Blame It on Paradise (23 page)

Lina’s words echoed between Jack’s ears.
You’re his pet.

“Let’s just forget about that whole firing baloney,” Reginald clucked uneasily. “You do realize that it was all a charade, don’t you, my boy? I never intended to let you go. I think you’re due, overdue in fact, for a raise. How does fifteen percent sound? Why don’t we go to my office and really hash out your future with Coyle-Wexler? I was just speaking with the board of directors the other day about creating a new position, vice president of international acquisitions. The position would be for you, Jack, and you’d work directly under me, reporting to me only. I don’t want to lose you. You’re the best attorney I’ve ever seen.”

He shrugged off Reginald’s arm. “Then you must not have been paying attention to what just happened in here. We got our asses handed to us. We lost.
You
lost.”

“Oh, but this is only a small battle in a larger war,” Reginald said, clenching his fist in renewed determination. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat, Jack. The tea obviously has a placebo effect that we can easily capitalize on. Only trouble is, we still need the tea. You and I will sit down and reconfigure a plan of attack that—”

The sound of Reginald’s voice became so much background noise as Jack’s thoughts circled more tightly around the woman who had just walked out of the conference room and possibly out of his life. Nothing Reginald offered compared to the scent of Lina’s hair, the taste of the soft skin of her throat, or the melody of her voice. Lina had taken on Coyle-Wexler and won. Hell, he’d seen her take on the Pacific Ocean and win, so in retrospect, Jack realized that Reginald had never stood a chance. Neither had he.

And yet, Jack had no regrets about how it all had turned out. Lina was the only attorney to have never given him what he wanted; when it came to business, that is. In every other way, she’d given him everything he needed.

Reginald could offer nothing that would mean more to Jack than the one thing he really wanted: to spend the rest of his life with an island goddess.

“Let bygones be bygones, Jack, and take your rightful place at my elbow. And one day, I promise, I’ll turn the reins of Coyle-Wexler Pharmaceuticals over to you. What do you say?”

Jack offered the old man a quiet smile. “Edison Burke has been diddling with Carol Crowley of PharmaChemix for the past two years. He’s the one who’s been feeding her information on the products Coyle-Wexler’s been pursuing. Check with Milt McCrary down in the technical information department. At my request, he’s compiled a log of phone calls made from C-W to PharmaChemix on dates that correspond to our product acquisition meetings, and a file of outgoing e-mails detailing our meetings regarding the Darwin mint tea. Your new number one is probably in his office right now, telling Carol that the mint’s a dud. You’ll know for sure by the time I walk down to the elevators.”

Reginald’s eyes widened as Jack exited the room and started down the corridor. “You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

An image formed in Jack’s mind, one of Lina dressed only in a silky sarong and moonbeams, her belly growing pleasantly round with the child they had made. “I’m going home, Reginald,” he called over his shoulder.

“When will you be back?”

“I won’t.”

“You can’t go, not now,” Reginald called after him. “What will I do without you, Jack?”

“Frankly, old man, I don’t give a damn.” At the elevators, Jack pressed the down button. While he waited for the car, he stripped off his tie and shoved it in his pocket. Reginald was hurrying toward him, but was intercepted by the pale, stoop-shouldered figure of Milt from technical information. Jack watched Reginald stare at the sheaf of papers Milt handed him, and then crumple them in his hands.

“Burke!” Reginald bellowed, his arms stiff and his hands fisted at his sides. “Someone find Edison Burke and send him to my office.
NOW!”

Jack started whistling a sunny little tune that deafened him to Reginald’s further rantings. The elevator arrived just as Reginald’s secretary came trotting after him, her graying hair bouncing out of place. “Mr. Wexler wants to know when you’ll be back,” she panted as Jack stepped into the empty car.

Still whistling, Jack pushed “
l”
for the lobby. The secretary used her hand to bar the doors from shutting. “Mr. DeVoy, please,” she implored fearfully. “Mr. Wexler wants to know when you plan to return. He’s on a tear, screaming about corporate espionage and fraud. I’ve got to tell him something!”

Jack chuckled, and then sighed. “Tell him to have my mail forwarded to Darwin Island.”

* * *

The rain that had saturated Jack’s loose-fitting linen trousers and shirt left the blacktop driveway slick and glossy. The soles of his hiking sandals slapped their way closer to the treehouse. He shook his wet hair out of his eyes and wiped his dripping nose on his sleeve. He hadn’t bothered to secure a room or even tried to get a ride to Marchand Manor upon landing on Darwin. With his one carry-on bag in hand, he’d trudged through the rain to get to Lina.

He left his luggage slumped against the picket fence, swung open the unlocked security gate, and climbed the spiral staircase. Hoping against hope that what he wanted to see would be awaiting him at the top of the stairs, his stomach knotted tighter with each step. He held his breath as the rain-slickened, narrow planks of the treehouse floor came into view, followed by thinner branches of the tree that supported one end of a jute hammock.

Jack exhaled sharply when he saw the ebony loveliness of the long, sinuous form resting in the cozy middle of the hammock. Lina wore a sheer white sleeveless shift that looked casual, comfortable and painfully sexy all at once. As Jack quietly approached her, his eyes raced ahead to trace her legs, starting with her delectable toes. Her bare, smooth calves were next, and Jack’s hands ached to caress them up to her thighs, and still farther to the supple meat of her gorgeous backside. One of her arms hung over the edge of the hammock, treating Jack to a lingering look at its unaffected grace and beauty. Her black hair pooled at the head of the hammock, but her face was hidden behind the document she held before her eyes. Its length and blue backing sheet told Jack that she was reviewing some sort of contract or legal brief.

He took two more steps and his shadow fell over her, alerting her to his presence.

She lowered her papers.

Her mouth opened, and she might have formed his name. Jack couldn’t tell for sure because no sound came out.

Lina dropped the contract she’d been trying to proofread and it fluttered to the floor. She carefully eased herself into a sitting position, her eyes never leaving Jack. For a long time she couldn’t decide if he was actually standing before her, or if she was staring at her most realistic daydream yet. For hours she’d lain there in the hammock, trying to work, when all she could think of was Jack and how much she’d missed him in the week since she’d last seen him.

She’d returned to Darwin determined to keep her focus forward, on herself and her baby. She’d resolved to never spend a single minute wondering about what could have been with Jack, or worse, what should have been. The days were easy with Levora and the rest of the islanders celebrating both her pregnancy and her success at keeping Darwin safe from Coyle-Wexler’s plans for economic revenge.

The nights were altogether different. Night was a place where Lina had little to no control over what her heart would stir up in the kitchen of her mind, serving her easily digestible memories of the first time she’d seen Jack, or the way he’d looked at the helm of their rented yacht. As the time without him progressed, the menu of memories became more sumptuous and harder to resist. She’d dreamt of the night of the beach party, and the sizzling moments they’d shared atop the lifeguard station. She’d awakened in a hot, breathless sweat with her body quivering in remembrance of the intoxicating pleasures she had shared with Jack.

From that moment on, every thought of him had set her nerve endings on fire, oversensitizing her flesh to even the slightest contact, creating a constant yearning that only Jack could ease.

Even worse, the harder she fought to push thoughts of him aside, the more firmly his memory rooted itself in her heart.

Her baby was the only one to whom she confessed her love for Jack. The little person growing beneath her heart was all she had left of him, and that was the only regret she had whenever she thought back on the months she’d spent with Jack.

But now, with him standing before her in his rumpled clothes, his rain-darkened hair and woeful expression tinged with hope, Lina dared to believe that her one regret was about to vanish.

Jack fell to his knees, and only partly from exhaustion. More than twenty hours of travel had finally delivered him to Lina, but it had been a hard-fought finish to a whirlwind week of activity that had seen him resign from Coyle-Wexler, consolidate his finances, liquidate many of his assets, and transfer ownership of his car to Anderson and his house to his parents. They had taken a full day of convincing once they’d gotten over the shock of what Jack planned to do.

With all that accomplished, the purpose of his drastic life changes had brought him to his knees before Lina, who raised a hand to move a wet lank of hair from his left eye. Her whispery touch seemed to have the same effect on both of them. Jack’s hands fisted on his thighs as he breathed in deeply through his nose. Lina’s heart rate increased, setting the skin at the hollow of her throat to fluttering.

“I don’t want you here,” she managed over the hard lump blocking her windpipe.

Jack’s jaw stiffened as if he’d just received a physical blow.

Lina stared beyond him as she mentally composed what she wanted to say to him, now that the moment she’d been longing for had arrived. There were so many things, the least of which was that she loved him. But there were things he had to know first, before she dared put her heart’s wishes in his hands.

Jack watched her face as the music of Darwin played around him. The sweet percussion of falling raindrops was a calming complement to the harsh rustle of leaves stirred by the not quite cool breeze. The random cry of a large bird and the twittering responses of many smaller ones reminded Jack of the time he’d spent with Lina on the island during his first visit. They were the sounds that made him think of home. And now Lina didn’t want him there.

She finally met his gaze. “I can’t keep saying goodbye to you. And I won’t ask you to stay. So really…” Her voice broke, her throat working visibly to force out the rest of her words. “There’s no reason for you to be here.”

Still on his knees, Jack took handfuls of her dress, kneading her hips with his knuckles. He tugged her to him and buried his face in her abdomen, pressing his lips to his baby’s temporary home. “This is why I should be here.” He cupped Lina’s face in his hands and crushed his mouth against hers, “And this is why,” he insisted through his kiss.

Lina kept her lips pressed together as long as she could. But Jack’s fervent coaxing broke the resolute seam and she welcomed him, shivering when his tongue touched hers. She returned his kisses, allowing him to deepen them as his hands moved over her thighs and slipped under her dress. His thumbs traveled along the waistband of her bikini panties, and Jack chanced a glance at them. The prim white cotton pushed his buttons harder than if she’d been wearing nothing at all, and he drew Lina closer against him, aching to feel her even through their clothing.

Although she hung one long leg over his hip, Lina braced her hands on his chest, discouraging more intimate contact. “We can’t do this,” she whispered against his seeking mouth. “I won’t.”

Slightly panting, Jack drew his face from hers but remained within kissing distance. “I came here with open hands. I’m not here to take anything from you, or to convince you come back to Massachusetts with me. I want to be with you. If it has to be here on Darwin, then so be it. I don’t want to be merely the father of a child. I want to be his dad. And I want to spend the rest of my life with his mother.”

“You say that now, Jack, but—”

“I don’t have anything to go back to,” he told her. “What I couldn’t carry, I gave away. Everything that means anything to me is right here.” He pressed his forehead to hers and tightly gripped her hips. “Whether you want me or not, I’m here on Darwin for good. I’ll start that sailing school I’ve always wanted, or make muffins with Levora. I’m not going anywhere, Lina.”

A gasping sob tore from her then. “I want to believe you. But you’ve left me before. And then you let me walk right out of your life.”

“I’ve made mistakes.” He blinked back the sting of tears. “I won’t make any more. I just want to do what’s right.”

“And popping up on Darwin is the right thing to do?”

“Yes, if I expect you to accept this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a water-stained jewelry box. He opened it, and the diamond ring within it managed to catch enough light to throw dazzling stars into the overcast day. “Jaslyn Thérèse Marchand,” he began. “Will you marry me?”

Lina had no care for the glittering ring. She had eyes only for the man kneeling before her, who’d come to her with open hands and a single plea that she had failed to read in his eyes when she’d first seen him.

He loves me
, she told herself. And to her most heartfelt delight, she believed it.

“Lina, will you be my wife?” Jack asked, a nervous edge to his voice.

“Yes,” she managed through a fresh fall of happy tears. “Oh, God, Jack, yes!”

Her hand shook as Jack slipped the half-carat emerald cut diamond with its platinum band onto her finger.

“It might not seem like much, but it’s priceless,” he explained. “This was my grandmother’s engagement ring. It belonged to my mother’s mother, and my grandfather worked on a fishing boat to pay for it. It was brutal work. My grandmother used to say that a half ton of haddock and cod paid for this half carat diamond. My grandfather was a crusty, plainspoken, second-generation Italian-American, and every time I imagine him as a young man in love, walking into Shreve, Crump & Lowe to buy this delicate little ring for the woman who became my grandmother…” He stroked a thumb over the ring. “This ring represents everything you tried to teach me about home and family. When I told my parents that I wanted to marry you, my mother insisted that I give you this ring. If you don’t like it, I’ll get something—”