A taste of paradise
For two weeks each year, Kingsley Diallo puts aside his responsibilities as CEO of a multibillion-dollar company and heads to Aruba. It’s his chance to surf, unwind and enjoy the anonymity of just blending into a crowd. Then one day he sees Adah Palmer-Mitchell on the edge of the beach and wants to make a meaningful connection with her. Instinct tells him she’s keeping a secret, but the stunning island setting and Adah’s sensual beauty are an irresistible combination...
Disillusioned by romance, Adah agreed to an engagement to bolster her parents’ business interests. Suddenly that love-free arrangement is a sacrifice she’s not sure she can make. Handsome, charismatic and confident, Kingsley awakens her dormant desires, tantalizing her with the possibility of a passionate future. As their dangerous game of attraction escalates, can she choose between family loyalty...and the call of her heart?
“Hope you win...whatever it is you’re going after.” She gestured to the kites still in the air, the stage and the people watching the action from the beach.
“And still no gift of your beautiful name?”
She shook her head again, this time not hiding her smile. “My name doesn’t matter.”
“I disagree.” He paused, his gaze amused and thoughtful. “I have to call you something in my dreams.”
Adah rolled her eyes. Cute and corny. “Call me whatever you like.”
“I think I’ll call you Doe Eyes.” Then he grinned at her, apparently pleased with himself.
She shook her head a third time. “It was nice to meet you.”
“It’ll be even nicer to see you again,” Kingsley said. Before she could tell him the island wasn’t small enough for them to run into each other without agreeing to a time and place, his smile flashed again. “This won’t be the last time,” he said. The sand pulled at her sandals, and she stumbled, blushing as she righted herself under his amused regard. “Be careful until I see you again,” he said with another quick scan up and down her body.
Adah has always been a good girl. Good grades, attending a good college. She can even fake a good attitude about the long ago loss of her twin sister. But when she stumbles into Kingsley Diallo on a sunlit beach in Aruba, his glistening body and seductive smile make her want to be oh-so-bad.
With a fiancé waiting for her to set a wedding date and parental obligations looming, what’s a good girl gone bad to do?
Turn the pages, dear reader, and find out for yourself.
Lindsay Evans
The Pleasure of His Company
Lindsay Evans
LINDSAY EVANS was born in Jamaica and currently lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia, where she’s constantly on the hunt for inspiration, club in hand. She loves good food and romance and would happily travel to the ends of the earth for both. Find out more at www.lindsayevanswrites.com.
To my readers:
without you, none of this would be possible. Thank you!
Contents
A beautiful man flying above the sea and into the sky wasn’t something Adah saw every day. From the beach, she drew a breath and felt her whole body flush as the man sailed across the bright blue water and even closer to her. Thin board shorts and a T-shirt clung to his hard body, the wet material of both outlining every ridge of muscle and plane of skin. He was absolutely gorgeous, and she wasn’t the only one looking.
“Damn, he is fine!” A woman down the beach said the words loudly enough to get chuckles of agreement from others nearby, pointing her camera up. Adah resisted the urge to reach for her phone to take a photo; instead she raised her hand above her eyes to shield her face from the Aruban sun burning brightly, even through her sunglasses.
They called it kite surfing. She knew that much from the signs on the event stage she’d seen on her walk from the hotel. And if the reaction of the audience was anything to go by, this gentleman was very good at it. Earlier she’d walked up in time to see him getting ready on the beach. He’d grabbed the edges of some sort of parachute, slipped his bare feet into slots on top of the board and then skated across the water, the bright-blue-and-white material of his parachute snapping in the breeze.
Fine was right.
Adah took off her sunglasses and watched him float across the water and just under the sky, turning somersaults while the audience cheered and called out what she assumed was his name. The announcer of the Hi-Winds Tournament shouted his praise as the man turned yet another flip and landed firmly on both feet on the deep blue sea. Then he was off, flying away from the shore and giving another kiter a turn in front of the rapt audience.
“Did you see that butt?”