Chapter Two

“Do you like your food mild or spicy?” Riley glanced over her shoulder, a jar of jerk seasoning in her left hand, her British accent tugging him into a haze of obsession.

“Spicy.”

She flashed him a nervous smile and got to work seasoning the chicken pieces. Her hair fell in soft whiskey-color tendrils to the middle of her back. She usually wore it up for work, but he preferred it down. It gave her a homey image he liked, even if he wasn’t ready to admit that the sexy approachable air it lent her enticed him. The white tee she wore fitted just this side of tease, molding her breasts and nipped in at her tiny waist without being skin-tight and obvious. He should have given her just a cursory glance, but her cut off frayed jean shorts displayed her lightly golden legs to distracting advantage. Snagging his attention. Reminding Sam that he hadn’t had sex in months.

What had he gotten himself into?

He’d asked that same question no less than five times since he arrived at Riley’s. The trouble was he didn’t know how to deal with a bawling woman. Just one glance at those big tearful eyes, and his resistance dissolved.

The last thing he wanted or needed was to get tangled up in anyone’s drama, yet here he was.

Tangled right up!

To think he’d imagined St Kitts and Nevis was the perfect place to escape his troubles. Three years ago, he lived in New York. His life was sweet and he loved every minute of it. One year later, it had gone so devastatingly wrong. Sam would have never guessed that hooking up for a one-night stand with a woman he’d just met could ruin his life so completely. He’d been out with friends celebrating his big win in a case that made newspaper headlines and television coverage, when a slinky blonde struck up a conversation. She’d seen him on TV. Sam felt like a celebrity—plied with free drinks and fawning women—nothing could touch him. She’d been sophisticated and pretty with a hands-off air about her. In essence, she was Sam’s type. By natural progression, he and the blonde decided to move things to his place—a loft apartment on 15th Street. They had a wild time that spanned hours. The sex was so-so, but he was still on a major high from his win so that didn’t bother him.

The next night when he heard the knock on his door, he hadn’t even hesitated to answer it. What he wasn’t expecting was the husband of the blonde woman—Lacy—to barge into his apartment fist first. Sam had two inches and a few pounds of muscle on the husband, but the sucker punch laid him on his back. Lacy’s husband—he hadn’t even suspected she might’ve been married—tuned him up good. Left him with five broken ribs, a punctured lung, fractured jaw, and internal bleeding. That night Sam almost lost his life.

It took months to regain his health. By then, another golden boy had taken his place, and Sam felt like the piece of shit Lacy’s husband called him as he’d delivered the last kick to Sam’s ribs and left him for dead.

New York had become a place of humiliation and shame. The last place he wanted to be. So when he crossed paths with an old Law School buddy on the lookout for a partner to join the law firm he was setting up on his home island of Nevis, Sam saw it as an answer to a prayer. He hadn’t hesitated to snap up the offer and within weeks he’d quit his job, sold his loft and moved to the Caribbean to start his life afresh.

Lesson learned. Don’t mess around with strange women. And they didn’t come stranger than Riley Flynn. He’d seen her dancing on her front lawn at midnight in a lace slip nightie for heaven’s sake.

So why was he sitting in her kitchen thinking about kissing her, as he watched her push a stray lock of silky hair off her face while she made iced tea?

Not that he ever would.

But when he held her in his arms this morning, something about her piqued his interest, made his gut clench in an odd way, and warmed his insides.

She was not his type.

Not that he had a type any longer. He just knew she was way too cheerful and comical for his liking.

Okay, so this morning hadn’t been a great example of her zany side, but even then she’d managed to back right into him. They’d been reversing off their drives most mornings for weeks without incident. He reversed to the right, and she to the left. Usually, he got off his drive and on his way before she even started her engine.

Once or twice he noticed her little ritual of hunting around the car for something. Her car keys, he guessed, from the way she pulled down the visor, flipped it back then started searching her car and in her giant shoulder bag.

This morning though, she got in, started the engine, and backed out without even a pause.

Almost as soon as he’d arrived, Riley had exchanged insurance details with him—not that he intended to claim on her insurance for his car repairs—then she’d lapsed into a silence that unnerved him.

Sam breathed in the scent of grilled jerk chicken; his mouth watered.

Why wasn’t she talking? Every woman he’d ever known never shut up.

“How did the job hunting go?” Anything to break the silence.

“It didn’t.” She pushed the lock of hair back again. Nervous habit? “I decided to give the other road users a break and stayed home today.” She poured the tea, brought him a glass then sat opposite him. “I worked on my CV—résumé—instead.”

Sam took a sip of the icy liquid, appreciating the sharp lemon kick to the tea. “What sort of job were you thinking of going after?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe something in tourism.”

Sam nodded.

“Excuse me.” Riley pushed away from the table, stood and went to check on the chicken.

This was ridiculous. Awkward and ridiculous. “Look, Riley—”

“Sam, I—” She turned from the grill oven.

They spoke together.

“I’m sorry.” Again at the same time.

They laughed and just like that, the discomfiture between them dissolved.

“You go first.” Sam leaned back in his chair and waited for Riley to speak.

She drew in a deep breath, wiped her palms on the hips of her cut-offs, drawing Sam’s attention to her long shapely tanned legs and slender bare feet. “I was going to say that I’m sorry about this morning. Not only about your car, but also about the way I cried all over you and practically begged you to go to a wedding with me.”

“I don’t see it that way. You have no reason to apologize.”

“Thank you for being so kind.” She eased back onto her chair. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been dreading this evening all day.”

Not something a guy wanted to discover. Hearing that this woman dreaded spending time in his company dented his ego a little. Especially, since he spent the day reliving the sensation of her body pressed to his in a way that felt too right and made him ache to do more than merely hold her.

“Part of me hoped you wouldn’t come over,” she continued.

It just got better, didn’t it?

She smiled. “But I’m glad you did.”

If it meant he got to be on the receiving end of that smile, so did he.

“Because then I can tell you that I don’t need you to come with me to the wedding.”

“Did you find someone else?” Why did the notion tie his gut in a knot?

“No. I just don’t want you to feel obligated or anything.”

“I don’t feel obligated. Or pressured, or anything else you might think. I’ll attend the wedding with you.” For a second, the light sea breeze that blew in Riley’s kitchen window and played with wispy strands of her hair diverted his attention. Sam shook off the distraction. “You deserve the opportunity to stick it to your ex.”

The truth was that from the moment she’d turned those big tearful amber eyes on him he couldn’t imagine ever saying no to Riley Flynn about anything.

“Thank you.” She bounced out of her seat, more like the woman Sam had noticed these last weeks. “I promise we won’t stay long. Just long enough to let Beto the jerk see that he didn’t ruin me.” She grabbed the yellow oven mitts and shoved them on with more energy than she needed. “That I’m desirable to other men. Then he’ll regret ever leaving me.”

Was that what she was really after? The opportunity to make her ex so jealous he might consider ditching his new wife and returning to her? The thought left a bitter taste of bile in Sam’s mouth.

“Are you hoping to get him back?”

She paused in checking the grill. “What?”

“I want to know what you’re expecting from going to Beto’s wedding. Are you hoping to break up his marriage before it even begins? Are you hoping to get him back?” Sam didn’t temper the hard edge to his questions. “Because if you are—”

“Do you put everyone on the stand as soon as you get into a conversation? Because let me tell you, that’s going to get tired fast.” Riley jammed her mitt-encased fists on her slender hips. “For your information, I do not, and will never, want Alberto Vega in any way. Frankly, I consider myself to have had a lucky escape.” She stared him down.

Had they been opposing counsel in a courtroom, Sam would’ve known he’d met his match. But they weren’t in court and if he were to cross-examine her, Riley truly was no match for him.

But she did possess a fire he suspected would keep things interesting. Sam smiled, because despite her touch of craze, he did like a woman with a little fire. “Objection sustained.”