Trust in Us (6 page)

“Jay tends to live in his own world and has always had a problem with ridicule. Besides, he’s kind of kept us all in the dark about this.”

“Ah...so he’d expect some kind of ridicule if he’d shared things with you guys about Orchid?”

Gage made another stab at finishing his sangria. Silently, he complimented Alythia’s sharp mind while simultaneously condemning his loose tongue.

“I promise that nothing you say here will go further than our table....” She smiled.

“What do you want to know?” He set the cooler down.

“I’d like to know what you think of my friends.”

“And what’s that got to do with why they make you nervous?”

“I’ll make it easy for you,” Aly countered, expertly sidestepping his question. “What do you think of them based on your impressions during the flight?”

Gage rested an elbow on the table. Tapping fingers against his brow, he let her glimpse his weariness. He couldn’t see their conversation going anywhere but down. “I didn’t bring you out for this,” he said finally.

Aly shook the fruit at the bottom of her glass and shrugged. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

“That’s not fair, Alythia.”

“I’m not accusing you.” She fixed him with a nonjudgmental look. “You’d be well within rights to expect I’d follow in my friends’ footsteps. I just think it’s best to get it out of the way and tell you you’re wasting your time with me if you expect that. I’m not made that way.”

“Your dining requests are coming through just now.”

The attentive server returned with the food update. Gage pushed back his chair and stood, drawing the waiter aside, where they conducted a brief and quiet chat.

Alythia watched Gage push a few bills into the man’s shirt pocket, and then he was helping her from her chair and escorting her from the dining room.

* * *

Nerves mixed in with a considerable amount of regret, but Aly kept up with Gage’s long strides out of the restaurant. She could almost feel the waves of fury he radiated. He surely had every right to be pissed, she thought, recalling Orchid’s consistent accusations about her anal involvement in business. That was an inaccurate summation. She was anally involved in friendship drama, which always found a way to weave itself in and make her a complete basket case.

Alythia decided not to waste time in trying to explain herself to him. She’d just accept the silent treatment on the way back to her suite. At least he wasn’t too angry to walk her back. Then they could forget their poor attempt at following their friends’ dance steps to the bedroom and get on with enjoying the rest of their vacations separately.

It was then that Alythia discovered they weren’t headed back to the suites but out of the resort’s main hall entirely. Aly shivered as much from the chill of the evening air kissing her bare skin through the wrap as she did from the anticipation of what was to follow their sudden departure from the dining room. Curiosity had her close to bursting, but she pressed her lips together to silence any questions that might have tried to slip past.

“Questions aren’t bad, but there are occasions when the timing is,” he said from where he stood behind her once they were on a deserted strip of the beach.

Regardless of what was in store for the remainder of the evening, a portion of Alythia’s unease did begin to fade when the ocean’s quiet roar reached her ears. Awed, she moved as if tugged by some unseen force toward the sound of the water. The surf was just visible via the strong moonlight and a powerful glow radiated along the rear expanse of the resort to douse the beach with a mellow illumination.

Once again the sea air that had calmed her upon arrival so many hours earlier had the same effect as she inhaled it then. Even the rush of the waves bumping the shore induced a great degree of solace. She smiled when the cool water sluiced between her toes, gliding between the soles of her feet and her sandals.

Gage stood off to Aly’s side several feet away and just outside the range of the seeking water. Head bowed, his hands were propped lightly at his lean hips.

“My friends make me nervous because they do things that other people expect me to do when I’m with them.” She at last gave him the answer he wanted. “So much of me wants to be that way, free and without a care for the consequences, but I—I can never trust it and relax enough to... Part of me wonders if I just care too damn much about what people think of me or...maybe I just...”
Care
too
damn
much
about
who
I’m
free
with.
She could only share the last with herself.

“Jeena thinks I’m a Goody Two-Shoes.” She laughed and then turned to Gage, who stared fixedly while she confided. “I know you hate apologies, but I really am sorry for ruining your night.”

He regarded her for a few moments more, tracking his golden-chocolate gaze up and down her body. Slowly, he covered the distance between them. Smoothing his hands over her arms, he massaged her through the silken material of the wrap.

“You didn’t ruin my night.” The massage he applied to her arms served to draw her closer even as it pampered her.

“I wanted to have dinner, laugh and talk...not about this....” He joined in when she laughed. “My night was about as far from ruined as it could get.”

His head dipped and he plied her with what was intended to be a peck. That peck turned into something worthy of residing in the realm of full-blown lust. In the back of her mind, Aly remembered what she’d said about not being able to relax enough. That was a myth that Gage Vincent was effectively demolishing as his tongue enticed hers into a lazy duel.

The act progressed, slowly at first, as though Gage was more intent on exploring than taking. He stroked the roof of her mouth, crested his tongue along the ridge of her teeth before returning to play with her tongue. He evaded when she would have engaged and chuckled when she whimpered her impatience at his tactics.

Aly wouldn’t, couldn’t, stop to consider what type of mixed signal she might have been giving him. After all, she’d just claimed that she could never relax enough to be free, only to turn around and kiss him senseless. She didn’t care what he thought in that moment, only that he kept doing what he was doing.

Alythia hadn’t given thought to how hungry she was for affection until it was being oh so incredibly given to her. She reciprocated the suckling intensity he treated her to when he had her tongue entangled with his. She planned to give and take for as long as she could.

Or until the sound of glasses, dinnerware and cutlery filtered through her erotically charged thoughts. Alythia sighed her disappointment when Gage patted her hip, easing her out of the kiss as he did so.

Opening her eyes, Aly immediately searched for the source of the sounds that had interrupted her romantic moment beneath tropical stars. Blinking owlishly, she frowned at the sight a few yards from where she and Gage stood. There was a table set for a candlelight meal for two. She looked to him.

Gage slanted her a wink. “Dinner is served.”

Chapter 6

D
inner looked amazing and she was in fact starving. Alythia was, however, willing to let her stomach take a backseat to her... She wouldn’t finish the thought. Not even silently. Instead, she tried putting on a gracious look, yet felt her facial muscles failing her miserably.

“Clive sure does pull out all the stops for his friends,” she noted as they neared the beautifully set table. “At least
you’ve
got friends who offer less stress than they give.”

“You didn’t know him in college.” Gage grinned, then sobered a bit. “Clive’s a good guy.” He rounded the table after pushing in her chair and looked to be debating his next words. “He’s ethical, too. You can believe me when I say that he’d never accept or back out of a deal because of anything I or anyone else might say.”

Alythia shook her head, hitting her cheeks with a few wavy locks. “I shouldn’t have said that, assumed that he was—”

“What? Like most of the men you’ve done business with?”

“Ha! No...no, actually, I’ve been fortunate enough to deal with mostly women in my business so far.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Alythia was wincing. “That didn’t sound quite so cold in my head.”

“I’m still glad to hear it. If your effect on Clive is any example, you’d probably have more men than him falling in love with you.”

“In love?” she said with a laugh, and then reached down to unfasten and remove her sandals. “He sure is easy to please. We haven’t even had a real conversation in person yet.”

“The man’s been known to fall in love during a phone call, so...” Gage provided a noncommittal shrug.

* * *

The couple indulged in a round of laughter at Clive’s expense. Gage was the first to sober and had more fun watching Alythia succumb to another bout of mirth. His laughter had curbed into a smile as he shifted, reclining comfortably in his seat, and watched her. He’d wanted to kiss her since he saw her, wanted to know if her mouth was as soft as it looked and if her tongue felt as sweet as the words it formed sounded.

He shifted again, realizing that his
wants
were starting to affect parts of his body best left settled.

“Bless you,” Alythia was saying as the servers set dinner in place. She had ordered a petite sirloin with scallops and au gratin potatoes.

Chef salad and rolls served as the table’s centerpiece. Gage indulged in a heartier New York strip, his side portions just a tad larger than Alythia’s. They dined in companionable silence, which was marked only by the sound of waves and the faint vibration of music. The grooves bumped from either the resort’s main building or the beachfront bar a ways down the shore—it was hard to tell which. Nevertheless, the sounds were a perfect accompaniment to a delicious meal.

The sounds
were
a perfect accompaniment to a delicious meal until they were marred by the unmistakable undercurrents of argument. Gage caught the voices before Alythia did. She heard him curse and looked up and back over her shoulder, closing her eyes at the sight of Jeena and Zeke.

The couple stormed down the beach, their bodies turning slightly inward as they spoke what appeared to be increasingly heated words the closer they came to where Gage and Alythia dined.

Zeke and Jeena had yet to notice their friends eating a few yards away, but their voices were well within range. Alythia bowed her head, feeling the sting of the words Zeke directed at her friend as though they were being aimed at her.

“Such a joke,” he spat. “Do you know how stupid you sound talking about healthcare plans for a bunch of hookers?”

Jeena was tough to the bone. Alythia knew she’d refuse to cower or cry regardless of how deep the words cut.

“At least it’s something
I
built! I don’t have to sponge money off of a more successful friend to scratch out a little
piece
of something like that pitiful brokerage firm of yours! How many gasps of air has it taken this week?”

The lovers’ spat went back and forth. Aly, though reluctant to do so, finally sent a look over to Gage. He appeared as beleaguered as she felt.

Gage shook his head.
I’m
sorry,
he mouthed.

Aly’s smile almost turned into a grin. It seemed that the phrase had become a staple of their brief acquaintance. Jeena’s and Zeke’s voices raised another octave then.

“I was so wrong about you!”

“Then we’re a perfect mixed match!” Zeke threw up his hands. “’Cause I was exactly
right
about you! Guess a person really is what they do for a living. Least I didn’t have to pay for it!”

Whatever toughness Jeena claimed dissolved. Then she was running, stumbling along the stretch of beach away from Zeke, Gage and Alythia.

“Jeena!” Aly scrambled from the table to call out to her friend. It was no good. She looked to Gage.

“I should go see about her.” She sent a regretful look toward her half-finished meal.

“Go.” Gage waved a hand.

Aly hesitated another few seconds, then backed away from the table and turned to race down the shore, kicking up tufts of sand as she went after Jeena. She’d bypassed Zeke, who was extending his hands as though he was about to plead his case.

Zeke let his hands fall to his sides in an “oh well” gesture. He turned, giving a start as though he’d just realized Gage was there.

“G!” Easy and lighthearted at once, Zeke gave an approving smile at the table. He took a seat in the chair Aly had just vacated.

“Looks good!” he raved. Sniffing at a glass, he realized it was water and tossed the liquid to the sand in order to refill the glass with the wine left chilling in the bucket near the table.

Defeated, Gage resumed his seat and rested his forehead in his palm.

* * *

“Thanks for letting me ramble on so late or so early in the morning. What time is it there?”

Marianne yawned through the phone line. “Too early to try and get my eyes to focus in on a clock.”

Aly smiled. “Thanks anyway.”

“What you pay me for, hon.”

“Not exactly.” Aly rubbed at her temple. “I don’t pay you to listen to stupid tales of drama featuring me and my friends.”

“Well...if it affects your well-being, it
is
my business, so it’s all good.”

“Get some rest, Mari. You’ve earned it. We’ll talk later.”

“
Much
later. Can you at least try and take
one
day for yourself?”

“I’ll try.” Aly hoped that wouldn’t turn out to be a lie and ended the call. She set aside the phone and returned her attention to the view from where she sat in one of the cushioned bamboo chairs along the balcony.

The suite was dark. She hadn’t bothered with the lights after returning from Jeena’s room. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d finally gotten her friend settled enough to get some sleep. Too wired to sleep herself, Aly had decided to call Marianne, to whom she had been venting for the past forty-five minutes.

Aly checked her mobile for the time and figured she’d best
try
to get a little sleep herself if she hoped to appear halfway among the land of the living when she met with Clive Weeks later that day.

On perfect cue the doorbell rang.
No
more.
Alythia dropped her face in her palms to muffle the sound.

The bell was followed by knocking and Aly heard her name on Gage’s voice. After a second’s hesitation she left the chair and padded through the living area. Her forced smile was an appropriate match to his concerned one when she opened the door.

“You okay?” he asked.

She could only nod, a gesture that ceased when Gage moved closer to rest against the doorframe.

“Did you eat?” His gaze seemed to intensify tenfold as he peered down at her.

Aly laughed abruptly, looking bewildered, as though she couldn’t imagine where she found strength to fuel the reaction.

“I managed to convince Jeena to have some soup. I took some for myself but it was a far cry from the dinner I didn’t get to finish.”

“How’s Jeena?”

Aly could only shake her head.

Gage provided a weak smile. “I could always apologize.”

She backed away from the door as though he’d told her he had a plague. “Could we please find another phrase to put in place of ‘I apologize’ or ‘I’m sorry’?”

Gage lifted his thumb to the corner of his mouth and appeared to be debating. “How about ‘That’s too bad’?”

“Sold!” She was surprised by the honest ripple of laughter she gave.

“I think my suggestion should come with a peace offering.”

Aly saw the straps of her sandals dangling from his index and middle fingers. “Hmph, good thing I didn’t get more comfortable.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Whatever interest Gage had in talking seemed to have vanished, for he suddenly pushed off the doorframe and advanced.

Alythia had opened her mouth to thank him for returning her shoes but he never gave her the chance. For the second time that day, her body reacted to the delicious sensation of his mouth on hers. Again he began with a tentative exploration that quickly blossomed into a sensuous entwining of their tongues.

Gage withdrew from the kiss to outline the curve of her cheek, brush the sensitive skin behind her ear and trail his nose along her neck.

“Gage?”

“Mmm...”

“Do you kiss all women you know so soon after you meet them?”

He nipped at her earlobe. “Would you believe that I’ve forgotten every other woman I’ve ever met?”

“No,” she gasped, still enraptured by his touch and feeling the vibration of laughter through his body.

“You really know how to hurt a man.”

“It’s not out of habit.” Aly felt her sandals bumping her bottom when he switched them to his other hand while he held her. “So what do I have to do to get my shoes back?” she murmured against his jaw, wanting his mouth on hers.

Something in Alythia’s question, however, cooled Gage’s ardor, for he rested his forehead on her shoulder as if he was suddenly drained. He straightened.

“You don’t have to do one thing.” He glanced around the living area, grimacing slightly, as though he was displeased with himself.

“I’ll...um...I’ll let you get some rest.” He retreated to the door.

“Okay....” Her agreement was at odds with the questions and confusion clouding her mind. Had she said—done—something wrong?

Gage offered the sandals and she hoped her efforts to mask disappointment were good enough. Aly took special care not to let her fingers touch his hands when she took the shoes.

“Thanks.” She didn’t bother to show him to the door and he left without a look back.

* * *

“Is this only day
two
of our
fantastic
Caribbean getaway?” Jeena moaned, holding her head in her hands while she and Alythia took in the beach view from Jeena’s balcony later that morning.

They had ordered breakfast for Orchid and Myrna, who were on the way to join them. Aly enjoyed the breeze and shade while relaxing in one of the lounge chairs surrounding the squat glass table that carried their breakfast fixings—fruit, biscuits, cheeses, turkey bacon and sausage, and a bowl of breakfast potatoes. Matching tea-and coffeepots were the table’s centerpieces.

“You should eat,” Alythia ordered from beneath the wide brim of a floppy straw hat. She risked taking a peek at Jeena, smiling when the woman pouted for a moment longer, then delved into the filling meal.

Aly took on greeting responsibilities when she heard the faint chime of the doorbell. She found the last two members of her crew on the other side.

“Long time no see,” Myrna drawled, tugging Aly into a hug.

Orchid had no time for such pleasantries. She’d already pushed her way past Aly and Myrna and was headed to the balcony.

“What the hell did you say to Zeke?” she demanded of Jeena.

“Dammit.” Alythia rolled her eyes toward Myrna. “I just got Jeen to calm down. This is the last thing they need to be talking about.”

“You can forget that,” Myrna countered while they speed-walked to the balcony. “Zeke was bitchin’ to Jay about it pretty much all night. Ork’s not in much of a ‘benefit of the doubt’ frame of mind.”

Aly stumbled to a halt. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, Dane and I stopped by their room before we went back to ours.”

Alythia delivered a quick prayer that the falling-out sure to occur when Dane relieved Myrna of the notion that they were a couple would wait until after things settled with Zeke and Jeena.

Or
Orchid
and Jeena, as it were. Aly arrived out on the balcony to find her oldest friends squared off in the middle of a shouting match.

“How can you take that jackass’s side over mine!”

“Because I’ve heard it all before! You always get upset when somebody tells you the truth about what you do for a living!”

“Orchid—”

“Passing yourself off like some kind of businesswoman.” Orchid ignored Alythia’s attempt to interrupt. “All you are is a pimp.”

Myrna gasped.

“Bitch,” Jeena spat. “I’d rather be a pimp than a slut. At least a hooker gets paid.”

Orchid winced as though the words were a physical blow. “What are you tryin’ to say?”

“You never were very bright, were you?” Jeena sneered, folding her arms over the red robe she’d thrown on over matching pjs. “Then again, you never had to be, with Aly in your corner.”

“Don’t even try it! Y’all are
not
drawin’ me into this!”

The women didn’t seem to notice Aly bolting from the balcony.

“Aly to make you seem smarter than you are, your family’s money to make you seem more respectable that you could ever hope to be and a parade of idiots in your bed to solidify your slut status!” Jeena wailed. The wind whipped her short hair about her face and added to the wild aura she cast.

Impossibly, the voice volume continued to heighten. In the living room, Aly could only hope the women wouldn’t come to blows. As she was on her way out, Myrna would indeed ruin her manicure trying to break them apart.

“You’re crazy, Alythia Marie Duffy, if you think you’re leavin’
me
here with them fools,” Myrna hissed when she raced out into the living room behind Aly.