Still So Hot!. Serena Bell

wouldn’t believe the scene was real. The resort was unbelievable—gorgeous rooms with white linens, flowers on the credenza and an orchid on the pillow. Thick plush towels in stacks in the bathroom and a white bathrobe behind the door. Flowers and palms and secluded little alcoves with marble benches. And an army of people employed to keep him happy. He’d just have to keep his mind off the tab and enjoy it as long as he could. Until Elisa ousted him from paradise.

      Oh, yeah, and then there was the other scenery—a veritable army of bikini-clad women lying on chaises, sipping drinks, lounging on the steps in the shallow water. His mouth was dry, and he wasn’t sure if it was the visuals or the fact that a G&T would be perfect right about now. All he’d have to do to get a drink was to flag down one of the many poolside waiters with trays on their hands and towels over their arms.

      Because Elisa had said they should continue this half-assed charade, Celine had come down to the pool with him and was asleep face down on the chaise beside him, her cheek probably imprinted by now with the texture of the chair. He cast a wary glance in her direction. He’d promised to wake her if she slept too long so she could put on more sunscreen. “Celine.”

      She didn’t move.

      “Celine?”

      He sighed. He didn’t want to be responsible for burning America’s newest sweetheart to a crisp. But he didn’t want to wake a sleeping lionness, either. She’d been angry since his rejection in the cab.

      Now she looked like a little kid, her mouth slightly open, her smooth, unlined face even more youthful in repose. She was definitely a wakeup call to him. Even though she was just five years younger than he and Elisa, she came across as far more naive.

      He’d discovered there was a limit to how far even he would go, and picking up a twenty-two-year-old newbie TV star in a drugstore and following her to the Caribbean had showed him a set of lines he no longer wanted to cross. He’d had to ignore warning sirens in his brain to get himself here, and he wouldn’t do that again. So the scenery might be lovely at this swimming pool, but until further notice, his policy was look but don’t touch.

      He was staring at one of the sunbathers when he discovered that she was Elisa. He hadn’t done it with any kind of conscious thought; he’d just let his eyes drift until his attention had been snagged by a woman’s golden limbs and reddish hair. It was always long legs and auburn hair that felled him. He would daydream, notice a woman and then realize he’d been half hoping it was Elisa. Only in this case it was, and instead of his heart sinking with disappointment, he felt a small hopeful glow in the center of his chest. She looked up just then, caught his eye and waved.

      Damn it, he didn’t like to be found staring. Men should avoid that at all costs. There was a fine art to scoping. You never let a woman see the top of your head or wonder where your eyes had been. A close outside observer might be able to read your mind, but the recipient of the gaze should never discover that it was directed at her unless you wanted her to. And he didn’t want Elisa to know. Not by a long shot.

      She’d gotten up from the lounger and was headed in his direction. Her long strides ate up the pebbled surface of the pool deck.

      “Hey,” she said.

      She wore what should have probably been the dullest, drabbest bathing suit on earth. It was chocolate brown, with wide straps and a high heart-shaped neckline that curved over the tops of her breasts, and it was almost straight across the bottom, like high-cut shorts instead of a bathing suit triangle. But it wasn’t drab on Elisa. The brown set off her eyes, and made the strands of red and gold in her hair stand out, and the cut of the suit—whatever the girly fashion name for it would be— reminded him of a ’40s movie star and was somehow sexier for not trying to be flashy.

      It looked like it would be a bitch to get her out of, but the finest pleasure, too. Like peeling fruit, exposing bare, round, luscious bits of her.

      Now his mouth was really dry. “Hey.”

      She looked uncomfortable, her eyes not meeting his. “Is she—?”

      “She’s asleep.”

      Elisa knelt at the side of Celine’s chaise, then nodded to confirm Brett’s diagnosis. He made a superhuman effort not to stare at the neckline of Elisa’s suit and the mouthwatering body it outlined. He tried to forget he knew the exact curve and weight of her, the way her lips parted when he touched her just right. Those sounds she made.

      Instead he asked, “How long do we perpetuate this pretend romance?”

      She stood up. “I just got off the phone with Celine’s publicist. I needed another opinion.”

      “And did you get one?”

      “She’s good with the plan.”

      “Which is?”

      “A couple of hours lounging at the pool together and a few drinks in the bar afterward. And then Celine moves on, and you’re free to go.” She surveyed the landscape of human flesh. “If you can drag yourself away.” She chuckled.

      He ignored that last line. “Will she cooperate?” He gestured at Celine. Awake, she’d been sullen and hostile, snapping at his attempts to make conversation and refusing his help to drag an empty chaise out of the shade.

      “I’ll tell her she has to. And Haven will tell her she has to. And it’s just a few drinks. How much trouble can she cause?”

      He shrugged. It made him uncomfortable to have Elisa towering over him, so he got to his feet. He’d forgotten how tall she was, only a couple of inches shorter than him. He liked tall women because he didn’t have to stoop to kiss them.

      He had to stop fantasizing about kissing her, about stripping her out of her clothes, about laying her on a chaise and sliding his body up the length of hers. He’d made the decision on the plane that, if he wanted to be her friend, he couldn’t afford to remind her of what she hated about him. He couldn’t be the man she’d built her whole career around outwitting. He’d shut that part of himself down.

      Shut it down. Just like that.

      Except he was still thinking about kissing Elisa. With a slight incline of his head, he could have those soft lips against his. And coax her tongue—

      He knew exactly how it would feel against his. Like that night, when he’d wanted it to extinguish the craving, and instead it had fed the fire.

      What was wrong with him, that he couldn’t put sex out of his head for ten minutes?

      She shifted from one foot to the other, hands on hips, which only made her waist look narrower. “So do you have a return flight?”

      She’d lowered her voice, and, as if by agreement, they took a few steps away from where Celine lay.

      “Haven’t booked one yet. Have you tried to do anything online? Someone said it was insanely expensive to call out if you don’t have an international plan, so I was trying to book through the website, but I couldn’t get my laptop to connect to the hotel wireless—”

      Elisa frowned and scraped a toe over the glossy surface of the pool deck. “You should get on that. I can do it on my phone if you can’t get online.”

      “First you tell me I can’t leave, and now you’re trying to boot me off the island.”

      “I’m just—”

      “You want me when you want me, and then you’re done, and you kick me to the curb like I’m garbage—”

      “I’m—” But then she got that he was messing with her and smiled. It made him miss the good old days with a vengeance. When they’d smiled at each other all the time, joked and laughed and flirted and—

      For a long moment her eyes stayed on his face, as if she were thinking it, too, but just when he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold her gaze, it flickered to something behind him. He turned to look. All he saw was the spiky greenery at the side of the pool. Then his vision resolved a blur of floral