Spirits had lifted tremendously by the time the dinner hour arrived. The group met in a dining room fit for gods or, at the very least, kings. The area occupied a vast space along the villa’s multilevel rooftop. It overlooked the bay that mirrored the pastel blue shades of the late evening skies above.
A steady, comfortable breeze kept the palm leaves and flowers swaying actively amid aromatic air that swept the open construction of wood and stone. Darker wood composed the high ceiling that was softly lit by a trio of low-hanging chandeliers. Electric candles gleamed behind a series of cylindrical tinted lanterns on the table. Hanging vines and bushes outlined a spot that was equipped with a stone hearth in the corner. There, a fire blazed brilliantly to combat a chilly breeze blowing in off the surf.
Besides the hearth, diners had an unobstructed view of the bay and sky. The dining room’s interior flooring was light brown stone. The heavy table was fashioned of rich wood with a distinctive charcoal-brown color. Wide wicker chairs accented the wood and stone color scheme. The diners held the same opinion that they were as comfortable as they appeared, with thick cushions covering the seats.
The table could serve twelve easily. There were ten for dinner that evening, however, and they’d arrived in a state of awe. The view was unmatched, and pretty damn close to indescribable. The setting sun shaded the sky and clouds with an array of pastels in blends that were impossible for a human to duplicate.
“The view alone is worth whatever Maxton would want to charge for a night here,” Rook declared.
No one responded, but everyone agreed. Still rather dazed, they managed to take their places at the table already aglow from the fat candles under glass.
“Who keeps up a place like this?” Viva asked.
“Same folks who handle the yacht,” Tig told his sister-in-law.
“Convenient,” Clarissa noted.
“Mmm...and another way to up the price,” Sophia added.
“Have the owners mentioned what a night might go for?” Rayelle asked.
“Brace yourself,” Eli said, then grinned. “Initial figures are being thrown around in the range of $25-$40K a night.”
A round of hushed and shocked curses carried around the table.
“The price is why we’re here,” Linus chimed in. “To brainstorm ways to make it worth the expense.”
“I agree with Rook.” Paula shivered in approval of her surroundings. “The view alone goes a long way. Joss won’t have far to go with a head start like that.”
Low laughter surrounded the table, and shortly after, two uniformed servers arrived to begin filling everyone’s water goblets and wine glasses. Paula, Clarissa and Sophie opted for wine. Rayelle, Viva and the guys chose from the array of beers on tap. The night’s menu was to consist of hearty steaks, potatoes and homemade bread.
Linus took the liberty of ordering for Barker, who still had not arrived for dinner. Ray was first to notice his absence.
“He said something about having a conference call when we were out today,” Rook explained.
“Oh yeah, you guys were scouting clubs,” Paula mentioned.
For a while, the chatter fixed on that outing. Servers continued to mill about, supplying the night’s appetizers. Fried asparagus chips with a gooey spinach and artichoke dip and wheat medallions with a seasoned olive oil were a few of the offerings.
“Everybody eat up,” Rook advised. “Me and Bark found some dance halls guaranteed to work off every calorie you put on here tonight.”
The laughter and conversation were still going strong when Barker arrived.
“Doesn’t look like it was a fun chat with your colleagues,” Tig noted.
“Yeah.” Barker took his place at the table. “Others have been a lot more fun.”
“Wanna talk about it?” Eli asked.
“Can you talk about it?” Viva queried playfully.
Barker laughed. “It’s not top secret. Just a few of my reporters forgetting they’re reporters and not interrogators.”
“Ouch.” Tig winced. “No fun when you’ve got to wear that particular management cap.”
“No, it’s not.” Barker sighed. “But in their defense, they’re a good group. A little green, so there’s still some fine-tuning needed. A few who need to learn the difference between stressing to someone the importance of speaking out and berating them when they choose not to.”
“Seems a lot of reporters could refine that skill, and not just the green ones,” Rayelle decided.
“Some of your colleagues stress the public’s right to know, and they forget the people they want to ‘speak out’ are a part of that public.”
The group mulled over Sophia’s valid point as the servers arrived with the meal. Mouthwatering aromas battled with the floral breeze to craft a fragrance that was nothing short of stellar. Conversations stalled hard and fast once the group dug in. The scrape of cutlery on the deep ceramic plates were the main sounds for a while. Quiet murmurs sifted around the table with requests to pass butter and sour cream for potatoes, steak sauce for the massive T-bones and New York strips. The meats had been grilled to perfection.
“Would I be off the mark to guess your reporters are having trouble getting witnesses to talk?” Ray asked when they’d been eating silently for a while.
“You wouldn’t be off the mark at all.” Barker grimaced with agreement.
Paula was grimacing then too. “I guess the words rat and snitch have been exchanged more than once.”
“Yeah.” Barker laughed shortly. “On several occasions.”
“In situations like that, it can be impossible to get people to talk,” Ray added.
“And I’m trying to get my people to see that not everyone trusts the press enough to open up, even if there’s the possibility it could change their situation.”
Barker’s outlook drew a nod from Paula. “That’s the problem right there. Possibility. Now, if we could talk guarantees...”
“Can’t ever make those.” Barker leaned back from the table as though he had no intention of eating any further.
“Until we can, your reporters are gonna have those difficulties all during their careers,” Paula noted.
“You’re in law enforcement, Paula,” Rook chimed in. “Are you saying you approve of people not coming forward even for the mere possibility of things changing?”
“I think I’m saying I understand it, more than I approve of it.” Paula outlined the mouth of her wineglass with her index finger. “Understanding why change isn’t that grand a concept is a hard sell for people who grew up privileged.”
“Ouch again.” Tig swigged down what remained of his beer. He was provided with a full and chilled mug moments later.
“I’m not trying to step on toes, but when you grow up a certain way...”
“Underprivileged,” Ray interjected and smiled.
Paula nodded. “It can be hard enough to believe a person means you well, and even harder to believe they can help you change your life.”
“So I should tell my team to give up when it’s clear they’re dealing with things they don’t understand.”
“Giving up is the very last thing they should do, Barker.” Paula was shaking her head then while sipping from the glass of Pinot Noir she’d requested. “But they need to exercise more patience and understanding. A person may be scared, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to do what’s needed to change their place in life. Tell them to keep trying, but gently.”
“Thanks, Paula.” Barker tipped his glass in toast.
Paula enjoyed another sip of her wine and found Linus’s dark gaze on her when she set it down.
* * *
Enjoying more of the view was all anyone wanted to do once the filling meal had been finished. The view was a stunner by day or night, sunset or dawn. Still, none among the group could argue they weren’t curious about what entertainment gems Rook and Barker had uncovered during their morning of club scouting. Besides, the steak dinner was more than deserving of being worked off at one of the shimmering dance halls they’d glimpsed upon arriving in Nassau.
They were ferried back by way of the Idella. Then they began their night of club hopping from the three horse-drawn carriages awaiting them at the pier. Rook and Viva occupied the only two-person carriage and brought up the rear behind the others. The city was a remarkable display of conversation, energy and lights that were just beginning to glow amid early evening skies. Women showed off ankle-breaking dance sandals while men were decked in their finest casual attire. In Nassau, club hopping was as much about fashion as it was about dancing.
The place was also about seduction. It hadn’t escaped Paula that the night was also meant to entice. She and Rayelle had traded more than a few glances since they’d been seated in the comfortable white oak carriages. Ray and Barker rode in the first carriage, along with Clarissa and Eli. Paula and Linus had been tagged to ride along with Sophia and Tigo. All three of the loving couples were especially demonstrative that night. Paula was sure the underlying messages were meant for her and Rayelle.
Paula doubted those messages were meant for Barker, but she was sure Linus needed no prodding. He’d made a point of keeping his hands somewhere on her body since they’d boarded the Idella. Now, seated on the plush cushions across from Tig and Sophie, who kissed without any sense of propriety, Linus seemed intent on caressing Paula into the same state of wantonness. She wondered if he sensed that she was already there, and was sure he had. Clearing her throat, she tried to focus on a conversation that might take things in a direction opposite of where his hand on her thigh was trying to take it.
“Have you guys had any luck looking into those project links to Bormann? Does anything look familiar with the photo file I left with you earlier today?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t talk much about it when you left.”
Paula shook her head as if she meant to clear it. The head shake though was mainly to dissuade his tempting mouth from the sensual glide it charted from her ear to the sensitive spot behind it. “Doesn’t sound like much of a meeting,” she said.
“Actually it was. My partners gave me some good advice.” His words were a whisper as he returned to her ear and began a soft wet suckle of the lobe.
Paula felt like she was drowning and tried desperately to remain afloat. “So what was the advice?”
“Something like what you gave Bark. To keep trying and do so gently.”
“Were they talking in terms of gratification?”
“Yeah, just a different kind.”
“I thought we already covered that.”
“Jeez, Paula, is sex all you think about?”
Her gaze flared as she sent him an incredulous look. Lips parted, she readied a retort that was cut silent when his tongue occupied her mouth. Paula felt more than heard the purr flooding her throat. Instinct had her thighs parting when his hand roamed higher, until his fingers were grazing her middle hidden beneath the jumpsuit she’d chosen for the night out.
His thumb mimicked the circular strokes of his tongue around hers. Paula rested on her willpower when her clit ignited under his tongue. She squeezed his wrist to still it.
Linus showed her mercy and eased off. But his features sharpened with a look that promised he wouldn’t ease off for long.
* * *
The group had hopped around to three clubs, each more dazzling than the one before it. The architecture in connection with the breathtaking views made for several stunning establishments. Barker and Rook basked in the flattery from their companions over making such excellent selections. It was, however, the fourth selection that brought them the most praise.
The Star Gazer was a particular hot spot, and with good reason. The three-story club boasted circular balconies on either side that were dedicated dance floors, allowing visitors to lose themselves in music under the stars or amid the clouds when rain was in the forecast. The skies were star-filled that night, however, and club patrons took total advantage of the perfect weather.
Paula broke from the group shortly after they arrived. Eager to escape Linus’s touch and her own lack of resistance to it, she headed off to shed her cares and concerns among the scores of bodies gyrating gleefully both in and outside the club’s stone and tinted glass frame. She didn’t remain unattached for long and found her escape in the arms of more than a few dance partners. She’d just taken the arm of one who offered to show her to the rooftop dance floor, when her arm was claimed by another.
“L—”
“Enough dancing.”
Linus whisked Paula away so smoothly, she barely felt her hand slip from the elbow of the man escorting her.
“Linus.” She was certain he couldn’t hear her over the stirring roar of the music.
The Star Gazer offered dance alcoves for patrons who required more privacy for their movements. The spaces were numerous across the sizable club. Linus found one within moments of them stepping onto the second level.
“I thought you said ‘enough dancing’?” she queried when her back bumped the alcove’s padded black upholstered wall. Her lashes stirred when his voice hummed against her cheek.
“I did.”
“Then why—?”
His tongue claimed her mouth for the second time that night. Unlike before, the claiming this time possessed a ruthless fervor. Paula didn’t try to resist its tug on her every hormone. She met his seeking thrusts with lazier, contented ones of her own. She murmured a complaint when he halted the kiss to slide his mouth down her neck. She felt her feet leaving the thick, deep red carpeting of the alcove floor. Instinctively, her legs encircled his waist as Linus cupped and fondled her bottom. She could feel his lips retracing their heated path along her neck.
“Where was he taking you?”
Paula, becoming increasingly lost in the kiss, didn’t answer. Linus ceased his nips along her neck and gave her bottom a decidedly firmer squeeze before he repeated himself.
“Wha-what?”
“Your partner?”
Awareness flooded Paula’s gaze, but she maintained her bewilderment. “Which one?” She delighted in the shimmer of anger that was unleashed in his rich chocolate eyes.
“You shouldn’t tease me.”
“I thought you had a handle over letting your emotions control you?”
Linus’s expression remained grim, though his voice harbored a noticeably lighter tone when he spoke. “My therapy didn’t cover this part,” he told her.
Paula rested back against the wall. “And exactly what is this?”
“I’ve never been jealous about you, Paula.”
“That’s commendable, considering there’ve been so many things to be jealous of over the years.”
Linus shrugged and allowed his gaze to shift momentarily. “It’s easier to deal with from a newspaper or through a TV screen. In person, though...” He shrugged again.
“I was just dancing with him—them,” she clarified and his striking features sharpened. Then she laughed. “Are you really going to stand there and tell me you’re jealous? From what I’ve heard, you could have your pick of over half the women in Philly to bring down here.”
“Nice to know I’ve got the DA keeping such a good eye on me.”
Paula rolled her eyes and tried to keep her mind off where his fingers were. “Doesn’t take keeping an eye on you to do that,” she said. “You know as many people as I do. Word travels...”
“None of them meant anything to me, Paula.”
“And I do?” Her eyes narrowed and she nudged his chest with hers. “Don’t worry about answering that. It’s normal to let sex with an old flame screw with your head.”
“She’s only screwing with my head because I love her.”
Paula bristled, knowing that an attempt to disentangle herself would be pointless. His hold accentuated a sensual delicateness, but Paula knew that was for form’s sake. One move from her that he didn’t care for, and that delicateness would easily flip to domination.
“Tell me you don’t feel the same,” he demanded before attempting to coax an answer out of her with a slow nibble of her earlobe.
When Paula refused to answer, Linus took his nibbling a step further. He supported her bottom fleetingly before his fingers grazed her middle.
“Tell me you don’t, Paula.”
“I’ll do better than tell you.” The longing coming from her eyes was replaced with accusation. “You don’t love me, L. Not really. Not like you once did.”
“How can you say that?” The sharp edge returned to his features.
“Seriously.” Quiet laughter held the word. “We’ve been back in each other’s lives all of a skinny minute. You can’t feel the same, because back then you trusted me a helluva lot more than you do now.” She gave the briefest of head shakes. “Of course, back then, you kept me in the dark too. Maybe if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been blindsided when I found you redecorating our room and accusing me of wanting to steal your piggy bank.”
“I told you what that was about, P.”
“But you haven’t told me all of it. You say you love me, but you won’t or can’t trust me with the full truth.”
“And do you really want that, Paula?” He allowed her to slide down him until her feet returned to the floor. “You really want to know my deepest and darkest parts? Really want to see what made me who I was then, and where it would take me to tell you about it now?”
Paula’s expression changed as a more curious element crept into her gaze. “That’s not who you are now.”
“That’s who I’ll always be at the heart of it. We never lose who we really are, Paula.”
“No, but we do learn how not to be defined by it.”
“And what happens when I—what, Paula? Confess all to you?”
She shook her head again. “No idea. I want the entire truth, because you owe me that.”
As though suddenly depleted, Linus braced his hands on the alcove wall and bowed his head. “The entire truth has nothing to do with you, Paula.”
“And until you see what a load of crap that is, there’s no hope for us.”
“You mean, no hope until I strip myself bare for you? Let you see what I was—” He stopped, shut his eyes then. What he believed he could too easily be again if he opened that door... Linus considered the possibility in silence.
He didn’t need to say more; she understood well enough. Whatever had happened between them—whatever hurts and guilt there were—it didn’t touch the hurt and fear that his past held over him like a storm cloud. How the hell was she supposed to compete with that? How the hell did she convince a man like Linus Brooks that looking weak in front of her was the last thing he ever had to worry about? At any rate, competing with it was exactly what she’d have to do if she expected to get back the man she had never stopped loving.
“So we’re done, is that what you’re saying?” He knocked his fist against the wall and turned. “I screwed up again, didn’t I?”
“No, L.” Paula gave a sad smile. “You just pissed me off. I hear it’s a pretty common thing when the folks involved are stubborn as mules.”
Nodding, Linus rested back on the wall. “So what do we do about it?”
“No idea.” Paula’s sad smile carried a hopeful edge then.
“Do you want us back?” Linus pushed off the wall and then waved off the question. “Don’t answer me. Just think about whether you do. Think about whether you can have us back only on your terms, because it may not be possible for me to meet them. I know what I want, Paula, and it’s you.”
He bristled then, as though he were bracing himself to move on to something he was reluctant to speak about. “I want you back, but not if it means you have to compromise yourself. If I’m not willing to do that, it’s wrong for me to expect you to.” Closing the small bit of space between them, he cupped her cheek. “I’m gonna get out of here. Let you enjoy yourself.”
“Line—”
“I need to go, Paula.” He fixed her with a crooked smile. “If I see you on the floor with some other fool, I’m sure to forget everything I’ve learned in my anger management classes.” With those words, he kissed her cheek and left her.