Make Me Crave

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Unfortunately, reality was calling—or as close to reality as a person got on West Island.

But she didn’t like the look on his face—as if she’d somehow hurt him—so she paused. “I would love that, but my friend is back at our villa, and if she wakes up and finds me gone, she’s going to think that I walked off the path and broke my leg or something and sound the alarm. I don’t have an easy way to get ahold of her, so I have to go make sure she’s not forming a search party.”

His frown cleared. “I understand.” He got out of bed and pulled on his shorts. “I’ll give you a ride back.”

She started to tell him she didn’t need that, but the truth was she did. It was one thing to take his cart because she’d changed her mind about being with him and didn’t want to walk the paths alone at night. It was another to want to skip a potentially awkward morning-after conversation. She was an adult. She could handle it.

She hoped. “Thanks. That would be helpful.”

He threw on his shirt but didn’t bother buttoning it. It gave him the look of a... She didn’t even know, but she liked it. A lot. Down, girl. She found her shoes and followed him out to the golf cart.

Allie was so tense as she sat next to him, she was surprised she didn’t jostle right out of the seat when he put the cart into gear, but he reached over and took her hand, interlacing their fingers as if they held hands all the time. She relaxed, muscle by muscle, but her nerves didn’t calm. “I don’t do that normally—any of it.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” He squeezed her hand. “I had a good time last night.”

“Me...too.” She studied his profile. Adonis, indeed. “A really good time.”

He shot her a look as he took a turn onto a path marked with her villa number. “I’m in danger of being pushy, but I’d like to have a repeat—or several. I’m here on business, but my nights are yours if you’re interested.”

Her breath caught in her throat, though she couldn’t say why. To spend her days with Becka doing all the activities they had planned and her nights with her Adonis... That truly would be paradise. She licked her lips. “I...I’d like that.”

He grinned and pulled to a stop where the cart path ended and the walking path began. “In that case, would you gift a poor man with your name? You’ll always be Aphrodite to me, but I’d like to know the true identity of the woman I plan to have coming countless times in the next few days.”

She blushed and then called herself an idiot for blushing. “I’m Allie.”

He went so still, he might as well have turned into a statue. Those hazel eyes focused on her with unsettling intensity. “Allie? Allie Landers?”

She jerked her hand back, her heart beating for a reason that had nothing to do with desire. “How do you know my last name?”

He laughed, but not like anything was funny. “This is so fucked.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gone was the devilishly charming Adonis who’d seduced her with little effort last night, replaced by a cold man she didn’t recognize. “Roman Bassani.”

She knew that name. She knew that name. Allie scrambled out of the cart and took several steps back, though he made no move to touch her again. “The guy who keeps hounding me? What the hell are you doing here?”

His smile was as cold as any she’d seen. “I’m here to convince you to sell your business.”

CHAPTER FIVE (#u219e272d-b0ef-5bb9-aab9-7b50b73da809)

ROMAN WATCHED THE metaphorical shit hit the fan in slow motion. He looked at his Aphrodite—at Allie Landers—in disbelief. The horror in her expression, the way she took a step back and her body language closed down. Gone was the flirty siren he’d just had in his bed, replaced by a woman who didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

Still, he tried to salvage it. “I can explain.”

“Explain how you hunted me down to West Island and seduced me.” She shook her head, blond hair flying. “Nope. Absolutely not. You pulled one over on me. Good job. Way to go. Points for being totally and completely unexpected. You don’t get to stand there and tell me you can explain, because this is beyond explanation.”

“I didn’t know you were...you.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m fucking this up.”

“You think?” She took another step back. “Your reputation might be shady, but I never expected this.”

He started to explain why he thought she couldn’t possibly be Allie Landers, but cut the words off before they reached the air between them. Telling her that her glorious curves didn’t fit in a specialized gym was both shitty and wrong, and he’d have realized that he shouldn’t assume a single goddamn thing if he’d stopped thinking with his cock long enough to function. There has to be a way to salvage this. “I don’t see why this has to change anything.”

Her blue eyes went wide. “You don’t think this needs to change anything.” She drew herself up to her full height, somewhere close to six feet. “You’re out of your goddamn mind. Get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

“Like hell I will.” He hadn’t wanted to do it like this. In fact, he’d crafted several well-thought-out arguments about how she needed to listen to his investment proposal. All of that flew right out the window in the face of his frustration. “You’re going to lose it all if you don’t stop being so fucking stubborn and let my investor help you.”

She looked at him like she’d never seen him before. “Wanting to preserve what I worked so hard to create isn’t stubbornness—and not wanting to sell it out to someone like you doesn’t make me an idiot.” She motioned at him.

“Someone like me.” She’d made it sound like an insult, and maybe it was. Roman played dirty. He’d never had any qualms about that truth. He still wouldn’t have tried to seduce Allie into seeing things his way—but he would have done everything else under the sun. He still would.

But her obvious disdain stung. He laughed harshly. “Someone like me,” he repeated. “Honey, look in the mirror. There’s only one reason Transcend is going under, and it’s not me. I’m just trying to save it.”

Her lips twisted. “How noble of you. Well, you can take your apparent white-knight complex and shove it up your ass.” She spun around and marched down the path toward her villa, her middle finger in the air.

Stubborn, frustrating woman.

Admittedly, he could have played that better. Roman pinched the bridge of his nose for a long moment and then turned the cart around and headed back for his place. If he could just tell her who his investor was...

Impossible. He’d signed a nondisclosure, which his investor had insisted on. Even if he wanted to tell Allie the details of what his client had planned for her gym and shelter, he couldn’t. Judging by her reaction, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She would have called him a liar and told him he was full of shit.

He’d miscalculated. It wouldn’t have changed the reaction he’d had to seeing Allie in person—he didn’t think anything could have altered that—but he’d have kept control enough not to try to seduce her.

Fool. He could almost hear his old man’s voice as if the bastard sat next to him. Took the easy way and look what happened—exactly what always happens. Failure.

Roman shut that shit down. He didn’t have time to wallow in shame for fucking up. He had to figure out a way around it. As tempting as it was to follow her back to her villa and continue the argument until she saw things his way, it wouldn’t do anything but make her dig in her heels further. Allie had proved herself to be as stubborn as the day was long. For some reason, she was resistant to investors.

He needed to figure out why. It was the only way to get around her issues.

He took a shower and headed into the main lodge. It was the only place to get a call out on the island or to use anything resembling the internet. It took some convincing to get the woman on staff to give him access to the tiny business center, but he managed.