The Parking Space (14 page)

“He’s four wheeling with Ben and Ben’s brother Jeff,” Lisa answered.

“Of course, he is. Why should he ever do any of the things he planned on doing on this somewhat vacation like he’s supposed to do.”

“Supposed to do?” I asked. “Oh, and what is that, Logan? Bar hop with you around the island, getting drunk and spending each night and each day with a different girl on his arm or in his bed?”

Logan stepped forward, moving with such a force that I retreated from him a few feet. He followed, until we were out of earshot of everyone in the room.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He pointed his finger in my face. “Why do you think he invited me along? Me out of all the guys he knows.”

Logan’s words caught with a lump in my throat. My blood ran cold through my veins and the room began to spin around me as I held my breath.

“I don’t know why he keeps wasting his time with you,” Logan continued. “I told him the endeavor would be pointless, knowing how much of a pathetic loner you are, but I suppose he’s got to learn it for himself. Perhaps once he realizes, he’ll finally come to his senses.”

I stared at the bamboo floor, unable to look at anything else.

“Aww, did I say something I shouldn’t?” He stuck out his bottom lip to pout and cocked his head to the side, faking a crying motion with his hands.

“Why don’t you just go and enjoy your afternoon treat and leave us alone?” Lisa shoved her way past him, knocking him over slightly before she hooked her arm through mine. “Nothing you say matters anyway, so just get out of here.”

“Gladly.” He motioned toward Sophia, clasping her hand as he strode for the door and punched it open with his fist as he exited.

“Don’t even bother listening to anything he had to say. He only meant to get a rise out of you.”

“Did he?”

“You know he did.”

“No, I don’t, Lisa.” I inhaled a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “I can’t believe they actually talked about me. I mean, what did Logan tell him about me?” I slapped my hand over my forehead. “Like that I’m this lonely hermit who can’t get a date to save my life.”

“Oh, please, that is so not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Well, he obviously doesn’t agree or else he wouldn’t be spending time with you.”

“Unless he thinks that I’m so lonely I’m desperate and an easy score.”

She opened her mouth to refute my statement, but hesitated. “Why don’t we just go see if there are time slots available for us? I think a couple of relaxing hours will do you some good.”

As Lisa sauntered off toward the receptionist, I stared at the door. If Rick hadn’t been here for the sole purpose to play a man whore for the week, why did he ask Logan, of all his friends, to come with him?

Common sense is common sense, after all. If you want to have a night of carefree partying, do you invite the friend who doesn’t drink and likes to stay home on Saturday nights? Or do you take the fun loving, out-every-weekend friend who you know will help you have a good time?

“Hey, Lisa, I think . . . I think I’m just going to go back to my villa.”

“What? No. Don’t let that jackass ruin your day.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Listen, how about we see if we can get the same treatments for the same time and get one room. We’ll down a couple of bottles of champagne, enjoy the spa, and just have fun.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I would be much fun right now.”

“Oh, come on. It can be like a little bachelorette celebration.”

The faint disappointment in her eyes poked at my guilt. No matter how many lunches, dinner, or girls night outs we enjoy together, none of them matched up to spending time together celebrating before she walked down the aisle.

Only a horrible selfish friend would walk away from this moment.

“Okay. It sounds good to me. It might even do me some good, I guess. Get my mind off it.”

Lisa beamed as she bounced up and down on her toes. She turned toward the receptionist and her fingers tapped on the marble waist-height counter as the woman began checking through her schedule once more.

“We can do combine treatments in the same room right now if you choose the bamboo scrub and the stone massages, instead of the sea salt.”

“Is that okay with you, Helen?”

“Yeah, that sounds fine.”

“Okay, we’ll take that please. And can we have some champagne in our room?”

“Of course, I shall have a chilled bottle waiting for you when you return from the locker room.” The receptionist gathered up a few papers and stuffed them in a binder as she strolled around the desk. “Follow me, please.”

While Lisa trotted off behind her, I hesitated and glanced over my shoulder at the door once more. I didn’t want to allow someone like Logan Hunter to ruin my day, but the possible truth behind his words still tickled through my own thoughts.

Had Rick really planned to come here and party it up with a bunch of different women after his job interview?

And did he think I would be one of them?

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, I glided down the dock path toward my villa. Even through a relaxing massage and skin smoothing scrub, thoughts of Rick’s intentions toyed with every insecure idea in my mind.

I’d been here before—many times—asking myself question after question about a man’s actions, character, and objective. The outcome had always been the same.

Gut instinct never lied.

Every romance fizzled no matter how short-lived they’d been. A month, a week, each man used me, lied, cheated, or didn’t even bother to show up.

An endless list of losers.

Of course, on the other side of the coin, the notion that none of it mattered anyway left my head spinning even more. Why should I hold any concern when he was moving thousands and thousands of miles away and I’d probably never see him again after I leave?

A flash of pink and red caught my eye in the distance, along with a handsome man who leaned against the railing of the dock near the front door of my villa.

“Aren’t you supposed to be with the Ben and Jeff?” I asked Rick as I approached.

“I asked them to bring me back early.” A broad smile spread across his face as he handed me a beautiful bouquet of island flowers. Their soft petals fluttered with the movement and their sweet scent tickled my nose. “I brought these for you.”

“Why?”

His head cocked to one side and his smile vanished. “Um, because I thought you’d like them. How was the spa?”

“How do you know I went to the spa?”

“Lisa mentioned she planned to steal you away for a few hours for some relaxing girly treatments.”

Yeah, we weren’t the only ones at the spa today either.

“Oh. Well, it was all right, I guess.”

“All right, you guess? What’s wrong with you?”

I closed my eyes and exhaled a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired. My leg still hurts and I didn’t sleep well.” I shoved past him, digging into the pocket of my shorts for the key. “Thank you for the flowers.”

“Helen?”

I tried to close the door before he could follow me inside, but he braced his arms and his power overcame mine.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to force myself inside, but I want to know what’s wrong.”

I pressed the palm of my hand into my forehead as I turned away from him, allowing him passage over the threshold as I fled out onto the deck. The sun shined down upon us, warming my spa smoothed skin through my cotton tank top.

“Why did you ask Logan to come here with you?”

He blinked a couple of times. “Huh?”

Oh, come on, don’t play dumb.

“Why did you ask Logan to come here with you? You know, out of all your friends, which I’m assuming you have several. Why him?”

“Because none of my other friends could swing the money.”

“Money? You’re going to say the only reason you brought him was because of money?”

“Well, no, not the only, but it helped.”

“So then what was the other reason?”

“Why do you want to know about him so much? Do you like him or something?”

“Of course, I don’t. I can’t stand him.”

“Well, then, why does it matter why I brought him?”

“Because of who he is. Because of what he does.”

“I don’t understand.” He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as though utterly confused. “Who cares who he is or what he does? It’s his life and it’s his business how he lives it. I’m not going to judge him as you have so rudely done.”

“Rudely judged him?” I opened my mouth to offer a further retort, but hesitated and walked a few feet from him, taking a few seconds to collect my thoughts. I stepped down onto the tiny part of the deck near the water.

“Okay . . . okay,” I continued. “So maybe I have judged him and maybe it’s wrong, but he’s just so . . . so,” I shook my fists in the air and shouted a growl. “He treats women like crap. Like we’re mindless, worthless, less than human beings who are only here for his pleasure.” In my bitter diatribe, I began pacing along the deck. “So, yes, I know I judged him, but I just don’t like him.”

“I never said you had to like him, and if I’m not mistaken, aside from the snorkeling, I haven’t forced you to spend time with him.”

“No, I know, you haven’t. I just don’t understand why you brought him or why you brought that type of a person. Why bring someone who parties all the time with different women each night unless you wanted . . . well, unless you came here to do the same.”

There. I said it.

“What exactly are you implying?” His eyes narrowed.

Really? Are you that big of a dimbulb?

“Are you trying to say I’m like him?” Rick asked. “That I invited him along so I could live it up here on the island with a bunch of women?”

If the shoe frickin’ fits.

My eyes met his. “If you want to have a relaxing time, you invite someone of the same mind set. If you want to party your life away, then you do the same. It’s common sense.”

“Not to me, it’s not.”

“Ha! That’s utterly ridiculous.” I continued to pace, taking bigger steps—my mind reeling with his words. Was he that dumb? Worse, did he think I was that dumb enough to believe him?

“What did he tell you about me?”

“Nothing.”

Like hell he said nothing.
“You expect me to believe you? He told me that you guys talked about me. That he told you about the type of woman I am. I can only imagine what he said.”

“Well, yeah, he tried to tell me some things, but I didn’t give him the chance. I told him I didn’t want to hear what he had to say and I ended the conversation.” He paused. “You might want to . . .” He pointed at my feet.

“What?”

“Well, you might want to watch where you’re walking.”

“I know where I’m walking.” My voice snapped through the air, crisp with harshness. “I’m not going to stupidly fall off the de—”

In one winked moment, my foot stepped although there wasn’t any wood to step upon. My body plunged into the warm water, which poured down my throat and shot up my nose. My legs kicked and my arms flailed until my head popped up out of the water.

As I coughed and sputtered, a splash echoed next to me and within seconds Rick grabbed me, drawing me close into his body.

“I’ve got you. Hang on.”

He swam over to the ladder and helped me grab the bars. As I still coughed up water, he shoved against my body, hoisting me up each rung until I lay upon the deck. My throat burned, my nose burned, and my lungs burned as I rolled over onto my side.

“I told you to watch where you were walking.”

The slight chuckle in his voice distracted me and I opened my eyes to look at him. We stared at one another in silence for a moment. The utter ridiculousness of the situation unfolded before us, and as quickly as I’d fallen into the water, we both started laughing.

“I can’t believe I just fell off the deck.”

“I knew you would. The way you were ranting and pacing, not watching where you were going.”

“Who does that? I swear it takes an idiot to do something like that.”

“You’re far from an idiot, Helen.”

He sat up and outstretched his hand to help me. His touch overwhelmed my skin and butterflies fluttered wildly in my stomach.

“Thank you . . . for helping me.”

“You’re welcome. And for the record, I didn’t invite Logan to come with me because I wanted to bar hop and party with a bunch of women. I’m not that type of guy.”

Unable to look him in the eye, I focused on the buttons of his sopping wet shirt as I nodded.

“The main reason I invited him was because I knew he’d be okay with going off on his own. I came here for an interview, a job interview, that while I was confident in myself and abilities, I was still facing a pretty stressful situation.”

“And he could make it less stressful?”

“Yes and no. My other friends would have bugged me to go along with them wherever they went and wouldn’t have allowed me any quiet time to prepare, but Logan, he just doesn’t care. If I want to go, I go. If I want to stay in the room, I stay. He literally doesn’t care, and he doesn’t even try to talk me into going with him.”

I’m such an idiot.

“Then it sounds like you picked the right person to come along with you.”

“I know you don’t like him. Heck, I know many women who don’t, and I’m not stupid or blind as to why. He can be quite the jerk to the fairer sex.”

“Yeah, you can say that again. I ran into him at the spa and he just said a few things that got me all worked up.”

“What did he say?”

After recalling the words that had irked me for the past several hours, Rick took a few moments to collect his thoughts. He inhaled and exhaled a few deep breaths. His eyebrows furrowed together and he shifted his gaze from me for the first time.

“I’ve never expressed any desire to go bar hopping with him or that I planned to meet and party with a bunch of women.”

“I’m sorry for getting angry with you. It wasn’t fair of me to do.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have assumed. I shouldn’t have been so mean.” I rose to my feet and walked toward the doorway into the villa. My waterlogged sandals slapped against the wood. “You should go back to your room and change out of those wet clothes.”

“Luckily, I’m wearing my swim trunks.” He stood up, and with one swift movement, he pulled his shirt over his head and laid it across the railing to dry.

Oh my.

His tanned skin glistened in the sunlight, drawing my eyes to trace every defined muscle in his body until finally I met his gaze. Without saying a word, he strode toward me with a fierce determination that caught my breath.

His hands slid up my neck, cradling my cheeks. His lips pressed against mine. A heated passion ignited in my blood as his tongue parted my lips and his hands tightened around my neck before he released my face and grabbed my waist, yanking me into his body.

He scorched me with his touch as his fingers traced the waistband of my shorts and played with the button—a tease that spread fire hot through my skin. My knees grew weak. I clutched his neck in my hands, my fingers played with his hair.

He pushed me backwards until my backside hit against the outside wall of the villa. His lips left mine and began to wander over my neck and collarbone as his hands slid up my waist from my hips all the way up and to the back of my bikini top underneath my tank top. He unhooked the clasp, letting the top fall open.

I wanted him. I wanted nothing but him.

He kissed me again as his fingers tickled along my side. Finally finding my breasts, he grabbed them in both of his hands for a moment before he moved back down to my waist.

As he pulled away, he pressed his forehead into mine.

Our breaths panted together.

“I’m in so much trouble,” he whispered.

“Why?”

“Because I had made up my mind to not get involved in a relationship.” A slight chuckle vibrated through his chest and he smiled. “And now, you’re making that choice a lot harder to stick to.”