[Invitation to Eden 24.0] How to Tempt a Tycoon (22 page)

“Not that much.”

Leaning across me—purposefully—so that he can rub his bare chest against me while he reaches for his watch on the opposite bedside table, I do something I must have done a hundred times when we were together. I bite him and smack his ass.

After retrieving his watch, he settles more fully on top of me. Grinning. “Some things don’t change.”

He wriggles his hips so that he’s positioned between my legs, only the sheet and his shorts between us. I can feel his arousal. Holy hell, can I feel it.

“You’re hot, Tess.” His voice is immediately husky. Deep. Aroused. “Probably fucking wet too.”

“What are you going to do about it, cowboy?” The suggestive words come out before I can think about them, before I can weigh the implication of potentially making love to my ex-husband, before I even come to terms with the fact that we’ve already spent the night together—naked—albeit without engaging in intercourse.

He gets an oh-so-familiar expression on his face. It’s the one he makes just before he’s about to thrust inside of me good and hard. Then he does it. He thrusts between my open thighs, his body trying in vain to penetrate cotton and nylon and me all at once.

“Chase...” I’m not sure what my intention is. If I’m saying his name to stop him or to urge him on.

He shuts his eyes and I think he’s going to thrust again but he doesn’t. Holding himself still, he whispers, “Sorry. It’s weird how easy it is to fall back into old habits.”

He sits up and focuses on buckling his watch and then bends over, giving me a brotherly kiss on the forehead and says, “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

I don’t get out of bed until I hear the door to the villa close. I look around the room. Confused, foggy memories skirt around the fringes of my mind.

How the hell did I get here? I remember getting the invitation to Eden while meeting with Noelle in Paris. Then...oh fuck! Then I took the transatlantic flight from hell. That’s right! How could I forget that? After I landed there was a young woman who flew me here. She had an unusual name. Joely?

I remember falling asleep on the plane, waking up...

I slide out of bed, still confused. Still groggy.

Where the hell are my bags?

I don’t see any. No toiletries, no suitcases, nothing. Padding nude through the villa, I have a vague feeling of being trapped, which is weird because the French doors leading out onto the veranda and toward the beach are open and a light breeze is blowing in, making the gauzy drapes billow like the skirts of a ghost bride.

There’s a fruit basket in the middle of the table and a bottle of champagne chilling in what is now a bucket of water. Had there been ice in there? Why can’t I remember anything?

Returning to the bedroom, I find my clothes strewn across the floor. I can just picture myself, semi-sleep-walking, taking my clothes off as I make my way toward the bed. In the discarded pile is a bikini top. Hmm. Where are the bottoms? Oh, there they are, beneath an oversized t-shirt and stuck inside a pair of shorts.

I decide to just slip the bikini on and go down to the ocean. I’m not much of a runner, but I love the water. A morning swim will be the perfect antidote to this fogginess and I’m hoping it will help me figure out what the hell I’m doing here with my ex-husband.

I wander outside, shielding my eyes from the sun, struck by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu as I gaze down the length of the beach. There are villas on either side of us, though the resort did a superb job of making each space feel secluded because I can hardly see them through the foliage that has been planted between. There is a sense of isolation, however. It feels like the other villas aren’t occupied, like Chase and I are the only ones in this section of the resort.

I’m sure I’ll come across more people as I head down to the beach.

Nope. There’s no one in either direction. The beach is completely deserted.

My heart batters the inside of my breastbone. My vision narrows and I hear the distant toll of the bell, though it doesn’t belong to any church or government building. It’s all in my mind.

Coffee
.

That’s my problem. I need coffee. I must be slightly hung over and I’m going through caffeine withdrawal, that’s what this foggy, headachy feeling is about. Instead of heading down to the water, I make my way along the promenade at the edge of the villas towards where I think the main part of the resort is. I’m sure there must be a café or restaurant somewhere nearby.

What the fuck are you doing here, Tessa? Why are you here with Chase? What the fuck is going on?

I pause. Hmm. All good questions.

Somewhere from a murky part of my brain, I remember receiving an invitation...or did I send an invitation? 

Oh God! Why can’t I remember?

Did I take something for anxiety? I have prescription anxiety pills for my ‘episodes’ but I never use them. I don’t think the seal has even been cracked. I guess I can check when I get back to the room. That might explain my passing out and lack of memory.

Or maybe you just need some coffee, Tessa.

Yes. Coffee will help. I come to a gate, it looks oddly familiar and I have the strangest feeling it’s going to be locked but it’s not. I pass through and after hearing the click behind me, continue along the path through some thicker foliage to where I expect to find the main beach for the resort. However, the beach I come upon is deserted too. In fact, it’s not even groomed. Seaweed lines the shoreline, shells and rocks are littered across the beach, and trees and grasses stretch out like fingers sifting through the sand.

The sun is nearly overhead and I shade my eyes as I search inland for the outline of the castle. It was so monstrous and imposing, it must be visible from nearly everywhere on the island, but I can’t see it.

Did I get turned around? Yesterday is such a mess in my mind that I’m not surprised if I’ve gone the wrong way. The island didn’t appear very large when we first landed but distance can be deceiving. Deciding I’m probably better off going back to the villa and ordering room service, I retrace my steps to the gate and try the door.

It’s locked.

Shit, not again!

Wait a second.

I rub my temples. What do I mean,
not again
? I haven’t been this way before, have I? No. I would remember.

Wouldn’t I?

I rattle the knob and call out to see if anyone is around. I consider trying to scale the wall, but I’m less of a climber than I am a runner, so the ten foot stone barrier is not about to be conquered by Tessa Savage today. My only option is to follow the beach. This is an island after all. Logic says if I follow the coastline I’ll eventually find people and the resort.

So, I wander down to where the tide has hardened the sand to make for easier going and I start walking. And walking. And walking.

The further I go, the more wild the terrain. In places there is no sand, only volcanic stone outcrops that must be navigated in order to keep going. My feet are sore, my skin is reddening from the sun and I’m suddenly parched.

That’s when I see the hut.

I stop in my tracks. It’s a small square cottage with a thatched roof. It’s so fucking familiar I press my hands to my temples, willing memories I know are buried inside to come out of hiding.

You’ve been here before
.

Snatches of conversation filter through my brain, incomplete phrases and sentences with no context whatsoever.

Do you believe in magic?

What is your greatest fear, Tessa?

You’ve been chosen by the island...

The decision you are about to make is critical...

There is no right path, there is no wrong path. There are just different paths...

“What the fuck...” I say aloud as I step cautiously into the hut.

I can’t decide if the weird tingling on the back of my neck is from the cool shade of the hut or something else. There is a bottle of water sitting on a small wooden table, sweating as if it had just been pulled from a refrigerator. Without thinking, I snatch it, unscrew the top and guzzle it down. My throat is so dry I feel the cold liquid coating my entire esophagus all the way down to my stomach. So good.

Hanging from the rafters is a basket full of bananas. I grab one and head back out into the sun, determined to find my way to some semblance of civilization and once outside I notice there’s a footpath—as if by asking for it, I conjured it—leading from the hut into the jungle behind. A path must lead somewhere, right? There was cold water in the hut, someone had to have put it there. Cold water can’t just magically appear. That’s not possible.

Taking a chance, I follow the path until it eventually turns into cracked blacktop. My feet should be burning on this surface...except they’re not.

Which is really strange.

I stop walking and stare down at my feet. Somehow, someway, I’m wearing flip flops. Fucking flip flops.

I do not have any recollection of ever putting on flip flops, though they are comfortable and have a vaguely familiar feel to them. Like they’ve been worn so often by me that my exact foot imprint is molded into the base. My steps slow as I continue forward, so many questions swirling around my brain as trees give way to buildings and the path opens up to a deserted lot.

“What the hell is going on?” I whisper, staring at my surroundings in awe and horror. The jungle is gone. The island is...who the fuck knows?! I press the heels of my hands to my eye sockets. I know what this is. I’ve been traveling a lot. Lots of airports, lots of different time zones. I’ve been working non-stop, moving here and there, rarely taking a break. This is what exhaustion looks like. I’m probably lying in a hospital bed somewhere with tubes snaking up my nose, lying in an induced coma so that my exhausted body can recuperate. I’m dreaming, and the dream feels real because I’m in it, but the minute I wake up, the impossibility of it all will become obvious.

The alternative is that this is a mental break from reality and I am wandering—aimlessly—the streets of New York or Miami or Paris even, while living completely inside of my head.

A car horn goes off and I look up.

I catch myself on the brick wall of a building just before I collapse.

The street that I find myself on is not just any street. It is the Main Street of Chelsea, Texas, where I spent my teen years. I know it’s Chelsea because I can see the sign for McGraw’s Hardware store and the last four letters are still scratched out—God, you’d think after all these years they’d have fixed it by now—so that it reads McGraw’s Hard—. Slowly I make my way down the street, looking this way and that, so baffled, so confused my brain has ceased to question but is simply absorbing.

Yep, there’s the post office, the Walgreen’s, the library, the Blockbuster.

Wait.

I pause outside the video store, peering in through the window. What the hell? Blockbuster went out of business years ago. No one rents videos anymore.

That’s when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window. Not only am I wearing flip flops, I’m also wearing cut-offs and a tank top. My limbs are long and slender. My tummy, super flat. My hair longer than I’ve worn it in years.

“Holy fuck!” The words explode out of me as I look down at myself, unable to stop from running my hands up and down my body.  A couple of people glance sideways at me, as if I’m a perv—which I totally am—but not because I’m feeling myself up at the moment but because I have the body of a teenager.
My
teenaged body.

By the way, you would feel yourself up too if you suddenly realized you’ve got your teenaged body back.

A habit I kicked a decade and half ago—biting my baby finger—shows up and I find my smallest digit clamped between my teeth as I stare hard at my reflection.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Watch your language!”

I turn to find a mother scowling at me with two little kids in tow. “Teenagers,” she mutters as if it’s a dirty word. As if her kids will never grow up into such horrible creatures.

She pisses me off because she has no idea what I’m going through right now. Still, I open my mouth to apologize, but instead of an apology, I say, “Fuck you.”

She snatches her kids’ arms and tugs them along while they stare wide-eyed, about to cry as if I’m the boogieman their mother warned them about.

I have no idea why I do it, but I flip them the bird.

The little girl bursts into tears.

The little boy flips one right back.

I laugh.

Wait a second!

What is wrong with me?

“Tessa Savage. Get into this car right now.”

My head whips around and there is a sight I didn’t think I’d ever see again, the old familiar Parisian Safari station wagon that belonged to my foster mother, Marcy. Worse, hanging out the driver’s window is a dude who is my nemesis, the bane of my existence, the object of all my teenaged angst.

My sort of foster brother.

Chase-I’m-fucking-perfect-Walker.

A
s if I’m getting into the car. In his fucking dreams.

Holy shit, Tess, you have one helluva potty mouth on you.

I squeeze my temples and do the only thing that makes sense. I keep walking, ignoring the car that moves slowly beside me, driving me insane, making me angrier and angrier with every
thwapping
step I take.

“Tessa,” Chase says in that overly patient voice that makes me want to punch him in the face. “Mom is worried sick.”

I stop. My closed fists fit perfectly against my bony hipbones. “She’s not my mom. She’s yours. An important detail we should not forget.”

He puts the car in park and turns it off. My reaction is to keep walking—faster—my flip-flops thwacking even more sharply against my heels in the heat. Chase’s heavy footsteps lope closer and closer behind me. Goddammit, I hate him. The anger bubbles up inside of me and fills every nook and cranny so that when he grabs my arm and twists me around, I punch him in the sternum.

Unfortunately my reaction makes him tighten his grip.

“Take your fucking hands off of me.”