My spine jerks upright, and I blink. Over and over again. It feels like an eternity passes by while I process and reprocess what Gabe just said. I expect him to speak up and tell me that I’m on camera and he’s screwing with me big time. That’s the only explanation for the grenade he just tossed at me. Instead, he just watches me, his hazel eyes burning into mine and his expression unreadable.

“Marry you? Is this some sort of sick joke?” I croak. He shakes his head, and the air stalls in my lungs. “If you think I’m going to—”

“You will do this,” he counters, pinning me with an intense look.

“I will? Sorry, but I’m not in the business of taking orders anymore, Carter.” Not when it involves holy matrimony with someone I barely even know. I haven’t thought of marriage since I was dating Ryan, and I’m wise enough now to acknowledge that marrying so young would have been a mistake since my ex couldn’t keep his dick in his pants to save his life.

Gabe pours himself another glass of champagne and sets the half-empty bottle far enough from me that I can’t give him a repeat of our first night together. He must know I’m considering it, because a corner of his mouth tugs up before he scoots it even closer to his side of the table. “I’ve done my research, about you and your family. The Hawaiian Bungalow is in some deep financial shit. Without the money I’m offering you, it will definitely go under. And when it does, where will that leave your parents?”

His words are like daggers straight to the center of my heart. What he’s saying is one-hundred percent true, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Specifically coming from a man who seems to be using that information to coax me into doing what he wants.

Fisting my hands until my nails bite into my palms, I cross my arms over my chest. “Is this all because I won’t sleep with you?”

His lips part, but then he pauses, darting his tongue out. He traces it over his bottom lip while he considers what I’ve asked. He pushes up the sleeves of his white dress shirt then steeples his fingers together on the table. “I’d be lying if I denied the hard-on you gave me that night didn’t help cultivate this idea.”

“You’re an absolute dirt—”

“But,” he interrupts, a feral gleam in his greenish-brown eyes, “wanting to fuck you isn’t the only reason I’m proposing marriage to you.”

“Then why are you?”

“You really don’t listen to a goddamn thing you’re told, do you?” He places his palms on the table and leans in close. Close enough that, unlike me, there are no beads of perspiration on his upper lip. No uneven gasps escaping him. He’s cool, calm, and utterly collected and it pisses me off. “It’s simple really. Having you on my arm as my wife puts out the public persona that I’m a changed man. Settled. More trustworthy to invest in. Marrying you can make my dream of turning this into the premier hotel to stay in on this side of the island.”

“So you’re asking me, someone who you barely know, to marry you as a part of a business deal. You’re insane and I’m not going to be part of such a stupid, awful scheme. It’s wrong.”

“People marry for shitty reasons all the time, and it never lasts.” He pauses, smirks, and then lifts his shoulders nonchalantly. “So what’s wrong with proposing an arrangement that has benefits for us, both financially and sexually? When the deal has run its course, we go our separate ways—mutually satisfied and better off financially.”

I consider what he’s saying, and it’s tempting. It sounds too good to be true—too easy. But nothing in life is simple, and I know this arrangement wouldn’t be as effortless as it sounds. For starters, while I walk away with a hundred grand to do repairs on the Bungalow, the O’ahu Elite will get a multi-million-dollar facelift that will more than likely ruin us even more.

I tip back the rest of my champagne and plunk my glass down so hard it shakes the table. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Gabe’s mouth drops open in genuine surprise. Which makes him seem even crazier because he must have honestly believed I’d go right along with this sham. “What? Are you seriously turning me down?”

“Yep, and I’m also leaving. Feel free to be shocked about that, too.” Angrily, I slide my chair back and stand before I tense my shoulders. “Believe it or not, I’m not for sale. Good luck finding a woman desperate enough to marry you.”

In the back of my mind, I know he can do just that in two-point-five seconds, but I still spin around to rush out. Before I make it to the door, his voice carries across the room.

“I won’t accept no as your final answer.”

I swing my body around to find him approaching me in a slow predator-type manner, with his eyes trained on me like I’m his prey. “You have three days to change your mind.”

“I won’t.” But my voice trembles the closer he gets to me. My knees are loose, my head’s a mess, and by the time I speak again, I’m whispering. “You can find some other woman to do this for you.”

“Not when I really want you to say yes to this deal. There’s no other woman on this island who makes my cock hard like you do. No other woman who digs beneath my skin the way that you do.” He stops a few feet from me and skims his gaze over my face as a warm heat travels across my cheeks. “You’re the only woman on this island I want to watch do that—blush all over when I’m speaking to you. Kissing you. Fucking you. Think about how much fun it will be, mixing business and pleasure, when I’m buried deep inside your pussy. Making you come again and again.”

I swallow hard and do my best to pretend what he’s saying isn’t getting to me and making my panties wet. I tell myself that, after two years of no sex, any gorgeous man with a filthy mouth would be able to draw that type of reaction from me. And I know I’m deceiving myself.

“The answer will always be no,” I murmur. “It’s a no today and it will be a no three days from now. It doesn’t matter...”

How great the financial freedom would be.

Good it would feel between us.

How stupidly sexy you are.

In one long stride, he closes the distance between us. Extending his hand, he brushes his fingertips from my temple to the corner of my mouth. A ripple of desire rushes down my spine.

“See what I mean?” At my silence, a knowing smile plays along the edges of his lips. “Consider my offer, Maggie. I would like nothing more to have you in my bed—and, of course, wearing my ring. Don’t you ever think about how perfect we’d be together?”

I have. Less than a minute ago, in fact. Which is why I have got to get the hell out of here before I do something reckless. I begin to shove my hands against his chest, to force him away from me, but he catches my fingers in his. Links them, one-by-one, until sparks shoot through every skin cell in my body.

I close my eyes. “No, Carter. You can take your offer and shove it right up your ass. The answer is no.”

The moment he breaks away from me and slinks backward, I seize the opportunity to high-tail it out of the room. Leaving him standing there without so much as another glance.

I race through the upscale lobby of the hotel, then out the revolving door, never slowing down until I come to the water’s edge by my family’s hotel. I fling off my shoes and seek comfort in the sea, attempting to wash all the desire that’s raging inside me from wanting to run back to Gabe and take his offer. Not just for the money but because of how turned on I am by him.

I wade deeper into the surf, the black dress I’m wearing clinging to my body like a second skin as I dive into a wave and try to erase what just happened from my head.

* * *

Lani had come in to work the front desk just before I left for my dinner with Gabe. That’s where I find her, playing on her phone, when I come traipsing into the lobby. She gives me a quick glance and starts, “Hey, Mags, who wrote the most number one singles after—” Doing a double take, she forgets about her trivia game and shoves herself up from her chair. Her features morph into concern. “What the hell happened to you?”

I shrug one shoulder as I continue to hold the sopping wet hem of my dress around my thighs to stop it from dripping all over the floor. “Went for a swim.”

Her dark eyebrows shoot straight up. “Yeah, I can see that. Any particular reason you didn’t change before you decided to dive in?” When I don’t immediately answer her, she folds her arms across her chest and twists her lips as if to say “you’re not getting away from me without an explanation.”

I sigh, knowing I might as well fess up to where I’ve been because she has the uncanny ability to force me into telling her all my secrets whether I want to or not. “I was with Gabe.”

“Gabe?” She draws out his name questioningly like there are twenty other men she knows with the same name.

I groan. “Carter. You know, your boss. The asshole next door. The…” Man who only has to look at me to turn my brain stupid.

Her brown eyes bulge as she claps her hand over her mouth. She shakes her head like her hearing is messed up. “Why were you with him? After the party last week, I thought you hated him?”

“I do hate him. I think.” I keep the fact that my body craves him to myself.

She rubs her forehead. “I’m so confused. Why would you be hanging out for late night swims with a man you think you can’t stand?”

And here’s where it’s going to get fun. On my way out earlier tonight, I simply told Lani I had an errand to run. “We didn’t go swimming. We had dinner.”

“You went on a date with Gabriel Carter, and you kept that shit from me?” It’s easy to see how appalled she is by the fact I’ve kept this from her. I typically tell her everything.

“It wasn’t a date.”

She rolls her eyes. “What do you call a one-on-one dinner then?”

“A business meeting.” I consider my next words for a moment, and then say. “He had a proposition for me.”

“Ooh! That sounds dirty. What did he propose? BDSM like in that book I sent you while you were overseas?” She waggles her eyebrows and I can already tell she’s about to make a joke. “I bet he has a baseball shrine of pain, and—”

“Marriage,” I snap. “He asked me to marry him.”

Lani bursts out laughing. Of course she would think I’m joking. Who in their right mind proposes to someone they’ve known for less than a week? “Good one, Maggie. Seriously, though, what did he want?” She’s still amused by the idea, but when I don’t crack a smile, her face grows serious. “Oh, my God. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

I nod, scowling as the memory of my conversation with Gabe filters through my head. “Believe me; my mind was blown, too. I answered him with a hell no and then went for a swim to clear my head.”

Lani rests her back against the front desk, puffs out her cheeks, and then exhales a wobbly breath. “Jesus, Maggie. Marriage? Wow.” She pauses and makes a face. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why on earth would Gabriel Carter do that? The two of you just met and it’s not like you made the best first impression.”

She remembers me telling her about the champagne? I’d assumed that she was too tipsy to recall half of what we talked about last Friday night after we left Gabe’s party. She’s obviously thinking back on that story now because her dark eyes narrow skeptically.

“Are you sure you didn’t fuck him? Because a pussy-whipped man will do just about anything.”

“I swear Gabe Carter’s junk has never made it past his pants where I’m concerned.” She still looks unsure, so I take a deep breath. “He thinks I’ll be good for his image. That being married will make him appear settled to business investors.”

“Business investors? He’s throwing up another hotel?”

God, I wish. Then he would be taking his business elsewhere. “He wants money for a multi-million dollar addition. A five-star restaurant and luxury spa that’ll put him in every travel guide in the world. Sorry, Lani, but your boss is a real dick.”

She snorts. “What an asshole. He’s an idiot if he thinks you’d agree to marry him to better his business.” Lani gestures around lobby. “It would sink this place.”

“Exactly. It’s why I told him no.”

“Good for you.” She nods to the wet ensemble I’m wearing. “Go get changed and then you can help go over the storm-preparedness plan. Category three hurricane possibly heading toward our side of the island.”

Over the last few days, Dad has mentioned a storm coming in several times, but I didn’t realize it was supposed to be so bad. Storms of that magnitude rarely affect us directly, but we still get things prepped just in case when a hurricane brews out in the open sea. It’s a complete pain in the ass because it’s usually a lot of work for nothing.

“Great,” I mutter as I head off to change.

As if my night wasn’t shitty enough already. Now this.