning all the ways he could get to know her better. Make her feel better. She’d seemed...lonely. Even though she’d had her cute butt parked next to Ashley and had been laughing and talking up a storm like she always did, there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. Maybe it was just because she was literally here by herself and Fantasy Island didn’t have a swinging singles scene. He’d never seen so many couples glued to each other outside a porn flick. He’d walked past the Jacuzzi the other night and his eyeballs still burned.
He lined his students up at the table, passed out mangoes, and then knives. Since he only had the four students, giving Ashley a wide berth was difficult, but he managed. Guests three and four were a honeymooning couple more interested in each other than mangoes. That was fine with him. Teaching crepe making was new to him, so the smaller the audience, the better. As soon as he barked go, Maddie obediently went to town on her mango, wielding her knife with more enthusiasm than skill. She attacked the fruit the same way she appeared to attack life—head-on.
She was beautiful, but that wasn’t the reason for his attraction. Or, rather, it wasn’t the sole reason. As hokey as it sounded, when she got close, he wanted to smile. To hold her in his arms and dance her around in a big old circle until she collapsed against him, dizzy and laughing. He wanted to laugh with her—and he’d felt that way since he first landed on the island and had set eyes on her.
She was someone special. And if there was an edge of desperation beneath her laughter, he wanted to know that side of her, too. She wasn’t just the life of the party, even if that was what she wanted the world to believe. And he didn’t think for one second that she was content with standing on the sidelines, watching wedding after wedding. So what did she want?
A piece of mango hit the pool deck. She cursed, and nearly amputated her finger, and he decided it was time for an intervention. Her fruit was a mangled mess and he’d sharpened the Wüsthofs himself that morning.
“Did the mango do something to piss you off?”
