Chapter 14
Lincoln had used the pretense of applying for a gardening position to lurk inside the Kona Queen Resort and learn what he could about Tanaka’s situation.
All he’d been able to figure out was that Tanaka and his extended family had booked out the entire third floor.
Both his sons were with him—the infamous playboy and the stodgy family man—their wives, four grandchildren ranging in age from three to ten, two nannies, and a five-man security team.
Tanaka hadn’t spotted him even though the family had trooped past him on their way to dinner, while he pretended to mulch an anthurium. He looked like a staff member, after all, and Tanaka didn’t pay attention to those.
Once, a long time ago, he’d asked his father about his relationship with Tanaka.
“Tanaka was my close friend,” his father had explained over bibimbap in a Seoul noodle shop. “But he betrayed me on the orders of his family. He’s a tool, not a visionary. I learned a hard lesson.”
“Why does he still send you presents?” Bottles of sake, a nesting doll box, a priceless Japanese figurine, all had shown up at KiYun Chun’s door.
“I don’t know. Guilt, a wish to make amends, or to repair the friendship. Or to mock me. I do not forgive.”
Lincoln was sure that part was true, it was written all over his father’s stern face.
“Maybe it’s on some kind of automated schedule that he’s forgotten about,” Lincoln suggested. “His assistant gets the notification, finds a gift and sends it off, and Tanaka is none the wiser.”
“Perhaps.” A rare smile from his father, which quickly disappeared. “He is vengeful. Be wary. He might hurt you to get to me.”
Which was exactly what had happened. Tanaka was behind most of the traumatic things that had happened to him in the jungle.
And now he was mere feet away from the man.
The family was shown into a private room at the back of the restaurant, out of Lincoln’s sight.
He sighed, knowing only guests would be allowed into the restaurant, or the upstairs corridors, or the bar, or any of the places where he might be able to overhear something useful.
He’d studied Japanese in college, and used it frequently in his business dealings.
Since no one would know that from looking at him, he hoped that would give him an advantage.
He had to figure out another way in. He slipped into a restroom on the lobby level and changed into the much nicer outfit he’d brought along. Maybe he could hang out at the bar for a while and say he was meeting a guest there.
He’d turned off his phone so it wouldn’t attract attention, but here in the quiet men’s room, he reactivated it. He’d missed several calls from Zara, and was just about to dial her number when she called.
“We have to talk,” she said tensely.
Something had happened. His Tanaka reconnaissance mission would have to wait.
“On my way,” he told her.
Outside the Kona Queen, he flagged down a taxi that had just dropped off a guest, and gave him Zara’s address.
The rain was coming down harder now, fat drops that plunked a hypnotic tune on the roof of the cab.
The air temperature was warm enough to keep him from chilling down, but occasionally a gust of wind would turn the rain into something more like a fire hose.
Zara’s orange Beetle huddled under the carport next to her house. He’d call it a bungalow more than a house, with a metal roof and a lanai cluttered with skateboards, roller skates, an old dollhouse, and a planter that could barely contain an exuberant rosemary plant.
A month ago, he wouldn’t have been able to distinguish a rosemary from a tomato plant. How quickly things could change.
He rapped on the door and Zara quickly opened it. She appeared to be packing for a trip, with an open suitcase overflowing with clothes on the living room floor.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“I might. I don’t know. I’m not sure what to do.” Her hair was in a messy ponytail and her honey eyes were dark with worry. “Someone just threatened me and they know where I live.”
“What?” Nightmare scenarios ran through his mind. Tanaka? One of his goons? Someone from his own team, whoever had been leaking to Tanaka?
“Who? Tell me exactly what happened,” he demanded.
Startled, she straightened up and put her hands on her hips. She wore loose drawstring sweatpants that clung to her slim hips. As usual, she was barefoot.“What are you, the FBI?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Because that’s one of my theories, you know.”
“Theories?”
“Yeah, that you’re an FBI agent working undercover at the resort to bust the gardeners who sell weed to guests.”
“The gardeners sell weed?” His eyebrows lifted, since this was news to him. “They never looped me in on that.”
“Maybe because they knew you weren’t actually a gardener. They probably didn’t trust you.”
He hated seeing so much suspicion in her eyes. “I was just a gardener at the Royal Leilani. Not FBI, not undercover.”
“Are you also working at the Seaside Paradise?”
He couldn’t hide a start. “No. You think I could do two jobs like that? You think I’m Superman?”
“Lots of people work two jobs, or more.” Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Is that news to you?”
“No, of course not. I’m just saying that I’m not that capable. I’m new to the profession, which you have already figured out. But what does any of this have to do with whoever threatened you? Tell me what happened.”
Finally, she filled him in. “Someone came looking for you at the Royal Leilani. Benito told me about them. A couple in a Mercedes. I went to look for you at the Seaside Paradise, because Benito said he saw you there a few days ago. They didn’t know you, but when I was leaving I spotted a couple in a Mercedes.
It didn’t seem like a coincidence, so I followed them. ”
Goddamn it. She’d flung herself into danger…and for what? To find out more about him? If anything happened to her, he’d blame himself and all his secrets.
“Why would you do that?” His voice came out harsher than he intended. “You drive an orange Beetle, for God’s sake. What made you think they might not notice?”
“I knew they’d probably notice, but I pretended to be an airhead talking on my earbuds so they wouldn’t think twice about me. I couldn’t believe it when they turned the tables on me and blocked my way. I can’t believe you’re yelling at me about this.”
“I’m not yelling at you,” he yelled. He wrestled his emotions back under control, and lowered his voice. “I’m upset that you put yourself at risk.”
“How was I supposed to know it was a risk?”
That question made no sense to him. “Wouldn’t any normal person know that chasing after strangers in an unfamiliar car might be risky?”
Clearly stung, she glared at him. “Maybe I’m not normal. I never said I was. Are you, Jim Brennan the not-quite-a-gardener?”
As normal as any other billionaire pretending to work as a gardener while he searched for a missing piece of his intellectual property. That thought, which he couldn’t possibly express out loud, made his lips quirk.
“You think that’s funny?” She cocked her head, but it wasn’t in her nature to hold onto a glare—he knew that much about her. It melted away into a laugh. “I guess it is funny,” she said through her giggles. “I just have no idea why.”
That made him laugh, and the two of them surrendered to their chuckles. The tension between them eased. She squatted down next to her suitcase to continue her packing.
Looking around, he realized there was no sign of the kids. “Where are Mia and Eddie?”
“I took them to a friend’s house. I got freaked out when the people in the Mercedes knew my name and where I live. Whatever’s going on, the kids don’t need to be in the middle of it.”
Finally, she’d done something that made sense. “Good call.”
She propped her elbows on her knees and looked up at him. “Why is that a good call? What’s this all about? If you’re not FBI, maybe CIA?”
“CIA?” This ought to be good.
“We get a lot of foreign tourists. Maybe some of them are part of secret trafficking rings, drugs or even worse. I started thinking about how much privacy our VIP guests get. Anything could be going on in those hales.”
He squinted at her. “You have a real imagination, don’t you?”
“Yes, it’s a blessing and a curse. I notice you didn’t say no to the CIA thing.”
He considered going along with that theory.
It was better than some of her others. But he didn’t have the heart to lie to her anymore, not when she was now involved, whether he liked it or not.
Someone had threatened her, and he needed to know who, what they were up to, and how they’d known about Zara.
“I’m not in the CIA.” He raised his hand like a boy scout. “I don’t work for any government agency.“
“Not even for another government, like a foreign one?” she asked hopefully.
“No. No government on planet Earth.”
“A-ha.” She pointed a finger at him. “You said it, not me.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s my last theory, and I didn’t want to go there. But certain things are starting to add up.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked warily. “What things?”
“Just little anomalies. Like how you didn’t know that some people work two jobs.”
Major gaffe, apparently. He stayed silent, and she went on.
“I watched when you started up my car. You seemed pretty unfamiliar with the whole concept of gears.”
Good lord. He knew all about gears, obviously. He’d driven high-performance race cars. But her Beetle was so much older than anything he’d ever driven, it had taken him a few moments to figure it out. “I can explain—”
“It’s okay.” She flung up a hand. A gust of wind blew a spattering of rain through an open window over the kitchen sink. “Are you trying to distract me?” she asked as she dashed over to slide the window closed.
“Distract you? You think I control the weather?”
“It’s all right, you can play innocent until the end.
But I’m onto you.” She padded barefoot back from the kitchen.
Her toenails were covered with chipped iridescent violet enamel and he noticed a scar from her left ankle to halfway up her calf.
He dragged his gaze away from her feet as she confronted him. “If you’re not an ex-con—”
“I’m not an ex-con.” He really wanted to make sure that she knew that.
“And you’re not FBI or CIA or a spy from another country…
oh shit.” She hit a hand to the side of her head.
“There’s another possibility I didn’t think of.
Are you a stalker? Is that why you’re at the resort?
We have a lot of gorgeous girls working there.
Is it Tina, the night hostess? Brenda the activities coordinator? ”
“Good God.” He’d rather be an ex-con than a stalker.
“Fuck no. I’m not stalking anyone and I don’t even know who you’re talking about.
There’s an activities coordinator?” He waved his hands to shift the conversation back to the reason he’d come here.
“None of this matters. The important thing is to find out who threatened you and why. What can you tell me about the couple in the car? Did you get the license plate number?”
“I did. But only the police can look up that kind of thing. So unless you’re in law enforcement…”
“I’m not in law enforcement,” he said wearily. If she’d figured out who he was, as she claimed, he wished she’d just get on with it.
“Private investigator?”
“Is that your big theory? The last one that explains all these alleged anomalies?”
“No, it’s not. Well, sort of. You are clearly investigating something. That’s the one thing I’m almost a hundred percent sure about.”
He had to give her credit. She was right about that, obviously, although her various fantastical explanations were all over the place. “I’m not a PI.”
“So there’s only one possibility left and it must be correct, even though it seems almost inconceivable.”
He waited, his heart pounding against his ribs. He realized that he wanted her to know who he really was and what he was doing here. If she did, he wouldn’t have to lie to her anymore. He wouldn’t have to put walls between them.
But if she knew he was Lincoln Kerr, billionaire former CEO of Kerr Enterprises, that would change everything.
They’d never again be just Zara and Jim, two ordinary people who happened to work at the same resort.
The power dynamic would change from more or less equal to…
impossible. Lincoln Kerr, billionaire, would never cross paths with Zara, concierge, surfer, guardian, free spirit, driver of Kumquat, light-hearted lover of life, haunter of his fantasies.
Without giving himself even a split second to think about it, he closed the short distance between them and caught her against him.
A breath of surprise parted her lips, and she tilted her head up to meet his eyes, to see what he was up to.
What she saw made her eyes widen, but she didn’t pull back as his mouth descended toward her.
The moment his lips touched hers, a thrill of enchantment washed through him, from head to toe, as if someone had waved a wand and transformed him into something else.
Literal magic in action. Light sparkled behind his eyes.
Fire came next, lust burning through him, hardening his cock.
She tasted like the ocean, like sunshine, like freedom and joy.
He lowered his hands to her ass, those sweet curves that he’d been obsessing over.
What he wouldn’t give to strip her clothes off right now, right here, with the rain drumming on the metal roof so loudly he could barely hear her moan of desire against his mouth.
Never had he felt anything like this. Not with his first wife, or his second, or the first girl he’d kissed, or his current business acquaintance with benefits.
This kiss was in a category all its own.
His head was still spinning when Zara pulled away and gasped out her last theory. He blinked at her in confusion as she repeated her words, not sure he’d heard her correctly. “What?”
“Don’t lie to me. Not after that kiss. You’re an extraterrestrial, aren’t you?”