She simply hadn’t found the right circumstances.
Here in this cozy cottage tucked away in paradise, she worked a comb through the heavy, sodden mass of her hair and wondered if she’d finally found those circumstances. But unlike every other time she’d asked herself if she was ready to cross that line, she couldn’t help but wonder if the fact she was leaning toward a no was about her sudden desire to be as professional as possible with a man who had no interest in rules, or—and something pinged in her when she got there—fear.
Because Jason was nothing like the men who had flirted with her before at all different levels of business. Jason bore no resemblance whatsoever to middle managers or overly familiar VPs.
Lucinda had never been afraid to use whatever weapon she had on hand, which had so far meant there had been no need to pull out the biggest guns. Not when it was so easy to smooth her way into a deal with a suggestive smile, or a bit of banter that Human Resources would likely frown upon.
Jason was different. He was significantly more frank and direct than any of the men she’d known. And she suspected that such frankness would translate into the way he touched her, too.
Hell, she already knew it would. She’d had actual sex with men that was less erotic and carnal than the way Jason had put smoothed sunscreen on her skin. He’d had her trembling on the edge of an orgasm without even touching her nipples or her clit.
Lucinda blew out a breath, aware that was shaky and insubstantial. It made her laugh at herself and all this...tottering she was doing here. As if the sand and the sea had taken her knees out from under her, or he had, and she couldn’t find her way back to solid ground. But she had to, so she would.
Of course she would.
She left her hair in its natural state of despair, curling this way and that down past her shoulders, as she helped herself to one of the decadent robes hanging there in the bathroom suite. She slipped it on, then padded back out to the bedroom, sighing a little—again—as the view captured her. She didn’t dare test out that bed, because she knew she wouldn’t get up again if she lay down, so she moved to the big, French-style windows that made up the length of the cottage’s outside wall, and pushed them open.
Once the windows were thrown wide, the bedroom sprawled out onto its own private lanai, with a trellis on one side covered in flowering vines and that glorious view everywhere else. She moved over to the chaise that had been set at the perfect angle to watch the sea and the sky and sat down for just a moment, pulling her legs up beneath her.
She meant to sit for only a second, to inhale that incredible view and maybe settle herself a bit while she did.
But when she opened her eyes again it was dark.
It was dark. There were more stars than she could make sense of up above her. And all her limbs were heavy, suggesting she’d been asleep for a long while.
Lucinda was confused, but she swung her feet around and got them on the floor again, realizing only as it bounced around her shoulders that her hair had dried on its own. She didn’t have to look in a mirror, she knew what a horror she’d visited upon herself. It would be impossible curls for days, spiraling around all over the place and making her look like a banshee.
And nobody was looking to open a luxury resort with a banshee.
She felt stiff and far older than her twenty-eight years as she rose to her feet. She yawned so hard her jaw cracked and then her heart kicked at her, because she didn’t know what day it was. Or what time it was.
Or if she’d missed her chance with Jason because she’d tumbled off into an unexpected sleep of the dead.
Talk about a rookie move.
Lucinda scrubbed her palms over her face, then staggered back into the bedroom. She swept up her watch from the nightstand where she’d left it, holding it as she kept going so she could peer out the front windows of the cottage. The main house sat there before her, lit up against the night. Better still, there were the perfect tiki torches of her dreams lighting up the path that led down to it.
A glance at her watch told her it was half past nine, coming up on ten.
She had slept for more than eight hours.
Straight. And possibly without moving.
She hurried back into the bedroom, flipping on the lights as she went. Then she stared at herself critically in the big mirror that was propped against the interior wall of the bedroom, no doubt to reflect the sea and the sky back to whoever stood there, the better to feel lost in all that blue.
But tonight she was more focused on the banshee before her and what she could do—and quickly—to sort out her appearance. Her hair would take hours to blow-dry and then straight-iron into submission. And Jason had made his derision about her professional clothes perfectly clear back at the hotel.
She didn’t have to go through her bag to know that what she’d brought with her was little better. Lucinda had an office uniform she preferred and she wore it exclusively. She hadn’t cared that everyone else had stripped down when the company had gone to Spain. She’d maintained her usual look. But for some reason, it all seemed wrong now she was here.
Or she did, now that she’d woken up in all this tropical splendor, with the night air soft and thick against her as she moved. The idea of trying to strap herself into a pencil skirt made her want to cry.
Which was obviously the hunger talking, she told herself sternly. Because despite evidence to the contrary on this island, Lucinda was no crier.
She went over to the closet in the bedroom and wasn’t particularly surprised to find lengths of fabric hanging there when she opened the doors. Because of course every possible detail had been thought of here. This was exactly what she wanted a resort to feel like to its guests. Home, but better.
The fabric before her was as soft as it was appealing. Different sarongs, if she wasn’t mistaken, in bright colors, featuring glorious printed flowers and vaguely tribal patterns. She chose something in blue, wrapping it around her breasts to make a sundress and tying it off with a knot. Her hair was more of a challenge, but she managed to scoop it all up. Then she fashioned a far messier sort of bun than she would ever have been caught dead in elsewhere, piled up high on top of her head.
And found herself breathless yet again, as she stared at the creature before her in that mirror.
She looked bohemian. Wild. She wasn’t sunburned as she’d expected she would be—as she usually was after any exposure—but her skin was no longer its usual shade of shocking white. She almost...glowed. And her freckles had come out, everywhere, making her look near enough to golden. If she squinted.
She hardly looked like herself, really.
And what was scariest about that was that the notion didn’t terrify her the way she knew it would have back in London. She had worked so terribly hard to make herself the very particular, very sternly monitored version of Lucinda Graves that she’d been for years now—all work and very controlled play.
But she was in Jason’s world now. And it didn’t matter whether or not she adhered to her own strict standards. What mattered was that she found a way to work her way into his.
This was nothing more than a costume.
“The proper uniform to get the job done,” she told herself staunchly.
But she was far too aware of the whisper of her thighs against each other as she walked out of the cottage and headed down the path into the sweet, inviting night. She was aware of the movement of her hair on her head, when she preferred to keep it slicked down so tight and so hard that she never felt it at all. She was aware of the air against her skin, the breeze from the sea, carrying salt and green and flowers to swirl all around her. Even the light seemed different here, dancing on the end of the torches as they lit her way. More mysterious. More seductive.
More dangerous, she snapped at herself.