Each man was similarly dressed. Doug Storey wore navy board shorts with a white-and-gray hibiscus print. Anton Neville’s trunks were of the same cut, but colored in turquoise and hot-island red. Both Doug and Anton were tall with lanky swimmers’ physiques. Anton’s blond hair was a riot of curls. Doug’s, a shade darker, was longer, looser, inviting the touch of a woman’s hands. But it was the last man, the third man, who commanded Sydney’s attention.
Ray Coffey was a big man and beautifully built. The trunks he wore hit him at the knee and were a bright beach yellow with a black piping trim. The vivid color was the perfect contrast for his olive-hued complexion. His brown hair was the color of espresso, rich and thick and cut to fall softly over his brow, his eyes a dark emerald-green. Even from here Sydney could see the way the ocean breeze threaded like a lover’s fingers through the strands. She wondered what time had made of the texture. She wondered what else about him time might have changed.
Sitting on the veranda, she drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Her brown-and-gold tribal-print sarong fell open, catching on the shrubbery tucked close to the villa and revealing her leg and hip and the edge of her butter-colored bikini bottoms. A softer hue than the yellow Ray wore. But still, yellow. Like Ray wore. The similarity struck her for some strange reason. Especially since she was too practical to believe in intangible, nebulous signs.
The light from the setting sun silhouetted his body, accentuating the breadth of his shoulders and, when he turned to the side…Sydney’s breath caught. Not unexpectedly, but with a sharp visceral hitch that broke her rhythm. Yet, try as she might, she could find no logical explanation for her unusually fierce physical response to Ray. This overreaction had to be an aberration, the island casting a sensual spell. Nothing else came close to making sense.
She wasn’t a stranger to the male body. She wasn’t, in fact, a stranger to Ray’s. But eight years had passed since she’d known his touch. And eight years meant added definition to the muscles of his chest, a chiseled distinction to his abs. Eight years had also thickened the whorls of hair growing low on his belly as well as, no doubt, the nest of hair cushioning his sex.
His trunks rode low on his hips and, standing as he was in profile, Sydney’s gaze was drawn to his flat stomach, his waistband and the impressive bulge beneath. Her imagination followed her wandering eyes and she took a deep breath, unnerved by the way her heart beat like a bass drum in her chest. She stretched out her legs along the railing, crossed her ankles, letting her head fall back to rest against one of the veranda’s support beams.
A relentless tingle settled unmercifully in the core of her belly. She squeezed her legs together and smoothed her palms down the length of her thighs. Even the feel of her own hands caressing her limbs failed to calm her and did, in fact, heighten the sensations simmering beneath the surface of her skin.
Since Ray had reentered her life, unnerved was not an uncommon state in which to find her emotions, just as aroused was not an unusual condition in which to find her body. Neither were comfortable situations. Both she intended to address during the days of this vacation. She had to get him out of her system before they returned to the States.
This obsessive infatuation was beginning to take its toll; her daydreams had recently crossed the line into erotic fantasy, cutting into her concentration in such a way that she feared her work might suffer. She couldn’t allow any relationship, whether one of her imagination’s making or one from the past, to color the business decisions or personal choices she made.
Especially after having seen that very thing happen with her father. She refused to sink to his level of disloyalty—to her business, to her friends or to herself—and was willing to do anything, anything to make sure it didn’t happen. Ray Coffey was becoming the sort of consuming distraction her life didn’t need. Which meant it was time to prove to herself that he wasn’t the lover her memory declared him to be.
This trip had originally been planned to last just over a week and a half. With the Indiscreet docked in Belize City in preparation for its imminent sale, Ray had arranged with the two-person crew for the fifty-seven-foot yacht to circle the western Caribbean, slowly exploring the barrier reef along the coast of Belize before making stops in Jamaica and the Caymans on the return.
In addition to the travel plans, the vacation invitations had been left up to Ray. He’d asked both Anton and Doug to come along, as he was in negotiations with their architectural firm, Neville and Storey, and the trip made for good business, as well as a good time. He’d also asked Jess Morgan, another friend from his core circle of six, all of whom played together on the same adult soccer league.
And then he’d invited Sydney.
She’d been more than tempted—by the trip, yes. Until last year’s falling-out with her father, Nolan, she’d never turned him down when he’d asked her to go sailing. But she’d also been tempted by the prospect of being confined with Ray on the Indiscreet. An intimately innocent confinement, where running from their mutual attraction would mean a trip to the bottom of the sea.
So she’d given him a conditional yes and then invited her three conditions.
Because the six gIRL-gEAR partners were discussing a possible change to the firm’s corporate structure, Sydney had asked Annabel Lee to come along. Annabel, known around the office as Poe, had moved up rapidly through company ranks. She was currently under consideration to replace Chloe Zuniga as vice president of cosmetics and accessories once Chloe launched the new gUIDANCE gIRL mentoring program. Chloe had assured the others that Poe was not the fire-breathing dragon she seemed.
And getting to know Poe away from the office, woman-to-woman, was Sydney’s prime plan.
She’d also invited Lauren Hollister and had done so for two reasons—one obvious, one personal. The first was Ray’s invitation to Anton Neville. After a year in an exclusive relationship, Lauren and Anton had recently split, though it was clear to all their friends that the two were more miserable apart than they’d ever been together.
Matchmaking always had the potential to backfire, but in this case Sydney was willing to take the chance. Lauren was one of Sydney’s gIRL-gEAR partners and she had to consider the company’s well-being, as well as that of her friend. And lately Lauren had been coming to work in body only, leaving her enthusiasm and concentration behind.
But when it came to Lauren, Sydney had an additional consideration. And that was the friendship blossoming between her father and Lauren. The two had been seeing too much of one another for Sydney’s peace of mind. As angry as she was with Nolan, she did love him, and the last thing he needed in his life was another creative, volatile woman. Or an impulsive fling.
Finally, Sydney had coaxed Kinsey Gray into coming along. Kinsey had been a marketing major and had shared several of Sydney’s classes at University of Texas. Now the VP of the company’s sportswear and party-wear divisions, Kinsey had an innate intuition when it came to trends, an uncanny sense of fashion and a slightly offbeat way of looking at the world, which Sydney felt would be a welcome relief to the trip’s inevitable tension.
The tension had begun immediately.
The group of eight vacationers had never made it farther than twelve miles before the Indiscreet developed a problem with its hydraulics. Convenient, actually, that twelve miles, because, before the crew nursed the limping ketch back to Belize City for repairs, Sydney and the others had loaded their supplies into the onboard aluminum dinghy and moved their vacation from yacht to island. Specifically, Coconut Caye, the private twelve-acre island Sydney’s father owned.
Coconut Caye had always been the first planned stop on their itinerary. But it hadn’t been intended as their final—or only—destination. Again Sydney realized she had nothing to complain about. The island was the epitome of paradise. Looking ahead, she had several days to spend doing