“Yeah,” he said, warily watching her reaction to what should’ve been a simple question. “What was in that note?”
Grace turned around and grabbed the limo’s door handle, trying to escape. “I don’t have to tell you.”
“Grace,” he said, reaching for her, “do you have something to hide from me?”
She glared at him. “Well, of course I do. And you have things to hide from me. People have their secrets. It’s human nature.”
“What was in the note, Grace?” he asked, his tone deadly quiet.
Her jaw was set in a stubborn scowl and as much as she tried to hold to her convictions, Logan continued to stare her down. Finally, she broke, and exhaled heavily. “Fine. I gave her directions. Are you happy?”
“Directions to what?” he shouted. “Her G-spot?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Logan,” she said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “Sally doesn’t need help finding her G-spot.”
Oh, he so didn’t need to know that about his soon-to-be new mother. “Then what? Just tell me.”
She huffed and puffed and fumed, and Logan had the strongest urge to kiss her senseless. But first he needed to know the truth.
She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. “She wanted directions to the hot springs. There, are you happy?”
Seriously? The hot springs? That was the big secret? Logan frowned at that. “Why would she want to go there?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Grace rolled her eyes, then slapped her hands on her hips and said, “She wanted to take your father there, but she didn’t want anyone else to know that they were sneaking off to have wild jungle sex.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” Logan stumbled back a half step, pretty certain that his own face had grown pale, too. Grace had just painted a picture in his mind that he would’ve been perfectly happy never to have seen in his entire life.
And if not for Aidan bugging him to find out, he never would have. It would be his pleasure to share that horrifying mental image with his twin.
“And don’t you dare tell her I told you,” Grace said, her voice stinging with aggravation.
“I won’t, don’t worry. In fact, I’m going to do everything I can to forget you ever told me.” He stared at her for another ten seconds, then began to chuckle. “Jesus, Grace.” He laughed out loud, then yanked her close and planted a hot, wet kiss on her lips. “God, I’m going to miss you.”
She pressed her palm against his chest. “I’ll miss you, too, Logan.”
He gave her one more hard, fast kiss, then turned and jogged to the plane. Still laughing, he climbed the stairs, then spun around and waved goodbye one last time.
Eleven
Grace was a pathetic mess. She missed Logan terribly, and he’d only been gone one day. What in the world would she do once she was back home in Minnesota? Once she left Alleria, she would never see Logan again. So wasn’t it about time she pulled herself together and figured out the best way to deal with the pain?
But a long, sleepless night wasn’t the way to get used to anything. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Logan. A tight ball of misery lodged in the pit of her stomach, reminding her with every breath that this was just the beginning. That leaving Logan would be the hardest thing she had ever done.
By morning, she was exhausted and feeling sorry for herself, so she spent several hours in the rain forest, hiking and searching for more spore sites. But even her research couldn’t fill the void that was building inside her. That evening, she worked tirelessly in the cocktail lounge and even stayed an extra hour later to help the others.
She loved the camaraderie among the waiters and bartenders and busboys. Sometimes she wished she could just go and be a waitress because the people were so much more fun than academics. Sad but true.
But even though she wished she could stay on the island forever, she knew she needed to get back to the laboratory. She had important work to do there. Besides, this wasn’t her world. Was it? She’d lived her entire life in academia. Could she honestly leave it all behind? Could she really see herself living here in paradise?
“Oh, dear,” she whispered, and tried to swallow around the sudden lump in her throat as she watched Dee laugh at something Joey said. She thought of Logan and all the nights he’d stood at the end of the bar waiting for her. And that’s when it struck her that she really could live here forever. And the realization scared her to death.
Working all these long hours had done little to take her mind off missing Logan. It didn’t help that tonight everyone was talking about the possibility of a tropical storm off the coast of South America turning into a hurricane as it headed north toward Alleria. She didn’t want to be in a hurricane without Logan.
The very notion of riding out a hurricane was terrifying to her, but some of the staff were taking it in stride. They had experienced severe storms and hurricanes in the past and were confident that Logan’s hotel was so well built that it could withstand the worst that Mother Nature could throw at it.
As Grace returned to the bar for another drink order, she noticed it had grown breezier in the lounge. The manager asked some of the men to close the casement windows along the outer perimeter of the room so the guests would be more comfortable.
“It’s so chilly tonight,” Dee said, rubbing her arms as they waited together at the bar for their orders. “And I’ve got a jacket on.”
“I wish I had my sweater,” Grace said after noticing that several of the waitresses were covered up. Dee’s denim jacket looked cute over her sarong.
“Why don’t you run and get it?” Dee said. “I’ll watch your tables for a few minutes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. If you’re sticking around to help us, we don’t want you freezing to death.”
“Okay, I’ll hurry back.”
“No worries.”
Grace left the bar and started walking back to her room, but remembered she’d left her pink sweater in Logan’s suite the other night. He’d recently given her a copy of his key card to use when she worked late, so she hurried over to his side of the hotel and used the card to slip inside.
She switched on the light, glanced around the room and saw her sweater on the chair near his desk. She grabbed it, then noticed the thick set of architectural drawings spread out on his desk.
Her curiosity was piqued and she rounded the desk to see what they were. Grace had never seen blueprints before and appreciated the architectural precision of the lines and angles. She smiled as she realized that these were the plans for the sports center Logan and his brother were going to build. He was excited about creating a destination for sports enthusiasts here on Alleria and had described it in detail. That was the reason he’d gone to New York, to meet with the investors and finalize these plans.
Studying the blueprints made her feel closer to Logan somehow. She knew he had studied the same drawings and probably pictured the finished creation in his mind. She tried to do that as she gazed at all the little side drawings and various site descriptions.
And that’s when she saw it: the map and description of the location of the gigantic sports complex in relationship to the hotel. North side. Adjacent. Palmetto grove.
“No,” she whispered.
She walked around the desk, certain at first that she was interpreting the drawings all wrong. But she wasn’t a dummy, and after ten minutes of studying every sheet in the stack, she knew she had been betrayed. He had lied to her. Okay, he hadn’t lied exactly, but he’d clearly avoided telling her the truth as he let her gather her spores and talk about the importance of her research, all the while knowing that he planned to pave over the whole site.
Logan and his brother had every intention of building their sports center directly on top of the land where the spores grew.
