Escapade. Diana Palmer

      Because of the noise of the surf, she didn’t hear him approach until he was right beside her. She looked up, her green eyes faintly covetous on his tall, powerful body in the elegant dark evening clothes. The white of his shirt made his tan seem even darker. She’d known this man forever. All the long years of her cloistered childhood she’d admired him. Through his public and private affairs, through the anguish of her home life, it was dreams of Josh that had kept her sane. He didn’t know. That was her secret.

      “Sorry I ran away,” she said, feeling the need to apologize in case she’d seemed rude. He’d been kind to her, and she felt ungrateful. “I’ve got a rotten headache.”

      “Don’t apologize,” he replied. “I hate the damned noise myself, but it was unavoidable. They’ll all be gone soon, one way or the other.” He looked down at her. “Why did Ted take so long to ask if you needed anything? Is he the reason you came out here?”

      She stared at him blankly. “I beg your pardon?”

      “Did he do something to make you uncomfortable?” he asked impatiently. “He’s too outspoken sometimes.”

      She laughed in spite of herself. “As if he ever would. Don’t you know how you intimidate your employees?”

      He cocked an eyebrow and smiled. “I don’t intimidate you.”

      “Ha, ha,” she said. “Then why am I here?”

      He shrugged. “You needed a rest. Mirri couldn’t get you out of town, so she called me.” His eyes narrowed. “She’s a good friend. I can’t figure out her wild taste in clothes, but I like her.”

      She smiled. “So do I.” She stretched lazily, feeling as safe with Josh as she always had. “I love it here.”

      She looked at ease, and that relaxed him. Turning back to the sea, he stuck one long-fingered hand into his slacks pocket and lifted the cigar he’d just lit to his mouth. “I bought Opal Cay for this view,” he remarked. “Prettiest damn stretch of beach and horizon in this part of the islands.”

      She had to agree. In the distance, the dark outline of trees on the next island was plainly visible, along with the colorful neon lights of the casino that had been built there. It was one of Josh’s holdings, and he liked looking at it at night. The brilliant lights shone in the thick darkness that clung to the horizon, yet the complex was barely visible in daylight.

      “I like trees and sunsets,” she remarked.

      “I like the look of money being made,” he mused, watching her.

      “That’s rotten, Josh!”

      “I love to watch you rise to the bait.” His dark eyes admired the low cut of her sleek silver dress with its thin straps. “You shouldn’t dress like that around this sophisticated crowd,” he cautioned. “No wonder Ted took his time getting back.”

      “It’s very modest, compared with what that redhead had on,” she accused, though it pleased her to know he noticed. She wanted to impress him, and she wanted him to see her not as a child, but as a woman.

      “That redhead is a stripper.”

      “Why did you invite her?”

      He shrugged. “One of the sheiks took a liking to her, as they say back home. I didn’t imagine it would hurt the deal to let him bring her along.”

      “That’s disgusting,” she said shortly.

      His face went bland and vaguely wicked. “No, it isn’t. It’s business.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, they won’t be staying the night,” he said knowingly, and smiled.

      She flushed, glad he couldn’t see the color in her face. “Why do you always put me in the room next to the main guest room? The last couple you entertained kept me awake all night. She was a redhead, too. And she screamed,” she muttered.

      “And that brings back a memory, doesn’t it?”

      She hadn’t expected him to bring it up. In eight years they’d never talked about it. She shifted her stance, trying not to let him see her face.

      “Aren’t you going to answer?” he chided.

      “There’s nothing to say. What I saw happened a long time ago.”

      He put his smoldering cigar in his mouth and forced the broad tip back into bright orange life. “It isn’t a memory I like,” he said gruffly. “It shamed me to know you’d seen me with Terri on the beach. I was aroused enough to be careless.”

      “I didn’t even realize you were out there with her,” she replied tersely. She tried to blot out the memory of Josh’s aroused, nude body poised over Terri’s writhing form, but it was impossible.

      She looked away, shivering with reaction. How that memory had haunted her, the sight of his big hand on Terri’s hips as he’d jerked her up to him in a sharp rhythm. When she’d cried out and convulsed, Amanda had been horrified. Then Josh had found his own satisfaction and the sight had burned into her brain like acid. She’d run away, so fast, trying to escape the erotic images.

      She closed her mind to the rest of it. Turning, she walked along the beach. Her body felt oddly on fire.

      “I know it was traumatic for you,” he said quietly, falling easily into step beside her. “Maybe I should have brought this all up at the time, but you were pretty naive at fifteen.”

      She wrapped her arms across her chest, trying to forget the memory of his face as he’d suddenly given in to his own pleasure. In all her life she’d never seen anything like it.

      “There’s no need to explain it all, Josh,” she whispered in anguish, turning her head away. “I understand now what was happening.”

      He took a sharp breath and jammed one hand into his pocket. “All right,” he said angrily. “We’ll skirt around it some more, just as we have for the past eight years. I just wanted to clear the air. You brought up the noisy, amorous guests next door to you, so, it seemed like the right time. But I guess you’ve had enough to deal with lately without my bringing up embarrassing memories.”

      She stopped walking and turned to him, her face shadowed as she looked up. “Dad protected me so,” she began slowly. “I’d...never even seen a naked man.”

      “Your father sheltered you too damned much,” he said.

      She lifted her hair away from her hot face without looking at him. Her body felt funny. Hot. Clammy. Throbbing with some sensation she couldn’t understand.

      Josh paused in front of her and reached out and touched her shoulder. His fingers fell lightly on her heated flesh. She caught her breath. His touch was the most erotic she’d ever felt, and she couldn’t hide her reaction.

      His dark eyes slid down to her thin gown, to the small, hard peaks that betrayed what she was feeling. That, and her ragged breathing and the set of her exquisite body, told him things he didn’t really want to know just yet.

      “You’re vulnerable,” he said curtly. “The night, the strain of the past week, the excitement tonight...maybe even the memory we share, it’s all knocked the pins out from under you.”

      “Yes,” she said, her eyes wide as they searched his in the flood of light that came from the house.

      His fingers trailed along the throbbing pulse in her throat, and further, to the faint outline of her collarbone. Her breath caught, but she didn’t protest or push at his hand.

      His lips parted as he watched her face. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was dangerous. She was unguarded, and he was aroused. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Just after Terri had left, there had been a Latin heiress with whom he’d conducted a very lukewarm, long-distance affair. And yet the tiny sound that suddenly escaped Amanda’s throat aroused him more than Louisa Valdez’s naked body in a bed ever had.