EIGHT

It was agreed. Grace was moving into the villa at the end of the week and Mark had done everything he could think of to prepare for her arrival.

He’d selected a bedroom on the opposite end of the floor from the master suite, claiming a space as far away from Grace as he could get.

He’d carefully collected his belongings from the bathroom and his clothing from the closet and settled into his new room days before she was scheduled to move in.

Every time he thought about Grace slipping between the sheets of what used to be his bed, Mark went for a run.

Every time he found himself daydreaming about what Grace would look like lounging in what used to be his soaking tub, neck curved back in relaxation, delicate feet propped on the edge, legs wet, skin slick, her hand dipping below the bubbles, fingers slipping lower…fuck! Mark would stand under the arctic-cold water of his new shower until his brain and body were painfully numb.

And every time he thought about his ludicrous plan to move her into the villa with him, Mark wanted to drown himself in a bottle of whisky. Or at the bottom of his infinity pool. He could never decide.

All of the reasons he’d given Grace had been true. He’d always planned to raze the staff apartments to expand the spa. There weren’t enough condos in the new staff building for Grace to have one of her own. And having his new GM easily accessible at all times did mean he’d be forced to collaborate with her on his ideas for the hotel.

Mark hadn’t been lying. He did have a hard time letting others in, especially where business was concerned. It was born of a deep-seated need to be in charge, to limit the ways in which his life could spiral out of control.

Mark was a child of privilege. He knew that. Good brain, good education, good looks. The right pedigree, the right clothes, the right-sized bank accounts. If he’d wanted, he could have coasted through school, landed an easy job at one of the family firms, married a family-approved wife, purchased a family-approved mansion, and started the next generation of family-approved Donovans. The possibility that he might have always lurked in the darker corners of Mark’s mind and every time he felt that disturbing fact gnawing at him, Mark would wrap his hand around his right hip, his fingers landing on the marked skin beneath, the long-forgotten sting of the needle slowing his racing pulse and calming his nerves.

This life, this path: venturing out on his own was his salvation. A truth he knew as surely as the rising of the sun and the retreating of the tide. Which was why he’d refused his uncle’s repeated offers to help him and Jack launch D&A International. It was their passion, his and Jack’s, their foray into the world of responsibility, decisions and consequences, risks and successes. But no matter how much he wished they’d been able to do it without help from the Hursts, they hadn’t been able to pull together the money. Five years. That’s how long it had taken Mark to come to terms with accepting help from Max. Five years of not sleeping and grinding through every possible option and suffering through every failure before telling Jack that his uncle was still an option, that they could finally launch their company if they accepted help from Mark’s family. Five years before he unwittingly signed over one quarter of their company to a traitor.

So, yes. He found sharing control of his businesses difficult. D&A International had been his and Jack’s. Max had almost stolen it from them, and the possibility of that loss had debilitated Mark. He’d been on that very same island, in that very same villa, frozen and immobile, watching his uncle strip him of the thing he valued most, the looming defeat fogging his brain to the point where he’d barely been able to muster a fight. Mark Donovan, brilliant in business and lethal in the boardroom, laid low by the simple act of trusting a member of his family. It was Jack who’d saved them. And then Jack who had left, abandoning Mark and D&A for the love of his life.

But the Seven Winds Resort? It was Mark’s outright. No shareholders or business partners or board members lurking on the periphery. His alone to do with as he wanted. With the exception of one disarmingly infuriating Grace Fitzgerald.

She was exactly who he wanted to run his hotel. Intelligent, driven, motivated, thoughtful when it came to problems, creative when it came to solutions, and caring when it came to people. Mark had known it back in January when she’d tried to help get Jack back to the mainland all while managing the resort during one of Marcus’s habitual absences. He’d been certain of it during that first meeting when she’d publicly pushed back on firing staff, and his certainty was confirmed every time they got into a heated discussion about his plans for the resort.

Her passion was clear, her commitment to her job unerring. Mark knew he could trust her to do what was right for the hotel, guests, and staff. Mark also knew he needed to let her in on his plans, that if she was going to truly excel he was going to have to defer decisions to her. Grace wasn’t intimidated by him. She wouldn’t let him run her over or push her aside. Grace was strong, determined, and a total pain in his ass.

God, she made him crazy. And, fuck, how he loved it.

That right there was the problem. Because no matter how much Mark’s brain was fully aware that this woman was integral to building the foundation to his newest empire, his dick was on the verge of screwing everything up by trying to screw her. Grace’s allure was potent. Brains, biting words, and a body that Mark knew fit his perfectly.

Standing in the doorway to the master suite, Mark considered the space that would soon be hers. Pillows, sheets, towels, walls, shadowed corners, the view past the pool to the crystal-blue ocean, the setting sunlight, and the warm, tropical air. It was about to be Grace’s little part of the world, mere feet from the carefully controlled one that belonged to him.

This was the right decision, Mark reminded himself. You can do this.

Turning away he caught sight of that oh-so-comfortable loveseat, and Mark’s chest pinched in panic. Thinking back to his original plan, he let go of a small, hollow laugh.

He’d had part of it right. The attraction was real, the tension between them palpable. They were both suffering, chafing under the unyielding friction. But Mark was no longer sure he’d escape the burn. Maybe not from touching Grace. He’d promised, after all. Yet he was slowly realizing they might not need to be skin-to-skin, that his flesh might get singed by the very nearness of her. That the organ deep in his chest could be charred by its undeniable need for more.

 

***

 

“Do you recognize the name Tristan Hurst?” Grace was watching a small army of bellman carry her boxes into the villa’s master bedroom and line them up against one wall.

“Hmm, who?” came Sadie’s distracted response.

“Tristan Hurst,” Grace repeated. “Mark said he’s an employee. Sounds like he hired him a while ago. But the only thing I know about him is that he’s expected to arrive in the next few weeks.”

“Why don’t you ask Mark?”

Grace rolled her eyes. She should ask Mark. She had planned to ask Mark. But that was before the tense moment they’d shared the last time they’d been in the villa together.

“I haven’t had the chance,” she eventually answered. Which was partially true. With preparations to tear down the old staff apartments, relocating everyone to the new building, and the day-to-day operations of the resort, Grace had barely had a second to eat, let alone track down Mark to find out more about his—their?—new employee. But she also didn’t want to confess to her friend that she’d been avoiding him.

Grace wasn’t at all certain what had happened at their last meeting, but, whatever it’d been, she had no desire to repeat it. It had taken her a full hour to cool off once she’d returned to her office. After kicking off her shoes and downing two glasses of ice water, she’d eventually sent Carrie in search of an ice pack from the first-aid kit. As she held it to her forehead, eyes closed, pulse still tripping along at a worrisome rate, Grace had convinced herself that the burning in her fingers came from the contact with the exposed ice pack, not a lingering need to run them across Mark’s lips before covering them with her own.

No, she was definitely not going to tell Sadie any of that. She’d become one of Grace’s closest friends, but she was also the very serious girlfriend of Mark’s best friend. No sense jeopardizing her position at the hotel by confessing that she was incredibly and so unhelpfully attracted to her boss.

“Sorry, Grace,” Sadie continued. “I don’t know a Tristan Hurst. Though, I wonder…. Mark’s uncle’s last name is Hurst. Maxwell Hurst.”

“Uh-huh,” Grace murmured. “He’s the one who—”

“Yeah,” Sadie interjected. “Max was the one who tried to steal D&A away from Mark and Jack. The mess that was going on during our event in January. Max was at the center of it.”

“And you think there’s a chance Tristan’s related?”

“It’s possible,” Sadie answered. “I’m not one hundred percent certain. Like I said, I don’t know him. But it would be strange for Mark to have two Hursts in his life and not have them be related, don’t you think?”

“Not impossible, but unlikely.”

“Do you want me to ask Jack?”

“No,” Grace shot back quickly. “No, but thanks. I’ll just ask Mark. I’m sure we’ll have a moment to talk about it soon.”

“How are things going, by the way? You fell off the radar for a bit.”

“Yeah, just a lot going on. What with the new job and all of the changes, trying to bring in Tessa, and moving in with M—” Grace stopped herself, but Mark’s name was out there, jumping up and down in the silence between them.

“Grace?” Sadie prodded, suspicious.

“Sadie?” Grace retorted, her eyes closed in embarrassment.

“Did you just tell me that you’ve moved in with Mark?”

“Ummm, not exactly,” Grace hedged.

“Grace!”

“What? I didn’t tell you that exactly. I stopped just before I said his name.”

“Doesn’t matter and you know it.”

Grace heard Sadie drop something, maybe a pen, against her desk, and shuffle around before she returned, her voice hushed and intent. Grace could see her friend now, her lips pursed in concentration, a small line forming between her eyes. Grace almost smiled.

“Tell me everything,” Sadie insisted.

“There isn’t much to tell,” Grace sighed, collapsing on her new king-sized bed.

“Bullshit.”

“Truly, Sadie. We’re tearing down the staff accommodations to expand the spa. Staff have been moved to a new building just off property. And there will be a new apartment for the GM behind the spa expansion. It’s really very simple.”

“So simple that you’ve started living with Mark?” Sadie paused, and Grace wondered what sort of thoughts were spinning through her friend’s head. “Where?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t ‘hmmm’ me, Grace! I’m not dropping this. Where are you living with him?”

“In the villa?”

“Which. Villa?”

“The Seven Winds,” Grace confessed, her shoulders sagging as she heard Sadie suck in a breath.

Sadie knew, of course, what had happened all those months ago. What it had almost led to. It wasn’t long after Sadie and Jack had reconciled that Sadie called Grace demanding to know what had happened between her and Mark that fateful morning. Grace had been evasive, but Sadie had been persistent. As she always was. As she was being then.

“Holy shit, Grace!”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“My dear friend”—Sadie’s voice was soft but stern—“you always have a choice. Something I know you’re well aware of.”

“Yes, yes.” Grace fell back onto the bed, barely registering just how much more comfortable it was than her old one. “I did have a choice. But it wasn’t a good one. Mark, he’s….”

“He’s?”

Grace pushed herself back up. “I didn’t think he was serious. That first day, when he gathered the staff to introduce himself and tell us he’d bought the hotel. I thought he was just some bored, rich playboy. That he’d somehow gotten the idea to buy a hotel and wham, bam, there he was. In the beginning I just thought he was fucking around.”

“And now?”

“And now.” Grace paused, thinking back over the past couple of weeks. Of her conversations with Mark, their fights, their head-butting. The concessions. The odd little truce that seemed to have formed when she agreed to move into the villa. “He wants the hotel to succeed, Sadie. I’m certain of it.”

“Because he hired you to run it?” Sadie teased.

“Yes, well.” Grace smiled. “That was definitely a start. But”—she grew serious—“the plans he has in mind, the things he wants to do. They make sense, Sadie. I mean, there’s shit I definitely don’t agree with—hogging expensive villas at the top the list—but his overall intentions are good, his vision great, even.”

“But?”

“But”—Grace vented her frustration—“he shuts me out. All the time. Maybe it’s a habit he can’t break. Maybe it’s intentional. Maybe he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Whatever the reason, it makes it so hard for me to do my job. And I really want to do this well, Sadie. So, so badly.”

“I get that, Grace, I do. But I’m still not clear on why you had to move in with him. Move into that villa, of all places.”

“There really isn’t anywhere else for me to go. I can’t afford a short-term lease anywhere near the hotel. There isn’t any space for me in the new staff apartments. Mark told me as much. I double-checked. Even tried to bribe Carrie into letting me crash with her for a while. No luck.”

“Carrie, the young woman behind the front desk? She always seemed so pleasant.”

“She is, yes. Friendly. Bright, motivated. But can’t really fault the woman for not wanting to share her apartment with her boss, right?”

“What, but you have to? That doesn’t seem fair.”

Grace sighed, exhaustion sweeping through her. “Fair or not, it actually works in my favor. Or at least I hope it will.”

“How?”

“I want to be a part of it, Sadie. His plans, his thinking, his decisions. He promised me that this situation—which is temporary, mind you—will help us, well, I guess, acclimate to each other.”

“Acclimate? That’s a weird way to describe it.”

“No, stop,” Grace laughed, “I mean, we’ll be around each other all the time. I’ll be able to keep tabs on him, make sure he isn’t getting carried away with a secret project before discussing it with me. And if he comes up with some grand scheme in the middle of the night I’ll be within shouting distance.”

“Let me get this straight, Grace,” Sadie said slowly. “You want to be within shouting distance of Mark Donovan in the middle of the night?”

“Sadie,” Grace groaned, “that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Hmmmm.” Sadie sounded unconvinced. “But you want to be close to him? Close with him?”

“For work, Sadie.” Grace was pleased she sounded casual, in no way unnerved about living with the man consuming more and more of her thoughts, her desire to push him out lessening by the day.

“Shit, Grace. I’m sorry. I feel like this is a rehash of a conversation we had before. About, you know….”

Grace did know. She remembered the conversation clearly. When Sadie had prodded her about Jasper, had asked her friend to be careful. When Sadie had tried to warn Grace that things with him might not turn out as she’d hoped. If only Grace had known. Christ, if only they both had.

“Yes.”

“Not that there’re any similarities. None at all. Mark’s a good man. I don’t want you to be worried about that.”

“Sadie, if there was any chance I thought there was even the smallest similarity between the two, don’t for one second think I’d be here. That I would stay. I’d have been gone weeks ago, believe me.”

“I know, I do,” Sadie assured her. “I just….” Her voice failed.

“Yes?” Grace prompted.

“I’m not going to warn you to be careful. I’m not your mother. But I think I should tell you—”

“For the love of God, Sadie, just spit it out.”

“Helikesyou.” Sadie’s words same out in a rush, a jumble of letters that Grace had to pick apart.

“He likes me?”

“Yes.” Sadie released a huge exhale, underlining the secret that came with it. “Mark Donovan likes you.”

“Ummm.” Grace shook her head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I mean, Grace Fitzgerald”—Sadie took on a tone that Grace was sure she’d learned from Jack—“that Mark really likes you. Not as an employee, not as the general manager of his hotel. But as, you know—”

“A human being?”

“Don’t be a smartass. As a woman, Grace. He likes you as a woman. You know, the kind he wants to take to romantic dinners and on exotic trips on his private plane and hide away in his luxurious villa in the Caribbean. He. Likes. You.”

“There is no way he told you that.”

“He didn’t have to. He blushes every time he talks about you. In front of me, at least. When he came to D.C. to try to intervene between me and Jack, he mentioned you and his cheeks flared bright pink. I almost burst out laughing. The mighty Mark Donovan getting all flustered over a woman. He likes you and it’s stamped clear as day on his face every time your name comes up. Not to mention how his voice softens whenever he talks about you.”

Grace opened then closed her mouth, unsure what to say. Pressing one hand to her cheek, she felt heat there, an answering flush. 

“Grace, you still there?”

“Yeah. I’m just—”

“Processing?”

“Yeah.” She nodded to herself. Processing. Is that what she should call it, the unnerving current of pleasure weaving its way through her abdomen? The gentle tug here, the soft nudge there. The idea that Mark felt genuine affection for her, not just simple lust, working its way deep, finding small gaps in Grace’s defenses, worming its way past logic and good sense and sparking something a little wild within her. A little excited. And a whole lot off-kilter.

“Grace? Grace?” Sadie was calling her. “Grace, I need to get back to work. You okay?”

“Ah, yes, fine. Thanks.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, yes,” Grace laughed, aware she sounded anything but. “You just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

“Okay, well,” Sadie replied, “I’m here. Call me if you need to talk.”

“Will do. And don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough going on.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t add one more thing to my list.”

“Don’t you dare put me on a list, Sadie Carter!” Grace teased, smiling when Sadie let loose a peal of laughter.

“Whatever you say, lady.”

“Go, do your work. Be busy and important. I have to unpack.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Sadie managed to get out between giggles. “Take care, Grace.”

“You too.”

Hanging up, Grace fell back against her bed and shut her eyes, hoping it would stop her brain from spinning. Shifting to find a more comfortable spot on the pillows, Grace winced when something sharp poked her head.

“What the—?”

The envelope was so white it blended into the pristine pillow case. The front was blank. Flipping it over, Grace hesitated before lifting the unsealed flap to retrieve the card inside. She recognized the handwriting immediately. Strong, bold. Irritating and high-handed. And, yet, now, just a little captivating.

       Grace -

       Thank you. For agreeing. For everything.

       Yours,

       M

“Mark Fucking Donovan,” she whispered aloud, a small smile playing on her lips. Tracing the deep strokes of his pen, Grace felt that little flash of wildness flare. And spread.