“Yes, Asa. I called him last night promising retribution. He probably thinks I’m a nutcase. You probably think I’m a nutcase.”
“I do. But I have twin siblings, so I understand.”
She opened her eyes, looking thoroughly embarrassed and really kind of adorable. “Thank you for being understanding. If you could be so kind as to point me toward the ocean.”
“It’s behind the house.”
“Great.” She stepped away from him. “If you need me, I’ll just be drowning myself in it.”
He grabbed her shoulders and for a moment his thoughts stopped. Her skin was as soft as it looked, and she smelled good. Something faintly sweet but not perfumed. She smelled like something he would love to bury his face in and inhale. “You can’t drown yourself yet. There’s a basket filled with Swiss chocolates waiting inside for you.”
She placed her hands over her face, her voice coming out muffled. “Oh, please tell me you don’t have a basket of chocolates waiting inside. I said so many things to you. So many stupid, stupid things.”
“You called me a sexy shortstop with a squeezable ass.”
She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
He pulled her hands away from her face. “Look at me, Ms. Andersen.”
She shook her head, her eyes still shut. “Call me Virginia. After all I’ve said to you I think you’ve more than earned the right to call me by my first name.”
“Open your eyes.” He was touching her, he had just met her and yet he had her hands in his. He knew he should drop them, but he wanted to see her eyes again.
“I don’t want to.”
* * *
This had to be a dream. It had to be. Stuff like this just didn’t happen to her. She didn’t arrive in chauffeured cars or ride in private jets. Especially not for work. She was usually chauffeuring people around. She had even picked up Mrs. Westerfield at the airport on a few occasions. But now she was standing in front of the biggest house she had ever seen, with America’s favorite baseball player holding on to her hands. She didn’t want to open her eyes. Because when she did, she would have to come face-to-face with the fact that she had just blown the opportunity at the job of a lifetime.
“It’s hot out here,” Carlos said. “Come inside.”
She opened her eyes then, and there he was. Mr. MVP. He was royalty in Miami, a legend in the making, so she’d seen his image everywhere. Billboards. Commercials. In magazines. Still, she hadn’t paid much attention. She knew less about baseball than she knew about quantum physics. The only things she knew about him were that he was rich, he was good at his job and he went through more women than he did pairs of underwear.
That put him in her “typical womanizing athlete” category. Somebody she wouldn’t find attractive no matter how good-looking they were. But the thing was, he was extraordinarily handsome in person. Nowhere in sight was that plastered-on smiling face that she saw in ads. The real deal wasn’t smiling at all. He was looking at her with intense green eyes that contrasted with his deep brown skin. He was big, too. Well over six feet tall with a hard body that heat just seemed to roll off. He was one beautiful man, and he was touching her, holding her smaller hands in his massive ones. She’d be a big fat liar if she said her tummy didn’t feel a little funny.
“Okay.” She tried to compose herself as she followed him in, but she couldn’t stop the barrage of berating thoughts that kept entering her head. She was dressed well enough to take Mrs. Westerfield around town, but not to meet an important client. She would have worn a suit. She would have tamed her wild hair.
Her mother’s voice kept playing in her head.
If you want to be a professional you have to look professional.
Virginia had never seen a hair out of place on her mother’s head. She would pass out if she knew that Virginia was here in a maxi dress with bare shoulders and strappy sandals. It didn’t matter anyway. She wasn’t going to get this job.
She shouldn’t get this job. She really wasn’t qualified. Carlos’s home was a Spanish-style mansion with a beautiful roof of handmade red tiles. It was art. Everything from the rounded windows to the heavy wood carved door and meticulously placed stone accents was perfectly planned. It was such a contrast with its surroundings, which were kind of wild and unkempt. Coming to Hideaway Island felt like coming to another world, but coming to Carlos’s quiet part of the island was something else entirely. It almost felt like a fantasy.
She followed him to the foyer, which was big, open and airy with high ceilings but nothing else. No colors on the walls, no art, nothing. It was truly a blank slate. A dozen ideas rushed into her head. There were so many things she could do with this space alone.
She walked a little farther into the house, into a great room that held a single couch. Nothing else. Their footsteps echoed around her in the empty room. The architecture of the inside of the house was as beautiful as the outside, but that was it. The place was empty, but more than that, it felt empty. “Are you living here at the moment?”
“Yes,” he answered, looking back at her.
“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, but this place is so big for you to be here alone,” she said as she walked into the kitchen. “It’s so secluded here. Don’t you get lonely?”
He stopped fully, turning to face her. She’d known it was a stupid question as soon as it came out of her mouth. She had no right to ask him. “It’s none of my business,” she said in a rush. “You could probably have a different woman here every night of the week if you wanted.” He just blinked at her and she wished she had a muzzle, something to shove in her mouth to keep her from speaking. She just couldn’t get over the fact that she was here with him. Here alone with him, on this secluded island, in the middle of nowhere.
“I came here because I wanted to get away from everything.”
“I understand,” she said quietly. It might have been all in her mind, but he had this way of looking at her. Maybe it was his intense green eyes, but he looked at her in a way no other man had. In a way that made her skin hot. In a way that made her want to get closer to him and run away at the same time.
She was attracted to him and it was weird. She liked artsy men. Dancers, painters and poets with soulful eyes and sensitive hearts, and yet this massive athlete with his quiet manner and stern face was making her tingle with just a look.
“I bought this house five years ago, but because of my schedule I haven’t stayed here. I’m only here now because I’m no longer playing.”
“You’re not playing?”
He looked at her blankly. “It’s baseball season and I’m here.”
“It’s baseball season?”
“Are you serious?”
“Um, yes,” she answered feeling dumber by the moment.
“Do you even know what team I play for, Ms. Andersen?”
“The Dolphins?”
“That’s football.” He shook his head. “I play for the Hammerheads. I ruptured my Achilles tendon going for a catch in the playoff game that took my team to the World Series. I had surgery and an infection. They haven’t cleared me to play this year. It was reported everywhere.”
“I guess I’ve been paying more attention to your behind than your career, because I didn’t know any of that.” She shook her head immediately. “I don’t know why I can’t control my mouth around you. Yes, I do. I’ve been spending too much time with Mrs. Westerfield.”
“Who’s Mrs. Westerfield?” he asked, looking bewildered.
“My