Tango in Paradise (6 page)

Most of the wedding party was still residing at the resort, all except for the Senator and his wife, who’d left just after the newlyweds yesterday morning. She’d thought she might see Jack at the festive send-off at the resort heliport. But there’d been no sign of him that morning. Or for the twenty-four hours that had followed.

As far as she could tell, without questioning anyone too closely, he’d made no effort to contact her at all.

Until two hours ago, when her concierge, Dom, had casually informed her that Señor Jack had left
word at the desk that he’d like to see her at her earliest possible convenience. She’d put off coming by, convincing herself the front desk needed her help in checking in a mad rush of conference attendees. But her staff was well trained and she quickly ran out of things to do. She couldn’t put off her meeting with Jack any longer. And now that the time had come, she actually felt a certain sense of relief.

She blew at an errant strand of hair the morning wind had dislodged from her French twist and stepped up onto the porch. Funny how isolated the bungalow suddenly seemed. She usually loved the scent of the bougainvillea which draped the stuccoed porch railings of the private bungalows. Now it seemed cloying and inhibitive.

Forcing an uneven breath in and out of her lungs, she raised her hand to rap on the door, silently praying that she could get Jack to agree to her terms of payment.

The door eased open at her light knock. She waited for a moment, bracing herself for the instant that she’d face him again. After several seconds that seemed like hours, she realized no one was coming. She leaned in to pull the door shut, surprised he’d leave his door unlocked with all his expensive and cherished equipment inside, and heard the unmistakable sounds of a shower running. Her hand froze in mid-reach as images of Jack, naked in the shower, flashed through her mind in picture-perfect clarity.

Shaking off the provocative visions of water cascading over his tall, muscular form, she rapidly debated the merits of retreat. But while her mind was busy making a case for going back to work, her body decided to go on in and make itself at home. She pushed the door closed behind her, then changed her mind and left it open an inch or two, hoping that the knowledge of that small margin of escape would give her the strength to see this through without faltering.

She wandered over to the small couch. The duffel bag was gone, but he’d wasted no time making himself at home. She ran a finger over the yellow T-shirt carelessly tossed over the back of the couch, then around the rim of an empty bottle of beer sitting on the rattan end table. Upon encountering a damp spot on the rim, she snatched her finger away, suddenly realizing the inherent intimacy of her actions.

She was debating whether or not to call out and announce her presence, when her attention was caught by the open zipper pockets of the small bag she’d carried into this room several days ago. It wasn’t the bag specifically, but the glossy photos that poked out of one of the side pockets that she’d noticed. Telling herself they were probably wedding photos, and that as Jack’s employer for that event she had every right to see them, she slid the glossy prints carefully out of the bag.

They were upside down, so she turned them around—and found her own eyes staring back at her. Confused, since she was the sole subject of the picture, she quickly sifted through the rest of the dozen or so shots. She was the focus of all of them.

Embarrassment over being caught unawares was quickly usurped by indignation over his tactics.
How dare he!
Forcing the red haze from her vision, she went through the stack again, painfully scrutinizing each one, as if trying to emblazon the proof of his duplicity forever in her brain. Like she’d actually forget!

In one shot, he’d caught her staring off at some distant point, as if deep in thought. There was one of her laughing with the bride and groom. She immediately tucked that one under the stack, ignoring the glowing expression he’d captured forever on film. She stared long and hard at the next one and her hand trembled a bit. She looked so … alone. A heavy weight settled somewhere deep inside her chest as she realized he’d snapped this one the split second before the newlyweds had kissed for the first time.

Her anger fled, replaced by a pressure squeezing around her heart, the tightness a result of having to confront her inner self, over and over. Each shot revealed, in brilliant color, all of the emotions she’d long ago buried in an effort to heal her soul. Her
entire body stiffened as she flipped to the next-to-last photo.

She knew instantly that she’d been looking directly at Jack when he’d taken this one. Her slightly parted lips, the flush on her cheeks, the intense awareness in her eyes …

April suddenly slapped the photos back together, almost crumpling them as she shoved them back into the side pocket in her haste to erase the image of how she’d looked at Jack. With hunger. A deep, unabiding hunger.

Blushing hotly, she whirled away from the bag, only to be confronted with the translucent gaze of Jack’s green eyes.

Leaning against the bedroom doorway, a white towel wrapped around his hips and beads of water still scattered through the swirl of dark hair on his chest, he assessed her silently. She couldn’t have said how long she stood there, absorbing his gaze as it slowly traveled over every inch of her, but it felt like somewhere between a heartbeat and a lifetime.

“Do you like them?” Other than his mouth, he didn’t move even the tiniest muscle.

Arms crossed around her midsection, neither did she. “Did you honestly think I would? Is that why you took them?”

“I told you before that anything other than wedding pictures would be for me and me alone. But, yes, I guess I had hoped you’d like them.”

“I thought I’d made it more than clear that I didn’t want to be the subject of any photographs.”

“And I thought we had a deal.”

Up till now his voice had been soft and quiet, but neutral, as if her answers weren’t all that important. But his last statement revealed the tight control he was fighting to maintain, and April took an unconscious step backward.

“The deal was one hour of my time for one of yours. You said nothing about posing for you.”

Jack shifted his weight off of the door frame, but didn’t step into the room. “Back to playing word games? Just what sort of payment did you have in mind, April? Is that why you’re here?”

His gaze traveled slowly over her face, scrutinizing each feature, the sheer intensity of it like a flame caressing her body. His expression was unreadable except for the brilliant incandescence of his eyes, and she couldn’t tell if that was from anger … or desire.

Suddenly aware of the change in her situation and desperately wanting to escape, April eyed the sunlit sliver of freedom behind her.

“Leave, if that’s what you truly want. I won’t stop you. But you’re only postponing this conversation.”

Despite his assurance, she felt trapped, and hated it every bit as much now as she had years ago when Markham had cornered her in his office. She broke
off that train of thought and said, “As far as I’m concerned those pictures constitute payment in full. End of conversation.” She whirled to leave but a strong hand imprisoned her wrist with lightning speed. She’d never heard him leave the doorway.

“Not so fast,
Señorita
Morgan.” Jack gentled his grip immediately when she stopped her flight. He tugged slowly until she turned to face him and waited patiently for her to look directly at him. When she did, he silently cheered her for having the nerve to do so, then cursed himself for being the reason he read fear in those lovely golden-brown eyes.

“If you want my attention in the future, just ask.” Her voice was low and even.

“If you wouldn’t run away every time the conversation gets tricky I wouldn’t have to resort to this.”

“Let me go.” She enunciated each word slowly.

“If I promise not to touch you, will you stay and talk this thing out? Please?”

She nodded once and he immediately dropped her wrist. “Always remember you can trust me, April. But never forget I place a high priority on keeping one’s word.”

Her eyes widened in shock and anger, making him want to smile at the return of the April Morgan whose spirit had so enthralled him. The seriousness
of the conversation made him refrain. “I never said I wouldn’t take pictures of you.” His voice softened slightly. “But I did say they would remain personal. If you knew me better, you’d know that my word is one of my most valued possessions.”

He paused for a moment, watching her chin remain firm as her lips drew into a flat line. The edge left his voice completely as he asked the question he most wanted an answer to. “Do you really mind so much that I want them?”

He felt rather than saw the fight go out of her. The defeat in her soft brown eyes touched a place so deep inside him he’d long ago forgotten its hiding place. Why now? he questioned silently, after years of scrupulously maintaining a careful distance, avoiding anything that even hinted at getting emotionally involved. Why her?

But there were no quick, easy answers. He looked into eyes that moments ago had flashed with a vibrancy that captivated him. Now they had dulled in defeat, and he felt a fist of need tighten inside him. A need to make her smile again, to find what was wrong in her world and right it, a need so intense it should have sent him running in the other direction.

Instead he moved closer. More than anything, he wanted to touch her, comfort her. But he’d promised not to. He settled for lifting his finger until it was a hairbreadth away from her lips. Their
gazes locked, then his shifted lower as he traced an imaginary line over her bottom lip.

He curled his finger into his palm and let his hand drop. “No one will ever see them but me. I swear it.” Her lips parted, but she said nothing. He blew out a deep breath, his promise warring with his need to kiss the life back into her.

But he wanted an equal participant when they kissed for the first time. They both deserved nothing less. “Can I trust you to stay here for a few moments while I change?” Her reaction was as swift and sharp as he’d hoped it would be, but he wished he could have kissed her instead.

She took two steps away from him, brown eyes narrowed in anger. “If you knew me, you wouldn’t have had to ask,” she retorted, tossing his words back at him.

Without a word he turned and left the room. He closed the bedroom door and rested against it. The tempest was still present. Whatever he’d said or done to cause her to momentarily cave in hadn’t completely doused the flame burning between them.

Jack let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh as he crossed the small room. He was here to rest, to give his body and soul some downtime and to decompress a little. So what did he do? He went right off and did what he’d managed to avoid in his entire thirty-five years on the planet. He’d gotten involved.

“Bad timing, Tango,” he muttered. But he knew he had no choice. Like it or not, April Morgan had his complete and total attention.

Jack loosened the knot in the towel, letting it drop in a heap on the tiled floor. His smile returned as he grudgingly accepted the inevitability of his involvement. April didn’t know it yet, but she’d just gained a formidable ally.

And a very determined future lover.

FOUR

April waited the space of a single heartbeat after hearing the click of the bedroom door before backing up a step and sinking down onto the small sofa.

Just who in the hell is Jack Tango anyway? she wondered, trying and failing to come up with an easy answer. He infuriated her with his blunt, overconfident remarks, mystified her by reacting to her cool comebacks with an approving glint in his eye … and scared the living hell out of her by reducing to ashes, with no more than a hint of a smile and a few softly spoken words, her firm decision to remain untouched by him.

She tried to gather her wits and form them back into her earlier resolve, but her gaze kept skipping
back to the bedroom door, her mind to the man behind it. She never once looked at the door to freedom.

She saw the doorknob twist and experienced a similar feeling in her stomach. Jack stepped into the small living room, his face concealed by the white towel that he was using to dry his hair with. He stopped after a step or two and slung the towel in the general direction of the low wooden table in the breakfast nook that, along with a tiny kitchen, formed the other half of the bungalow.

He was wearing a rumpled cotton shirt in a wild native print and faded red shorts just brief enough to keep her staring at the tanned, slightly hairy expanse of muscular thighs and calves underneath the tattered edges.

“Thanks,” he said.

She yanked her gaze up to his, expecting to find a smug smile plastered on his sexy face at being caught gawking at his legs. Instead his expression was carefully neutral. “For what?”

“For being here. For wanting to stay and work this out.” He turned toward the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “I meant to restock the fridge yesterday; all I have is beer. Want one?”