Private 02 - Private Paradise

Chapter One

    This could not be happening.
    That was all Carla DeLuca could think as she stared, dumbstruck, at the man in front of her. The Caribbean breeze ruffled night dark hair that was much shorter than she remembered. His lean features had become bolder, more chiseled, and his broad-shouldered lanky form had filled out substantially. Despite the differences, she had known his face the instant she'd laid eyes on him. Even after over a decade, there was no mistaking those blue eyes, startling against his jet black lashes and brows.
    Eyes that crinkled at the corners as he offered a friendly, if guarded smile, and didn't do a damn thing to help her unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
    “ Isn't it amazing?” Her cousin Chris's laughing voice broke through her daze, and she focused on his smiling face as he clapped the other man on the shoulder. “Who would have ever thought we'd hire Sam O'Connell as head of security?”
    “ Amazing,” Carla murmured. Mentally steeling herself, she forced herself to meet Sam's eyes. The effect of those laser blue eyes meeting hers was only slightly less jolting than it had been two minutes ago, when she'd arrived on the terrace of Holley Cay's dining room to see what Chris's big surprise was.
    After a two month search for someone to head up security at Holley Cay, the exclusive Caribbean resort Chris had started nearly a decade ago which Carla now managed, Chris had found the perfect candidate.
    Sam O'Connell.
    A man who Carla could happily go to her grave never laying eyes on again.
    “ Sam,” Carla repeated. “You hired Sam to head up our security,” she said, as though she expected Chris to change his answer, like it was all some horrible joke.
    But Chris had no clue what had gone on between Sam and Carla during that hot Las Vegas summer, and if he did, he'd never be so cruel as to pull something like this.
    “ It's great to see you again, Carla,” Sam said. His expression gave nothing away, but his voice, still raspy and even deeper than it had been at twenty-one, had the same maddening impact as it always did, curling around her like a warm blanket and sending a little flutter of need to her core. “You look even better than the last time I saw you.”
    Not much of a stretch, considering the last time he saw her she was a sobbing mess, practically bent double in pain from the blow he'd just delivered to her heart.
    Still, as she felt his admiring gaze roam over her, she was glad she'd had her monthly Brazilian Blowout just yesterday so her psychotically curly hair hung down her back in silky waves and that her short, silky dress showed off arms and legs that were slim and toned from hours on the running trail and thousands of reps in the gym.
    That's right. Take a long look at what you gave up, everything you've been missing, she thought.
    Then it hit her again, how easily he'd been able to walk away. He hadn't missed a goddamn thing. The memory of his smirk and the cruel glint in his blue eyes was enough to get her hormones in check and straighten her spine.
    She was no longer an eighteen-year-old girl caught under the spell of a seductive bad boy. She was almost thirty years old, in charge of a multi-million dollar operation. And, if Sam and Chris had their way, Sam's boss.
    Right. Maybe when hell froze over.
    Her muscles strained with the effort to keep her smile on her face. “You're looking good yourself.” It was the understatement of the last millennium. At twenty-one, he'd been a blue-eyed heartbreaker with his black Irish looks and tall, athletic body. Now, at thirty-two, he was six foot three inches of solid muscle. He'd packed on at least twenty-five pounds since she'd seen him last, and not an ounce of it was fat.
    His shoulders strained at the sleeves of his white linen shirt. In deference to the tropical heat, he wore short sleeves, exposing the lower half of biceps that were as big around as her thigh and forearms corded with muscle and sinew.
    His face had taken on a lean maturity, and while his eyes were still piercingly blue, they no longer held the naughty glimmer that said he was thinking of about a hundred different things to do to her and she was guaranteed to enjoy every one.
    There was a seriousness about him now, a kind of quiet readiness that hadn't existed in the charming hellraiser she'd known. And in his eyes, she could see the shadows, the ones she'd never had more than a glimpse of all those years ago.
    The ones that made