Ruined by the Seal(2)

"Death tax?" Jesus Christ, this was getting better and better. He  glanced at his watch. "It's nearly end of the work day." And it was  Friday to boot. Fuck. "I'll call Will, and have him follow up with this  lawyer, and I'm sure you'll want to do the same. But that's probably  going to take some time, so if you'll excuse me, I'll just … "         

     



 

He looked around. He could smell the ocean. He just wanted to put his  bag down and then follow it, getting himself into a horizontal position  where none of this nonsense mattered for a while.

A door at the far end of the hall promised sunshine and a back terrace.  Surely that led the way to the beach. He started in that direction.

Cara shot him a look of alarm and scurried into his path. "What are you doing?"

What did it look like? "Going in search of a flat surface so I can lie  down for a while. I've been travelling since the middle of the night."

It was that or just fall over where he stood, which would feel like shit on his leg. He moved to step around her.

She matched his step.

He propped his hands on his hips.

She crossed her arms under her breasts.

Not the time to ogle her tits, man. Whatever. His filter had vanished somewhere over the Caribbean Sea.

"You can't stay here."

"I can, and I will." He glanced around, smirking. "Who am I bothering by being here?"

She blinked at him. "Me. You're bothering me."





TWO





CARA COULDN'T GET OVER THE NERVE OF THIS GUY. Six-plus feet of rudeness. No way was she letting him saunter onto her estate.

And it was, very much, her estate. She'd been a breath away from being  fired as the director of the Historical Society when they'd received  notice that they'd been bequeathed Villa Sucre. The property was a  feather in the cap of the Society, but more to the point, it had finally  given her a chance to show the board of directors just how capable she  could be when given real work to do.

So there was no way that Mr. Chiseled Right Angles was going to saunter  in here and blithely blow that all out of the water for her. And there  was sure as hell no way she was going to let him then go swimming. The  nerve.

She shook her head, feeling her curls bounce all over the place. Good.  Let him think she's a crazy voodoo chick or something. "You can't just  walk in here, drop this news bomb on me, and then go in search of the  beach!"

He gave her a bland look that said she didn't scare him. "Why not? I'm  exhausted and nothing's going to get sorted out until after the weekend,  so … ."

"You can't stay here! Go back to town and get a hotel room."

"No."

The muscles up and down her right leg twitched. She desperately wanted  to stomp her foot for emphasis. She clenched her fists instead and took a  deep breath. "Mr. Frasier-"

"Mick is fine."

"Mr. Frasier, I must insist that you vacate the property."

He gave her a slow, surprised blink, then crossed his arms over his  chest, mirroring her stance. "Ms. Levasseur, I in turn must insist that  you vacate the property."

She glared at his passive expression. He was trying to get her goat. It  wasn't going to work. She was a professional. University-trained,  board-of-directors-hazed, island-hardened professional. She didn't take  any crap from contractors, construction workers, or bitter senior  citizens, and she wasn't going to let this man best her either.

She stepped back and let her arms swing loose at her side. Something  about his aura threw her off-balance. Distance would be good. Calming.  Reason and logic-restoring. "That is not going to happen."

Except it was nearly the end of her workday and she had to meet her friends Daphne and Arielle for dinner.

As if he could read her mind, he said, "You aren't planning on going home for the night?"

"Of course I am." Her mind started to spin with the beginnings of a  plan. "As you say, nothing will happen over the weekend. Good luck  finding the beach. It's terribly rocky and the tide is vicious."

"Sounds delightful."

She smirked and grabbed her phone. "See you on Monday."

Her purse was … somewhere. She walked, head held high, toward the hallway,  hoping-a-ha. It was hanging on the doorknob. Without a backwards  glance, she slung it across her body and headed for the side entrance,  where her old hatchback was parked.

Come Monday, Mr. Chiseled Right Angles would be long gone.

There was no functional bathroom anywhere on the estate. He'd take a dip  in the ocean-if he survived, she hadn't been kidding about the  current-and quickly realize there was no way to rinse off the salt.

Sucked to be him.











"YOU'RE NOT EATING." Daphne said this a little louder than necessary,  making a few people around them in the outdoor cafe turn around and  look. She shrugged unapologetically when Arielle shushed her. "What?  She's not and she's also ignoring us."         

     



 

Cara glanced down at her untouched grilled fish and sighed. Then she  gave her friends an apologetic smile. "I know. I'm terrible company  tonight."

"We don't mind," Arielle said softly.

"Yes we do," Daphne said, not softly at all. "And not because it hurts  us, you dork, but because something's clearly wrong and you aren't  sharing."

She thought about telling them about the unexpected visitor to the  estate. They'd heard all about her drama getting the board to agree to  the renovation project.

So why didn't she want to tell them about this new hiccup? They'd have  her back if it turned into a fight, and God knows, with the board of  directors, she could always use a couple of allies, even if it was just  for moral support.

They were all in the same boat, after all. All young and just getting  started in their careers. Kind of broke and two bad luck breaks away  from needing to leave the island in search of a better opportunity  elsewhere.

But Arielle's father had recently disappeared, so she had that drama  going on. It wasn't the first time and it probably wouldn't be the last,  but that didn't change how scary it was for her friend. And Daphne was  job hunting in between pulling bartending shifts at the fanciest resort  in Petite Ciotat and fending off pervy tourists. Compared to their  problems, Cara having to put up with a sexy beast arriving on her  doorstep hardly sounded like a real problem.

Sexy beast? What the ever-loving hell? No. He was … tall. Too tall. Bossy. Way too bossy. And incredibly off-putting.

If he was also incredibly good-looking, that just added to the  annoyance, because why weren't good-looking guys like that ever nice?

"You know what's wrong?" she finally said, setting her jaw in  determination. This would be a lie of omission, sort of, but it was  really at the root of her frustration. Not a violation of the friendship  trust that expected honesty. "I don't think the board of directors  takes me seriously."

Daphne groaned. "Still?"

Would they ever? She sighed and stabbed her fish with her fork. "Right? It makes everything I do fraught with doubt, you know?"

Daphne shook her head, her blonde shaggy bob swinging wildly as she  crossed her arms. "No! We talked about this. You rock at your job. And  they need you. They just want you to think that you need them more than  they need you. But that's not true."

"It is true. I need them to keep me employed so I can pay rent and keep going out for fun dinners with you guys."

"This isn't that fun," Daphne said dryly. Unlike Arielle and Cara,  Daphne didn't have the lilting island accent. She'd been born and raised  in the States and moved to Miralinda a few years earlier, right around  the same time Cara came back after going off-island for university.

They'd met through Arielle-Cara's childhood best friend, and Daphne's  new roommate. An instant three-way friendship was formed over coffee one  morning as they shared hard-luck stories.

"You're right," Cara said, laughing for the first time in what felt like  days. "I should move off island and get a real job. Find some real  friends and-" She shrieked as Arielle launched herself around the corner  of the table and squeezed her tight.

"Don't you dare," her best friend whispered.

She wouldn't. Ever, because she loved Miralinda. But especially not now.  Not while Arielle needed her. "You're stuck with me," she whispered  into the smooth, straight fall of Arielle's black hair.

They were so different looking, but as they held each other, Cara was  reminded that Arielle and her were the same from the inside out. They  both carried in their blood the mosaic DNA almost unique to the  Caribbean-a little of this, a little of that, a lot of the heart and  soul that came from the sea and mixed it all together.

Where Cara's parents went back generations to ancestors in North African  slaves, French colonists, American pirates, all colliding here on  Miralinda before the turn of the last century, Arielle's mixed heritage  was … fresher. Her mother hadn't been an island girl. She'd come to the  Caribbean as a poor nanny from the Philippines, working for a British  ex-pat family. When she'd fallen for a local bad boy, and "gotten into  trouble," the Brits had left her behind.