Illusion (Swept Away Book 1) (24 page)

“What’s five-finger?” I shivered, wondering if he was talking about real fingers.

“It’s a fruit. You might know it as star apple.”

“Is it like Granny Smiths?”

“No.” He laughed. “It’s nothing like Granny Smiths.”

“Oh, okay.” I took one side of the shirt and tied the arm tightly to the coconut branch. “So what are we going to do?” I looked at him for guidance. “Just drag it in the water?”

“What?” His eyes narrowed, and he looked at me intensely.

“Are we just going to drag the shirt through the water?” I repeated breathlessly as he continued to stare at me.

“Yes.” He nodded, but his eyes didn’t leave me. “Your bra is getting wet,” he said after a few seconds, and I looked down at my completely soaked bra, now molded to my skin.

“Yes it is.” I nodded and looked back at him. “So are your briefs.”

“Enjoying the view?”

“There’s not much to see.” I shrugged, and he laughed.

“We can change that.” His hand grabbed the top of his briefs and he started to pull them down.

“What are you doing?” My voice rose.

“Wanted to give you a view you could see better.”

“No thanks.”

“Aww.” He laughed. “I was hoping it would be tit for tat.”

“Excuse me?”

“My briefs for your panties.”

“You wish.”

“Yes, I do.” He stared at me suggestively again, and I felt my skin burning up.

“Let’s just concentrate on this fish.” I turned away from him and started moving the shirt in the water.

He grinned at me. “Follow my movements. We can’t go charging through the water or we’ll scare the fish. We have to stand still.”

“Aren’t they going to see us standing there?”

“They won’t pay attention to us if we stand still. They’ll think we’re just part of the landscape in the water.”

“Really?” I was surprised. “I didn’t know that fish were that dumb.”

“I don’t know if they are, but it sounded good.” He laughed.

“You’re a goof.”

“Yay, I’m moving up in the world. I’ve gone from ass to goof.”

“Hopefully you can move up from goof to predator,” I responded without thinking.

“I don’t think I have to move anywhere to be called a predator,” he replied softly, and I pretended that I hadn’t heard him.

I
became bored after about ten minutes. Standing there waiting for fish to approach was one of the most tedious things I’d ever done in my life. My arms were also growing tired, though, I didn’t want to tell Jakob that.

“So how long are we going to just stand here?” I asked softly.

“Until we catch something to eat.”

“That could be all day,” I moaned. “We’re just standing here in the rain. I don’t see any fish jumping, and we haven’t caught anything yet.”

“Well, we just need to concentrate harder.”

“I can barely see.” I blinked the water out of my eyes. “And I’m started to get cold.”

“Let’s just wait another ten minutes and see if we get anything.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe a big trout will just jump into your shirt and save us some time.” I rolled my eyes.

“You never know.” He grinned.

“How many times have you been fishing, Jakob?” My eyes narrowed, and I stared at him.

“Once when I was a young boy. And no, I didn’t catch anything.”

“Oh, this is great,” I groaned. “How do you know they’re going to be jumping in the water, then?”

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“It sounded good though, right? Like I knew what I was talking about?”

“So you really had no clue?”

“I really have no clue, Bianca.” His tone changed, and so did his expression. “Shh.” He put a finger to his lip. “I think I see a school of fish swimming toward us.”

“Are you sure?” I whispered back excitedly, and stared into the water. I could make out a dark shape moving toward us, and I prayed that it was fish and not the fourth coming of Jaws.

“I’m pretty sure.” He nodded, but he didn’t move his eyes from the fish. “When I say go, drop the shirt, push it forward and lift.”

“Okay.” I stood as still as possible and waited for his command.

“Go!” he yelled, and we dropped the shirt into the water and pushed it forward to scoop up the fish.

“We got some!” I cried out in excitement as I saw some fish trying to jump out of the shirt.

“Beginners’ luck.” He grinned at me as he tied the shirt into a little bundle.

“I can’t believe we caught four fish!” I exclaimed as we made our way back to the sand. “How are we going to eat them? Not live?”

“No.” He laughed. “We have the lighters, remember? We should be able to start a fire, and we can grill them.”

“Oh, that sounds amazing.” I made my way with him to the shore, and we both laughed as my stomach growled.

“T
hat tasted really good. Almost as good as if it were made in a restaurant.” I licked my lips and leaned back. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He patted his stomach. “I feel pretty satisfied myself.”

“So what do you think happened to Steve?” I asked him curiously. My eyes watched his every move to see how he reacted.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s playing some sort of game.” He frowned.

“Do you think we should look for him now? I feel like we both keep delaying the search.”

“I think that’s what he wants.” Jakob moved closer to me.
“He wants us to come to us. You ever study military history as part of your degree?”

“You think he wants to ambush us?”

“I think he has an agenda.”

I closed my eyes and sighed loudly. “I wish I knew what was going on.”

“We should talk again.” His hand reached out and grabbed mine. “See if we can figure out anything else.”

“You mean the Bridgette connection?”

“Yes, the Bridgette connection.”

“I don’t know how that would be of any help.” I shrugged. “She dated my ex before I did.” I debated asking him whether he knew David, but he spoke before I could decide.

“Bianca,” he said my name slowly, and I looked at him. He was frowning and his expression looked annoyed. “There was something else in my envelope.”

“Oh?”

“A photograph.”

“A photograph of what?”

I watched as Jakob stood up and walked over to his pants. He pulled out both of our letters and a photo, which he brought over to me.

“Can you explain this?” He dropped the photo in my lap, and my body froze. The photo was of me and Bridgette smiling at a party about a year ago.

“I . . . I . . .” I stumbled over my words. “It’s a long story.”

“Bianca, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest. Did you steal your ex from Bridgette?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I swear I didn’t know they were dating when I met them.”

“Who did you meet first?”

“Technically I met Bridgette first, but I thought they were just friends.”

“Did you have a plan to meet him?” he asked me softly, and my heart sunk.

“Yes.” I nodded. “I had a plan.” I paused and reached out for his hand. “It wasn’t because I was a gold digger though.”

“So you weren’t after the Bradley family money?” His eyes narrowed, and I shook my head.

“How did you know David?” My heart started beating rapidly as I decided to stop chickening out. “When I mentioned my ex was David Bradley, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t make the connection. My brain was still contemplating the fact that I’d been kidnapped. Bridgette was my assistant. Yes, we slept together a couple of times. It didn’t mean anything. I knew that she started dating someone else, but I didn’t care,” he said with a shrug. “She was my secretary. Nothing more. It was only when I found out that she was sharing classified information with David that I fired her.”

“So you know David?” I persisted with my questioning. I wasn’t going to allow him to distract me from this questioning.

“Not very well.” He shook his head. “I know of him. I like to keep to myself.”

“I guess that makes sense, what with you being so rich.” I lay back and asked softly, “How did you make your money again?”

“I’m in venture capitalism. Buying small businesses and selling them for a profit was how I started. Now I buy larger companies and either sell them for a profit or maximize their business productivity and keep the profits for myself.”

“So you don’t care about the businesses?”

“Some of the businesses have their uses. I don’t do anything based on emotion. Every act in my life has a purpose.”

“You sound so driven. It seems so boring.”

“It’s not always boring. Sometimes I buy some cool companies. Last year I bought a vineyard and a chocolate factory.”

“I love wine and chocolates.”

“I love the money both companies are now making me. I keep companies based on the value they add to my portfolio.”

“That sounds like a lot of hard work.”

“I like hard work. My mom taught me that the only thing that matters in life is hard work.”

“What about love?”

“Love is for fools.” His tone was derisive. “All love does is make people weak.”

“So you don’t believe in true love?”

“There is no true love. One person always loves the other one more. One person always gives up something. Human beings will do more for money than for love.”

I thought about his words and felt sad. “My parents were really in love, but it was cut short.”

“Death is a sad part of life.”

“Yes, it is.” I sighed. “I still believe in love though.”

“You’re the sort of girl who could make me believe in love as well,” he whispered into my ear. “But don’t start getting any ideas.”

“Are you becoming a softy, Jakob?” I smiled at him, and my insides felt warm.

“I don’t think anyone could ever accuse me of being soft.” His hand rubbed my back. “Not inside the office and definitely not in the bedroom.”

“You’re a regular lothario, huh.”

“I don’t sleep around, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You don’t sleep around?”

“I don’t do relationships, but I’m not a man whore. I’m not in and out of bedrooms. I don’t have a revolving door or a little black book.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“You seem like you’d have a lot of ladies,” I mumbled, feeling slightly taken aback by the intense expression he had on his face as he stared at me.

“Why would you think that?”

“You’re so handsome.” I shrugged. “And you’re rich.”

“Those are the two least important qualities in a man.”

“I never said they were important. They’re not what I look for in a man.”

“Good.” He leaned down and kissed me. “I don’t look for those qualities in a man either,” he joked, his eyes glinting with amusement.

“Are you mad that I didn’t tell you I knew Bridgette better than I let on earlier?”

“No, I understand why you didn’t tell me.” I bit my lower lip and stared at him for a few seconds.

“But . . . ?” His eyes narrowed as he surveyed my face.

“You’re making it hard for me to trust you, Jakob. First, our accidental meeting at the coffee shop might not have been so accidental, then we both get kidnapped, then I find out you’re in the process of trying to buy Bradley Inc., then I find out that your ex-assistant is my ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend who hates me. And then to make it all worse, I find out that you actually kind of know David. To top it off, there’s another guy on the island with us that has just disappeared into thin air. And we’re getting more threatening notes.”

“What do you mean,
more
?”

“Nothing.”

“Bianca?”

“I got notes before I was kidnapped as well.”

“What sort of notes?”

“Threatening notes.”

“Like death threats?”

“Not exactly.” I shook my head. “And I guess, I shouldn’t say notes, it was one note.”

“What did it say?”

“Something about two people, one surviving and one being destroyed.”

“I see.” I watched as his shoulders stiffened and his hands squared into fists.

“It’s fine. It didn’t scare me.”

“We need to get off of this island. I promise, I’ll help you find out whatever you need to know.”

“What do you get though?”

“I get the truth.”