Private 02 - Private Paradise

about the person I'm doing it with.”
    She felt a jolt in her stomach as his words registered. Was he trying to imply that he cared about her? Oh right, who was she kidding. “Uh huh. And I bet you've 'cared'”―she made air quotes with her fingers―“for a lot of women over the years.”
    She picked up the second half of her sandwich, not so much because she was still hungry as to distract herself from the hard set to his jaw and the turbulent emotions in his blue gaze. Almost as though she might have hurt him with her little jab.
    He got up and she heard a cork pop in the kitchen, followed by the glugging sound of glasses being filled. Sam returned to the armchair and set a glass of red wine in front of her as he brought the other to his own lips.
    The storm shutters rattled against the windows, and for a second Carla questioned the wisdom of getting a buzz on while a hurricane raged. But as she caught Sam's intense stare she took her glass in hand and took a deep drink. Now that the eye had passed over, the worst of the storm was over. The villa had held up and they were safe as long as they stayed inside.
    And God knew, if she was going to be stuck in here with Sam for several more hours, she needed something to take the edge off.
    “ What about you?” Sam asked curtly. He sat back in his chair, one foot draped over his knee as he held his glass loosely in one hand. Though his posture was relaxed, Carla knew from the tightness of his muscles in his shoulders and neck he was anything but.
    “ What about me?” she said.
    “ What happened to your plan to get married and have a couple of kids before you turned thirty?”
    Carla felt her face heat and she stared at the dark depths of her wine so she wouldn't have to meet Sam's probing gaze. She wanted to kick herself for ever revealing her hopes and dreams to him in those secret, starlit conversations. She wanted to kick him for throwing it back in her face.
    She cringed inwardly, remembering how she'd told him things about her mother and her string of loser boyfriends. How Carla had vowed to never be anything like her mother, how she would be smart about who she gave her heart to so she wouldn't end up alone with two kids to raise, her heart so bruised and battered it was a wonder it even beat anymore.
    How the man sitting across from her was living proof that when it came to bad boys who flashed a sexy smile as they said all the right things, Carla was just as foolish as her mother.
    “ I haven't made the best choices, relationship wise,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.
    Sam's eyes narrowed. “I assume you're referring to me.”
    “ I'd hardly call our summer fling a relationship,” she said, throwing his own words back in his face. “But yeah, that probably should have clued me in. There were others after that who did their own damage.”
    Sam leaned forward. “Like who?”
    Carla took another sip of wine, felt its warmth pour through her limbs, relaxing her body and her tongue as the liquor went to work. “Let's see,” she stared at the ceiling and wiggled her fingers as though mentally counting.
    “ Jesus, how many have there been?”
    Carla hid a smile at Sam's irritation. Was it possible he was actually jealous? “Let's see, after you there was Carl, who I dated my sophomore year of college. He's the one I finally had sex with, in case you're wondering. We were together for a year before I found out he was also sleeping with one of his fraternity brothers.”
    Sam choked on his swallow of wine at that.
    “ Then Jason, who I dated part of junior and senior year. We were going to move to New York together after graduation, where he had a job with a major hotel group. While he backpacked through Europe I sold all my stuff to buy a non-refundable plane ticket to New York and put a deposit on an apartment in Manhattan. Only by the time he got back to the states he had found another roommate.”
    “ Not another dude?”
    Carla shook her head and drained her glass. “Nope. Tina from Australia. Five nine, waist length blond hair, legs up to her armpits, and a 'hey no worries mate’ attitude, although I think that was as much because of her fat trust fund as being from Australia. Either way, somewhere over the summer Jason realized what he really wanted was the anti-me.”
    Despite her light tone, Sam's expression was anything but, his dark brows knit and his mouth turned down in a scowl. “That it?”
    Carla gave a sharp laugh. It was