Chapter 2

Alec Thatcher leaned against the back of the concierge desk, elbow-to-elbow with his second cousin Kane Hathaway.

“You look like hell,” the other man said cheerfully. Wearing a gray business suit and matching dress shirt, he appeared not to have a care in the world. “No sleep?”

Alec shot him a disgruntled look. “Shouldn’t that worry you? Shouldn’t you be asking if I need a new pillow or if my mattress isn’t satisfactory?”

“It’s not your accommodations that’s the problem. Guys like you, what keeps you awake at night is a business deal. Or a woman.”

“Neither,” Alec said, then sighed. “I can’t get the botched wedding out of my head. Who does that? What brand of asshole do you have to be to call off an imminent wedding via text?”

“That’s on him,” Kane pointed out. At thirty, he was the same age as Alec. They’d always hung out during family events and were nearly as close as he’d been with his brother Simon. “Right? So shake it off and settle in to enjoy your mom and dad’s anniversary celebration week.”

“Yeah.” His parents had invited family and close friends to the resort to observe thirty-five years of marriage. The gathering had been the brainchild of his mother, and they’d all been delighted at this sign she was rejoining and re-engaging with the world after five years of implacable withdrawal.

“Good,” Kane said. “Now how about replacing your grim expression with something more upbeat? You know, a frown turned upside-down is a smile.”

His sunny tone was annoying as hell and Alec knew the other man was poking him just because he could—like every sibling or almost-sibling ever—but that didn’t stop him from bristling. “It’s the maid of honor,” he heard himself say. “It continues to bug the hell out of me that she looked at me like I’m shit on her shoe.”

Kane’s brows flew up. “Huh? When? I thought the ceremony was called off before the participants made it to the beach.”

Shit. The decision he’d come to after his sleepless night was that he was going to put Lilly Durand out of his mind. For good. Now he’d have to tell Kane about her.

“She’s here, staying at the resort with the jilted bride. I ran into her yesterday and she didn’t seem pleased to see me.”

“Ah.” Kane rubbed his chin. “Let me guess. Guilt by association?”

“I’m supposing so. Because during the few days of pre-wedding events, we got along just fine.”

“Hmm.” Kane’s mouth quirked. “By that you mean you got her into your bed?”

A group of young women stepped into the lobby then, wreathed in smiles, their legs long and their pretty dresses short. Chattering like brilliantly feathered birds, they had glossy hair and pink lips and their gazes flicked past Alec and Kane, then backtracked for a longer perusal.

His second cousin gave them an easy, appreciative smile. “There’s a sight to improve a man’s outlook,” he murmured. “Nothing better in the world than women in a jolly mood. They require so little work to keep that way.”

Kane had a rule against involving himself with high-maintenance females. Which, if you listened to him, were just about all of them, especially right around the time their sisters got engaged, or when they had an upcoming birthday, or when a special holiday was on the calendar. Kane hadn’t found anyone he considered worth the effort to hold onto long-term. It was all light and breezy for him.

For Alec too. For a long time, serial dating and casual fucking had suited him just fine.

Hell, that made them both kind of sound like assholes, he thought, frowning.

“There’s the long face again,” Kane remarked, his attention returning to Alec as the knot of women moved off in the direction of the restaurant. “Let’s start over. You found yourself with a hot one and now she’s giving you the cold shoulder…”

“Lilly is not a ‘hot one,’” Alec said reflexively, sending the other man a sharp glance. And he hadn’t gotten her into bed, though before the called-off wedding he’d fully intended to do that very thing. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

Kane brought up his hands, palms out. “Sorry, sorry. Meant no disrespect. Just trying to get the story and give my buddy a little support.”

“Never mind.” Alec wished like hell he could leave his post and go for a beer in the lounge. But he’d been tasked with keeping a look-out for some expected guests so he could offer a personal family welcome to the Thatcher anniversary week festivities. “I don’t know why she got under my skin.”

Except he did. Jacob, the would-be groom whom Alec had known through summer camp since they were six, had warned him about his fiancée’s best friend and the maid of honor. “A prickly little thing,” the guy had said. “Kind of private and definitely hard to get to know.”

He’d shrugged then. “To be honest, I don’t think she likes me.”

Well, Alec couldn’t fault her for being a spot-on judge of character. He didn’t like Jacob any longer either.

But when he’d met Lilly…

He’d seen her from across a crowded bar where the engaged couple had planned a mingle of the bridal party—three bridesmaids, three groomsmen. Even from that far away he could see Lilly was hyper-watchful, her slim body’s posture erect, her gaze alert as it moved between the faces of the people who stood around her. Like a hummingbird.

Or like, he thought now with new clarity, someone expecting a sudden move…a sudden blow?

Shit. No, he didn’t want to think like that.

So instead he thought about that evening, how he’d strolled up, casually greeting those he already knew then turning to her and introducing himself. He’d held out his hand.

For a second, she’d looked at it with suspicion. Then she’d reached forward. They’d touched palm-to-palm, and her eyes had jerked up to his, surprise washing across her beautiful face along with a watercolor stain of pink. He’d stared at her full mouth and exotic, tip-tilted eyes.

Lilly.

In that moment, he’d felt as stunned as she looked.

Instant chemistry. Fiery. Like a blast from a furnace. He’d never been burned like that before.

Beside him, his second cousin now let out a low whistle. Alec shifted his focus from the past to the other man. “What?”

“Today must be a lucky one for me. Check out the sweet little brunette standing at the coffee and smoothie cart on the patio.”

Even before directing his gaze in that direction, the sudden tightness in Alec’s gut told him who he’d find there.

“That’s Lilly,” he said, feeling his fingers curl into fists. He pressed back into the concierge desk instead of breaking into a run for her. “The maid of honor.”

Dressed in clothes made to drive him nuts. Yoga pants clung to her legs and a T-shirt with an oval cut-out exposed a slice of her back and the band of a colorful sports bra. Her flushed face attested to recent physical activity.

He tried not to think of her looking just like that after they’d gone a round or two in bed. And he remembered, even as sexual urge clamored at him to go after her, that he’d vowed to put her out of his head. The broken engagement had snipped the lit fuse that would have led to their inevitable explosion.

Anyway, always safer not to fool around with fire, he told himself.

“Hey,” Kane said in a musing tone. “I just realized there’s no reason for her not to like me.” He glanced over at Alec, a wicked gleam in his eye. “But just in case, do me a favor and pretend we don’t know each other, okay?”

Not okay. And with the knowledge that there were likely a dozen men in the vicinity who had similar designs as Kane on beautiful, maddening, delectable Lilly Durand, Alec pushed off the concierge desk and headed straight for the woman just now accepting a smoothie the color of a California sunrise.

Coming up behind her, he watched her take a sip through the long straw, those lips circling the plastic like a kiss, her cheeks hollowing. His cock twitched and he gave it a stern downward glance before clearing his throat. “Would you recommend the flavor?” he asked.

She whirled. “You.”

He tried to appear apologetic. “If you don’t want to keep meeting like this, you’re going to have to wear a bell around your neck like a kitten so I can hear you coming.”

“You’d be sure to avoid me then?” she asked.

Clever girl.

“How’s Audra today?” he asked, changing the subject.

“When are you checking out?” Lilly said instead of answering, then held up a hand. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. After this, we’re really not going to see each other again. I’m willing it to be so.”

Alec suppressed the urge to grin. A woman with a resolve of steel. But he found he couldn’t like her fierce determination to be done with him even though he’d made the same decision himself. “Look, Lilly. You know I’m not Jacob. This situation isn’t my fault.”

She looked down at her smoothie for a long minute, then sighed. “I know. It’s just…Audra…”

“Audra…” he echoed.

Lilly’s head came up and she bit her bottom lip. “I can’t get her out of bed. She’s still wearing the wedding dress.”

Grimacing, Alec reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheek felt hot as his fingertips drifted over it. “I’m sorry, sugar.”

Her beautiful eyes were fixed on him, the darkest blue, the deepest mystery. “How long should I wait until I wrestle her out of the thing?”

He would have laughed or at least made some comment about the lasciviousness of the image if he hadn’t seen the clear distress in her expression. He shook his head. “I don’t have an answer. I only know you’re a really good friend.”

“Audra’s a better one,” Lilly said.

“You were roommates in college, right?”

“Yes. We weren’t supposed to be. Audra had the single room on our floor. I had the horny roommate with the horny in-town boyfriend. The first week I spent my nights trying to sleep in the hallway while the sounds of their teenage fornication filtered through the gap at the bottom of the door.”

He remembered, with not a little guilt, leaving signals for his own roommate when a hookup was in progress. “Teenage fornication has its indisputable lure.”

Lilly gave him a knowing glance that communicated she supposed he’d engaged in more than his share of it. “Anyway, after Audra tripped over me a couple of times on her way back from the library, we got to talking and then she came up with a solution.”

“Horny Girl moved to the single and Audra moved into your double?”

“Yep.” She nodded. “We shared space for all four years. My family wasn’t too…available, and so I spent a lot of holidays with the Montgomerys too. I owe them a lot, including the job I currently hold in the financial management department of their company.”

“So Audra, not to mention the entire Montgomery family, would consider it fraternizing with the enemy if I ask you to have lunch with me? A drink?”

She hesitated.

He questioned himself too. Why the hell was he pursuing this, beyond the obvious, that unflagging impulse to give in to his appetites and take his fill of her sexually? It only promised some awkwardness and regret when it all came to its predictable end, and she was a good, loyal friend, just as he’d said. He’d probably come to like her very much and then the foregone finale would leave him feeling shittier than the case of blue balls she’d given him from the instant they’d met.

“What’s the point of lunch or a drink?” she asked. “It would go nowhere.”

To my room, he thought, to my bed. “Well—”

“Anyway, we have nothing in common. Not to mention I don’t have a lot of time outside of work and I really don’t do relationships.”

“To the contrary then, we have amazing commonality. Because it’s like you read my mind,” he said, and paused. “I don’t want a relationship either.”

She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at him. “I suppose you’d be satisfied with something you’d think of as ‘simple,’ like a one-night stand.”

Forget the one-night stand, what are you doing this afternoon? jumped to the tip of his tongue but Alec swallowed it back. “It’s probably the best I’ve got,” he confessed. “Well, possibly a few nights.”

For a moment he thought she was seriously considering the idea, and he held his breath, an unprecedented rush of sexual anticipation shooting straight to his cock. Then she shook her head, her shining locks of black hair catching the sunlight with the definitive refusal. “No, thanks.”

His blood cooled, fierce disappointment digging in. Christ, when had he experienced a rejection that clawed this deep?

“Don’t look so glum,” she said, faux-kindly. “There’s probably lots of women on these very premises who’d take you up on how little you have to offer.”

But not like you, he thought, and he should be scared spitless by the idea, but his logic seemed to have taken a hiatus. No one’s like you. His mouth opened to tell her so.

Then he heard “Alec!” and sensed a flurry of movement behind his back. He turned in the direction of the lobby just in time to catch an armful of blonde who launched herself straight at him. “Darling,” she said, looking down into his face. “I’ve been so looking forward to being with you again!”

Glancing over his shoulder, he caught Lilly’s smirk just before she walked away from him.

Never to be seen again, he supposed, because the woman willed it to be so.

Well, his common sense said, reasserting control, it’s probably for the best.

 

Lilly slipped into the bungalow, tiptoeing because she assumed Audra remained resting in her bedroom.

“Did you enjoy the yoga class?”

Lilly started, then her head whipped toward the living area couch. Audra sat there, legs drawn up, dressed in a pair of jeans beneath the damn wedding dress. She’d done something to the hem, taking some sharp object to it so now it ended unevenly at mid-thigh.

Instead of commenting on the new style, Lilly decided it would be best to ignore the change. It was an improvement, right? “It’s good to see you up,” she said breezily. “Are you hungry? We can order something from room service, or—”

“That must have been a long class,” Audra said. “Or did you take a second after it?”

At the swift kick of guilt, Lilly winced. Watching her best friend steeping in misery the day before had left her feeling frustrated, useless, and with an ache in her chest that just wouldn’t go away. So she’d rushed out to the first yoga class on the resort’s schedule this morning and had dawdled on her return.

The woman who’d rescued Lilly from her own misery freshman year and then gone on to become the truest friend ever deserved better than that.

“I wonder whatever happened to Suzanne Dobbs,” Lilly mused, naming the person who’d been her assigned roommate. Without her, she might never have met her BFF.

“She works at one of those all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. Client relations,” Audra said.

“Of course it’s client relations,” Lilly replied, remembering how Horny Boyfriend had gotten the heave-ho for a succession of rangy young men that Suzanne had seemed to scoop up like candy bars and discard as easily as their wrappers.

“She’s doing quite well—a big promotion just a couple of months back.”

Lilly’s brows rose. “How do you know all this?”

“I follow her on social media. We text from time-to-time.”

Of course Audra would keep in touch with an old college acquaintance.

“I sent her a congratulations card on the career move.”

No surprise. Lilly had once told herself that thoughtfulness was another privilege of the rich, but the truth was, Audra was ever kind and always non-judgmental. She liked and trusted everyone…which went far to explain how she’d ended up engaged to Jacob the Jerk.

“Suzanne sent me a card too,” Audra said, her gaze falling to her lap and her fingers playing with the shredded edges of her dress. “Best wishes on the upcoming marriage and all that.”

Damn, Lilly thought, that ache in her chest expanding again. Why had she brought up Suzanne anyway? And why had she left Audra on her own this morning, when her friend was feeling stabby enough to go after her wedding gown?

“I’m sorry I was gone so long,” Lilly said, dropping down to the sofa. From this moment forward, she pinky swear-promised to herself, she’d stick by the other woman. They’d stay inside if that’s what Audra wanted, playing endless rounds of hangman or watching reruns of Friends like they used to do when they locked themselves in their apartment with the intent of studying for finals. Lilly would do whatever it took to make her friend happy.

And sticking close to Audra would have the added benefit of making sure she kept to that other pledge she’d made—not to see Alec again.

He had no right to be so damn gorgeous! Even in jeans and a shirt, cuffs rolled up, tails out, and with a pair of battered leather deck shoes on his feet. She’d be fooling herself if she didn’t admit to being severely tempted by the idea of a one-night stand, not to mention those “few nights” he so generously—hah!—offered, but she’d held strong.

Thank goodness, because in the blink of an eye he’d been tackled by a blonde with a pair of fake knockers and veneers that should come with sunglasses for anyone near enough to be blinded by them.

Thank goodness, because now that she’d had the cold splash of a wake-up call in the form of Audra’s broken engagement, Lilly realized she’d barely dodged the threat Alec posed. For whatever reason, she knew this man could damage her.

“What should we do now?” she asked Audra, slapping her palms against her thighs. “You name it, you got it. We could start learning bridge like we promised ourselves so long ago or watch that new TV series everyone raves about or—”

“Jacob,” Audra said, her gaze lifting to Lilly’s face.

“Jacob…what?” Lilly asked warily. “I’m all for entertaining ourselves with revenge plots or—”

“I need to know he’s okay.”

Lilly grimaced. “Of course he’s okay. He’s the one—”

“I realize I shouldn’t contact him.”

One of the reasons Lilly didn’t regret throwing her friend’s phone into the ocean. “Good.”

“And I realize you shouldn’t contact him either.”

“Great, because I erased his info from my contact list.”

“But you could ask Alec.” Audra leaned closer. “Would you find out what he knows? You can reach him, right?”

“Um…” Lilly had removed the best man’s data from her list also, right after seeing that chick practically smother him with her breasts.

“He’ll tell you what he can, I’m sure of it,” Audra said. “Alec really seemed to like you.”

Here was the natural opening. Lilly could tell her friend that Alec was actually staying at their same resort and even get into how he made all her inner alarms sing so she should avoid all further contact with the man. But the entreaty in Audra’s eyes made it impossible for Lilly to say no.

“Haven’t you heard of that test?” she grumbled instead. “The one that points out how seldom two women talking together have discussions that don’t involve men.”

“Speak to Alec, please,” Audra said. “Then I promise we’ll switch subjects. For as long as you like we can consider the continued elusiveness of world peace or debate how many cats I’ll collect in the next three years.”

Grimacing, Lilly got to her feet. “Why does that still sound like we’ll be talking about men?”

Still, she showered and headed out of their bungalow again, telling Audra she was going out to get them sandwiches from the on-site deli. On the way, she stopped at the front desk and once more found herself facing Jessie Hathaway. “I was wondering if I could leave a message for Alec Thatcher,” she said, feeling a blush crawl up her neck. Just saying his name aloud made her think people could tell how outrageously attracted she was to him.

The woman didn’t blink an eye, however. “Well, you could, of course, but I just saw him hanging out at the bar by the pool.”

Lilly hesitated, but then nodded, unwilling to look like a coward in front of the other woman. Surely she could encounter him one more time and come out unscathed.

As Jessie said, she spied him lounging on a stool, his back to her, his lazy attention on a group of people gathered at the other end of the bar. The half-empty glasses in front of the stools around him seemed to imply his companions had momentarily wandered away.

As a matter of fact, in that knot of guests nearby, Lilly glimpsed the processed blonde locks of the woman who’d leaped upon him earlier. Whether he was contemplating that woman’s charms or just lost in the enjoyment of the warm air on this beautiful May day, she managed to approach without Alec noticing.

“Ding-a-ling-a-ling,” she said.

He swung around, a swift glance of male assessment taking her in—face lightly made-up, shoulders bared by a flowered sundress, feet shod in short-heeled strappy sandals. The look of unguarded pleasure entering his eyes shot a hot thrill through her bloodstream. So sweet, that heat. So seductive. She fought the follow-up shiver.

He smiled, slow. “Well, hello there, little kitten. Did you change your mind?”

About one night, or a few nights with him, he meant. That soft gleam in his eyes didn’t make it any easier to refuse. So she bristled, just because defensive was her natural go-to response when she felt unbalanced.

“Don’t flatter yourself. This isn’t about us—you. That…that thing you’re talking about.” She regretted the babbling and felt more heat, this time on her cheeks.

One of his brows lifted. “What is it about then?”

Lilly cleared her throat, folded her arms over her chest, then realized it pushed her breasts together, and some cleavage was already exposed by the V neckline of her dress. Her hands dropped to her sides. “Audra wants to know about Jacob. How he’s doing, I guess.”

Alec’s expression turned pained and he forked his fingers through his hair. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’m all for hearing he took a long walk on a short pier, but…” She shrugged. “Audra is Audra. She’s concerned, despite what he did.”

After a long moment of quiet, Alec sighed again. “Who understands love?”

“Not me. What I get is private parts and dull blades.”

Alec winced. “Bloodthirsty.”

Lilly stepped closer to him. “Do you know? Do you know what exactly is going on with Jacob?”

“He texted me the morning of the wedding to say it was off and he wouldn’t be talking about it or changing his mind. I was so pissed I didn’t even respond.” He hesitated. “Do you really want me to try and contact him?”

She looked down. “He’s your friend.”

Alec reached out, snagged her hand, drew her a couple of steps closer. He played with it and she watched the movement, fascinated by the way his bigger, longer fingers looked in contrast to her slimmer, paler ones.

“Audra is after some closure, I suppose,” Lilly said, her breath catching in her lungs as his fingers pushed between hers, widening the spaces there and sliding along the sensitive inner surfaces in a way that made her nipples prick beneath the cups of her bra.

He tugged her closer yet again, widening his knees so she was moved into that intimate space he created. “Alec!” she said, and this time her breathlessness was evident in the tight quality of her voice.

“Lilly.” He looked bemused, his head tilting. “You know, your name is all about the tongue. It’s like a short but very hot French kiss.”

A shiver scuttled down her spine and she frowned. “You shouldn’t say things like that.” Her glance lifted over his shoulder to see that busty blonde who’d practically mauled him standing no more than fifteen feet away.

“Why not? It’s true.” Catching the direction of her gaze, he looked behind him. A smile quirked the corners of his mouth as he turned back to Lilly. “An old friend, nothing more.”

“Right. Whatever.” Lilly gave a half-shrug to prove she didn’t care a thing about who the blonde was to him. But she couldn’t seem to pull her hand from his or move away. “So if you find out anything about Jacob, you can text me, okay?”

The hint of a smile on Alec’s face widened to a full-fledged grin. “You don’t want an in-person report?”

She hesitated, and then her brain scrambled as he drew the forefinger of his free hand over the slope of her shoulder and down her bare arm. Goose bumps followed in the wake of his touch.

His voice lowered, and the air seemed to thicken around them, creating a private capsule. She was hyper-aware of the heavy beat of her heart as she stared into his brown eyes, their color darkening as his pupils expanded. Trying to escape the exciting promise in them, she dropped her gaze only to fixate on his mouth instead, the lips looking so very soft in contrast to the hard angles of his cheekbones and jaw. His pure, vital maleness spoke to something deep and very feminine inside her.

Lilly’s thighs quivered and she felt a heated swelling between them.

Alec’s wandering finger meandered from the pulse pounding in her wrist to the delicate skin at the inner bend of her elbow. He traced the crease there, back and forth, like he had all the time in the world to indulge in just that one, single touch.

“I forgot,” he began, and Lilly met his eyes again, only to be snared once more by the sexual intent burning there.

She forced herself to breathe. “You forgot…?”

“To mention what else we have in common.” Now his finger continued up her arm, across her shoulder, then to her neck, where her pulse tapped out a frenzied beat she supposed he could see as well as feel.

“This,” Alec said, his thumb replacing his finger to caress the thin skin of her throat. “This…pull.”

Pull. Chemistry, attraction, allure, temptation, enticement. She felt helpless against it, a piece of flotsam caught in a riptide and dragged out to dangerous seas.

“I…”

A loud splash signaled someone entering the nearby pool and jerked Lilly from the spell Alec seemed to cast over her. Her hand yanked from his and she managed to step back. “Just text me,” she said unsteadily. “When you find out anything.”

He looked amused again, and if he felt as stirred up as she was, he certainly handled it with more savoir faire. “If I do you the favor, what do I get in return?”

Before, when they’d first met, they’d discovered they lived not far from each other and visited some of the same shops and restaurants. They’d marveled they didn’t recall each other from any of them. Unless she took measures, Lilly knew her luck on that end wouldn’t hold.

“You know it’s best we don’t see each other. It’s just…” Torture. Temptation. A path to bad outcomes. “…pointless.”

He forked his hand through his hair again, grimacing. “Because you and I aren’t going to—”

“Right.” She nodded briskly, not wanting him to spell it out. “So here’s what I’ll give you. That little market on the corner of Garnet and Carter. I won’t go there anymore. Except on Saturday mornings. I have to be able to get a croissant there on Saturday mornings.”

“What else?” His arms folded over his chest.

“Uh…the dim sum place. And that’s a sacrifice.”

He sighed. “Lilly—”

“Okay. Fine. You can also have Carol’s Coffee. I’ll find a new morning stop and we’ll never bump into each other on a caffeine run. We’ll never have to see each other again.”

With that, she spun on her heel and strode away. She was almost beyond earshot when she heard him call out, “Somehow I doubt that, sugar.”