Chapter 2
TWO
“So I told them you were my boyfriend.” Callie fiddled with a strand of her dark hair, her face twisted into a grimace. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you into my issues.”
Thomas blinked at her, startled and somewhat confused, but not unhappy.
Nope. Not at all.
Callie and Andre had broken up. Finally. She’d said the split was a long time coming, and Thomas had to concur. To him, it had felt like centuries. Millennia.
Apparently, Thomas and Callie were also going to spend a week together in various tropical paradises.
While being filmed, from what he understood.
And while those weren’t necessarily optimal circumstances for wooing such a mercurial woman, they were certainly better than reading in his condo while she cavorted on the beach with her ex.
As far as he knew, he hadn’t tossed a coin into an enchanted well, procured a potion from a witch, or fondled a lamp of mysterious provenance. But he could think of no other plausible explanation for these miraculous turns of events, so maybe he’d missed something.
Most importantly, Callie had stopped crying, and that was enough to set his world aright once more. He could wait for clarity on everything else.
That said, he should probably determine a few key facts before they proceeded.
“Let me make sure I understand the situation.” He leaned against his hybrid’s sun-heated hood in the stifling humidity of the library lot. “Next week, we’re flying to three islands for one night each. And then we’ll choose one of those islands for the last three nights of our trip.”
She nodded. “Whichever one is our favorite.”
“And HATV will film us in the belief that we’re a couple.”
Her nod was a bit more tentative that time. “Yes.”
“Did we…” He hated to ask. It made him sound like a dunce, and he didn’t think even he could have missed such a crucial development. But he needed to know for sure. “Did we agree to date at some point?”
If so, he had no memory of it happening. And when Callie spoke to him, looked at him, or hell, just breathed in his general direction, she captured his full and utterly devoted attention in a way no other woman ever had.
So he’d probably remember if they’d talked about dating.
Callie was shaking her head so hard, she had to be giving herself a headache. “No. No. God, no. You were just nearby, single, and on vacation next week, so I thought you’d be a good candidate for the job.”
Too bad. Learning that he’d won her affections while in a fugue state of some sort would have been convenient. But no matter. He had a week to do the job while completely conscious.
“Thomas…” She was nibbling on that plump lower lip, a signature gesture that had caused him to fumble various writing implements over the past six months.
“I should’ve asked you before saying anything to them.
But I just”—her inhalation turned shaky, her eyes shiny, and he would have torn apart the concrete parking lot with his bare hands to assuage her distress—“I just need this vacation. So badly. Can you possibly play along with me? Or did you already have plans? I know this was meant to be your summer break.”
“I wasn’t doing anything important.” He shrugged. “I’d planned to read about American aviation during the Great Depression, but that can wait.”
Her eyes grew bright in a different, better way. “Last year, I read East to the Dawn, and I really appreciated Butler’s discussion of Amelia Earhart’s—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. That’s not the point right now. Are you really agreeing to go along with my stupid plan?”
“Not stupid.” Reaching out, he touched her elbow. Just for a moment, through the silky barrier of her blouse, but the contact still dizzied him. “Ingenious, given the urgency of the situation. And yes, I’m agreeing to your plan.”
Her lips parted, and she stared up at him for a moment. “I can’t believe you said yes.”
Any opportunity he could find to spend time with her, he’d take.
Even if it meant relinquishing his favorite morning shifts to work in the afternoons and evenings.
Even if it meant attending work gatherings at noisy, overcrowded bars.
Even if it meant spending a week on camera and possibly making a fool of himself in front of a cable-television-viewing audience.
When Callie Adesso began working at the CMRL, the axis of his life shifted. From what he could tell, that shift appeared absolute and irrevocable.
And she’d been dating another man the entire time they’d known one another, until now.
If that relationship had been going awry for quite some time, as she’d said, maybe that would explain her seeming unhappiness the last few months. Because she didn’t smile at him the same way she once did, and they didn’t laugh and talk before or after their shifts anymore.
He hadn’t understood it. But maybe this unexpected trip would explain everything.
Even better: Maybe this unexpected trip would change everything.
“Believe it,” he told her.
* * *
“I first met Callie when she began her training at the library,” he told the camerawoman-cum-interviewer. “Next Thursday, we will have known each other for precisely seven months.”
Callie’s gaze whipped to his. “That’s…” She paused, and her lips moved as she did some mental math. “That’s right.”
For some reason, she sounded befuddled. Which befuddled him in turn, because how could he forget the day of her arrival at CMRL? How could anyone?
Maybe the preparations for the trip to Parrot Cay had tired her.
He could understand that. His past several days had been a whirlwind of filling out applications and releases and waivers, followed by haphazard packing and emergency purchases of sunscreen and swim trunks.
And despite all the hubbub, he’d still spent each night awake and wondering. Hoping.
Planning.
So he could empathize with any exhaustion she was experiencing. Although, to be fair, he’d never taken such a comfortable trip before, and he likely never would again. First-class tickets didn’t come cheaply enough for a man still paying off his student loans.
The seats had been wide and well-cushioned, the leg room generous, the movie choices endless.
But the best part of the whole experience, by far: seeing Callie’s face illuminate when the flight attendant had handed them menus, and she’d realized their tickets had bought them a three-course meal. A delicious one, at that.
“I love red snapper and plantains,” she’d whispered to him, those coffee-brown eyes wide. “And I’m going to dive headfirst into the key lime mousse.”
Scratch that. The best part of the journey was watching her take her first bite of that tart-sweet mousse, her eyes scrunched closed and her lips curved in pleasure.
Or possibly when she’d finished her second glass of champagne and giggled at him for the first time in months when he’d noted the inadvisability of reading a book about Amelia Earhart’s fate while they were traveling in an airplane.
Or maybe when, as they’d skipped over waves on the ferry ride to Parrot Cay, she’d managed to stop him from falling overboard by hauling his body against hers.
He’d been watching her, as usual, admiring how the sun limned strands of her wind-whipped hair with fire. In the midst of such intense concentration, though, he hadn’t noticed the rather large swell approaching the small vessel or braced himself for the impact.
So she’d saved him. And for several glorious moments, he’d been pressed against her, face to face, her warmth to his heat.
The softness of her breasts and belly fit into the contours of his body like connecting puzzle pieces.
That glorious brown hair lashed against his face in the ocean breeze, the sting more than welcome.
Her strong arms held him in a steady, firm grip.
And her flowery fragrance surrounded him. Intoxicated him.
Then she’d let him go in a hurry, and he’d chosen to sit on the deck for the rest of the ferry ride instead of testing his overwhelmed senses further.
Upon their arrival at Parrot Cay, they’d been greeted at the dock by HATV crew members—including Gladys, their episode’s producer—and ushered into a generic meeting room inside the private island’s enormous, pristine hotel.
The small crew had already prepared the room for the interview, setting two chairs cozily next to one another in front of the cameras and beneath the boom mic.
Callie was sitting mere centimeters away from him, her thigh warm beneath her gauzy skirt. And he knew the heat of that thigh intimately, since it was touching his. The scent of flowers had faded at some point. She now smelled like sunscreen and sweat, his new favorite fragrance.
All in all, this trip was already one of the highlights of his life, and they hadn’t even posed for pictures as a couple yet. He had high hopes for the afternoon.
The camerawoman checked the next question on her list. “Tell us what first attracted you to Callie.”
This interview was only supposed to take a few minutes, since they needed to check into their rooms and take a guided tour of the island before sunset. That question alone could occupy the rest of their time on Parrot Cay, however.
Where to start? And how to say it succinctly?
“Her face,” he told the camerawoman, and then paused. “I noticed her face.”
Apparently he’d been too succinct. Because after a moment of silence, Callie stifled another giggle, and Gladys rolled her eyes.
“Care to elaborate?” the camerawoman asked.
Well, if HATV wanted to know more, he was happy to tell them.
“First of all, she’s obviously gorgeous.” He swept a hand in Callie’s direction, vaguely aware that her giggles had come to an abrupt stop. “So of course I appreciated that. Anyone would.”