[Invitation to Eden 04.0] Hydrotherapy (3 page)

He had no idea where her damn money went—or that note. The whole point of leaving her was to make her life easier, not harder.

“I wanted to say goodbye, believe me.” He took a cautious step forward. “There just wasn’t time.”

Jenna snorted and crossed her arms. “Right. That was why, as soon as your contract was up, you fled the island. You had no time for me, the girlfriend you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. The girlfriend you
fucked
for two months.”

Caine pressed his lips together for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “I had another job waiting for me. I couldn't stay.”

“As a spa director?”

“Human resources director.” And this job was only a front so that the local governments wouldn’t know what they were up to. Everyone on the island thought that both he and his cousin Rex were spa employees who liked to scuba dive in their spare time. Only Mr. Vardalos knew what they were up to—or why they were doing it.

She waved her hand, indicating the expensive décor around them. “The Caine I knew wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this, let alone in a suit.”

“You don't like the suit?” he asked as he ran his hands over his beige jacket. “I had it tailored.”

“That's not the point.” She let out a long, angry breath. “You were a diver, Caine. A free spirit. You told me yourself that you hated being cooped up in an office pushing papers. You craved the outdoors and fresh air.”

“So did you.”

She steeled her jaw as some indescribable emotion passed over her features. “People change.”

“They don’t change
that
much.”

“They do if their livelihood was stolen from them.”

Caine stared at her cotton-candy-pink lipstick, unsure of what to say. What he told her was true. Caine
did
have another job lined up after his contract with her mother's tour company was up—this one. What he didn't want her to know was that he took the job because he knew that if he stayed, she'd break his heart. What they had shared was great for a summer romance, but could never last. Jenna's family was rich, and she was used to living an independent and carefree life most people dreamed about. Caine and his cousin, Rex, had to fend for themselves since they were eighteen. His steady instant-noodle and hot dog diet would make her ill. She didn’t know what it was like to sleep in an alley, or to beg restaurants for table scraps. They came from completely different worlds, and he knew that until he could give her the life she was accustomed to, their relationship didn't stand a chance.

Jenna made a very unfeminine-like sound as she moved toward the door. “I'm out of here.”

“Wait.” He grabbed her wrist, stopping her movements. When she glared at him, he dropped her hand and took a step back.

“I'm here because...” His mind raced, looking for a believable answer. “I'm here because I needed the steady paycheck,” he said.

She frowned at him as she considered his confession. “You never needed a steady paycheck before.”

He shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. “Like you said, people change.”

She snorted. “
You
don’t change.”

“How do you know?” When she didn’t answer, he shrugged. “I guess at some point, you have to grow up, don't you? You can't live in the past forever.”

His words seemed to have struck a chord. Jenna's shoulders slumped and tears filled her eyes. “Please, let go.”

Caine dropped her arm and considered her for a moment before speaking. “Okay.” He stopped her as she moved toward the door once more. “Just don’t go out there alone.”

“Why?”

“This place is much bigger than it looks. It’s easy to get lost.” He rounded the desk and rang for Simone. “Jenna is ready to see her rooms.” When Jenna raised her brows, he tried to offer her an encouraging smile. “I have another appointment right now, but this isn’t over. Simone will see you to your rooms and make sure that you’re settled in. Tomorrow, show up bright and early for work and I’ll give you a tour of the place and explain your duties.”

Her violet eyes flared in defiance, but all she did was nod. “Very well.”

Caine wanted to say more, but the knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. “Yes?”

Simone poked her head inside the room. “I’m ready if Jenna is.”

“Ready.” Before Caine could say anything, Jenna turned her back to him and hurried from the room.

Perhaps it was for the best that she left, he decided as the office door closed. They both needed time alone to decompress after what happened and to think. He also needed time to plan.

Caine returned to his desk chair and twirled a pen between his fingers. Odd that her mom’s bank account was robbed so soon after he left. Normally he’d dismiss such things as bad luck, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he had more to do with that money’s disappearance than he realized.

“Hey cuz’, I have some good news.” Rex opened the door without knocking and hobbled across the office using his favorite teak cane.

“God, man, put on some clothes,” Caine said as he returned to his desk.

“What? I have shorts on.”

“But no shirt.”

“It’s company policy, dude.” Rex grinned and held his arms out to the sides. “My hands are tied.”

“I’ll bet.” Caine’s cousin had the same hooked nose and sandy hair as him, but while Caine’s bushy locks were neatly trimmed, Rex’s was long and in dreadlocks. His cousin had embraced the Caribbean lifestyle much more than he did, right down to his brightly-colored Bermuda shorts and Kangol hat.

“I think I’ve found a potential buyer,” he said as he flopped into the office chair opposite Caine.

“You have?” Caine straightened and put down his pen. “Someone who doesn’t care that the artifacts have no papers?”

“Well…” Rex took off his sunglasses and tossed them on the desk. “He wants to see the papers before he buys them, of course, but he’s a collector who knows his stuff. Really into Spanish history, too.” Rex clapped, then rubbed his hands together. “I think we’ve hit the mother-load, my friend.”

Caine grinned. While a twinge of guilt tugged at his chest over double-crossing their boss, he refused to dwell on it. The Master of the Island had more money than he knew what to do with. If the champagne fountain didn’t tell him that, then the exorbitant price this guy was paying Caine and Rex to excavate a shipwreck in secret, would. Besides, it wasn’t as if they were going to steal
all
of the artifacts from Mr. Vardalos, just a few of the most expensive pieces. And it wasn’t as if the Master of the Island was totally innocent in this. When Caine and Rex confirmed the shipwreck a short distance from Eden, their boss didn’t notify the local authorities. Caine suspected it was because he wanted to hoard the treasure for himself.

While none of this was exactly legal, it would make them all filthy rich. Between the final payment from their boss and the profit from selling those artifacts on the black market, both he and Rex wouldn’t have to work for the rest of their lives.

He’d be able to give Jenna everything she deserved.

“How much is this guy willing to pay?” Caine asked.

“It would depend on his appraisal.” Rex put his sand-coated feet up on the desk—and on top of Caine’s paperwork. “But I’m guessing it would be somewhere between two and five.”

Caine slapped Rex’s Birkenstocks and motioned him off the desk. “Million?”

Rex grinned. “Billion. But only if we could confirm that the arrowheads, ink pot and sculpture all belonged to the same owner.” He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Kind of like hitting the lottery, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Caine wasn’t sure, but he thought that the porcelain sculpture was of the Madonna. If that was true, then someone religious was riding on the ship when it sank. If the dating matched up with the other artifacts they had found, it would place the ship during the time of Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish friar who spoke on behalf of the Native Americans and frequented the Caribbean waters. If the shell markings on that ink pot were similar to those on Bartolomé’s lectern at the Vatican, it would make this a huge historical find—and make the artifacts worth much more than either Rex or Caine had dreamed. All they needed was something to tie everything together to prove that Bartolome spent time in Central America, but North America as well.

And they
would
tie everything together. Too much was riding on this excavation to have any other end result.

“We’ve come a long way from our treasure-hunting days in St. Lucia, don’t you think?” Rex asked. “No more living paycheck to paycheck, or going to bed hungry. No more working odd jobs like this one.” He waved his hand in the air around them. “Or that damn clunker of a boat that ran scuba diving tours.” He wrinkled his nose. “What was the name of that again? Scuba Excitement?”

“Adventures,” Caine corrected. “About that—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rex cut him off and straightened in his chair. “The buyer will be here next week to look at the merchandise, so we have to have everything ready by then.”

“Next week?”

Rex shrugged. “Vardalos is expecting everything us to be done by then, anyway. Either way we’re going to be kicked off the island, so I say let’s make the most of it.” He got up and turned to go. “I need to go work on the boat. Catch you on the flip side.”

Caine stood as Rex turned to leave. “I’ve asked her to come here.”

Rex stopped in his tracks and turned to face him. “Asked whom?”

“You know who. Jenna.”

Rex’s face contorted in disgust. “Aw, come on, Caine. You’re not still lovesick over that skirt, are you? We have rules, dude. Clean cuts when we move locations. Leave no trails behind.” He nodded toward the door. “You didn’t see me pining after that mother, did you?” He hobbled forward and tapped his cane on the desk. “And let me tell you, that was one nice piece of ass.”

“You seduced Jenna’s mom?”

Rex shrugged. “Weren’t you seducing the daughter?”

“That was different.”

“Not the way I see it.”

“I wasn’t seducing her to get at her money.”

“No? Then why were you seducing her?” Rex hobbled a few steps closer. “Come now, Caine. You couldn’t honestly believe that women as independent and wealthy as them could ever want anything more than a casual fling from people like us.”

Caine steeled his jaw and tried to rein in his emotions. Rex had never liked Caine’s relationship with Jenna, had said that Caine was getting far too emotional over a skirt. Caine knew he’d have a fight on his hands, but he had already denied himself for far too long. This whole mission was for Jenna, and he’s be damned if he’d leave the island without her.

“I want her to come with us,” he said as he rose from the chair.

“What? No, Caine. You can’t.” Rex lowered his cane and limped closer to the desk. “You can’t do this to me. To us.”

“This is non-negotiable.” Caine held up his hand, stopping Rex’s words. “I told you that the only reason why I had agreed to go on this mission was for Jenna. Now that it’s through, I’m going to quit the treasure-hunting life and give her what she deserves.”

“Ah hell, I thought you had gotten that chick out of your system. I even took that lovesick note away so that we could make a clean cut and start over.”

“You what?” Caine placed both hands on the desk and leaned forward as anger blurred his vision. “That was a private note.”

“It was a pathetic, flowery piece of garbage written by someone not in his right state of mind.” Rex frowned and dragged his gaze over Caine’s neatly-pressed suit. “Look at you, all corporate-like. You want to do that stuck-up shit the rest of your life? Jobs like this suck the life out of you.” He shook his head. “
Women
will suck the life out of you too, if you let them.” He pointed his cane toward the door. “I did you a favor by destroying that note. She would’ve only held us back, Caine.”

“I loved her.”

“Bullshit. You just loved to
fuck
her. There’s a difference.”

Caine started to protest, but stopped himself. It was pointless arguing about love and sacrifice with someone who only thought of himself. “When we leave, Jenna and I will be returning to the mainland to live an honorable life.”

“Jesus. Honorable?” He limped over and grabbed the edge of the chair to steady himself. “You wouldn’t know honorable if it walked up and bit you in the ass.”

“No more stealing from innocent businesses. No more double crossing our bosses. I mean it.”

“Fuck, double crossing Vardalos was your idea.” Rex pointed his bony finger at Caine’s chest. “Your idea, not mine.”

True, but Caine rationalized that it was for a good cause. Besides, their boss didn’t know about the Bartolome artifacts, only some of the more benign ones. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and Caine needed that money a hell of a lot more than the Master of the Island needed his.

It was one thing to steal from a rich man who was skirting the law and could buy his own island. It was quite another to steal a family’s only means for survival.

Caine took a deep breath. “Jenna told me that the day after we left, her mother had found the company’s bank account drained.”

Silence slammed down into the room, pulling the air tight with tension. Rex stared at Caine, clearly shocked by his cousin’s outburst.

“Well, shit. Fine. I’ll give you half.” Rex waved his hand between them in dismissal. “I was going to do that anyway. Just never got around to it.”

Caine fisted his hands. “You stole from our employers.” Fuck, no wonder Jenna was furious. “How?”

“After we had sex one afternoon, I—”

Caine shook his head and held up his hand. “Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

“No, you probably don’t.”

Caine couldn’t believe his cousin would take advantage of a woman’s loneliness and strip her of her life’s savings. It was a new low, even for him. “We have to give it back.”

Rex frowned and waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s already spent.”

“But you just told me you’d give me half.”

“I’ll pay you out of the money we make on this job.”

Caine ran his hand over his face. “What the hell did you spend it on? Our boss is paying for all of our expenses.”