As Hot As It Gets (15 page)

Carter stood and waited for her to do the same, then slipped his hand under her arm and led her to a secluded table in the corner.

They sat down across from each other, and Claire willed herself to act interested. She should have felt happy to be having a drink with Carter, but something about him just felt a little…off.

Whatever it was, she couldn't put her finger on it. Or maybe she was just being overly critical to keep her distance from any new guys right now.

“You look like you've got something on your mind,” he said.

“Me? Just thinking I'd like another martini.”

He smiled. “Coming right up.”

Carter caught the attention of a waitress and motioned her over, then placed Claire's drink order and asked for a refill of his own drink, too.

Claire realized it had been all day since she'd touched up her makeup, and she began to wonder if the spinach tart she'd had for lunch was lingering anywhere on her teeth. She smiled at Carter and stood up.

“I need to use the ladies' room. I'll be right back.”

Claire went to the restroom and studied herself in the mirror, relieved to find no traces of spinach. She dug around in her bag until she found her lipstick,
then applied a fresh coat, mussed up her hair a bit, and decided that would have to be good enough for Carter.

Her heart didn't feel in this at all. She could barely care what Carter thought of her, appearance or otherwise. But he was a hot guy, close enough to her type under normal circumstances, as far as she could tell. Sure, there had seemed like something was off about him, something that had her a little on edge, but maybe it was just her impending ride on a propeller plane back to Miami that had her feeling edgy.

Yes, that was probably it.

She returned to the table and found Carter talking on his cell phone. When he saw her, he wrapped up the call immediately, snapped his phone shut and tucked it into his pocket.

“Hey lady,” he said, flashing a playboy smile.

Claire sat down and took a sip of her martini.

Carter watched her. “Hard to believe Mason let a catch like you get away.”

Claire shrugged. “It was a mutual thing. Neither of us were looking for love.”

“Ah. You're just a tigress on the prowl then, eh?”

Carter was turning out to be a little annoying. Claire glanced around the bar, wondering how long she'd have to endure this conversation.

“I guess you could say that,” she said, forcing a smile at him.

She sipped her drink, but it left an odd aftertaste.
She glanced down at it and frowned. “This is a crappy martini,” she said.

“Want me to order you something different? Maybe a Screaming Orgasm?”

Oh yeah, Carter was a real class act. Claire glanced at her watch and wondered if he knew the flight schedules well enough to know she was lying if she said her flight was about to leave.

But her thoughts started feeling like they were moving through mud, and she was having trouble thinking of the words to form a sentence. What was it she wanted to say, anyway?

Claire wasn't a lush, but she could usually hold a martini without getting tipsy. Hadn't she eaten enough for lunch? Why was she feeling like she was sixteen and had just downed her first shot of whiskey?

“Hey, I was thinking, maybe we could take a little walk on the beach after this—what do you say?”

Hmm, what did she say? Why wasn't her mouth working? Claire closed her eyes and tried to steady herself, but suddenly she was feeling very, very tipsy.

Yeah, maybe some sea air would do her good.

“Um, sure,” she finally managed to say. “I must not have eaten enough for lunch…. I think this drink has gone to my head a bit.”

Carter placed some bills on the table. “Come on,” he said. “I'll carry you if you're too tipsy to walk.”

Claire let him take her hand and lead her out of the bar, feeling a vague sense of disappointment that
Mason hadn't shown up, but now she couldn't quite remember why she'd wanted him there, anyway.

They left the center of the resort and headed for the ocean, with Claire stumbling along the way. Carter had to hold her up to keep her from falling once, then again. Guests and various landmarks they must have been passing looked more like blurs to her, and it took all her mental energy to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

A fleeting thought came to her: odd that Carter seemed to be taking them away from the populated section of beach, toward the rocky beaches that bordered the jungle.

But she couldn't quite summon the words to question their direction, and so she followed along, stumbling in her sandals until she finally thought to just take them off.

Carter was talking to her now, but she wasn't registering the words. Wha-wha-whawha-wha, wha-whawha…

Huh?

He turned and looked at her. “Claire? Do you hear me?”

She meant to nod yes, but instead she mumbled, “I need to sit.” And she promptly sat down on the sand, unable to walk another step with her head spinning and her body feeling so out of her control.

“Here's as good a place as any,” he said, sitting down beside her.

Claire got an odd feeling. Something definitely wasn't right.

Carter leaned forward, his lips only inches from hers now. “I'll bet you're a really hot lay,” he said, his breath smelling of beer. “You ever screw in the jungle?”

Oh God. This was going very, very wrong. Claire struggled to stand up, but her body wasn't moving.

“Don't bother,” Carter said, reaching out and grasping her breast, his touch rough and invasive. He squeezed her and pressed her breast upward. “In a few minutes you'll be passed out.”

“What?”

“Are you really that dumb? You think you just had a bad martini, you stupid little bitch?”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. Claire was paralyzed with fear for the first time in her life, sure she was in deep trouble and completely unable to help herself.

Again she struggled to stand up, but her body had turned to lead, and everything around her was getting hazy.

Carter pushed her down into the sand and climbed on top of her. Claire tried to scream, but all she heard was a pitiful yelp before his hand covered her mouth. “Too bad you're gonna be asleep for the screw of your life,” he said, grinding his hips into her.

And then she heard voices she didn't recognize. The sounds of laughter and talking. Carter covered her mouth with a rough kiss and didn't let up.

Someone was beside them now, but Claire couldn't look over. She felt herself beginning to black out as a strange voice said, “Oh, sorry guys, we thought we were alone here. Hope you don't mind if we spread out our beach towels over there.”

M
ASON COULD HARDLY
believe what he'd heard. A waitress from one of the bars had come to him, teary-eyed, and confessed that she knew Carter Cayhill was behind some nefarious goings-on at the resort.

What had at first sounded unbelievable quickly settled in Mason's head as truth. Carter, his friend and his sounding board, had betrayed him in the worst kind of way. It made terrible sense.

The waitress had been afraid to come forward for fear of losing her job, but when she'd seen him disappear from the bar with Mason's “girlfriend,” the two of them looking suspicious, she'd felt compelled to finally come forward.

She said she'd heard rumors of him running a prostitution ring there at the resort, and she'd seen a few suspicious transactions happen between him and the bartenders on more than one occasion.

Mason hadn't waited to hear any more. He wanted to find Carter and Claire before anything happened between them so that he could be sure
Claire knew what kind of guy she was dealing with. Why that was so important to him, he didn't want to examine.

The waitress had said she'd had a bad vibe about Carter's intentions with Claire, and Mason had to trust that. Who knew what the man was capable of if he'd been behind the prostitution ring.

She'd said she had seen them heading toward the north beach, and Mason had set off on foot, using his radio to contact security and alert them to the possible situation and to start a search for Carter.

Mason's walk turned to a run as he neared the edge of the main entrance area. He knew a spot in the jungle where Carter had once bragged about taking a woman. It was a shot in the dark searching there first, but it was also all he had to go on.

Fueled by anger and a growing sense of betrayal, Mason raced across the resort, the fact of Carter's involvement in the prostitution ring pounding in his head. How could Carter have lied so blatantly? How could he have pretended to be a friend? How could Mason have been so damn gullible? He didn't have any answers, just the growing urge to punch something or someone.

Fifteen minutes later, he was wandering the edge of the jungle, following footpaths worn by hiking tourists and feeling an animal sort of fury now. He saw a couple having a picnic, sitting on towels spread out on the sand, and he approached them.

“Excuse me, but did you see a man and a woman here a little while ago? He's blond, she's a redhead—”

They peered up at him, squinting in the summer sun. “Oh right,” the woman said. “They went off into the jungle. I think we sort of interrupted them.”

“Thanks,” Mason said as he headed toward the edge of the woods.

A minute later, when he spotted a white sandal lying in the brush and recognized it as Claire's, his every sense went on alert, fear mingling with his fury. A missing shoe couldn't be a good sign.

If anything happened to Claire…

Anything at all, and he'd kill Carter.

Where had this rush of emotion come from? Why was he feeling so damn possessive of a woman he'd been sure he wanted to be rid of only hours ago?

Because Claire turned him into a fool.

And because he wanted her.

The realization nearly stopped him in his tracks. Why hadn't he seen it sooner? Probably because he hadn't been looking for it, hadn't been looking for a relationship, and definitely hadn't been expecting to like Claire as much as he did.

He wanted her.

But what was the likelihood she'd want him, too?

Virtually none, since she'd been the one about to hurry off the island in the first place.

Mason peered into the jungle, banishing the selfish thoughts from his head. He had to focus on finding Claire, regardless of anything else.

And then he heard the telltale sound of plants rustling, and he froze, his every sense on alert.

He edged closer to where the sound had come from, silently pushing aside plants as his gaze scanned every gap in the greenery.

Maybe he'd just heard birds rustling around in the leaves, or maybe Claire was nearby, in trouble.

He searched for what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than minutes, and finally he saw them.

Claire lay lifeless on the ground, twenty feet away, in a secluded spot where he never would have seen them if he hadn't been looking closely. Sunlight danced on the darkened jungle floor, creating odd patterns and flashes of light, temporarily blinding Mason. When he was able to focus again, he saw Carter kneeling down, unfastening his belt.

Mason sprung into motion, his feet pounding the jungle floor as he closed the distance between them. “Carter Cayhill, damn it! You bastard.”

Carter looked up and spotted him just as he was pulling Claire's dress up.

A lump of rage rose up in Mason's chest, and he wanted to pummel Carter for daring to touch her.

But she wasn't his.

Didn't want to be his.

“What the hell?” Carter said, standing up and adjusting his pants.

“I know you're behind the prostitution ring, Carter. Security is on its way here now,” Mason lied, “so you'd better come with me.”

He looked down at Claire, who he realized now was lying lifeless on the ground.

“She had a little too much to drink, man. She's out.”

“You son of a bitch, what did you do to her?”

Mason pushed Carter out of the way, then dropped to his knees beside Claire and felt for her pulse.

But then something hard made contact with his jaw, and he went flying backwards, landing on his back in the brush. His cheek was throbbing, and Carter sprung onto him, grabbing his throat and squeezing his airway shut.

Mason struggled and bucked against the assault, finally breaking free of Carter's hold and toppling him, buying himself time to grab a nearby rock and wield it near Carter's temple.

“One wrong move and I'll knock you out, too.”

He needed to radio security, before things got any more out of hand. But then he heard the familiar squawk of a walkie-talkie, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Security had found them.

“Over here!” he yelled.

A few moments later, two security guards appeared. They dragged Carter up from the ground, then handcuffed him as he struggled and cursed.

“We'll take him back to admin, sir,” one of the guards said.

“Radio medical right away,” Mason said, nodding at Claire. “I think she's been drugged.”

The second guard called back to have emergency medical come right away and roughly described their location.

“You brought this on yourself, Mason. You and your cocky attitude, thinking you can tell me how to do my job, thinking you know every damn thing about running a resort. You should have listened to my ideas every once in a while, asshole.”

His ideas?

Oh, right, his ideas. Right around the time Escapade opened, Carter had come to Mason spouting some pretty lousy ideas about how to improve the entertainment side of the business, and Mason had laughed, had even thought he was joking.

So this is what Carter does in return? “You're a real piece of work. I thought you were my friend.”

Carter laughed as the security guards began leading him back toward the resort. “Yeah, I figured being your buddy was the best way to stay out from under your scrutiny.”

So that he could operate his prostitution ring undetected.

Of course. It all made sickening sense now, and he'd been a fool to trust Carter.

He went to Claire's side and dropped to his knees
beside her, suddenly more terrified than he'd ever been in his life. When he looked at her, so frail and lifeless, his chest contracted and the air disappeared from his lungs.

If anything happened to her, he'd have himself to blame. No one but himself.

He'd been a fool in more ways than one.

 

M
ASON FORCED HIS LUNGS
to work. Air in. Air out. He took a deep breath, forcing his tight chest to expand as far as it would go.

Claire was going to be okay.

Doctor Collins had just spoken those words so casually, as if Mason's entire world hadn't hinged on hearing them. Yet his body couldn't relax all at once, but rather in small increments with each successive breath.

Claire's face was pale, her body still and limp.

“Has she been drugged?” Mason managed to ask.

Collins nodded. “I'm guessing she's been given a dose of Rohypnol. If so, she'll wake up disoriented and probably won't remember anything that's happened since she was drugged.”

Mason was almost too afraid to ask, “Was there any sign of…abuse or mistreatment?”

The doctor shook his head. “None. It's a good thing you found them before anything happened. She might have a few bumps and bruises, but she'll be fine.”

Thank God.

“When will she wake up?”

The doctor shrugged. “Depends on when she was given the drug and how big a dose she consumed.”

“That's the best you can tell me?”

“Her vital signs are good, just a slightly elevated heart rate. I'd guess she could wake up any time now. It's best to let her sleep rather than trying to rouse her.”

“I'd like to at least move her somewhere more comfortable,” Mason said.

“Of course. We'll use the gurney to move her to my office where she can rest until she wakes up.”

Mason glanced over at the gurney and medical attendant he hadn't noticed until now. He'd been so focused on Claire, the rest of the world had faded away.

“I'd like to wait with her,” he said, ready to stand his ground if Collins resisted the idea.

“You're a friend?”

How to describe his relationship with Claire… They weren't officially a couple, and yet she felt like far more than his friend. They were former lovers, definitely, but that too seemed a sadly inadequate descriptor. “She's actually my girlfriend,” he said finally, settling for the easiest response.

Dr. Collins raised an eyebrow, probably thinking about Mason's reputation. He'd never been one for commitment—that much was true.

“That's fine,” he said. “Just keep in mind that
she'll need some time to adjust and wrap her mind around this incident.”

“Got it.”

Mason followed the doctor and his assistant as they pushed Claire on the gurney along the garden path and across the resort to its small medical clinic. Serious medical problems were cause for airlift to Miami, but most non-critical ailments could be handled there on the island, and Doctor Brian Collins was among the best. Mason felt totally secure trusting Claire in the doctor's care.

But that didn't mean he'd leave her side.

The whorl of emotions in his gut felt like a smaller version of the tropical storm that had skirted the island last weekend. The sounds of the birds in the trees nearby, the warm wind that rustled his hair—it all seemed surreal and out of place when Claire was lying motionless on a gurney.

In the small clinic, Mason sat on a chair next to her and watched her sleep, grateful for the steady rise and fall of her chest. In the silence, he was finally able to relax.

What did all this mean? He couldn't imagine letting Claire walk away from him now, and he couldn't imagine life without her.

The thought should have felt like a bolt of lightning striking him, but in the tense moments when he'd feared for her life, it had worked its way into his subconscious until he could only accept it as truth.

He loved Claire.

He wanted her more than any woman who had come before, and he wanted her for keeps.

In the space of a few hours, his entire life had been turned upside down, and for once, he didn't want to set it straight again. He wanted all the messy emotions, the unpredictability and the craziness that life with Claire promised.

He wanted it more than anything.

And now that he knew what he wanted, knew how he felt, the bad-seafood feeling that had been haunting him disappeared. All of a sudden, he felt completely right. At peace, even.

The only question that remained was whether Claire would want him, too.

When her eyelids finally fluttered open and she looked around at her surroundings, Mason felt the weight of uncertainty settle on his chest, combined with relief that she really was okay. This was a woman who'd been ready to walk away from him for good only hours ago.

She blinked at him and pushed up on her elbows, then sat up completely. “What… What happened?” She took in the room, the gurney, her tattered, stained clothes. “How did I—and you—where's Carter?”

“Long story.”

Having stood up the moment her eyes opened, Mason sat down next to her on the gurney. She gave
him an odd look, and Mason asked, “What's the last thing you can remember?”

Claire frowned. “I don't know. I feel like I've been sleeping for a year. What are you doing here?”

The hostility in her voice couldn't be mistaken. While Mason had been having his life-changing experience, Claire had been sleeping. For her, nothing had changed between them.

“Carter drugged you and took you into the jungle, but we caught him before anything happened.”

She seemed to be searching her memory for any recollection of the events.

“The resort doctor examined you and said you were likely given a dose of Rohypnol, and that you won't be able to remember anything from the time you were drugged. It knocked you out for a couple of hours.”

“I remember being with Carter at the bar. We were talking, and… I remember commenting on my drink tasting strange.”

Her eyes widened as the truth settled in on her. “He drugged me.”

“You're okay though. Nothing happened.”

“I was an idiot for trusting him. My instincts told me something was a little off about him.”

“You couldn't have known what he would do.”

She shook her head. “I left him with my drink while I went to the restroom. I gave him the perfect opportunity to slip something into it. I should know better after hearing all those warnings about date-
rape drugs and never leaving your drink unattended at a bar.”