The Pleasure Trip

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Rita had purposely exited the stage on the wrong side to avoid Danielle in case she hadn’t realized she’d taken Jayne’s place. But that opposite stage exit probably took a little longer after the music died, causing the smallest ripple in Danielle’s rigid time scheme.

“By the time she tracked down the problem, I was probably already—” Rita’s gaze went automatically to Harrison “—busy somewhere else. And her frustration with the show was my fault, not yours.”

“You don’t know that.” Missy shook her head in emphatic denial, sending curls flying. “Rita, I’ve messed up a ton of times, and she knows it.”

“But you didn’t mess up tonight.” Rita could just picture Danielle in one of her snits. The obsessive manager had looked for a target for her anger and found someone totally undeserving, someone who’d been working hard at her job while Rita was drooling over a total stranger. “I’ll make sure we straighten this mess out and if there’s a way to get your job back you’ll have it back or we’ll sic Jayne on her.”

Assuming Jayne came back onboard.

Her sister was going to have hell to pay for putting them all in this position. But until Jayne came back to fulfill the position of token Frazer woman gone off the deep end, Rita wouldn’t hesitate to engage in a few histrionics of her own.

Squeezing Missy’s shoulder, she hoped she could find a way to fix this.

“Missy, would you excuse Harrison and me for a few minutes and then I’ll meet you at my room so we can come up with a game plan?” She needed to talk to him. Owed him an explanation, or a makeup date…or a quickie in the elevator to tide over her hunger for him.

“Sure.” Missy scooped up her duffel bag. “And you don’t need to meet with me. I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

“Don’t be silly.” She nudged Missy forward with big-sister muscle she couldn’t help but flex whenever someone needed help. “I’ll catch up with you in a little bit.”

As they waited for the sound of Missy’s footsteps to disappear, Rita could already feel the heat of the man beside her. But as much as she still wanted him, she wasn’t sure how to maintain her Jayne-impulsiveness once they left the dark cocoon of intimacy the Jupiter deck offered.

“I understand you need to help your friend.” Harrison’s blue eyes saw right through her despite the shadows of the stairwell. “I just hope you’re not having second thoughts about us.”

“No second thoughts.” Although now that they’d been interrupted, Rita wondered if it wasn’t for the best anyhow since they barely knew one another. She was normally a certified chicken when it came to men, even though she liked to tell herself she was just extremely practical. “And I’m sorry tonight didn’t work out.”

“That’s okay.” He squeezed her hand and planted a kiss on the back of her fingers, an old-world gesture that stole her heart.

“Maybe another time.” She couldn’t believe she was angling for another date with him when she’d just convinced herself she didn’t know him well enough to sleep with him. But sometimes, there was no accounting for chemistry and, oh baby, did she have it for him.

“I’d like that. I want you bad, Rita Frazer, but only when you’re one hundred percent into the moment. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about this, too.” He watched her with lazy eyes, reminding her how hot things could be between them. “You have no idea how sorry.”

Her body still humming with good vibrations he’d brought her, she shot him a smile and hoped she could find a way to be bold and brazen with this man again soon.

“I have a pretty good idea.”

* * *

TAKING DEEP BREATHS, Jayne steeled herself for confrontation as her long, lost lover poured her a drink. Heavy on the gin, easy on the tonic.

Thank God his bartending abilities were better than his dating skills.

“So you’re traveling incognito these days?” He passed her the drink and the question she didn’t want to answer, all the while staring at her with a lazy look that married men should be forbidden to bestow on unsuspecting females.

The rain still pounded the thatched roof over the bar, the fans whirring gently over the lounge to stir the sultry air.

“It protects my privacy to use my sister’s name now that my fame has spread throughout the Caribbean.” She toasted him with her glass before indulging in a sip, knowing damn well he’d see right through the lie and not caring a bit. “I’ve never been one to cause a stir, you know.”

“And you find the general public immune to transparent clothing?” He leaned forward to peer over the bar, his chocolate-brown eyes raking in every inch of her dripping sundress. “I’ll admit I’m surprised.”

Her heart stuttered for an instant as a shark-tooth pendant clanked against the bar when he’d leaned near, bringing his features into too-enticing focus. He’d grown a patch of hair beneath his lower lip, a close-shorn triangle that she wondered what would feel like against her chin if she…

Snap out of it. Jayne forced herself back to reality by inhaling the scent of damp bamboo. If Rita were here, she would have nudged Jayne in the calf with a sisterly kick.

“I had an unexpected run-in with bad weather.” The gin burned her throat before hitting her veins in a sizzling jolt. No, damn it. That was Emmett’s eyes on her body giving her the sizzling jolt. The gin couldn’t begin to dull senses so sharply attuned to this man’s presence. “Perhaps you could just hand over the telephone and I’ll remove myself and my transparent clothing from your fine establishment?”

She heard the bristly tone in her voice and refused to care that he’d gotten under her skin. He was married, after all. Completely out of her jurisdiction. What did it matter if he thought she was a washed-up has-been in her soggy clothes? He had another woman—a gorgeous, dry woman—waiting for him as soon as Jayne placed her call.

“Technically, it’s no longer my establishment.” He reached under the bar and came up with a telephone. “But feel free to call long distance. I hear the new owner has deep pockets.”

“You sold the bar?” Jayne ignored the phone, her problems of ten minutes ago suddenly less significant. “I thought you were going to stay in St. Kitts forever?”

He’d told her as much when he’d been trying to convince her to give marriage a shot. She’d panicked at the idea of settling down in one place—a fate almost as scary as settling down with just one man—and promptly accused him of loving St. Kitts more than her.

In retrospect, she’d realized it hadn’t exactly been a rational argument. But then, she’d never tried to be the world’s most rational woman. That was Rita’s niche. Up until Emmett, Jayne simply hadn’t been used to men taking her too seriously.

“I guess forever didn’t turn out to be as long as I’d hoped.” He picked up the bottle of tonic and poured himself a glass. “Mind if I join you?”

Without waiting for her answer, he walked around the bar to join her on the other side. Her side.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea considering you’re married and I’m in a transparent dress, remember?” She tossed out the most obvious obstacles, knowing she didn’t dare let Emmett within five feet of her when she was feeling more than a little vulnerable. “In fact, I promised your wife I’d just make my call and be on my way.”

She meant to reach for the phone. Really, she did. But the visual of Emmett swinging his thigh around one side of a bar stool kept her gaze fastened to him with super-glue sticking power.

“Ex-wife.” Emmett’s eyes remained fixed on a manila envelope at the end of the bar for a long moment, as if totally oblivious to Jayne’s presence. “She’s officially no longer mine as of today.”

The hollow hurt of his words was unmistakable.

If Jayne had been a more sensitive woman, maybe she could have murmured something sympathetic and comforting. Hell, even a total stranger would offer up condolences on his failed marriage. But as his ex-lover, Jayne couldn’t help but ask the question burning through her brain with all the insistence of a migraine.

“How long were you married?” The question would shatter any illusion she might have created of aloofness, but the answer seemed too important to overlook. He’d asked Jayne to marry him nine short months ago.

“Seven months.” Tearing his gaze away from the envelope she could only assume carried his divorce papers, Emmett grinned over the rim of his glass. “A hell of a track record in married life, isn’t it?”

“You bastard.” Hurt reeled through her as her brain computed the proximity of his proposal to her with his proposal to another woman. “What did you do, ask the first woman you saw after I got back onboard the Venus last spring to marry you?”

“You said no.” He shrugged a shoulder the same way he must have shrugged off his so-called love for her. “And I respect that when a woman says no, she means it.”

“I said I wasn’t ready.” As he no doubt damn well remembered since she’d explained to him in detail all the reasons she needed more time. “Last I checked, ‘I’m not ready’ doesn’t mean no.”

“It didn’t mean yes, either, did it?” He swiveled on his bar stool to face her, his long legs almost touching her hip. “And you can take all the haughty feminine satisfaction you want from knowing I made a dumb-ass mistake by getting married in a hurry since I’m now divorced and I lost my bar in the bargain. So why not just make your phone call and you can high-kick your way back to the S.S. Good Times or wherever it is you make your home these days and we’ll forget this little encounter ever happened?”

Jayne felt her mouth drooping open at his unexpectedly heated words and promptly snapped it shut. Reaching for the phone she realized she didn’t have a phone number handy to call for a ride and she didn’t personally know a soul on St. Kitts. Present company excluded.

Settling the handset back in the cradle in the rather awkward silence, she was about to request a phone book when Emmett slammed his glass on the bar.

“And for crying out loud, would you put some damn clothes on?” He reached over the counter and dug blindly around until he came up with a bright orange T-shirt. Even at six foot two he didn’t exactly tower over her, but his strong arms and lean, surfer’s physique gave him a solid power that…communicated itself to her so clearly that it was all she could do not to lick her lips. “Wear this. Or drape yourself in cocktail napkins. But Jesus, woman, put on something.”