Carter’s jaw tightened. “You can’t drop once you’ve hit bottom.”
Neville’s expression revealed a mix of hurt and determination. “I won’t let you down.”
“I’m retaking control of all my investments. From now on, nothing happens without my verbal and written approval.”
Neville held up his palms. “You’ve made yourself clear.”
“I need to take care of some unfinished business. When I get back to Miami Friday night, I want my name spotless and five million back in my bank account. Are we understood?”
Neville nodded vigorously.
“I’ll be in touch.” Carter pushed through the Saturday night crowd that bobbed to the thumping beat of D.J. Tiesto, on his way to the valet. When they pulled his car up, he slid into his pewter Porsche Boxster, slammed it into gear and peeled out of Miami’s Gold Coast as fast as he could. He headed for the small airport where his private jet waited.
Something else awaited him, too. Not just reprieve from the Pierce acquisition, but something far more personal and satisfying.
Despite the grim scenario here, his need to leave town gave him a chance to settle a score with someone whose memory had never left him alone. The only woman who’d slipped under his defenses and put a crack in his heart he’d never been able to fill.
That jagged fissure festered inside him, and became the grounds for every one of his failed relationships since then. That’s what people kept telling him, anyway. After Amanda, he was finally inclined to believe them.
Amanda Estelle—model, activist, sophisticate, intelligent, everything he should want in a woman...but didn’t.
The wheels of his Porsche squealed as he took a curve too sharply. City lights whipped past in a blur.
Maybe he couldn’t mend things with his now-ex-girlfriend and her connections. He needed to let that go, something he’d never been good at doing.
But in the tangled web of another dream he secretly harbored, he could tear down a few rusty barbed-wire fences from his past. Finally achieve the satisfaction he’d craved since he left El Dorado Island at twenty-two, twelve years ago.
Revenge .
Suddenly nothing seemed more compelling than arriving unannounced when Ellie Montgomery needed him most. He had looked into her hotel property three weeks ago when he’d first seen the ad and hadn’t believed the price. Now he understood why the property was so cheap. The Montgomery Hotel was falling apart, a shadow of its former nineteenth-century glory. Few investors would go near it. Unless they had an agenda.
He’d fly in with an offer and become Ellie’s savior. Right up until she admitted she needed him, body, heart and soul. Then he’d take her to his bed and keep her there for days. Making love to her until she begged him to stop, and then begged him for more. After he had his fill and sealed the fracture inside him, he’d leave her behind. Like she’d done to him, without telling him why—just the attitude of, “Hey, it’s been fun, but I’m done with you, so have a nice life.”
This reunion had been a long time coming.
Gloved hands gripping the steering wheel, the real estate ad in his jacket pocket, Carter pulled onto the tarmac where his plane waited. The Porsche’s wheels spun rubber as he hit the breaks, leaving black streaks across the hangar. He got out and tossed his keys to the man in the guard booth.
Climbing the steps that were lowered for him, Carter entered his jet’s cabin. “Captain Bromstead,” he addressed his pilot. “Destination: El Dorado Island. Due southeast of Hilton Head, South Carolina.”
After punching in the coordinates, Bromstead cocked his head and touched his earpiece. “Sir, they don’t allow jets on the island. You’ll have to take a hopper from the mainland.”
Carter checked his watch. Nine-thirty. That should put him there by midnight. “Tell the hopper to be ready when we land.”
Consumed with worry, Ellie Montgomery ran down her list of VIP accommodations with the woman who knew the Montgomery Hotel almost as well as she did.
“Did you make the bed with monogrammed sheets?” she asked. They showed less wear than the ones they used for regular guests.
“Check,” Matilda said triumphantly. Her graying curls and thick chin bobbed with a nod.
“What about his wakeup call?”
“Check.”
“Breakfast cart?”
“Of course, but—”
Ellie didn’t have time for second-guessing. She’d received only a few hours notice that a new investor had suddenly taken interest in the hotel. He’d arrived late last night.
Her heels clicked on imported marble flooring as she continued her rapid stride toward the first floor colonial State Room. “Fresh flowers?”