CHAPTER 1
“ Business or pleasure?”
“Business,” Sam said automatically, her
fingers tightening on the strap of the laptop case that rarely left her shoulder.
“And what is your business on Siren Island?” The customs agent spoke with a bouncy cadence, his words slow and richly rounded, the music of the islands flowing through his voice.
“I… I mean, pleasure,” Sam said, startled to realize it was true. A drop of sweat slipped between her shoulder blades. That morning, in a haze of what-the- hell-am-I-doing, she’d donned what she’d come to term her Air Barbie uniform. It had breezed her through most airports in the world, straight into whatever hotel finance meetings she was attending, and had earned her more than her fair share of upgrades .
Impeccably tailored slacks? Check. Tasteful diamond stud earrings? Check. And a silk blouse in a muted color – not too bright, as she’d learned that the men in the board meetings she ran often took a power color as an invitation to flirt.
Though why she’d added her diaphanous silk scarf and patent leather sling-backs to the outfit, Sam had no clue.
Her plane wouldn’t be landing in a fiercely air- conditioned airport with valets to whisk her luggage away as she went from one perfectly manicured space to the next. Oh no. Not even close.
Instead, here she was holding up a line of sweaty, boisterous passengers who all seemed to have overindulged on the plane ride down to whichever hotel’s all-inclusive vacation package they’d signed up for. The sun, an angry unrepentant dictator, broiled them all with her cruel rays.
“Which is it, ma’am? Business or pleasure?” The customs agent regarded her carefully, and it annoyed Sam to see not even a sheen of sweat on the man’s face, though he wore neatly pressed khaki pants and a button- down shirt. Why were there no enclosed rooms in this hut of an airport? Samantha knew for a fact that the island had access to the internet; surely they’d learned of the invention of air conditioning by now.
“Pleasure. My apologies. I travel so much for work that I forgot this trip was for pleasure,” Sam said, sweeping her tastefully highlighted auburn hair over her shoulder and flashing the agent the smile that had opened more than one door for her in the past.
“That’s a shame, ma’am. One should never forget to take time for pleasure.” The agent’s voice never changed, but something flashed in his eyes for just a moment – a warm male appreciation that, for once, didn’t feel predatory. Sam got the impression that he enjoyed all women. When she heard him begin flirting with the lady behind her, who sported a fanny pack and an unruly swath of grey hair, her assumption was confirmed.
His words followed her as she tapped her foot impa- tiently by the single-loop baggage conveyor belt, and Sam’s annoyance reached peak levels as another passenger jostled her to peer over her shoulder.
“I really hope they didn’t lose our bags this time. I swear, Carl, every time we come here something gets lost.”
Then why did they still come here? Sam wondered in frustration, deliberately spreading her elbows a bit to strike a power pose – the one she used in crowds to force people to step away from her a bit.
For that matter, what was she even doing here? As Sam’s thoughts flashed back over the last forty-eight hours, sweat began to drip in earnest down her back, and she was certain she could actually feel the blood pumping through her heart. Gulping for air, she looked around wildly. What this airport needed was some fans.
The sunlight seemed to get brighter and the eager laughter of the crowd around her sounded like the braying of mules. The faces and laughter and heat and sweat all pressed on her until Sam turned to run – only to find herself trapped by the crowd. Panic skittered its way up her throat and she gasped, trying to draw a breath against the warm press of bodies pushing toward the bags that now belched from a small flap-covered hole in the wall.
A hand closed on hers and Sam’s gaze slammed into cool blue eyes – the color of the sea – and a calm wave of energy seemed to pour through her. She lost herself in the reassuring smile of a woman, a peaceful oasis of calm, who pulled her through the crowd.
“Sit.” Samantha’s butt had barely touched the seat when the woman unceremoniously pushed Sam’s head between her legs. She gulped air, desperately trying to hold her panic attack at bay. The last thing she heard before it all went dark was the woman’s voice.
“This one’s mine.”
CHAPTER 2
“ Are you feeling better, Ms. Jameson?” The woman – an angel if she’d ever met one, Samantha had decided – clambered into the dusty driver’s seat of a raggedy pick-up truck. She beamed at Sam, who sat wilting in the front seat, holding a frozen bottle of water to the back of her neck.
“I think so,” Sam said, willing to sell this woman her first-born if she would just turn the air conditioner on.
“Welcome to Siren Island. I’m Irma Margarite, and I’ll be your fearless leader,” Irma said with a chuckle.
Despite her embarrassment at being a wilted mess, Sam smiled back at her. “It would be nice to let someone else take the reins for once,” Sam admitted.
Digging in her butter-soft leather satchel until she found her quilted Coach sunglasses case, Sam slipped the dark shades over her eyes. Feeling calmer behind the glasses, she studied the woman next to her, who chat- tered briefly to a man in the parking lot, in a language that sounded similar to Spanish.
But still, no air conditioning.
Irma threw back her head and laughed at something he said, her thick braid of salt-and-pepper hair bouncing with her movements, the turquoise bangles at her wrist clinking softly as she shifted the truck into gear. She wore a breezy island dress in the carefree way of women who cared little for what society thought about their bodies. The loose linen dress in the colors of sunset made her look incredibly alluring, and Samantha imme- diately decided she wanted to be her when she grew up.
Except she was already grown up. Long past it, and on her way toward spinsterhood, as her family enjoyed reminding her. Sam wondered if anyone even used that word anymore – other than her family, of course. Cool air finally sputtered from the dusty vents in the truck’s dashboard.
“Why’s that?” Irma asked, and Samantha realized she’d repeated her question. Irma shot the truck out into traffic with barely a glance for oncoming vehicles. Sam desperately wanted to ask if the truck’s indicators worked, but tamped down the urge. Others often made fun of her for following the rules, but deviating from what was expected of her had only led to massive screw-ups in the past. For years now, she’d kept her nose to the grindstone and worked tirelessly to prove to everyone that a Jameson, and a Jameson woman at that, could indeed lead a wildly successful – hell, even envi- able – career as the senior accountant and luxury port- folio manager for Paradiso Hotels. It was a career that thumbed its nose in the face of the chosen profession of the Jamesons – the law.
“Why’s what?” Sam realized she’d been plucking at her trousers – a sure sign she was stressed – and she involuntarily closed her eyes as they approached a traffic circle at a higher rate of speed than she deemed necessary.
“Why do you want someone else to lead you?” Irma asked, her tone light as she beeped the horn at someone. “I’m tired.” Sam was surprised to hear herself say the words. “I’m just so tired of playing by the rules.” She bit her lip and closed her mouth before the entire story came tumbling out of her mouth to this random woman driving her to some god-knows-what bed and breakfast here on a speck of a Caribbean island.
“You’re in luck then,” Irma said. “We have very few rules at the Laughing Mermaid Guesthouse. You’ll have all the time you need to rest up.”
Sam feared she’d need more time than the three- week stay she’d impulsively booked yesterday. Her unexpected absence was leaving her company in the lurch, she knew, but after what they’d done Sam was feeling very little loyalty to them anyway. It was unlikely three weeks would be enough to change her life, but maybe – just maybe – she’d get some peace and quiet for once.
“Why did you have an opening for that long? At the last minute? In high season?” Sam blurted, then inter- nally chastised herself. Just because she was the senior accountant overseeing the international accounts of Paradiso Hotels & Villas didn’t mean it was any of her business to pry into this woman’s business or operating numbers. But in her opinion, for any place to have that much time available for booking at the last minute must mean poor service or something else hellish awaited discovery on the other end.
“We had a cancellation due to a guest’s personal emergency. I was a bit flustered, as it is high season, but before I had time to get frustrated your reservation pinged through. It was meant to be,” Irma said with a shrug, a smile hovering on her serene face.
Sam suspected this woman didn’t do “flustered,” but kept her opinion to herself. She was good at that – in fact, it seemed she’d been doing it for much too long. Otherwise Paradiso would have known a thing or two about what Sam would tolerate in her workplace.
Namely, that would not be the resident asshole, Christopher, and his shocking promotion to Chief Finan- cial Officer – a position that had long been promised to her, so long as she kept her head down and worked extra hours. Paradiso Hotels had no idea they were about to lose their best accountant – the one who was intimately familiar with all the books for their million-plus dollar rentals. Sam hadn’t even quite admitted it to herself yet, so instead of losing her shit when Christopher was named CFO in the huge board meeting yesterday, she’d calmly left, booked the vacation her friend Lola had been pushing on her for ages, and turned off her cell phone.
In that order.
At the time, it had felt amazing. Perhaps it was a bit sad that turning off her cell phone was the most rebel- lious act Sam had done in years, but there hadn’t been much time for her to examine that little nugget of infor- mation before the panic had begun clawing its way in. What had she done? Leaving the company for a vaca- tion in the middle of acquiring several new luxury prop- erties was… unheard of. Not just frowned upon, but actually unheard of.
Samantha’s networking circle of friends had reminded her repeatedly over the years that she had scored a dream job, one that flew her to fabulous loca- tions all over the world. In other words, they didn’t have much sympathy if she wanted to vent when things got stressful. They all said the same thing: Any girl would kill for her job. Except Lola, that is. Lola never said that.
Instead of weathering the storm at her to-die-for job, Sam now found herself sticking to the seat of a woefully under-cooled truck while her company scrambled to handle her absence.
The truck lurched its way to a stop in front of a simple white villa tucked between a row of palms on a hidden dirt road. There’d been no sign for the turnoff to the Laughing Mermaid Guesthouse, and Sam was certain that no guest would ever find their own way down the weaving potholed road to the inn. She’d certainly never find her way back – if she even decided to rent a car. Between packing and steadfastly ignoring the pinging of arriving emails from her open laptop, she’d forgotten about that little detail. Silently cursing Lola and her bohemian friend’s love of “off the beaten path” locations, Sam sighed as she peeled herself from the front seat, and stood flapping her blouse against her chest and eyeing the villa wearily.
“Welcome home, Sam. I think you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for here,” Irma said, hefting Sam’s bag easily over her shoulder and swinging past her down a mosaic pathway in a cloud of sunset silk and tinkling jewelry.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Sam called after her.
“Even better.”
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