Island Heat. Sarah Mayberry
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and hunted he’d felt. He’d gotten lucky. He needed to keep reminding himself of that.
Somehow, the sentiment just didn’t ring true.
Squinting out to sea, he saw a slow-moving ship crawling across the horizon, and his thoughts turned to Alexandra’s Dream and Tory Fournier.
A feral grin twisted his lips as he contemplated the next week or so. He wondered what she looked like now that she was in her late twenties. She’d been slim when he’d known her, with small, high breasts and long, coltish legs. Her delicate heart-shaped face had been deceptively sweet-looking, he recalled, especially with that beguiling chin dimple. She’d suckered him in for weeks after casually letting him down after their one night together. Then she’d sprung her little surprise. They said that revenge was a dish best served cold. He wondered if eight years qualified as being too cold? Perhaps even…petty?
He laughed into the ocean breeze. So maybe he wasn’t about to wreak revenge on her. After all, maybe he’d had it coming a little. But he certainly wouldn’t be letting her walk all over him with her elegant designer pumps, flashing those pearly whites of hers and flicking that long straight hair over her shoulder. Eight years ago they’d drawn the battle lines between them, and they were still there.
But he was no longer a gauche island boy intimidated by her family pedigree and industry contacts. He’d had his own successes now.
This time they’d meet as equals. He had a feeling it was going to be interesting.
And he needed something interesting right now. Anything, really, to distract him from the empty space where his heart used to be.
TORY SPENT THE FIRST evening on board familiarizing herself with the ship. Since she’d never been hot on Greek mythology at school, she didn’t have a chance in hell of remembering many of the deck names, as they were all named after Greek gods, except for the obvious ones that repeated viewings of Xanadu had imprinted on her memory. She managed to find the gym, the cinema, the various bars and clubs, the day spa. And all the while her brain was working like a crazed hamster in a wheel, worrying at the problem of Ben Cooper.
She didn’t want to see him again. Not because she was scared of how he might react all these years after her revenge. She didn’t want to see him because he’d made her feel so foolish. She’d been charmed by him, besotted and bedazzled. She’d said things to him, done things with him that she’d never done with another man. She was no prude and she definitely wasn’t ashamed of any of it. But it made her feel so stupid that she’d allowed him to touch her, to know her so intimately, and all along he’d been playing her.
Just remembering made her grind her teeth together. What a jerk! And what a sap she’d been, allowing him to sweet-talk her into a date and then into his bed.
She could never fully regret their one night, however. And it wasn’t about the sex—even if she was willing to admit that he’d been one of the best lovers she’d ever had. It was because he was the person who had given her her first taste of island food. She could trace her love affair with all things Caribbean back to the moment when she’d first smelled his unique jerk spices frying in the pan. She could still close her eyes and remember the meal he’d cooked her that night: succulent, spicy jerk chicken, coconut rundown and his own special take on johnnycakes for dessert. The child of a classically trained chef who believed that French cooking was the only true way, Tory had been blown away by the exciting flavors warring for supremacy in her mouth. Then Ben had talked about Anguilla and his family and the shabby beachfront takeaway stand that he one day planned to transform into a prestigious establishment, and the magic had been complete—she’d been utterly enchanted and enslaved by all things Caribbean.
Stupid, stupid girl. Tory shook her head in disgust over her own past naiveté as she made her way back to her cabin. He must have been laughing up his sleeve at how easily he’d gotten beneath her defenses.
She slammed her state room door with a little more verve than was strictly necessary and crossed to the bathroom to brush and floss her teeth and wash her face. Buttoning up the cotton pyjamas she preferred to sleep in, Tory pulled down the covers and crawled into bed. Yawning widely, she flicked the light off, rolled onto her side and slid her hand under the pillow, her habitual sleeping posture. She gave a gasp of surprise and sat bolt upright when something cold and slithery met her fingers. Fumbling for the lamp switch, she flipped her pillow out of the way, then bit her lip on an involuntary laugh when she saw that the object of her fear was a necklace and pendant. Now that she knew it was harmless, she mocked her childish reaction. What had she thought it was—the world’s thinnest snake?
Still smiling, she lifted the necklace and weighed the pendant in her hand. Made from silver and shaped like a solid teardrop, it was slightly tarnished and looked like a much-loved, wear-it-every-day kind of necklace. She frowned for a moment, wondering how it gotten in her bed. The sheets were crisp and fresh, so there was no way that it could belong to the previous occupant. Her frown cleared as she guessed what must have happened—the maid had lost her necklace while cleaning Tory’s room.
Checking the time, Tory saw it was still early—barely nine. She could notify Lost and Found that she’d located the maid’s necklace; no doubt the woman was fretting.
As soon she’d explained the situation to Lost and Found, however, the woman on the other end of the line laughed loudly and asked her to hold. Tory turned the pendant over and over in her hand while she waited for someone else to take her call, and finally a familiar voice came on the line.
“Victoria, it’s Patti Kennedy here. How are you doing?”
Tory was a little taken aback that the cruise director would show interest in something as insignificant as a lost necklace.
“Hi, Patti. Sorry, there must be some kind of mistake. I was just reporting a lost necklace in my room….”
Patti laughed. “You obviously haven’t read through your orientation material yet. If you open the folder, you’ll see a colored glossy flyer with the heading ‘Teardrops of the Moon.’ The flyer will explain everything, but basically it’s a little tradition we’ve developed on board where we hide the necklace in a stateroom for one of our passengers to find. According to an old legend, the necklace is supposed to bring good luck, especially in love.”
“Oh,” Tory said, viewing the pendant in an entirely different light now. Good luck she welcomed, but good luck in love? She didn’t really have time in her life for love, not with a book to promote and a new restaurant to start up, let alone the more immediate challenge of keeping dozens of cruise passengers informed and titillated on a daily basis—all while working alongside Ben Cooper.
“Maybe you guys should put it in someone else’s room. I mean, I’m not really a guest, am I?” Tory said. She’d been assigned a stateroom because of the short duration of her stay on board and the lack of availability of other crew accommodation. The pendant must have been meant for someone else.
“Don’t tell me—a pretty girl like you doesn’t need luck in love?” Patti guessed.
“It’s not that,” Tory said, thinking wryly of how long it had been since she’d even been on a date, let alone gotten lucky. “It’s more I kind of feel like a fraud, being here to work and all.”
Patti made a dismissive noise. “Forget it. You’re a high-profile guest lecturer, not a dishwasher. I think it’s terrific you’ve found it. But if you really don’t want it, you can turn it in to us tomorrow and we’ll hide it again.”
“Okay. Thanks, Patti.”
“Read your orientation folder,” Patti admonished lightly before ending the call.
Feeling duly chastised, Tory clambered out of bed and grabbed the folder. Propped up against two pillows, she sorted through the folder until she found the flyer Patti had been talking about.
It outlined the legend behind the pendant, detailing how the moon goddess and a handsome shepherd had had to hide their love from the jealous sun god, concealing themselves under an invisible cloak with a diamond