Blame It on Paradise (12 page)

She passed a hand through her hair, lacing the air with its delicious aroma. Jack’s hackles went tense under the power of the scent he had reveled in during the days and nights he’d spent on Darwin. Levora’s muffins weren’t the only thing he’d been craving, and the scent of Lina’s hair seemed to seep into his skin, starting all kinds of telltale responses.

“Jack—”

“I know,” he said over her. “Enough chit-chat about Levora’s muffins. Enough talk about everything.” He wanted to use his mouth in more effective ways to let her know how much he had missed her. How much he still wanted her.

He realized that she must have seen the naked hunger in his eyes when she said, “I want you to leave.” She lightly rested her hand on his lapel. “If you don’t, I’ll just be right back where I was three weeks ago.”

He brushed her left temple with the backs of his fingers. “Would that be so bad?”

“I don’t think it would be bad at all. That’s the problem.”

Her eyes went to his lips as her fingers plucked at the sides of his jacket. He cupped her face, lowered his mouth to hers, and felt her breath on his lips just as loud pounding issued from the next room.

CHAPTER 9

“Jackson!” Reginald shouted the name over the sound of his fist banging on the double doors of the penthouse. “Are you still in there?”

Jack and Lina abruptly pulled apart. She used both hands to smooth her clothing fully back into place as she started for the foyer. Following her, Jack took choppy breaths and adjusted the front of his slacks and his jacket to conceal the effect Lina’s almost-kiss had on him. At the doors, he grabbed the brass handles, stopping her from opening the doors. Her flushed skin burned with heat and he was tempted to grab her and kiss her in spite of the muffled voices on the other side of the heavy doors.

“Let’s get this over with, Jack,” she said quietly.

His hands tightened on the twin handles. It would be so easy to just keep the door shut, to turn all the locks, latch the bolts and keep the world outside where it belonged: outside.

Lina peeled his hands from the fancy door handles. She held his hands for a lingering moment before she freed them and tossed open the doors. She shared a peeved look with Jack when Reginald led Burke into the suite.

“When you said an hour I didn’t know if you meant an hour for us to present the proposal, or that you wanted to see us in an hour,” Reginald said. “Forgive us for intruding, but quite frankly, I couldn’t wait to find out if my MVP hit it out of the park,” Reginald added with a stern nod.

“Or got his second strike,” Burke muttered hopefully.

“At least I’m in the game,” Jack shot from the corner of his mouth. He turned to Reginald. “We were in the middle of heated negotiations when you arrived.”

“Actually, I’ve made my decision.” Lina went to the bar, and Reginald happily trailed after her. She took her time collecting a bottle of Waiwera Infinity water and a crystal tumbler. She deliberately neglected to take drink orders for anyone else before she took a seat on a brown velvet chaise.

Burke scurried to her side. “Can I get that for you, Ms. Marchand?” he asked, indicating the water-pouring duties.

“Touch me or my beverage and I’ll crack your windpipe with my elbow,” Lina said. Her tone was so pleasant, Burke seemed to think she was kidding.

“You island people are so…
expressive
,” he laughed with a snort, reaching for the clear glass bottle.

Lina scarcely glanced at him as she brought the tumbler down, pinning Burke’s knuckles to the table. “Your offer is incredibly generous,” she started over Burke’s girlish whimper of pain. “You’ve made it nearly impossible to refuse.”

Reginald gave Jack a hearty clap on the shoulder. “It’s a slightly revised package from the one Jack would have presented on Darwin, given the chance,” he said cheerfully. “We decided to add in the office space, the apartment and use of the corporate jet as additional incentives. As you’ve seen, the offer is more than generous. It’s downright embarrassing, actually, which is why we included the writ of confidentiality. If word of your platinum agreement got out, we’d never be able to acquire another product without giving away the shirts off our backs. You see, Ms. Marchand, the world of corporate acquisitions, especially in pharmaceuticals, is a highly competitive, cut-throat—”

“Mr. Wexler,” Lina began with the patience one would show a large, slow-witted child, “I’m not exactly a rookie, as you might say here in Boston. I handle not only Darwin’s legal affairs but those of several international conglomerates, including the European arm of Caduceus Pharmaceuticals.”

Reginald gulped loudly. To Jack it sounded as though he were finally swallowing his patronizing attitude. “Caduceus, you say?”

“The fourth largest pharmaceutical company in the world,” Lina clarified.

“Ms. Marchand, if Caduceus has made you an offer on the tea, I assure you, Coyle-Wexler can meet or beat it.”

“The tea is not available to Caduceus, Coyle-Wexler, or any other company that wishes to invade my island and turn it into a factory. Which is why I pass on your offer,” she finished, freeing Burke’s hand. “I’m not interested in climbing into bed with Coyle-Wexler Pharmaceuticals.”

With Lina perched on the chaise like an Egyptian queen, it took a moment for the men to focus more on her actual words and less on the image they conjured. Once her rejection registered, Burke stopped rubbing his offended hand, Reginald’s smile faded away and Jack clenched his jaw to keep from smiling.

Reginald stepped closer to her, his hands outstretched. “I don’t understand, Ms. Marchand. Coyle-Wexler has made you an offer you can’t possibly refuse.”

“But I just did.” She poured a glass of water and took a dainty sip of it.

“I urge you to reconsider. Perhaps I could explain some of the finer details to you, points that you might not have quite understood. Ms. Marchand, I honestly think you owe us the courtesy of spending some time really thinking about this offer before you—”

“I understand everything perfectly, Mr. Wexler. This situation is far from complicated. I can’t bear the thought of my tea being hyped as a miracle weight loss product by some lacquered and fluffed actress or model whose figure actually resulted from the careful sculpting of a surgeon’s knife, eating disorders or drugs. Darwin mint tea is an integral part of my island’s tourist trade, which is a major keystone of its economy. You take the tea, you crimp our livelihood. You can’t have it, you won’t get it, so stop asking for it. Your offer is refused.”

Reginald’s mouth pulled into a fussy sneer. Jack enjoyed a moment of vindication, glad that Reginald finally had a personal taste of how difficult J.T. Marchand could be.

Burke scurried to the foyer and back again, this time carrying his briefcase. “May I interject here?”

“Now would be the perfect time for your contribution to these proceedings.” Reginald lowered his eyes and stepped aside to give Burke the floor. Jack didn’t like Reginald’s guilty expression any more than he did the gleeful one suddenly brightening Burke’s pinched features.

Burke opened his briefcase and pulled out a fresh, blood-red Coyle-Wexler folder, which he presented to Lina. She hesitated, and then snatched it from him, startling him into hopping back a step. He tried to cover the cowardly move with a nervous laugh as Lina opened the folder and pulled out a stack of eight-by-ten photographs. Her face hardened, her lovely features becoming mask-like as she intently examined the documents.

“According to our research, Darwin’s mint tea is a major factor in the island’s booming tourism,” Burke began, his voice slicker than ever as he broke the extended silence. “We can’t do anything about the allure of the tea, but we can certainly use other methods to put a significant dent in tourism to Darwin.”

Lina curled the papers and photos in her fist as she stood, glaring at Burke and Reginald. “You and you,” she spat, pointing at them in turn. “See yourselves out.” She aimed a steely look at Jack. “You stay.”

Rubbing his bruised knuckles, Burke didn’t wait around for a second invitation to leave. He grabbed his briefcase and disappeared while Reginald made a slower retreat. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Ms. Marchand. I’d hoped that we could conduct our business more civilly. In the end, I’m sure you’ll find that a partnership between Darwin and Coyle-Wexler is best for everyone concerned, and given time, you’ll—”

“Leave!” Lina ordered sharply.

Her fury had an unexpected effect on Jack. Without knowing what Burke’s folder contained, he instinctively took her side. Whatever had enraged and hurt her so had originated with Coyle-Wexler, and Jack was eager to find out what it was.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Reginald said amiably. “Ms. Marchand,” he said, nodding goodbye. “Jack.” He gave Jack a conspiratorial wink that wasn’t lost on Lina.

She waited until the front door had closed behind Reginald before she flung the folder’s contents at Jack. She let loose a stream of invective in a mish-mosh of languages that left him thinking that she was possessed. When he kneeled to gather the photos from the carpet, he froze in place, staring at them, and he understood the reason for her outburst.

Burke had acquired photographs of Darwin’s worst. Only trouble was, the photos had been taken out of context. In Burke’s first photo, the friendly Maori street performers that had entertained outside The Crab and Nickel looked like thugs menacing a frightened, purse-clutching Carol Crowley.

Jack remembered Darwin’s busy, rural airport as chaotic, but in a harmless, sunny,
Gilligan’s Island
kind of way. Burke’s photographer had used lighting tricks and digital alterations to depict a dark, overcrowded space congested with people who looked like refugees from a Third World war zone.

The worst photo, the one that likely had truly triggered Lina’s rage, also initiated a slurry of emotion in Jack. He stared at a moment frozen in time, a moment he’d experienced firsthand. One of Darwin’s Ocean Rescue medical vans, the blinding lights atop it burning into the night, idled on the sand with its back doors wide open. A dark, long-limbed figure in a soggy white T-shirt and miniskirt lay upon a gurney being thrust into the van. A black smear covered one side of the patient’s head, and Jack knew from experience that blood looked black in moonlight. He tried to swallow over the dry lump lodged in his throat as he remembered how pangs of fear and worry had coursed through him. He’d been so scared that night, of losing Lina so soon after finding her.

He hadn’t realized it until now. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Lina or dreaming about her since his return to Boston, and he’d shown extreme patience in waiting for his longing for her to fade. But then she’d come to Coyle-Wexler, in effect to him, and he knew for a fact that no amount of time would change the one thing he’d been unable to admit: that he was in love with her.

His jaw locked in anger. Burke must have started working on his smear campaign the minute he’d been deported, and he’d obviously had Carol Crowley’s assistance. He decided to further investigate Burke’s relationship with Carol. If it were as intimate as Jack suspected, it would certainly explain how Carol and the other parasites had gotten wind of Coyle-Wexler’s interest in Darwin mint.

“I wouldn’t have thought it possible for you to insult me more than you already have.”

Jack looked up from the photos and saw Lina’s bare toes peeking from her pants cuffs. He stood up and tore the photos in half. “I had no part in this, and I certainly don’t condone it.”

“You’re a part of it as long as you’re a part of Coyle-Wexler.” Her chin and lower lip quivered.

“This is just a scare tactic. Reginald thinks he can bully you into doing what he wants.”

“A name gives you power, Jack, remember? It took my research staff less than two hours to uncover Edison Burke’s style of conducting business, specifically the less savory methods he uses on behalf of Coyle-Wexler. You were smart, Jack, not to give Kiri your name. She would have ferreted out as much information as she could prior to our meeting, and I would have used every bit of it to disarm you. It was easy to derail Burke. Once he landed on Darwin, all we had to do was watch and wait for him to give us a reason to deport him.”

“Burke’s an idiot,” Jack exhaled. “He’s a fool, and Reginald knows it.”

“Then why does Reginald Wexler keep him around?” Lina demanded. “Perhaps it’s because Burke is good at the things Mr. Wexler has no stomach for. It’s slimy, slithery, sycophantic reptiles like Burke Edison that sully the reputations of all lawyers.”

Jack slapped a hand to his forehead.
How could I be so naïve?
he asked himself. Burke was best at lying, scheming, sidling and gossiping—the four horsemen of apocalyptic law. And Jack would not put it past Reginald to resort to such weapons when it came to his determination to acquire the products he wanted for Coyle-Wexler. It also finally explained Reginald’s reasons for keeping Burke in his employ.

“I won’t let Coyle-Wexler destroy Darwin’s reputation or its number one economic resource,” Lina said.

“How do you plan to stop them? Bad word of mouth travels faster than good word of mouth, and people are more willing to believe negative things than positive ones.”

Lina turned away and went back to the windows. Jack had seemed genuinely surprised by Burke’s plan, but she wouldn’t dare trust him with any confidence related to business. She’d trust Jackson DeVoy with her life. Mr. Coyle-Wexler representative, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.

“This is a very unpleasant place,” she said quietly as she stared at the waterfront and the narrow, winding streets so far below her. “So cold and damp. Too many cars and too many people crowding the streets, and no one looks happy. The sky seems so much higher here than on Darwin. So far away, so out of reach.”

A dry laugh escaped Jack. “You can’t touch the sky on Darwin, either.”

“Every morning at sunrise, the sky touches
me
. It touched us once, or have you forgotten?”

He closed his eyes and saw the memory, and it felt as real as the moment he’d lived it.

“Hotels are one of the reasons I hate leaving Darwin,” she said. “I don’t care for them, and I can’t bear to think of spending the next few months here.”

Jack looked around the penthouse, which he knew for a fact went for five-thousand dollars a week. Lina had every conceivable amenity at her disposal, and a professional private staff of seven, including a personal chef, stood at the ready to cater to her every request. “Are you sure you can’t manage?” he asked sarcastically. Then her words really hit him. “You’re staying for a few
months
? Well, if you’re staying that long, you really can’t do better than the Regency.”

“A hotel is a hotel, even if the bathroom fixtures are made of 24-karat gold and the headboard reads ‘John Quincy Adams Slept Here.’ ” She backed away from the windows and took a seat at the desk. After slipping her glasses back on, she logged onto the Internet on her laptop. “Every night I spend here is another night in hell, and I can’t go home until I settle Coyle-Wexler once and for all.”

“Lina, how are you going to stop Burke’s campaign? He’s a yutz, but he could really cause some damage. You have to know that tourism is one of the few industries where bad publicity is not better than no publicity.”