Passion’s hideaway

Ever since enduring a possibly career-ending injury, Miami superstar shortstop Carlos Bradley has retreated from the world. His life undergoes a radical makeover when he’s convinced to hire a designer to restore his secluded island mansion to its former glory. Completely different from the women Carlos has known, interior decorator Virginia Andersen captivates him with her infectious spirit and the sensuality beneath her coolly professional demeanor.

The owner of a struggling design firm, Virginia can’t believe her new employer is a baseball legend. But Carlos wants more than just her expertise. And when he insists she move into his tropical getaway during the renovations, Virginia soon finds herself sharing the irresistible playboy’s bed. But when the media descends, she’s thrust into the limelight and her past becomes an open book. Is she ready to overcome her doubts to fight for a future with the man of her dreams?

He grabbed her shoulders, and for a moment his thoughts stopped. Her skin was as soft as it looked and she smelled good. Something faintly sweet but not perfumed. She smelled like something he would love to bury his face in and inhale. “You can’t drown yourself yet. There’s a basket filled with Swiss chocolates waiting inside for you.”

She placed her hands over her face, her voice coming out muffled. “Oh, please tell me you don’t have a basket of chocolates waiting inside. I said so many things to you. So many stupid, stupid things.”

“You called me a sexy shortstop with a squeezable behind.”

She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

He pulled her hands away from her face. “Look at me, Ms. Andersen.”

She shook her head, her eyes still shut. “Call me Virginia. After all I’ve said to you, I think you’ve more than earned the right to call me by my first name.”

“Open your eyes.” He was touching her. He had just met her and yet he had her hands in his. He knew he should drop them, but he wanted to see her eyes again.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Hideaway Island. Home of crystal-blue waters, white sandy beaches and the Bradley siblings. Join them on their journeys of self-discovery as they fall in love in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

In Surrender at Sunset meet Carlos, the superstar baseball player who’s hiding from the world after a career-ending injury. His new spunky decorator, Virginia, knows her biggest job will be to show Carlos that the simplest things in life are often the most meaningful.

Jamie Pope

Surrender at Sunset

Jamie Pope

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JAMIE POPE first fell in love with romance when her mother placed a novel in her hands at the age of thirteen. She became addicted to love stories and has been writing them ever since. When she’s not writing her next book, you can find her shopping for shoes or binge-watching shows on Netflix.

To the Harlequin Kimani team.

Thanks for all your support.

Acknowledgments

Jamie B., Denise S., Gail C., Jen M., Heidi U.

Thanks for brainstorming with me in Vermont.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Copyright

Chapter 1

Carlos Bradley heard the faint sounds of voices coming from somewhere in his house as he lay in his bed. One male and one female. For a moment he was mildly curious as to whom the voices belonged to. He lived on the secluded side of a small island off the Florida coast. He had picked the location because it was almost junglelike. Hot and overgrown and tropical. At times he felt as if he was the only one on Earth. No guests. No visitors allowed. Just a cleaning woman and a groundskeeper who came once every other week.

It must be them talking. None of his friends would come down here, even though they had offered once they had learned of his bad news. But after a while the offers had stopped. His phone no longer rang. He was alone. As he wanted to be.

He pulled the covers over his head in a vain attempt to block out the bright sun that was streaming through his bedroom windows and tried to go back to sleep. It was probably well past noon, but he wanted darkness. Night was the only time he could shut his eyes and forget that the world was still going on without him.

“Carlos!” He heard the voice of his baby sister, Ava, and then felt her bounce onto the bed. “This bed is enormous. Is he even in here?”

“Yeah,” his brother and Ava’s twin, Elias, answered. “He’s the lump in the middle.” A hard fist came down on his shoulder.

The hit stung but Carlos, too tired to even make noise, said nothing, just pulled the covers away from his face and glared at his younger siblings. “What...” His mouth felt dry. His tongue heavy from not having been used in so long. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to anybody, much less carried on a conversation.

“What the hell are you doing here?” The twins were the only ones who still came around. They both led busy lives so he didn’t see them much. But they were the only ones who attempted to keep his connection to the outside world.

“We came to see what you were up to.” Ava gave him a once-over, concern in her eyes that hadn’t shown up in her voice. “You look terrible.”

“You look like shit,” Elias said, staring at him.

“I’m healing. Get the hell out.” He turned over and put a pillow over his face. He didn’t want to see anybody. He didn’t want to be around anybody. That was why he had escaped instead of staying in Miami, where all of his friends, colleagues and fans were. Why hadn’t they gotten that through their thick heads by now?

“And I thought you were Mr. MVP. Mr. All-American. Mr. Super Nice Guy Baseball Hero.” Elias shook his head. “If your fans could see you now.”

His fans.

They wouldn’t want to see him now. They wouldn’t want to see him at all. Not like this. Not broken and useless.

He had only been good for one thing, and that was winning games. Now that he couldn’t do that anymore, what was his purpose?

He was Mr. MVP, a star player since the day he’d picked up a glove. But that had all ended when his Achilles tendon had ruptured during the playoff game that had taken his team, the Miami Hammerheads, to the World Series. Surgery, rehab and six months away from baseball, and all he had to show for it was a nasty scar and decreased range of motion.

“How’s your foot?” Elias asked him, seeming to have read his mind. His brother grabbed his leg and studied the scar on his heel. Carlos could have fought the examination, but frankly he was too tired to give a damn. Plus, Elias was a doctor, in his first year of surgical residency. Even though his brother was a pain in his ass right now, he trusted his opinion.

Elias pushed back on his toes, causing a slight twinge in his tendon that hadn’t gone away since the operation. “Feels really tight,” Elias said, rotating his foot. “Are you doing your exercises?”

He was quiet. He had been good about it until a few weeks ago, until his father’s birthday arrived and it had hit him. He no longer had the two things that mattered most in his life. His father and the game.

Nothing seemed important anymore.

“That’s such a nasty scar,” Ava said, touching it. “He went to the best of the best, you’d think they’d find a way to make the scar look better.”

“It would have been better if Mr. Overachiever here hadn’t overdone it after the surgery. Thought he could go back normal activity, just like that. The wound got infected. You did more damage than good by overworking it.”

“Thanks for the recap. Now get out.” He didn’t need the reminder. He knew he had screwed things up, but he’d wanted to go back so badly. It was bad enough that he’d missed the game of his life. He hadn’t wanted to miss the next season. But instead of a quick recovery it had been setback after setback.

“You know how many hours I work. I barely get a day off. When I do, I come all the way from Miami to see you, the least you could do is be hospitable. Offer us some coffee. How about some lunch? A glass of lemonade? Something.” Elias looked down at him, annoyed.

“What do you want?”

“To see you, big brother.” Ava snuggled closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Mom was asking about you.”

“I just talked to Mom. She’s having a nice time in Costa Rica with her sisters.”

“Yes, but since we live in the same state she thinks that we should spend time with you. I know you’d much rather be left alone, but I’m more scared of her than you. So we’re here. Get over it.”

Carlos sighed and wrapped his arm around Ava. He’d always had a soft spot for his baby sister. She had still been in college when their had father passed away, and at nine years her senior he had stepped in over the years in their father’s absence. “She is scary,” he admitted with a sigh.

“She’s started working out,” Elias said. “If I didn’t have a foot and a hundred pounds on her, I’m pretty sure she could take me.”

“Get up, Carlos,” Ava said, rising from the bed. “Feed us. I do love this island but it’s a pain to get here.”

It looked as though Carlos didn’t have much of a choice. Sometimes he viewed his younger siblings like a bad rash. Hard to get rid of. Everybody else had easily faded away once he’d gotten injured, but Elias and Ava had never left. And they wouldn’t leave him today until he got out of bed.

He forced himself past the immediate, familiar feeling of tightness in his heel as he set his feet on the floor. One of the reasons he’d bought this house was because of the huge master suite. It contained a bedroom, bathroom and sitting room, and with the small fridge he kept in there, he didn’t have to leave it for days at a time.

The house was enormous, much bigger than one man would ever need. But he had bought it because his father had liked it. It was oceanfront, secluded. The landscape around it made him feel as if he were in an undeveloped tropical country instead of on a little island off the coast of South Florida. His father had said it was a place that he could see a family spending their summers. He’d said it was a place built for a superstar. Carlos had bought it, thinking that his parents would spend their winters there and that the family would gather there for holidays. But when his father had died from a massive heart attack that had all changed.

His mother spent most of her time traveling around the world. Too active to stay still. Too sad to be around anything that reminded her of her husband. His older sister stayed in their native Maryland with her growing family who had their own traditions now. Elias was always working or studying, and Ava... Ava dated rich men. The house had stayed mostly empty for the past five years, but when Carlos had got hurt and Miami had become too much, it had been the only place he could think to go.

“I don’t think I have much to offer you,” he said as he led them into the massive kitchen. “I’ve got frozen pizza.” He opened the freezer, revealing that it was stacked to the top with them.

“Why do you have so much pizza?” Ava asked. Carlos looked back at his sister, who was dressed head to toe in designer wear. She was a beautiful girl and she knew it. She spent most of her days maintaining her beauty. He would guess that nothing processed and frozen had passed her lips in years.

“I was the spokesman for their brand. They do a lot for pediatric cancer research so I donated my fee and they gave me a lifetime’s supply of pizza.”

“Oh, do you have any fresh spinach? I could go for a simple spinach salad.”

“No.” He preheated the oven and went back to the refrigerator. “It’s either a sports drink or water. Take your pick.”

Elias grinned at him. “I’ll take a red one if you’ve got it. Ignore Miss Priss over here. Pizza is fine. Her rich fiancé can take her out to dinner later and feed her all the salad she wants.”

“Speaking of rich fiancés.” Ava looped her arm through his. “We’ve been searching for venues to get married next year and we are having a really hard time finding one we like.”

“You mean one you like.” Elias shook his head. “Your man doesn’t give a damn where you get married. I think he would be happy going to city hall and saving a hundred grand.”

“Nobody is talking to you, Eli.”

“Oh, excuse me? Did I need to wait to be called on? I hadn’t realized that we were back in elementary school.”

“Cool it, you two,” Carlos said firmly. He knew his siblings could go at it for hours once they got started, but they were closer to each other than to anybody else on the planet. They went to the same college and even now they lived next door to each other in matching town houses.

“He started it.” Ava looked at Eli.

“Well, I’m finishing it. What were you saying, Ava?”

“I’ve loved this island since Daddy first brought us here as kids. I want to get married here, but there is no venue that’s large enough.” She looked up at him with the big, soulful brown eyes that had gotten her out of a lot of trouble when she was a kid. “But this place looks as if it could easily hold two hundred and fifty guests.”

“You want to get married here?” He wasn’t sure why he was surprised to hear that. She was the one who’d suggested he look for a house on this island five years ago.

“Yes, and I came to ask you to walk me down the aisle. Will you?”

He was surprisingly touched by her question. It seemed as if the only things he’d felt the past few months were anger and emptiness. “What about Mom? I thought she was going to walk you.”

“I want you to do it. You take care of me. And if Daddy can’t be there I want his favorite person in the world to.”

“Okay,” he said. It was all he could say. He couldn’t turn her down, even if he wanted to.

Her eyes lit. “Okay to walking me down the aisle? Or okay to me having the wedding here?”

“Okay to both.” His father would have wanted it that way. He would have wanted his baby girl to marry in a place that she loved, and it was Carlos’s job to make sure all of his father’s dreams came true. Even if he wasn’t around to see them anymore.

“Thank you, Carlos!” She pulled him into a hard hug. “You going to fix up this place before the wedding, right?”

“Fix it up?” He looked around him. There was barely any furniture and the walls were white and bare but it looked fine to him.

“Yes, fix it up. Make it look more like a home than an abandoned oceanfront warehouse.”

“I’ve got to agree with Ava on that one. This house looks like a big, expensive dump.”

“Dump? It might be a bit sparse, but it’s not a dump.”

The twins looked at each other, communicating without words in a way that always drove him crazy.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll fix it up. What do you think I should do with it?”

“I don’t know.” Elias shrugged. “It’s your place.”

“Get an interior designer.” Ava rolled her eyes.

“A what?”

“A decorator. You know, a professional person who will make this place look less like a rich serial killer lives here and more like the superstar athlete you are.”

“Where do I get one of those? The phone book?”

“The internet?” Elias suggested.

Ava rolled her eyes. “You don’t just pick a stranger. You get a personal recommendation.”

“From who, exactly?”

“I don’t know.” She went into the freezer, took a pie out and placed in the oven. “Don’t you have friends that have homes you like? You could ask one of them.”

“I never paid attention to their houses.” He truthfully had not. Plus, a lot of his player friends were married. Their wives took control of most of the household stuff.

“Well, what about your condo in Miami? Who did that?” Elias asked.

“It came like that. I bought the model unit.”

They all were quiet for a moment. “What about that little inn we rented out for Mommy’s birthday? It had just been redone. You liked it there, Carlos. I can call and find out who did it.”

He had liked it there. It was so different from all the other places in Miami, unlike all the other places he had stayed while on vacation. He had felt truly relaxed then, one of the rare times he’d felt that way since he became a man. He couldn’t describe what the place had looked like, but it had had a homeyness to it that had made him not want to leave.

“Okay. Let me know who it is and I’ll set it up.”

* * *

Virginia Andersen rubbed her forehead as she reentered her tiny rented office. The Miami heat and the stress of the day were finally getting to her. She had just returned from Mrs. Westerfield’s house for the second time that day after spending two hours showing her drape samples.

In every color imaginable.

It wasn’t as if Virginia minded showing the elderly woman the drapes. It was her job as an interior designer to do so. And since Mrs. Westerfield was her only paying client at the moment, she didn’t really have a choice. She just had one complaint. It was a small one, really. The elderly woman used her more like a personal assistant than an interior designer. Virginia walked her bichon frise, went to the grocery store with her and helped her picked out what to wear on her dates with someone she referred to as her gentlemen caller. And none of that bothered her. Mrs. Westerfield was fabulous with her love of vintage clothes, art and Latin culture. It was just...

It wasn’t her job.

And when her parents called to see what she was working on—and they always wanted to know what she was working on—she wanted to tell them she was using her eye for design and color to decorate beautiful homes, not picking up dog mess.

It was important to her that she prove to her parents that she was successful, or at least supporting herself in a lifestyle that they saw fit. Her father was a high-ranking military official, and her mother was a mathematics professor at an Ivy League college back in her home state of New Jersey. They’d had big plans for their twins.

But none of them included being an almost starving artist, and that was just what Virginia had been before she’d opened her design firm. Moving from state to state, chasing boyfriend after artistic boyfriend and painting. Some of her pieces had sold for big bucks, but it was never enough for her parents. They’d never understand her need to splash colors onto a blank canvas. They were too practical to see how a painting on a wall could bring someone joy.

And while they would have much rather had her be an actuary or an engineer, they’d never denied her the opportunity to learn about the things she loved. She had a bachelor of fine arts in painting with a minor in interior design and a master’s degree in art history. She was educated, just like any child of Colonel and Dr. Andersen should be, and they felt she should have a job suited to that education.

She’d been all ready to ignore her parents’ wishes and follow her heart, until her heart had led her here to Miami. She had come here at the request of her last boyfriend. Burcet, a beautiful Moroccan man with striking bronzed skin and long, wavy black hair, had grown up in France and spoke the most perfect French. He was a sculptor, passionate about his work and incredibly sweet and sensitive.

She had followed him when he’d told her he was going to get his big break, asking her to support his dreams, promising that once he hit it big he would return the favor. But after six months here he had disappeared, leaving a goodbye note taped to her microwave, never telling her why he left, just saying that he couldn’t be his true self with her.

That was when she’d taken a long hard look at her life. She’d been twenty-eight then, sleeping on a mattress in an un-air-conditioned studio apartment because she’d wanted to live the bohemian-artist lifestyle. And because she’d thought she was in love. But what had she had to show for it?

Absolutely nothing but the thoughts her parents had put in her mind about coming back home and getting a sensible job and leading a sensible life.

But sensible meant boring to her. So she’d taken her savings and her design degree and decided to do something meaningful. She’d opened a design firm. But for the past year she’d only had a few high-paying jobs in Miami’s crowded market. Most of her clients of late were the little elderly ladies who lived in Mrs. Westerfield’s condo complex. And while she enjoyed doing neoclassic dining rooms, she wanted a project that she could really sink her teeth into. She’d only had a couple of those and she was afraid there weren’t going to be many more in her future. If things didn’t pick up, she was going to have move back home and get that practical job her parents were always suggesting. Her mother had an in at a university. Virginia could be teaching bored college freshman Art History 101 by fall. All she had to do was say the word. All she had to do was go home with her tail tucked between her legs.

But she didn’t want that. She wanted a career where she could be creative. Where she could be in charge of her own path.

The phone on her desk rang and she jumped. Mrs. Westerfield had her cell phone number, so it couldn’t be her. Her heart lifted at the thought of a new client. “Andersen Interiors. How can I help you today?”

“I’ve got a German shepherd that needs to be taken to the vet. Are you available?”

“Shut up, Asa,” she said to her twin brother, but she smiled as she said it. Her brother was the only one who really understood her because he’d been raised by the same parents with the same expectations.

He chuckled. “What’s going on with you today, Gin? I called your cell but it went to voice mail.”

“That’s because I took Mrs. Westerfield to get a pedicure and had to shut off my phone.”

“You took her to get a pedicure?”

“Yup. She wanted me there to help her pick out a color. One that went with her manicure but not one that matched exactly. Coordination is in, matching is out, apparently. Then, this afternoon she called me back and fed me excellent chicken salad and lemonade while we looked at drapes. She’s tired of the ones in her bedroom. In fact, she’s tired of her bedroom, period, and would either like a Paris in the twenties theme or a hard-bodied man to shake things up.” She doodled a sketch on a piece of paper as she spoke to him. “You keep yourself in good shape, why don’t you truck yourself down here and make yourself useful?”

“No, thanks. Why do you work for her anyway?”

“Because, believe it or not, I like her and she pays me for my time. I told her she didn’t have to anymore, but she says she’s rich and she can’t take it with her, and she likes having a decorator on retainer. Plus she feeds me. She’s taking gourmet cooking classes and she tries all her new recipes out on me.”

“Sounds as if she’s keeping active in her old age.”

“I want to be her when I grow up,” Virginia told him, meaning it. “She’s going on a world cruise next week. She’ll be gone for one hundred and eight days. I’m going to miss her.”

“What are you going to do without your only paying customer?”

“Panhandle? Do caricatures on the boardwalk? I hear they are looking for cage dancers at a bar downtown.”

“Or you could come home,” he said quietly. “Well, not home to Mom and Dad, but move to New York where I am. You could be with all your artsy people and I’m sure you could get a job teaching at a school here without Mom’s help.”

“I don’t want to teach, Asa. I like being an interior designer. I’m good at it, too. I just need more time to prove it.”

“I know, Gin. You’re a good painter, too. A great one, but you gave that up.” He knew she had to follow her own path, just as he had to follow his. He’d been on track to become a doctor, just the way her parents wanted, but he’d dropped out of medical school in his third year and become a paramedic. He was too much of an adrenaline junkie to do rounds and spend all day in one building. His choice had, of course, disappointed their parents. Both of them had disappointed their parents when they’d diverged from the paths laid out before them. “You do whatever you want, Gin. But you can always come home if you need to.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. Just don’t forget it. I’ve got to go. I’m about to start my shift.”

“Love you.”

“Yeah, me, too.” They disconnected. Asa used to drive her crazy when they were kids, but they had grown a lot closer as adults, though they lived hundreds of miles away from each other. He was protective, even though she was older by six minutes. He would make a good husband for some woman.

One day.

It was as if her brother was on a single-handed mission to date all the women in the mid-Atlantic states.

Her phone rang again, which was shocking considering she barely got two calls a week, much less two in one day. “Andersen Interiors. How can I help you today?”

“Is Virginia Andersen there?” It was a man’s deep voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place.

“This is she.”

“This is the same Virginia Andersen who did the Rosecove Inn?”

“Yes, I was the interior designer.” Rosecove had been her favorite job. There was something special about that little ocean-side inn with its own private beach. It had been one of her first big jobs, and the owner had taken a chance on her. She’d be forever grateful for that chance. When she’d showed her parents the pictures of it afterward they had been impressed. She didn’t need their praise to feel validated, but it sure was nice to have it.

“Good. I want you to decorate my house.”

“You do?” She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice. “Great! Are you interested in your entire home or just a few rooms?”

“The entire thing.”

Her heart beat a little faster as she changed the page on her notepad. This was just what she needed. A new client equaled a new opportunity. “How many bedrooms?”

“Six bedrooms. Five bathrooms.”

“Six bedrooms, five bathrooms?” Her voice squeaked. “How many square feet are we talking, Mr....”

“Mr. Bradley and seventeen thousand.”

“Square feet?” she squeaked. “Seventeen as in one more than sixteen and one less than eighteen.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, and she realized something was up. This was a joke... It had to be. She didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity of it all or cry, because for a moment she’d thought she had the job of her dreams.

“Your house is seventeen thousand square feet and you want me, who has decorated two inns and a slew of old ladies’ condos, to decorate it? Okay, Mr. Bradley, my mysterious benefactor, who are you really?”

“I’m Carlos Bradley.” His deep voice sounded slightly annoyed. “I have a house on Hideaway Island that I would like you to decorate.”

“Carlos Bradley! The sexy shortstop.” She laughed. “You look damn good in those uniform pants, Mr. Bradley. Tell me, how many squats does it take to get your behind that hard?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve got a great butt. One that I would very much like to squeeze one day.”

“Uh...I might let you one day, but I think we should at least meet first to talk about the house.”

“Your house. Right. I suppose I have an unlimited budget to decorate your massive mansion. Tell me, do you have a pool and a tennis court that need some jazzing up, too?”

“Yes to the unlimited budget and pool, and no to the tennis court.”

“Can I ask you a personal question, Carlos?”

“You told me you wanted to squeeze my ass, I think we’re at that stage in our relationship.”

“Do you really give gift baskets to all the women you sleep with after you’re done with them?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Where any self-respecting gossip seeker does. The internet. There was a picture of one and everything.”

“I don’t give every woman a gift basket.”

“It depends on how good they are in bed, huh?”

“What?”

She giggled. She would think this was a mean joke if she weren’t so entertained by it. “You can drop the act now. Are you one of Asa’s friends? You’ve done a great job mimicking the voice. I’m impressed.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Andersen, but this is really Carlos Bradley and I really am calling to see if you will decorate my house.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “And I was on the cover of the swimsuit issue.”

“I’m not joking.”

“No? Well, if you aren’t joking and you are Mr. MVP with the sexy round behind and the sleazy parting gifts, then I expect a town car waiting for me here at ten tomorrow morning and a private plane taking me to Hideaway Island. I could take the ferry, but why should I? You can afford to fly me out.”

“A private plane?”

“Yup and chocolate. I would like a basket of Swiss chocolates waiting for me when I get there.”

“Fine. 10:00 a.m. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Great! See ya then.” She hung up the phone. Asa had gotten her good. She was going to have fun getting him back.

Chapter 2

The next morning Virginia was sitting in her office thumbing through her recently delivered design magazines when a man in a black suit and cap came through the door.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here to pick up Virginia Andersen.”

She blinked at the man for a moment. He certainly was wearing a driver’s uniform complete with a name tag. “Pick me up for what?”

“I’m Mr. Bradley’s Miami driver. He asked me to take you to the airstrip. There will be another driver waiting for you to take you to his house.”

“What?” She laughed. “You’re here to take me to the airstrip?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked confused for a moment and then glanced at his watch. “The pickup was requested for ten o’clock. Is that correct?”

“Um...” She thought back to the phone call yesterday. She had requested a 10:00 a.m. pickup along with a long list of ridiculous things. Her brother had sworn he wasn’t playing a joke on her when she’d called him last night. She hadn’t believed him. He was the same guy who used to throw spiders at her when they were kids. She wouldn’t put a phone call past him, but this...this was too much. “I did say ten.”

“Do you need more time, ma’am?”

“No.” She stood up, grabbing her handbag from beneath her desk. “I just need to lock up. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I’ll be waiting outside.” He turned to leave.

“Wait! You aren’t an ax murderer, are you?”

“No,” he said slowly, pulling out his wallet. “I can show you my credentials.” He showed her his employee ID and his driver’s license.

“You probably think I sound crazy. You probably are just doing what you are paid to do and have nothing to do with this whatsoever. I’ll be out in a moment. Thank you, Richard.”

He left and Virginia pulled her cell phone out of her bag, calling her best friend Willa.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Wil. It’s me. I can’t talk right now, but I think my brother is playing a huge joke on me. Just in case he’s not, I want someone to know that a driver showed up at my office to take me to Carlos Bradley’s house. The story is he wants me to decorate it.”

“What?”

“I know.” Virginia shook her head. “It’s unbelievable. But if I don’t call you back by eight tonight, call the police.”

“Don’t get in that car, girl. It could be because I write murder mysteries for a living that I’m crazy paranoid, but I wouldn’t do it.”

“I really think Asa’s up to something. He called me yesterday right before all this started. He wanted me to come home. I’m wondering what it is.”

“He wants you home? Okay. Go, but you better call me long before eight.”

Willa was smart, the calm, sensible counterpart to Virginia’s adventurous nature. “Okay. I’ll call you after each leg of the trip.”

“Each leg? Where the hell are you going?”

“I think I might be headed to Hideaway Island.”

* * *

Carlos sat just outside his front door waiting to see if the interior designer actually showed up. He could have waited in his house for her, but curiosity about the woman he’d had the strangest conversation of his life with had driven him outdoors.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d just sat outside and let the sun beat down on his back. It had probably been the last time he was on the field, the same day he’d got hurt. He had spent so much of his life outside, smelling Astroturf, sweat and dirt, hearing thousands of fans cheer whenever he stepped up to bat. But it had all ended abruptly. Surgery, rehab, recovery. No fields, no fans, no career. It didn’t seem as if it made much sense for him to go outside anymore. But this morning the air-conditioning inside had become too much for him. The stuffy, too-chilled air had made him feel a little choked, so he’d escaped outside, sitting on the stone steps that led to his front door.

He had to admit that the heat felt good, the sun felt good, and the air, even though it wasn’t dirt, sweat and grass scented the way he was used to, smelled sweet to him. Like ocean air. Like summer. He might still be sitting in his bedroom trying to block the sun out if it weren’t for his siblings and the crazy designer who didn’t believe he’d called her.

He could have hung up, called around, hired somebody else who had a better résumé. It would have been a hell of a lot less trouble. But there was something about Virginia’s voice on the phone, something about her warm laughter that made him want to meet her. If for nothing more than to put a face to the woman who’d told him she wanted to squeeze his butt.

People didn’t talk to him like that. At least, not to his face, and he found that intriguing.

A black town car pulled up. Its windows were down, revealing the passenger in the backseat. Carlos couldn’t see her features clearly but he could see that her skin was just a shade lighter than milk chocolate and her hair was in wild thick curls.

The car then came to a stop, the woman scrambling out before the driver could reach her. She was pretty. Beautiful, really, but in an earthy unglamorous way that he wasn’t used to. She wore a long, light pink dress with big flowers, and it bared her pretty shoulders and hugged her curvy body in all the right places. Her skin looked smooth and sun kissed. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe someone older. Maybe someone more polished. Not a woman staring up at his house with eyes wide and her mouth open.

He stood up, walking down the steps to meet her. She hadn’t seemed to notice him until that moment. Her eyes snapped to his face. Beautiful almond-shaped eyes with thick lashes. As he stepped closer he could see that her face was clean of makeup, her cheekbones were sharp, but her face wasn’t thin. Nice didn’t seem like a good enough word, but she was nice to look at. Like somebody he could spend hours observing and never get tired of the image.

“Holy crap. It is you.” She surprised him by touching his arm; not just touching it, but wrapping her fingers around his biceps. “Wow, that’s hard.” She took her hand away and he found immediately that he missed the contact. It had been so long since he had been touched. “You’re real, right? I’m not dreaming or hallucinating. You’re really Carlos Bradley, and you really wanted me to decorate your house.”

“You thought I was lying?”

She slowly closed her eyes as a flush spread over her face. “I thought my twin brother was playing a huge joke on me.”

“You have a twin?”

“Yes, Asa. I called him last night promising retribution. He probably thinks I’m a nutcase. You probably think I’m a nutcase.”

“I do. But I have twin siblings, so I understand.”

She opened her eyes, looking thoroughly embarrassed and really kind of adorable. “Thank you for being understanding. If you could be so kind as to point me toward the ocean.”

“It’s behind the house.”

“Great.” She stepped away from him. “If you need me, I’ll just be drowning myself in it.”

He grabbed her shoulders and for a moment his thoughts stopped. Her skin was as soft as it looked, and she smelled good. Something faintly sweet but not perfumed. She smelled like something he would love to bury his face in and inhale. “You can’t drown yourself yet. There’s a basket filled with Swiss chocolates waiting inside for you.”

She placed her hands over her face, her voice coming out muffled. “Oh, please tell me you don’t have a basket of chocolates waiting inside. I said so many things to you. So many stupid, stupid things.”

“You called me a sexy shortstop with a squeezable ass.”

She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

He pulled her hands away from her face. “Look at me, Ms. Andersen.”

She shook her head, her eyes still shut. “Call me Virginia. After all I’ve said to you I think you’ve more than earned the right to call me by my first name.”

“Open your eyes.” He was touching her, he had just met her and yet he had her hands in his. He knew he should drop them, but he wanted to see her eyes again.

“I don’t want to.”

* * *

This had to be a dream. It had to be. Stuff like this just didn’t happen to her. She didn’t arrive in chauffeured cars or ride in private jets. Especially not for work. She was usually chauffeuring people around. She had even picked up Mrs. Westerfield at the airport on a few occasions. But now she was standing in front of the biggest house she had ever seen, with America’s favorite baseball player holding on to her hands. She didn’t want to open her eyes. Because when she did, she would have to come face-to-face with the fact that she had just blown the opportunity at the job of a lifetime.

“It’s hot out here,” Carlos said. “Come inside.”

She opened her eyes then, and there he was. Mr. MVP. He was royalty in Miami, a legend in the making, so she’d seen his image everywhere. Billboards. Commercials. In magazines. Still, she hadn’t paid much attention. She knew less about baseball than she knew about quantum physics. The only things she knew about him were that he was rich, he was good at his job and he went through more women than he did pairs of underwear.

That put him in her “typical womanizing athlete” category. Somebody she wouldn’t find attractive no matter how good-looking they were. But the thing was, he was extraordinarily handsome in person. Nowhere in sight was that plastered-on smiling face that she saw in ads. The real deal wasn’t smiling at all. He was looking at her with intense green eyes that contrasted with his deep brown skin. He was big, too. Well over six feet tall with a hard body that heat just seemed to roll off. He was one beautiful man, and he was touching her, holding her smaller hands in his massive ones. She’d be a big fat liar if she said her tummy didn’t feel a little funny.

“Okay.” She tried to compose herself as she followed him in, but she couldn’t stop the barrage of berating thoughts that kept entering her head. She was dressed well enough to take Mrs. Westerfield around town, but not to meet an important client. She would have worn a suit. She would have tamed her wild hair.

Her mother’s voice kept playing in her head.

If you want to be a professional you have to look professional.

Virginia had never seen a hair out of place on her mother’s head. She would pass out if she knew that Virginia was here in a maxi dress with bare shoulders and strappy sandals. It didn’t matter anyway. She wasn’t going to get this job.

She shouldn’t get this job. She really wasn’t qualified. Carlos’s home was a Spanish-style mansion with a beautiful roof of handmade red tiles. It was art. Everything from the rounded windows to the heavy wood carved door and meticulously placed stone accents was perfectly planned. It was such a contrast with its surroundings, which were kind of wild and unkempt. Coming to Hideaway Island felt like coming to another world, but coming to Carlos’s quiet part of the island was something else entirely. It almost felt like a fantasy.

She followed him to the foyer, which was big, open and airy with high ceilings but nothing else. No colors on the walls, no art, nothing. It was truly a blank slate. A dozen ideas rushed into her head. There were so many things she could do with this space alone.

She walked a little farther into the house, into a great room that held a single couch. Nothing else. Their footsteps echoed around her in the empty room. The architecture of the inside of the house was as beautiful as the outside, but that was it. The place was empty, but more than that, it felt empty. “Are you living here at the moment?”

“Yes,” he answered, looking back at her.

“Alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, but this place is so big for you to be here alone,” she said as she walked into the kitchen. “It’s so secluded here. Don’t you get lonely?”

He stopped fully, turning to face her. She’d known it was a stupid question as soon as it came out of her mouth. She had no right to ask him. “It’s none of my business,” she said in a rush. “You could probably have a different woman here every night of the week if you wanted.” He just blinked at her and she wished she had a muzzle, something to shove in her mouth to keep her from speaking. She just couldn’t get over the fact that she was here with him. Here alone with him, on this secluded island, in the middle of nowhere.

“I came here because I wanted to get away from everything.”

“I understand,” she said quietly. It might have been all in her mind, but he had this way of looking at her. Maybe it was his intense green eyes, but he looked at her in a way no other man had. In a way that made her skin hot. In a way that made her want to get closer to him and run away at the same time.

She was attracted to him and it was weird. She liked artsy men. Dancers, painters and poets with soulful eyes and sensitive hearts, and yet this massive athlete with his quiet manner and stern face was making her tingle with just a look.

“I bought this house five years ago, but because of my schedule I haven’t stayed here. I’m only here now because I’m no longer playing.”

“You’re not playing?”

He looked at her blankly. “It’s baseball season and I’m here.”

“It’s baseball season?”

“Are you serious?”

“Um, yes,” she answered feeling dumber by the moment.

“Do you even know what team I play for, Ms. Andersen?”

“The Dolphins?”

“That’s football.” He shook his head. “I play for the Hammerheads. I ruptured my Achilles tendon going for a catch in the playoff game that took my team to the World Series. I had surgery and an infection. They haven’t cleared me to play this year. It was reported everywhere.”

“I guess I’ve been paying more attention to your behind than your career, because I didn’t know any of that.” She shook her head immediately. “I don’t know why I can’t control my mouth around you. Yes, I do. I’ve been spending too much time with Mrs. Westerfield.”

“Who’s Mrs. Westerfield?” he asked, looking bewildered.

“My client. She’s seventy-eight and has no filters. Said she’s lived through two husbands and five wars and has earned the right to say whatever she pleases. My parents would be horrified if they could see me right now. Totally horrified. Why aren’t you telling me to shut up?” She was babbling, but there was something about him that made her nervous.

He shook his head and gently grabbed her wrist. “Let’s go see the rest of the house.”

“I came all the way out here. I might as well.” He looked at her strangely, but she ignored it. He was touching her again with his big, callous, rough hand that felt good on her sensitive skin. It made her wonder how his hands would feel grazing over her hips or on the backs of her thighs. She tried to shake off that thought. But it was too good. One day she was going to tell her grandchildren about the day a baseball legend had grabbed her hand and showed her around his house.

“There are two bedrooms down that hallway.” He motioned with his head as he walked. “One’s a suite with a bathroom. There’s another full bathroom down that hall for guests to use.”

He led her into a large open room where one wall was a row of doors that opened onto a lavish pool that overlooked the ocean. There was no other way to describe it but luxurious. With a few changes and some bikini-clad women it could be the setting for a glossy music video. She understood why he’d bought this place. It was fit for a superstar like him.

“This is beautiful,” she told him.

He nodded and led her out of the door, past the pool and onto the path that led to the beach. Away from the lavishness of the house, the land around them was wild, not landscaped, but it was probably one of the most beautiful spots in the country. The other side of the island, where she’d landed, was adorable, with a cute little shops and restaurants and a downtown that had a European feel. It wasn’t as touristy as some of the other islands off the coast. It was quiet. But on this side of the island she felt truly at peace, with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the breeze blowing through her hair. She felt relaxed for the first time since the car showed up at her door that morning. Which was odd, because she was standing next to a gorgeous millionaire, someone she had made a fool out of herself in front of.

“My little sister wants to get married here next year. She wants me to walk her down the aisle. I need the house fixed up before then, so she can impress all of his important friends. It’s very important to me that she is happy.”

“Who’s she marrying?”

“Some older man. He’s a real estate investor from England who wants to take over all of South Florida.”

“You don’t sound as though you’re too fond of him.”

“He spoils the hell out of her and she seems happy. She’s got him opening up a restaurant here on the island next season. But no, I don’t like him. I don’t trust him. He’s forty-nine. She’s twenty-seven. What the hell does he want with her?”

“Aren’t you a hypocrite? Wasn’t the last woman you dated twenty-one?”

He looked at her again, those piercing eyes of his narrowing. “You know that, but you don’t know that I got hurt or what team I played for?”

She shrugged. “I remember being irrationally annoyed at you when I heard that on some entertainment news show. You’re a thirty-six-year-old grown man and she’s barely out of girlhood. Someone who should be studying for her college final instead of spread across the hood of a car in a bathing suit that would fit a toddler. What the hell did you want with her? I’ve seen that girl give an interview. Don’t tell me it was for her sparkling conversation.”

“She was more mature than most her age and I was with her because I know she didn’t want me for my money.”

“No. She wanted you for your status. Every up-and-coming model needs to be seen on the arm of a major athlete.

“Has anyone ever accused you of overstepping? Because you seem to have a knack for it.”

She knew she was wrong. She knew she had crossed a line, but she couldn’t stop herself with him. She couldn’t make herself shut up. He probably didn’t run into too many women like her. He was a mythic figure to most of the world, and she should probably be cowed by him, but for some reason she wasn’t.

“I’m probably never going to see you again. What’s the harm?”

“What do you mean you’re not going to see me again? How are you going to decorate my house?”

“What?” She shook her head, thinking she must be hearing things.

“I want you to decorate my house. I told you I needed it done before my sister’s wedding next year.”

“But—but...are you sure? I’ve never done anything of this size. And you haven’t seen my portfolio. And there is the fact that I’ve acted like a complete crazy person the whole time we’ve been acquainted.”

“But you did Rosecove?”

“Yes.”

“Then, you have the job. I wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of bringing you in unless I was going to hire you.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say. This was the job of her dreams. This was the job that would keep her business open and her parents off her back. This was the job that could take her career to the next level, and she was stupidly talking herself out of it.

“You do want the job, don’t you?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Yeah? You don’t sound too sure. If you don’t think you can handle it, I can find someone else.”

“Of course I want this job, Mr. Bradley. I won’t disappoint you.”

“Good. It’s yours.”

Her heart jumped into her throat. She couldn’t believe it. She was on a beautiful island and had just been offered the job that could make her career. It seemed too good to be true. “Could you excuse me for a moment? I just have to make a phone call.”

She walked away from him, back up the path toward the house as she pulled out her cell phone.

Willa picked up on the first ring. “You’re alive?”

“Yes, and I’m walking away from the beach toward the biggest house on the planet. He offered me the job, Wils!”

“Why?” She didn’t sound at all impressed.

“What do you mean, why?”

“You’ve done a couple of beachside inns and you specialize in old-lady condos. Why does he want you? Are you sure he’s not some kind of serial killer who lures interior designers to his secluded estate and then collects their body parts in jars in his basement? That’s a great idea for a book. I’ll call it Designed for Murder.”

“Could you stop being a mystery writer for one moment and be my supportive best friend?” Virginia asked, even though she knew Willa was right. There were a hundred other designers more qualified than she.

“Yeah. I guess I could do that. This is an amazing opportunity that could skyrocket your career. And I think that deserves a happy dance.” Virginia heard Willa switch her phone to speaker. “Come on, girl. I’d better not be dancing alone here. Shake what your mama gave you.”

Virginia laughed, just imagining Willa in front of her desk in her little New York apartment dancing to celebrate her success. They had happy danced when Willa had gotten her first book deal. “I got the job,” she sang as she shook her hips. “I got the job.” Now they were dancing for her.

* * *

Carlos came up behind Virginia only to catch her dancing as she held the phone to her ear. A foreign sound escaped his mouth and he realized that he was laughing. She had done that to him, made him see the humor in something when for so long he hadn’t been able to find anything to bring a smile to his face. But she’d done it. She was the only one who’d managed it, even though others had tried. She was just herself. Her blunt, quirky self. Maybe he was crazy to offer her the job on the spot. She could be a maniac. But he wanted her, and he always got what he wanted.

Her back was to him so she couldn’t see him, and he was glad because he got to look at her shaking her rump as long as he wanted. He knew her dance wasn’t meant to be seductive, but he felt himself harden. It may have been because she was woman and he was a man who had gone a long time without one. But it had to be more than that. She’d called him out on dating a twenty-one-year-old model and she was right. Looking at her now, that girl couldn’t compare to her. No swimsuit model could.

He wondered what was going on under that long dress. Were her legs as shapely as her hips? Was the skin on her chest as smooth as the skin on her shoulders looked? Did her behind look as luscious and round as it appeared through all that fabric?

She turned around suddenly, her mouth open slightly. She had pretty lips. He had noticed that about her, too.

“Gotta go, Wils. He caught me.”

He could hear the sound of feminine laughter before they disconnected.

“I promise I’ll be professional while I’m on this job. I have references if you want to check. I’m always on time. I mind my manners and I’m efficient.”

“I don’t care if you like to dance on the job as long as you get it done. That means not having me wait fourteen months for some lamps. No renovations that are going to take longer than a year.”

“I understand. I know some great contractors.”

“Good, and you stay out of my bedroom. I don’t want it touched and I don’t want to be bothered during the day. If you’ve got a problem, handle it yourself.”

“Okay.” She nodded.

“One more thing. You’ve got to live here.” He’d thought about putting her up in town, but that was a twenty-minute drive every day. It just made sense to keep her closer.

“Live here? I’ve never lived with a client before.”

“There’s a first time for everything. Do you agree to that stipulation?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Yes. I agree.”

“Good. You’ll take the suite on the first floor. I’ll call the car back for you. You start on Monday.”

Chapter 3

Virginia arrived at Carlos’s door that Monday with her entire life in two large suitcases. She was going to be living there for the next few months, with a man she only knew bits and pieces about from the things she heard on TV or read on the internet. Part of her was nervous about it. This job was so huge. It could change the course of her career or be a huge, epic failure.

Virginia was used to epic failures. All her past relationships were. Her former life as a painter was, too, according to her mother. She’d tried to put that behind her, but as she was driven down the long single-lane road that led to Carlos’s house she couldn’t help but be moved by the natural raw beauty of the island. It made her wonder what this island would look like depicted in oils.

She didn’t normally do landscapes. She preferred people and capturing emotion on canvas, but her fingers itched to pick up a paintbrush and capture the emotion of the land, the rich green from the palm trees, the bursts of bright pink from the flowers. The ocean at sunrise. Or the waves that crashed against the shore at sunset. There was so much to see, she thought she might never tire of looking at it all. But she wasn’t there to paint. She had a job to do.

The front door opened and Carlos stood there. He wore another T-shirt and shorts. His feet were in sneakers. Everything about him screamed jock. And everything, from the way he held his powerful body to the way he looked at her, was appealing. Which was ironic, because he was exactly the type of guy she would have stayed away from in high school and college. Now he was making her hormones go crazy. Maybe it had been too long since her last relationship. Maybe she was in serious need of some sexual release.

It couldn’t happen with him, though. He was a client. She might drive some of her past clients to the airport and clean up after their dogs, but sleeping with them was where she drew the line. Of course, none of her other clients looked like exotic hard-bodied gods. But that didn’t matter, because even if she’d been less than professional getting the job, she would be on her best behavior during it.

“Were you going to ring the bell or just stand there all day?”

“Sorry. I was thinking. How did you know I was here?”

“Cameras.” He took the largest suitcase away from her as he studied her.

She was normally a fairly confident person, but the way he looked at her made her feel a little like a self-conscious thirteen-year-old again. But she was dressed smartly today. No flowy hippie dress. No wild untamed curls. She wore gray slacks and a turquoise blouse with a delicate bow at the collar. Her skin was completely covered and she would have worn a blazer if the Florida humidity hadn’t been a touch too much.

“Why are you so dressed up today?” He stepped aside, letting her into the house.

“Despite the way I acted the first time we met, I assure you I am a professional. And from here on out I plan to treat you with the respect you deserve, the respect I would give to any other client.”

He kicked the door closed, not looking at all impressed by her statement. “If you would have shown up her the other day wearing this shirt, I wouldn’t have hired you.” He walked away from her, deeper into the house.

“What? Why?” She followed, looking down at her shirt. It wasn’t her personal style but there was nothing offensive about it.

“It’s stupid.”

“My mother bought me this shirt and she’s the smartest person I know. I’m going to tell her you said that.”

He looked back at her. The corner of his mouth had curved into a smile and she just about fainted right there on the spot. He was a beautiful man, there was no denying that, but when he smiled at her the way he did, with just a tiny bit of mischief in his eyes, he was damn sexy.

“I’m not afraid of your mother. I think I can handle her.”

“Do you? I’m afraid of her. Think you can give me a few tips?”

His smile widened and, if possible, grew sexier. It caused heat to spread through her belly, and she knew she was in trouble. Never in her life had a simple smile aroused her. But Carlos Bradley seemed to make impossible things happen to her. “My mother can be scary, too. I’ve got nothing for you.”

Leaving her suitcase near the door, he took her through the great room again, and this time she noted the two beautiful winding staircases that led to the second floor and a massive fireplace with an intricately carved mantel in the center of the back wall. She’d been so overwhelmed the first time she was there she hadn’t been able to take it all in, but now she could see the details, the little things that made the place special.

He took her down the long hallway that they had passed on the way to the family room the other day. There were marble floors in different shades of creams and tans, and a little sitting area by the elegantly curved window in the middle of it all that showed distant views of the ocean. “It’s so private back here,” she said, more to herself than to him. “You would barely know if someone else was home.”

“My father thought it was perfect. There are four of us. He said there was enough space so that none of us would fight, and if we did he would send us to our rooms.”

There was a sadness in his voice as he said it, and she knew he had suffered a loss. “Did you fight a lot when you were kids?”

“Normal amount, I guess. We lived in a tiny three-bedroom house. There was just no getting away from each other.” He opened the door to the room at the very end of the hall and she was blown away at the bedroom before her. “This is your room.”

Room was an understatement, with the sitting area and the patio that led out to the pool. It was twice the size of her apartment. “This is amazing.”

“I hope you are comfortable here.”

“There’s not a strong enough word to tell you how I feel about this room.”

He nodded as if he were pleased by her answer and stepped forward, his hand raised. She wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but she held her breath as he grew closer, her heart beating a little quicker. He yanked the little bow at her throat, causing it to come loose and reveal the top of her chest. If it were anybody else she might have smacked them, but her chest felt looser, as if that little bow had been choking her.

“That’s better. I can’t look at you with that stupid bow.” His fingers lingered where they were, his knuckles pressed against her skin. Her nipples grew tight. She didn’t want him to remove his hand, but instead slide it down so that she could feel it in more than just one spot.

But that was a bad thought. She worked for him. He was her boss and she needed to keep her attraction to him in check no matter how tempting it was to jump off the deep end and onto him. Taking both of her hands, she wrapped them around his larger one and slowly pulled it away from her chest. “I didn’t know you were such a fashion critic.”

“It makes me doubt your taste, and since you are decorating my house that’s a concern for me.”

“Well, the wonderful thing about this being your house is that I will decorate it however you want. What is your vision for this place?”

“I have no vision. That why I hired you.”

“You have no idea at all? What about furniture? What about paint colors?”

“This is the room my mother or sister will stay in, so I want it to be made up for a woman. Other than that I don’t care what you do. Just make it nice. I don’t want any updates. I don’t want to know what you’re doing, just show me when you’re done.”

“You want a big reveal?” she asked, flabbergasted. “But you live here. It’s going to be hard to surprise you.”

“I don’t want anything done to the kitchen. I mostly keep to my bedroom and the gym. There’s also a theater room on the other side of the house that I might be in. But other than that I’ll stay out of your way. And, during the day, you stay out of mine.”

“Okay.” She nodded, even though it was going to be hard to make this place over without any direction from him at all.

“I have a credit card for you to use. There’s some cash for your expenses. There’s no budget, but I have cut you a check for half of your fee. If you don’t think it’s fair we can negotiate a higher price. Other than that, treat the house as if it were your own. The pool, kitchen and grounds are available to you. There’s a car in the garage for your use.”

“Okay.” She nodded again, not knowing what else to say.

“I’ll get you bags and leave you alone to get settled.” He walked out, and she was glad he did because she had just become overwhelmed by it all. This house, this job, was too big for her. It was so unlike the little beachside inns she loved doing, a far cry from the three-room condos she was used to. A house like this should have a team of designers, or at least somebody with more experience. But she didn’t have more experience and there was nobody else but her here to do it. So she was going to have to suck up her fears and get it done. Because she’d never quit a job in her life and she would be damned if this was her first.

* * *

Carlos left Virginia alone in her room. He knew he had gone a step too far when he’d unraveled that silly little bow on her shirt. But he hadn’t been able to help himself. It was as if his fingers had developed a mind of their own, eager to reveal the woman he had met a few days ago. The woman he couldn’t stop thinking about, even though he desperately tried to. She had come covered up today—long sleeves, long pants, closed-toe heels. Her hair was pinned back. Her wild curls hidden from him. He didn’t like it. The raw, earthy beauty she had was gone, and left was another professional-looking woman who was a dime a dozen.

He could tell she was subdued today, trying to be the person she thought should be instead of the woman she really was. He didn’t want normal. He didn’t want professional. If he had, he would have hung up on her the day he called. He never would have gone through the trouble of bringing her here in the first place.

And so when he’d been in her bedroom with her, he hadn’t been able to resist messing her up a little, revealing her a little. It was a mistake, because the backs of his fingers had touched the soft skin of her chest. It had taken everything inside him not to slide his hand just a little lower and pop open some of her buttons. He knew if he had, he wouldn’t have been satisfied with just looking at her. He would have wanted to run his fingers over the top of her cleavage, maybe lower his lips to her chest and kiss her there.

Kissing that lush body wouldn’t have been enough. There was the bed there, just across the room. It had stood before him like a big neon sign, beckoning him. All he’d have had to do was lift her off her feet and carry her there. All he’d have had to do was strip away those layers of clothes and cover her body with his own, satisfying a need he hadn’t known he’d had until she’d walked into his world.

But he had hired her to work for him and he knew that he shouldn’t cross that line, especially before one wall was painted. For now he just needed to keep out of her way and keep his hands off her.

* * *

Virginia changed out of the outfit that Carlos seemed to hate so much and spent the rest of the day wandering the house with her sketch pad in hand, making notes and just imagining what the space could be.

He was a superstar, an athlete and a legend in the making. Plus, he was a single man in the prime of his life. His house should reflect that. The common spaces were going to have to be sleek and sophisticated enough to impress any one of the important guests at his sister’s wedding, but she would make the bedrooms homey. Each one of them different and reflective of the beautiful setting around them.

Around six that night she left the dining room and went into the kitchen that, despite being renovated five years ago, looked as modern as some of the work she had recently done. Finished in a rich mahogany, it was a cook’s dream with its huge granite-top island, double ovens, multiple sinks and spacious countertops. It seemed like a waste for a single man.

Her stomach rumbled. Carlos had never mentioned anything about food, not that she was expecting him to provide her with meals, but she wondered what she was going to eat tonight. She opened the refrigerator door to find it filled with sport drinks and water. There were a couple of bottles of expensive imported beer, but not much else. Not even eggs. The freezer was full of frozen pizza. There were hot dogs there, too, and that left her wondering what the man ate. She opened the cabinets to see only protein bars and a large jar of peanut butter. Shaking her head, she changed the page on her pad and started making a list.

“Why are you shaking your head?”

She looked up to see Carlos standing in the doorway of the far side of the kitchen; the house was so big she hadn’t heard his footsteps. “I was just wondering how you keep your body so hard when you eat like a thirteen-year-old boy.”

“I thought I was eating pretty well,” he said as he stepped closer. “There’s no marshmallow cereal or instant cups of soup in there.” He stopped next to her, his body so close that his arm brushed against hers as he looked down at her list. She had changed into shorts and a tank top, a far cry from what she’d been wearing when she’d arrived. The brush of his skin against hers caused goose bumps to break out on her skin.

“Thank heaven for small miracles. I’m going to make a grocery store run.”

“You don’t have to. I can have whatever you want delivered.”

“And let somebody else choose my fruit? You must be crazy. There’s a grocery store in town, right?”

“There’s two. One that sells gourmet stuff. The other is where most of the locals go. Just tell the car’s GPS where you want it to go and it will lead you there.”

“Or you could lead me there.” She didn’t know why she’d issued the invitation, but the thought of leaving him alone in this huge house didn’t sit well with her.

“No.”

She was taken aback by his brisk refusal. “No? It will be dark by the time I get back. I was hoping there would be less of a chance getting lost on the island if you come with me.”

“You can wait until morning to go. There’s enough food here for the night.”

“I just thought you could show me around a little.”

“It’s not my job to show you around,” he said coldly. “I’m paying you for a service and that’s it. You have three choices. Take your chances alone in town tonight. Go in the morning. Or make a list of things you need and I’ll have them delivered. I’m not going into town.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll go in the morning.”

He nodded. “If you’re hungry, the frozen pizza isn’t bad.” He walked away then, leaving Virginia a little bit heartsore and a hell of a lot confused.

Chapter 4

Carlos woke up the next morning feeling like a world-class asshole. He had been rude to Virginia last night. Incredibly rude, and if his father had heard him he would have smacked him in the mouth.

She’d just wanted to go to the supermarket. It wasn’t a strange request; it wasn’t something that would require a lot out of him. Buying groceries was something that normal people did, but he hadn’t been normal in a very long time. And he hadn’t been off his property since he’d heard that the team’s doctors weren’t removing him from the injured list.

There was no need to leave here. There was nothing he had to do. No schedule he had to keep. Even before he left Miami he’d never ventured into a store. Everything he needed was delivered to him. All he had to do was pick up the phone.

It wasn’t as if he could just leave the house and go to the supermarket like anybody else. He’d stopped being able to the day he’d been drafted to the majors right out of high school. He wasn’t able to go to the park with his siblings without somebody recognizing him. He hadn’t been able to go to dinner in a normal chain restaurant without being mobbed by fans.

He had loved it, at first. He was grateful for all the love and support from his fans, but when he’d got hurt all that had changed. Now all people wanted to know was when he was coming back. When he was going to take his team to the playoffs again.

He didn’t have an answer for them. His parents had both worked two jobs to move them to a better neighborhood. His sister taught at-risk kids. His little brother was studying to be a surgeon. All he had to do was play baseball. And now that he couldn’t, he felt a little like a failure. He had lost the ability to do the thing that had made his father swell with pride every time he saw him play. Maybe he was on Hideaway Island to escape all of that, the expectation, the disappointment, now that he couldn’t give people what they wanted. He couldn’t do the only thing he had ever been good at.

That was why he had balked when Virginia had asked him to go grocery shopping with her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d left the house, much less gone out in public.

He went downstairs looking for her. She wasn’t in the kitchen, the dining room or the living room. Her bedroom was empty, her bed made up, the room clean as if no one had slept in it.

The house felt empty. Unlike last night. The house had felt different; it hadn’t felt as empty. He hadn’t felt as empty, knowing she was there. But now he wondered if she had gone, quit because he was the asshole who didn’t want to leave his house. He walked outside by the pool area, finding it empty, but then he spotted a little pair of gold sandals in the sand on the path that led to the beach.

As he walked down the pathway, seeing her footprints, his chest began to feel looser. And there she was, sitting at the edge of the water, her feet being splashed by the waves. Her dress was bunched up at her waist and she seemed lost in thought.

He kicked off his sneakers and sat beside her. The sand was damp, the water cool, but it was a shock to his system. He hadn’t done this before. He had what most people dream of—a private beach. Half an island to himself. Unspoiled nature surrounding him, and yet he had never sat outside and enjoyed it. Never felt the sand between his toes, never smelled the sweet, salty air, never looked out on the endless blue ocean that was right outside his home.

He felt guilty because he was here to enjoy this place when his father couldn’t. His father would be so disappointed to see that he hadn’t even bothered to go outside and just breathe it all in.

“I’ve never been on a beach alone,” she said to him after a moment. “Especially a beach like this. It’s truly something, isn’t it?”

“It’s beautiful. How long have you been out here?”

“Since the sun came up. I couldn’t sleep last night so I came out here to think.”

“To think,” he repeated. “About what?”

“About this job. About whether I’ve gotten in over my head. I was thinking about if maybe I should leave.”

He was quiet for a moment, knowing he needed to apologize for snapping at her last night, but not knowing how to begin. “Do you want to leave?”

“I feel as if I’m intruding, Mr. Bradley.”

“I feel as if you’re supposed to call me Carlos.” He stood up, extending his hand. “Come to the market with me.”

* * *

He had a Range Rover in the garage solely for her use, but she wanted to him to drive the old-school black convertible that was big as a tank and took as much gas. It had come with the house; the former owner had fixed it up himself.

“I’m feeling a little like Lena Horne in the 1950s,” she said as the ocean air whipped around them. “Just give me a big pair of sunglasses and a fabulous scarf.” She had her bare feet up on the dashboard, those long shapely legs stretched out before him, distracting his attention from the road. He was very tempted to run his hand up one of them, just to feel more of her softness, but he stopped himself. Never in his life had he met anyone he wanted to touch more; never in his life had he found a woman so tempting.

“I never would have thought to come here until you called me,” she said, looking at the scenery around her. “This doesn’t feel like Florida. It feels as if I’m in another country altogether.”

“My parents brought us here once, as kids. So when the opportunity came up to buy it, I did.”

“I would have loved to come here as a kid,” she said wistfully. “My parents aren’t the relax-on-the-beach, sand-between-their-toes type of people.”

“My mother is from Costa Rica. She had a hard time living in Maryland, away from the water, so every summer my parents would pack us in the car and drive us down to Florida. My father loved the beach. He saved all his vacation days for the year so we could spend two weeks down here. He would park his chair in the sand in the morning and wouldn’t leave until sundown that night,” he said, finding himself sharing more about himself than he meant to.

“What did the rest of you do?” she asked, smiling.

“Ran wild.” Memories came flooding back to him of Ava and Elias running around the beach with inflatable water tubes around their waists, and his older sister reading in the shade of an umbrella.

“I’m jealous.” She shut her eyes and leaned back in the seat, letting the rays of the sun hit her face. “My parents were all about culture and educational vacations. As an adult I can appreciate seeing Prague. As a seven-year-old, I’d much rather have gone to an amusement park on the Jersey Shore.”

“Your parents took you to Europe as a kid?”

“Yes, my mother is a mathematics professor who teaches courses with names like Complex Functions Theories and Partial Differential Equations. My father was a high-ranking military man and dealt with a lot of foreign officials. They wanted their children to be well-rounded individuals who could excel in any setting.”

“Are you?”

“You’ve met me. What do you think? My parents were expecting a doctor and another professor in the family. But my brother is a paramedic and I decorate people’s houses for a living.”

“You think they are disappointed in you?”

“Oh, I know they are, but I learned a long time ago that I have to follow my dreams, not the dreams they have for me.”

He pulled into town and was greeted with the sight of brightly colored buildings in mint greens, bright blues and yellows. There were people strolling up and down the small streets and diners eating on restaurant patios, but it wasn’t crowded. It didn’t feel like the height of tourist season, which it was. The whole place felt relaxed, a throwback to another time, and Carlos felt himself growing relaxed. He didn’t think he would like being in town. But this place was so different from Miami. He forgot that was why he was drawn to it in the first place.

A few minutes later they were in the market, with him pushing the cart while Virginia went through her list.

“You aren’t one of those low fat/no fat people, are you?” She stopped in front of the milk case.

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