slapping at the windows. “I feel sorry for you.”
“Oh, please.”
“I do. You’ve got everything you ever wanted,” she said, waving both hands to encompass the suite, the resort, all of it. “But you can’t see beyond it. You think I’m the one who’s focused on success? It’s you now, Gabe. All you can think about is this place.”
“And that makes me different from you how?”
“Because I wouldn’t use you-and you did use me.” Her bottom lip quivered, but she made a steely effort to firm it. “You lied to me. Made me think I was about to be arrested. Held me against my will. Took me to bed and made me think-” She stopped suddenly and then added again, “You used me.”
He walked toward her and stopped within arm’s reach from her. He closed his hands into fists at his sides to keep from grabbing her, because damn if he didn’t want to be holding her. “We used each other.”
“You keep thinking that,” she said with a slow shake of her head. “But the truth is, all of this was your doing, Gabe. I would never have asked you for anything for my business. See, I discovered something while I was here. I wasn’t going to tell you-God knows it surprised the heck out of me. But now, I want you to know. Want you to know that this time, it’s you walking away.”
Looking into her eyes tore at him, but he told himself that it was all an act. She’d come here to use him, and she was pissed she hadn’t been able to pull it off. “Say what you have to say, then.”
“I love you.”
He choked out a short laugh and felt those three words slam into what used to be his heart with a force that rocked him on his heels. He kept his expression blank, his eyes shuttered, despite the fact that he felt as though he were reeling. “You expect me to believe that.”
“Nope, I don’t. Like I said, it surprised me, too, when I realized it. You haven’t exactly been Prince Charming over the last week, in case you hadn’t noticed. You’re irritating, infuriating and downright cranky most of the time. And for some strange reason, I love you anyway, so color me stupid. If you think I’m thrilled by this, you’re way wrong. Especially at this moment,” Debbie said, shaking her head again as she stared up at him. “I don’t expect anything from you, Gabe. I just wanted you to know. Ten years ago, I walked away-and it’s something I’ve always regretted. But today, you’re the one turning your back and I want you to remember that.”
“Fine. I’ll remember.” Damn if he didn’t know that this moment would replay over and over again in his mind for years. But he’d learn to live with it. Because he wasn’t going to take a chance again. Wouldn’t allow himself to love again.
“Now,” he asked, “don’t you have some packing to do?”
“Yeah. I do,” she said. “I’ll pack and leave in the morning.”
“Great.”
“Fine.”
He stared at her and told himself to take a long look because once she’d left the island, he wouldn’t be seeing her again. So he carved her image into his brain. Her sleepy eyes, her lush mouth, her tumbled hair and the thin strap of her tank top dipping off one shoulder.
And the echo of three little words still hung in the air between them like a tattered pennant that neither warring army could claim.
Debbie woke up to a furious storm rattling the windows. The wind shrieked under the penthouse eaves and whistled as it spun around the edges of the building. She stared out the windows openmouthed and watched tall, somehow elegant palm trees bend nearly in two. Their lacy fronds were tattered and torn by the force of the storm and rain lashed at the resort as if heaven had been storing water for decades only to dump it in one fell swoop.
“So,” she murmured. “No leaving today.”
She turned around and looked at the empty suite and wondered, not for the first time, just where Gabe had spent the night. He’d left the suite at the end of their latest blistering argument and she wondered if he’d gone looking for female company.
“Isn’t that a lovely thought?” She tells him she loves him and he heads off to find anyone else. What a fabulous life she was leading. And now, she was in a storm that looked like the one Dorothy and Toto had starred in.
The resort tower almost seemed to sway in the buffeting winds and a chill snaked quickly along Debbie’s spine. This couldn’t be good.
When the phone on the bar rang, she nearly sprinted across the room to grab it. “Hello?”
“You okay?”
“Gabe. Yeah. I’m fine. Where are you?”
“In my office. I stayed here last night.”
Ridiculous to feel the relief that was sweeping through her. But there it was.
“Your flight’s been cancelled,” he added unnecessarily.
She turned around to look out the windows across the room from her and said, “Yeah, I figured that out. What’s going on?”
“Hurricane,” he said. “Was supposed to pass us by, but it looks like its shifting direction.”
Scowling, she said, “You knew I wouldn’t be able to leave, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“That’s why you were so accommodating last night.” She should have known Gabe wouldn’t give in so easily. “You knew the hurricane was coming.”
“What am I, a weatherman, now?” he argued. “For God’s sake, Debbie, believe it or not, you’re not at the top of my list of worries at the moment.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, forgetting about the spurt of anger as she reacted to the concern in his voice.
“I’ve got a hotel full of people to protect. People who want to get off the island almost as much as you do, and nobody’s going anywhere.”
“Can I help?”
There was a long pause, as if he were surprised by the offer. Then he said, “Yeah. You could, actually. The staff is gathering up the guests, taking them into the main club room. It’s the most easily protected. If you could help keep people calm…”
“I’ll go now,” she said, tearing her gaze from the wind-whipped scene outside.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.”
And all it had taken, she thought, for the two of them to be polite to each other was a natural disaster.
Gabe lifted both hands for quiet and waited while the muttering and shouting slowly died away. He couldn’t blame any of these people for being a little on the hysterical side, but it surely wasn’t helping the situation any. Then he looked out over the crowd of people and started talking. He kept his voice pitched just a bit over normal, knowing that people were more likely to keep quiet in an attempt to hear him.
“I know you’re all anxious and you’d like to leave…”
“The storm isn’t here yet,” a man in the back of the room shouted. “Why can’t the planes leave before it arrives?”
Several others took up that refrain and Gabe was forced to wait again until they all settled down.
“The airfield was closed late last night as the winds began gaining in strength. The planes left while they still could.”
“We’re trapped, you mean?” A woman’s voice carrying the rising edge of hysteria called the question out.
“Not trapped,” Gabe said, smiling widely now, hoping to instill confidence. “Stuck. But at least,” he added, “you’re here at Fantasies, where your comfort is the main concern. We’ve got plenty of supplies. The hotel staff will be setting up cots here in the club and the chefs will keep us all well fed. All we really have to do is settle in and wait it out.”
“For how long?” another man at the side of the room said.
Gabe spotted him and aimed a look right at him. “For as long as it takes. The weather reports still aren’t sure exactly where the hurricane is heading. At the moment, it could keep on course for Fantasies or sheer off.”
“And if it hits here?” a woman demanded, and Gabe sighed.
He searched the faces of the people looking to him for reassurance. These people were his guests. They’d
