No Regrets Page 3

  Jamie Connolly couldn’t have Villa Milagros for whatever reason she wanted it. He looked at her tired, deceptively angelic face and something in him stirred to life. Those vaguely familiar blue eyes were tinged with red. He wondered briefly if she had been crying, but her warm smile told him otherwise. Besides, she didn't seem like the type to cry. Why should he be concerned about her crying anyway? With all her success she should be capable of taking care of herself.

  He should refuse the remodeling job. He certainly didn’t need the money, and he definitely didn’t need female complications in his life. He had a distinct talent for attracting women who were complicated, troubled or too aggressive. A single father didn't have time for steamy flings anymore. He had Ross to think of, and nothing was more important than his son.

  But Jamie made him pause. Perhaps it was nostalgia for a time in his life when the possibilities seemed endless. He hadn't failed to notice what she had tried so hard to hide with heavy make-up and a glittering smile. Weariness, a faint edge, something vulnerable in her eyes made his resolve wane and his will soften a little.

  “I’ll work up an estimate and drop it off Monday,” he said.

  He knew he was treading on dangerous grounds, opening up a Pandora’s box of troubles if he wasn't careful. She stood at the front door looking so pleasant and harmless, but her innocent face was an illusion. He couldn’t forget about her connection to Conrad Malcolm. Who knew how deep the relationship went? The very possibilities of such a thought disturbed him, deeply disturbed him.

  He thrust his body into his truck and slid his sunglasses over his eyes. He pulled out of Jamie’s driveway and watched her wave a friendly goodbye in his rearview mirror. Her soft, plump mouth parted into a warm smile.

  Aidan knew without a doubt his trouble had only begun.

  ˜

  Conrad Malcolm sat in his office, crushed the printed-paper in his hand, and slammed his fist against the rich, cherry top of his desk. He felt the heat build in his face, and his sight blurred as he looked down at the crinkled paper.

  He'd searched every inch of Jamie’s apartment when he dropped off his specially made gift, looking for something, anything to force her to his will. He didn't like being denied what he wanted, no matter how irrational the desire.

  He spent hours placing every single rose on every surface of her apartment. Of course, the delivery kid and the custodian were eager to aid him in his special surprise for his fiancé. They’d never known the sweet smell emitting from the hundred boxes they carried into her living room would actually terrify his soon-to-be wife. Even if they’d known his gift was twelve hundred black roses, he’d paid them generously enough. They would never utter a word. He’d cut their tongues out if they did.

  But he found nothing to bribe her with, she was too clean, too pure, the idealistic wench. All the fundraising files and her charity's bank logs were clean. No siphoning money, no misuse of funds, no misappropriation. The very thing he abhorred about her was the very reason he needed her. It was unlikely any other woman he’d considered in his social circle had such a clean record. That type of money rarely came without screwing someone over, legal or not.

  He’d seen her cell phone bill lying open on the coffee table, a beguiling little treasure. He’d tucked it in his jacket, along with one of her silky nightgowns and left with the scent of his custom dyed roses swirling around him.

  He had almost forgotten about the bill he’d stolen last night. By chance, the envelope fell from his coat’s pocket, as he was about to ring the maid to have it dry cleaned.

  The rage he felt when he saw the name Seabrook printed next to several phone numbers made him furious. That poor excuse of a town was the one place in the world he detested. The last place he ever wanted to step foot in again.

  Well, almost the last place. He’d never step foot on his parents estate again, not after what they’d done. But Seabrook was worse than the boarding school he’d been shipped off to at age seven and forgotten about in the hands of a sadistic school warden.

  He didn’t ever want to think about Lauren Brice or Seabrook or what he’d done there. Terrible things. He’d managed to get away unscathed, due of course, to his cleverness and quick thinking. And fat bank account. That horrid night had been so buried in his memory he’d started to believe it hadn’t happened at all. The nightmares had stopped, and he was himself again.

  Now, Jamie had reminded him, and it all came back to him in a flood of dark, unwanted memories. She was forcing him to return to Seabrook, forcing him by her stupid refusal to marry him.

  She would pay. She would suffer dearly for this atrocity.

  ~

  Saturday morning the delivery men arrived with Jamie's new bed and a few other essentials. Jamie never intended to move in so quickly, but Conrad’s increasingly irrational behavior changed her mind. It was almost noon when they finished setting up her bedroom. After making the bed, she collapsed on the soft mattress, having spent a sleepless night in a worn out motel bed that had seen better days.

  Hours later she awoke suddenly, feeling an eerie quietness in the dim room of her shabby, new home. She sat up in bed, taking a moment to clear her foggy mind. It was too dark. She trembled as she groped for the lamp switch. Over a decade of living alone, and she was still afraid of the dark.

  An overpowering scent floated in the air. A distinctly familiar men's cologne. A wave of nausea swept over her. Her hands shook when she flicked on the light. As her eyes adjusted, her mouth grew dry and anxiety rushed her veins. Standing across from the bed with deceptive calm was the figure of a man who was too dangerously real to be a dream.

  “Conrad,” she whispered.

  His tall, lanky figure threatening in the shadows.

  “You look like an angel when you’re sleeping,” he said.

  Her legs shook as she stood to face him. Her breaths came closer together and panic built inside of her like a dam about to break.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “You can’t escape, my dear. No matter where you go, I will find you.” He spoke in a mild, pleasant voice, but she didn't mistake the threat of violence beneath it.

  “Get out,” Jamie said, thrusting the sheets aside and moving toward her phone next to the bed. “I’m calling the police.”

  “The police? Think of the scandal,” he said.

  “I don’t care about a scandal. I don’t want you poisoning my new home with your presence!” She grabbed her phone and fumbled, trying to blindly type in her passcode, never letting her eyes leave his face as he crept toward her.

  “Home?” He snickered as he took a depreciating look around the room, finally resting his chillingly stiff gaze back on Jamie. “Go ahead, I own the police,” he said.

  “Not in Seabrook,” she countered.

  He sliced through the shadows and grabbed her wrist as she began to punch the screen of her cell phone. “Especially in Seabrook. I'm watching you. Better be a good girl."

  She shoved Conrad away and glared at him. “Leave me alone.”

  He turned, laughing as he moved through the house with unnatural quietness. She knew he’d gone when she heard his car start and drive away.

  She struggled to breathe, taking in gulps of the still, warm air that surrounded her. Goosebumps scattered like an army across her skin causing her to shiver. She sank back on her bed and wrapped her arms across her chest in an effort to still her trembling body. She pulled her legs up close to her body to warm the chill assaulting her. Toward the end of the bed, she spotted a white lace pillow resting next to her feet with wedding bands sewn into its top.

  She tossed the pillow across the room, resisting the urge to shred it into a thousand pieces. It was evidence, though she doubted there was a law against leaving a pillow on the bed of a woman, especially if there was no proof of breaking and entering. Conrad was as clever as a top-notch cat burglar. And, apparently as silent, at least when he was sober.

  What did Conrad mean h
e owned the police in Seabrook? She'd never told him about her hometown. Had he probed into her past looking for some way to force her to marry him? No matter what lie he threatened to reveal to the close knit Palm Beach crowd, she'd never change her mind. She saw him for who he truly was now, a narcissistic, self-deluded psychopath.

  She swept her feet over the edge of the bed, her stomach aching. Conrad knew she was in Seabrook. He had been here, watching her as she slept. Her bare feet touched the cool, wood floors. She steadied herself against the bed, waiting for the nausea to subside.

  She slipped down the hallway, silently making her way through the empty rooms of her home. No broken windows or door jams were tampered with, as she suspected. Maybe she hadn’t locked the door. Seabrook was secure, safe, or so she thought. The phone she held so tightly to, cast an eerie silver light against the bare floors of her well worn kitchen. She sat her phone on the counter. Who would she call? The police, Conrad claimed to own?

  There was no proof of forced entry. Conrad's family was too powerful to cross, and besides no one would believe her when she told them Conrad was stalking her. She didn't believe it herself.

  She picked up an old phone book laying against the backsplash and found the number to a security company. Changing the locks wouldn’t help, so she'd have a security system installed, complete with cameras. If he broke into her house again, he would be caught red handed by sirens and film. Then she would have proof he was stalking her, proof for the police, proof for the media. Proof she wasn't going mad herself.

  He didn’t own the Seabrook police. He was bluffing. She doubted he’d ever set foot in such a dull, sleepy town in his life. Until now.

  It was still light out as she hung up the phone with the security company. She put on her swimsuit and slipped on a pair of shorts. She stepped outside, savoring the feel of the sunny warmth as it sank into her bones and edged the chill away. Some spoiled lunatic wouldn't control her, or cage her into a life of fear. The more he tried to scare her, the more determined she was to stick to her plan.

  Escape. And a fling with Aidan Brice.

  Chapter Three

  On Saturday afternoon Aidan rolled out of his well-worn hammock, hot, hungry and horny. The latter put him in an unmistakably foul mood. Ross was at a sleepover for the night. Although Aidan had the opportunity to go out on the town tonight, he didn’t feel much like socializing.

  Because that vixen Jamie Connolly was messing with his head with her willowy seductions and her soft, silky voice. Women. They were nothing but trouble, nothing but unpredictable conniving little foxes. He should know. They'd reduce a man to rubble with one well-practiced kiss. Well, this was one man, who was not going to fall into the hands of another femme fatale. The last one almost brought him to ruin.

  He thought of the last night he’d seen Ross's mother. Lauren had been wild and impulsive. He had been shattered with disbelief, too shattered to stop her. Now he lived with the regret. He started toward his house and tried to purge the memory. But he couldn't forget, not as long as Villa Milagros still stood. That abandoned, old house was a constant reminder of Lauren's betrayal and shocking murder. A symbol of shame and sorrow to his son as long as it existed, reminding Seabrook of the single murder in the small town's long history.

  He was going to tear it down.

  Five years had passed, and he was a changed man. Fatherhood had transformed him into a better person and gave him sustenance when a woman’s love had failed him. He had learned from his past mistakes, and he wasn’t inclined to repeat them. He would stay far away from Jamie Connolly. Innocent seductress or cunning vixen? He wasn’t going to find out.

  A swim would be just the thing to ease his mind and his throbbing, frustrated body. It was a quick walk to Sabina beach. In a matter of seconds, he had kicked off his sneakers, feeling the white sand firm and warm beneath his feet.

  Jamie was a few yards away from him when he first noticed her. Memories of the night they’d shared on this very beach flooded his mind. She was still tall as she had been in high school but had filled out a little more in all the right places. Her dark hair was wet, and hung loosely down the middle of her back. She wore a conservative bikini but her body, sleekly curved defied the modesty of the suit, and looked sumptuously immodest.

  Aidan felt himself stiffening against his loose surfer shorts. He cursed beneath his breath when she turned and walked toward him, oblivious to his scowl.

  “Good afternoon,” she called out in a friendly voice. “Going for a swim? The water’s warm.”

  He needed a cold shower, not a warm swim.

  She glided toward him, coming a little too close for his peace of mind. She had a dazzling smile, affable and friendly. His frown grew deeper.

  Her hair was damp from the swim, and her skin was tan and glowing. She had an appealing natural beauty. Wholesomely attractive is how he would describe her. Not hot, not stunning. So why did he feel like a hormonal teenager back in the halls of Seabrook High? His reaction to her unsettled him. She unsettled him. It didn’t make any sense, this attraction he felt for her, still felt for her. It was too irrational. She was far to unsuitable for him.

  She flung her damp hair across her shoulder and he let his gaze fall down her bare stomach to legs that went on forever. For a moment, he wanted to forget his vow to stay away from Jamie Connolly.

  The one night he'd felt the softness of her lips and smooth silk of her skin burned in his memory as if it was yesterday. He wondered if she tasted the same, and what she would say if he put his mouth on hers with all the hunger pent up in his frustrated body. For a split second his imagination was assaulted with a vision of those long legs wrapped around him and those soft, pink lips pressed against him.

  She reached out, surprising him as she caught his chin in her slender fingers. They were damp and cool.

  “Forgot to shave this morning?” she teased, letting her fingers fall away slowly, one by one.

  He squinted in the sunlight. She was close to him. Too close. “I didn’t have time to shave,” he said, rubbing his scruffy chin brusquely. “As you said, I’m a busy man.”

  “You’re like a warrior, a great Spartan warrior, stoic and one minded in all he does,” she mused.

  “Is that what you think?” he said lazily.

  Her response was a sweet smile. “Yes.”

  "You big city women, you’re so worldly." He grabbed the bottom of his tee shirt and pulled it over his head casually, then let it drop in the sand.

  "You think you know everything about men, when the truth of the matter is you know nothing at all," he said, relishing the pink glow washing over her face.

  He’d shed his shirt for effect and it worked. She couldn't hide her reaction to him, to his naked skin, and the obvious bulge in his shorts. Her face revealed everything to him. Fascination. Hunger. Fear. Hm, she wasn't so brave after all.

  “Is that how you think of me? A big, bad city woman?” She laughed nervously. “Surely you can be more imaginative."

  He sensed something different about her, tension, which hadn't been there before. "Perhaps," he said, stepping close to her, "I could correct your assumptions about me."

  Aidan bent over her just enough to bring his face tauntingly close to hers. "I can be very imaginative," he said. He didn't miss the alarm in her eyes, although it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. He allowed a platonic smile to spread across his face.

  "I'm not sure you can handle this big, bad city woman," she said, taking a step back from him.

  "Oh, I think so." He studied her shamelessly from head to toe. "But not today."

  Her expression went blank a moment.

  Let her think of him as a mountain of solemn duty. Better than her knowing what dark secrets were buried in his past and much better than her understanding what raw needs his body craved. From her. He wanted to tear off her ridiculous bikini and show her all the desire he’d kept under check for so many years. He looked at the surf, away from temptation. He'
d definitely been celibate for too long.

  He turned abruptly toward the beach, controlling his urge to touch her. “I think I’ll take a swim now,” he said in a voice belying his frustration.

  “Enjoy yourself,” Jamie said.

  Her words stung his ears until he dove into the warm surf, drowning out her soft, sweet voice. The warm waters did nothing to cool the fire she had started.

  "Like hell," Aidan muttered under his breath as he broke the surface of the water. Aidan looked back to the beach at the distant figure of a woman he had once known as a girl. He laid back, arms and legs sprawled out as he floated on the ocean’s surface. He began to wonder if he would be able to resist Jamie over the three months it was going to take to remodel her house.

  ˜

  Jamie was humming to herself in the kitchen, a catchy, happy tune. Aidan was attracted to her. Oh, she’d panicked at the beach, no doubt. She’d been planning on a slow seduction and hadn’t prepared herself to be drawn in so quickly. He’d been teasing her, and she was acutely aware of his resistance, even as he tried to entice her. But why?

  She poured the thick purple smoothie from the blender into a frosty glass. She opened her kitchen window letting the fresh breeze flow through her house. A crunch of leaves, thrashing, and then a long, deep howl pierced the silent air. Jamie set down her glass.

  She stepped toward the door and out into the back yard. A rustle of leaves scattered violently from the corner of the yard where a thorny, overgrown bougainvillea stood spilling over the fence. A blur of brown fur moved amidst the vibrant pink blooms. A tiny mutt was caught up in the bush.

  “You poor creature,” she said as she untangled the pup from the prickly branches.