Private Paradise(22)

That's all she needed, was for Bryce, who had already been giving her a hard time about what he saw as the undeniable chemistry between her and Sam, to see her in a liplock with the man she'd sworn up and down she had absolutely no lingering feelings for despite what she had described as a brief and meaningless teenage fling.

Not to mention, Sam was her employee. Even if they hadn't shared a tumultuous past, there was no way in hell she'd make the mistake of getting involved with a co-worker at Holley Cay. She still bore the scars from the last time around.

By the time she got to Bryce she was only slightly out of breath her heart still pounding and radiating heat.

“Thank God you're here,” Bryce said. His frosted hair was spiked and today he accessorized his Holley Cay Polo with a teal blue ascot.

His gaze flicked past her shoulder. Carla heard Sam's heavy footsteps behind her, but she didn't dare turn to look. Every nerve ending was tingling, and the heavy pulse between her thighs made it difficult to think. “What's so important you couldn't wait for me to get to the office?”

Instead of answering, Bryce gave her an assessing look. “You're all flushed.”

Carla felt her already hot face get hotter. “I've been working out.”

Bryce's gaze flicked from her, to Sam, and back, his eyes narrowing in a way that said he didn't believe her for a second. “Have you looked at the weather reports this morning?”

Carla shook her head. She'd had a cup of coffee to jolt her awake and come straight here, only taking the time to check the clock to make sure she didn't intersect with Sam, who usually finished up by six fifteen or so.

But not this morning, she thought as another wave of heat coursed through her.

“Why? What's going on?” Sam's voice was so close behind her she could feel the heat radiating off his skin. It should have turned her off. Instead it made her want to throw him down to the floor and crawl all over him, see how sweaty they could get before they hit the shower and helped each other get squeaky clean.

Bryce wasn't immune to Sam's masculine beauty under the best of circumstances, and his eyes got a glazed look as he took in Sam's sweat slick form as he moved beside Carla.

“Bryce, focus,” Carla snapped.

Bryce's frosted head jerked and he refocused on her with an expression so grave and unlike him Carla felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

“You know tropical storm Edina? The one that's been brewing off the coast of Venezuela?”

The knot in Carla's stomach pulled tighter. This being September and the height of hurricane season, they'd been monitoring several storms over the last few weeks. In the entire time she'd worked at Holley Cay they'd only been hit with a severe storm once, four years ago.

Since then, they'd been lucky enough to avoid the worst hurricane seasons in decades.

“They've upgraded it to a hurricane, at least category four. And unless there's a sudden change in direction, it's headed right for us.”

Their luck was about to run out.

###

Carla's blood turned to ice as she looked at the satellite pictures of the storm, moving in an ominous mass across the blue expanse of the Caribbean. Against the expanse of the storm, Holley Cay looked like a pin dot on the map.

The storm was indeed headed right for them, and she was picking up speed.

“We have to evacuate, and fast,” Chris said over the speaker phone. Carla nodded absently then remembered he couldn't see her. “They think the storm is going to hit by this afternoon.”

“I know,” she said, the knowledge filling her with dread. Even though it was the low season, the resort only half full and a reduced staff, it meant organizing over fifty people―of whom at least thirty were the very definition of high maintenance―to evacuate the island in a safe and orderly fashion before they were overcome with what were predicted to be one hundred mile per hour winds and swells that could very well crest the breakwater and flood the villas closest to the beach on the windward side of the island. “We have the plan in place―”

“I have a couple of changes I'd like to suggest before we move forward.”Carla looked up to see Sam in the doorway. Unlike Carla, who had come straight to the office from the gym, Sam had taken a quick shower and changed. His hair was still damp, curling a little at the ends, and he was dressed in a clean white polo with the resort logo and a pair of khaki's.

The smell of soap and clean male skin flooded her nostrils, making her acutely aware of her own disheveled state, her ponytail a rats nest of curls, the salt of dried sweat coating her skin and making her itch. God only knew what she smelled like.

She shook her head snapped herself back to attention. What the hell was wrong with her, worrying about what Sam might think about what she looked or smelled like when they were about to have a head on collision with the worst storm to hit Holley Cay in the resort's history? “Sam, we have this covered. We really don't have the time to discuss this, so if you could just leave and wait for instructions―”