The Tycoon's Seductive Revenge(49)

“Will your lady be joining you?”

A lengthy pause followed the question. Carter answered honestly, “I don’t know.”

They hammered out a few details, then Carter hung up so Neville could get a decent night’s sleep. One of them should. It wouldn’t be Carter.

He slid back under the covers beside Ellie. She snuggled up beside him. “I’m doing right by you, Ellie.” A warm glow surrounded his heart. “You’ll be free to choose the life you want.”

She mumbled an unintelligible response, caught in the throes of a dream that touched a smile to her lips. He kissed her gently.

Smoothing a hand along her spine as she snuggled close to him, Carter felt his chest tighten with uncertainty. Would she choose to start a life with him in Miami, giving up the hotel she’d soon have the funds to support? Or would she remain on the island, like she had twelve years ago, and give up a second chance at this?

Although it plagued him to admit it, they’d never last as a long-distance couple. After everything they’d shared and had been through, there was no way either of them would be happy with half a relationship, dropping in and out of each other’s lives at random. They would both have to make serious sacrifices to make it work.

It had to be all or nothing.

From where he stood, neither one of them seemed to be in at a point in their lives where they could simply change course midway. And if they parted again, no matter how cordial, there’d be no going back. This was their chance to reclaim the love they’d lost, the kind of passion that would last forever, but their troubled past still haunted them.

Would a second chance be enough for her to leave everything she wanted behind, in order to have him?

With a bleak sigh, Carter believed he knew the answer. He held Ellie tight, knowing it could be for the last time.





Chapter 11





“Ellie, wake up.”

Lost in hazy dreams of sunlight, footprints side-by-side on the beach, while her shadow mingled with Carter’s and spread out before them into the future, Ellie was unwilling to break from the heartwarming fantasy. “No,” she mumbled.

She felt a nudge. “I need you to wake up.”

Pleasing pressure stroked her lips, a loving touch filled with meaning and emotion. But the lips pulled away from hers. When she looked across the beach in her dream, Carter had disappeared.

“Sweetheart, I have to leave now.”

The sun went behind the clouds. Then blackness stretched across the horizon. The water turned dark, churning. Lightening streaked across the sky.

Suddenly she was floating in the middle of the ocean, the island far away, the mainland equally as distant. Rain beat down like a thousand needles pounding her skin. Waves crashed over her. She strove to stay abreast, but the storm was too strong. The currents pulled her under.

Somehow she could breathe underwater but she couldn’t float, couldn’t swim, as if an anchor was strapped to her legs. A distant pool of light appeared above her. Carter’s face reflected in the waves. His hand plunged into the depths reaching toward her. She strained to meet him, to touch his fingertips.

Carter! Don’t let me go... Still, she sank further and further, until the vision of him was swallowed by darkness.

“No!”

Ellie sat up in bed, gasping. The sheets were tangled around her legs. She kicked them off as if they possessed the power to restrain her.

The room was quiet, still, as she glanced around trying to gain her bearings. In the near-distance, waves crashed powerfully against the beaches. Rain pelted the rooftop and blurred the windows, while trees thrashed in the wind.

The clock on the bedside table blinked 10:10.

The power must’ve gone out .

The scent of aftershave hung in the air. Two navy suitcases with gold trim were stacked by the door. Carter’s room .

Where was Carter?

Ellie dragged herself out of bed. A second later she nearly collapsed, before she forced herself to sit on the edge of the mattress. Her legs were stiff. Her head ached behind her eyes, and her body throbbed painfully.

Shaking, she held her hands out in front of her and noted two torn fingernails, a gouge on her palm, and scratches on her arms.

Visions flashed of the night before. The library. Poe’s book on the table. The scent of cherry tobacco. Light shining in the secret room. Empty bottles. Arnoff Applestone. Struggling on the ground beneath him. Fighting him. Tasting the filthy sweat of his hand over her mouth. Pleading for help. Finally, the burst of power from within, knocking her attacker away, running...to Carter.

Her breathing came in shuddering spurts as though she’d endured Arnoff’s attack all over again.

Then the smell of Carter’s cologne seeped into her senses. A protective essence curled around her. He’d been there for her, sheltering her and holding her tight.