3 Savor Read online

  She glared at him. “Did you really just say that to me?”

  He threw up his hands. “Sorry. Trying to see things from both sides.”

  “Well, stop it.” She ran her hands through her hair pushing it back from her face. “She’s obviously having a mental breakdown or something. Why else would a middle-aged woman get on a private jet with a rich man she hardly knows to fly spur of the moment to Hawaii for a luau on the beach?”

  Handel looked at her, a crooked smile curving his lips. He didn’t say anything but she could hear the words as clear as if he did. What middle-aged woman wouldn’t want to live out that fantasy? Billie only hoped her mother was strong enough to say no to anything above and beyond dinner and wine.

  She blew out an exasperated breath. “Forget I asked.”

  He stood up and put an arm around her shoulders, turned her toward the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s eat. Talk of luaus is making me very hungry.”

  •••••

  Their whirlwind flight to Honolulu didn’t end there. Sabrina followed Edoardo to a helicopter pad, hair blowing like mad as blades whipped the air around them. They ducked their heads and hurried along, his arm possessively wrapped around her. The copilot held open the door and took her hand to help her in, then spoke with her host for a moment before climbing into his seat and adjusting his radio headset.

  Edoardo settled in beside her and showed her how to buckle the belt. His hands were hot against her skin when he touched her throat and collarbone as he pulled it across her chest.

  The pilot spoke into his radio, gave a thumbs up and they lifted off. Flying over the city was beautiful. Sabrina was entranced. Waikiki beach spread pale and white between high-rise hotels and blue green waters foaming along the shore. They flew over Pearl Harbor and the Diamondhead crater and Edoardo pointed out other places of interest, speaking close to her ear, his hand resting on her thigh. She was glad she’d dressed casually in black capris and a lacy yellow top today. She didn’t know what she’d wear later but he promised on the plane that he would supply any other clothes she might need. He’d said it with a subtle hint of humor as though it was ludicrous to think she’d need anything more than a towel and hotel bathrobe. The way he looked at her made her feel both hot and cold… but that could just be her hormones acting up again.

  They flew along the edge of the island for a while, passing mile after mile of powdery white beaches. Edoardo leaned across her and pointed out the coral formations coming into view. “Kaneoche Bay,” he said close to her ear. “We’ll have a great view of Sacred Falls soon. Have you ever seen it?” he asked, his lips nearly brushing her skin.

  She shook her head.

  A valley of lush, green vegetation rushed by, and he explained that it was a popular site for making Hollywood movies. She nodded, trying to enjoy the ride in spite of the uneasiness she was beginning to feel. He brushed a finger along her jaw to get her attention. She looked down at the magnificent cascade of water. Even from the sky she could feel its shear power and might.

  “Gorgeous,” she breathed, trying to take it all in.

  They flew on until a resort lay spread out before them. Tennis courts, golf course and swimming pools were unmatched by the beauty of the surrounding beach and ocean. The pilot spoke into the radio and soon landed on a heliport away from the hotel.

  A car was waiting to shuttle them the short distance to the resort. Edoardo spoke with the pilots, then stopped to read a message on his phone while she climbed into the backseat of the car. The chauffeur tipped his hat, “Aloha.”

  “Aloha,” she said in return. She was surprised the sun was still so bright. “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Half past six, ma’am.”

  “I forgot. We gain three more hours on the islands, don’t we.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Edoardo joined her in the car and they took a narrow curving road to the resort less than a mile away. He was quiet, giving her space. Sabrina wondered if he’d tired of the game already. He didn’t seem like a man who would give up easily, though. She felt sure she was going to need to be firm tonight after the luau to persuade him that she wasn’t ready for anything serious. Not that he would consider casual sex serious, but she certainly did.

  At the front desk he introduced himself and the staff jumped to attention. They were shown to the presidential suite where elaborate flower arrangements and bowls of fruit waited like tokens of island hospitality. But Sabrina felt sure Edoardo had more to do with the display than resort management. He waved the bellhop away after giving him a generous tip for carrying his small overnight bag and laptop case.

  With the door closed, Sabrina felt rather vulnerable. She walked around the huge room, stopped to admire the flowers, and lifted a strange red fruit she’d never seen before. “This is all so beautiful, Edoardo. Have you stayed here before?” she asked, to lighten the mood he’d fallen into.

  “I’ve stayed here once or twice,” he said, hanging his suit jacket in the closet. He moved leisurely toward her loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top button of his starched blue dress shirt with one hand. “I have a bit of money invested in this resort,” he admitted with a shrug.

  “Really? Which part do you own,” she teased half-heartedly, backing up until her hip bumped the side of a Victorian-looking fainting couch. “The golf course or the swimming pools?”

  “Neither. I own the beds,” he said, reaching for her.

  She nearly tripped trying to circumnavigate the couch, and ended up sitting down in the middle of it to keep from falling.

  “And the couches,” he said smoothly, lowering himself beside her. His mouth descended on her bare shoulder and moved upward to her neck, leaving a hot tingling trail of desire over her skin. This was definitely going to be harder than she thought.

  He pushed her slowly down until her head rested on the pillowed arm of the couch and then cradled her legs in his lap and leaned down to kiss her. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, letting his lips stray to her neck and collarbone.

  “So are you,” she couldn’t help adding. “And so fit,” she said, feeling hard muscle beneath his shirt.

  His laughter rumbled in his chest before he captured her lips once more and she was lost in a deluge of senses. She kissed him back, liking the power she felt at the way he showed his desire for her. Middle age had sucked a lot of life out of her and made her feel unattractive, unwanted, and most of all, unneeded. But this man – handsome, rich, able to have any woman he wanted – desired her. It was a heady drug that was quickly pulling her under.

  She felt something stirring between them and gasped. This was going too far, too fast. He reached down and pulled his cell phone out of his slacks pocket, glanced at it and unwound himself from her.

  “I need to take this,” he said, moving toward the adjoining bedroom. He closed the door between them with a soft click.

  She pulled up to a sitting position and caught her breath, feeling like a prisoner on death row getting a last minute reprieve. “Thank God,” she whispered. When did she start letting emotion rule her head? Now was not the time to lose control. She was a fifty-three year old woman, for heaven’s sake! Not a young innocent girl on her first real date.

  Sabrina got up and grabbed her purse where she’d left it sitting on a low end table. She should have insisted immediately that they have separate rooms when she realized he’d secured the suite for them both. But Edoardo insisted on the way up in the elevator that with two elaborate bedrooms and bathrooms, and separate entrances, she would be as alone as she wanted to be. And there lay the rub. How alone did she want to be?

  She hurried into the other bedroom and shut the door, locking it for good measure. If Billie and Adam knew the mess she’d gotten herself into, they would be shocked. After all the times she’d harped on them to always have a back-up plan, she had run off without any plan at all.

  •••••

  Adam played at The Screech Owl from eight to e
leven, but felt as though he’d done an all-nighter. He was wasted. He drove home to his apartment and sank into his easy chair with a bottle of beer, flipped on the television and watched the end of some old black and white movie about a disembodied hand crawling around strangling people. How that worked, he wasn’t sure. Really strong fingers? He clenched his hand around the neck of the bottle and flipped to the news.

  There was nothing interesting. A small bit about Sloane Kawasaki’s offer of a reward to anyone who had eyewitness information leading to the arrest of the real killer. Regardless, he was on trial for his life on Monday and the reporter sounded almost happy about it, like he had a vested interest. Adam shook his head. These news people seemed to believe their own suppositions whether there were facts to back them up or not. Guilty until proven innocent was the new mantra. He hoped he never got caught in a false arrest, but if he did, he hoped Handel would take the case. The man was dogged. He still couldn’t believe he’d driven into a dangerous gang neighborhood of San Francisco to speak with a possible witness.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check messages. He’d had it turned off at the club and forgot to turn it back on. Nothing more from his mom, and he was really worried. Why would she go off on a romantic interlude with a complete stranger? Sure she’d gone out to dinner with him once and he obviously put on a great act, but according to Margaret he was a real creep, even coming on to her the first time she met him at Carl’s restaurant.

  The adrenalin rush of fighting the fire earlier had wiped him out. He leaned his chair back and kicked the footrest up and scrolled through Margaret’s messages. Thanks for picking up Davy today. He told me he got into a fight to protect a girl. Talk to you about it tomorrow. Love you.

  So he was right. The kid had gotten into a fight. Sometimes he felt like he was witnessing his own childhood again. Davy was a lot like him. Maybe that’s why they got along so well. He rubbed a hand over his face and yawned. Sleep. That’s what he needed. His finger accidentally touched the little camera icon and the video player blinked on. He hadn’t slid it back to camera mode after Davy took the movie of the fire.

  Curious, he played it back, squinting at the little screen. He should plug it into his laptop. It would be much easier to see. There he was running with the hose, then spraying as far as he could reach. Ernesto showing up from the winery. Who was that? Did he just see someone run out from the other side of the shed? He went back to the beginning and played it again, looking hard at the south side of the building. Yes! There he was. A guy in a long-sleeved plaid shirt and a Fredrickson Winery cap appeared on the south side of the burning building, then disappeared out of the frame into the vineyard beyond. He didn’t look familiar but the guy must work there. Why else would he have a hat with the winery logo?

  A glance at the time told him it was too late to call Billie. After everything she’d been through in the past twelve hours, she probably needed the rest. He’d call in the morning. He downloaded it to YouTube and sent her the link in an email. Maybe when they watched it up on a bigger screen, one of them would recognize the guy.

  •••••

  It was over two hours later when Edoardo finally knocked on her bedroom door. Sabrina sat on the edge of the king-sized bed and stared across the room at the locked door, wondering if the man had a key. He probably did, but was biding his time. He knocked again.

  “Sabrina. Are you all right? I’m sorry I took so long. I had to take the call. It was important business.” He paused, then asked, “Would you like to go for a swim before dinner?”

  Dinner? That had come and gone. She had been starving and finally snuck out of her room an hour ago to eat one of the complimentary bananas from a fruit basket. Maybe his plan was to get her so hungry she would do whatever he asked. She drew in a breath and went to the door. It was now or never. She needed to make it clear that she was not going to be his next conquest.

  She turned the knob. He leaned casually against the doorjamb with one shoulder, as though this happened all the time. His smile was quick and magnetic.

  “Thank God you opened the door,” he said, his Italian accent as sexy as ever. He reminded her of Armand Assante when he played leading roles in television movies during the seventies and eighties. Trouble was, he didn’t always play a good guy, but much like Salvatore’s personality – the dark side of the coin. “I thought perhaps I would have to break it down.”

  She swept past him, trying to look cool and confident. “No need for that. I’d love to go for a swim, but as you already know,” she glanced down at the outfit she wore, “I have no suit.”

  He followed her slowly across the room, hands in his pockets. The corner of his mouth curved up. “That does not bother me.”

  “Well it does me,” she said and stepped securely behind the bar to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Biding her time, she twisted off the cap and took a sip. “Perhaps you can go alone and I’ll take a nap while you’re gone,” she suggested.

  “Oh no, I will not go without you.” He took her hand and tugged her from behind the bar then twirled her around as though they were dancing. His gaze moved seductively over her figure. “An American size eight, I think,” he said with more confidence than his words implied.

  “Excuse me?” Sabrina was unaccustomed to a man being so blatantly accurate. “If you had a lick of decency you’d guess a smaller number.”

  He laughed. “American women.” He moved closer and brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “No matter how beautiful you are, you are never satisfied with your body. Always looking for perfection that does not exist. Am I correct?”

  “And I suppose Italian women are all completely comfortable in their own skin, right?”

  “Of course. Because Italian men make sure they admire every woman for the singular beauty that she is. We don’t compare, we celebrate the differences.”

  Wow. Just wow. As soon as she managed to write him off as a smooth operator and get him out of her head he said something totally unpredictable. Something that almost sounded as if he cared what women thought and what they felt, not just how they felt pressed against him. Dear God, she needed to get away from this man.

  “I will have every available size eight swimming suit brought up immediately,” he said and began dialing the phone on the bar.

  “You don’t have to–”

  He cut her off with a snap of his fingers and spoke in a quietly authoritative voice to the person on the other end of the line. When he turned around he was smiling but his eyes were hard. He sighed and shook his head. “Please forgive me for being abrupt. It always takes a bit of getting used to,” he said waving a hand toward her, “this American female habit of arguing every point. I know women’s rights have twisted everyone’s idea of equality, but truly wasn’t it better when men and women knew their place and could expect certain things from members of the opposite sex?”

  “Certain things?” she said, her American female poking her nose into the conversation again. “What exactly are you expecting from me, Mr. Salvatore?”

  “No, no, no.” He put his hands up in surrender. “Whatever you are thinking is not what I said. Please,” he extended his hand, palm up in supplication. “Sometimes my English does not translate well. Let’s just have a good time. We will swim, attend the luau, and maybe go dancing before the night is over, but we will not do anything you do not want to do. Capisce?”

  The way he said want to do, she knew he wasn’t acknowledging the option of her backing out, but rather, his unarguable magnetism for the opposite sex. And yes, she had to admit she found him very attractive. And yes, she wanted him in that needy, emotional, careless, sexual sense of the word. But want was not the end all, be all. She was old enough to know better. A lot of things she wanted were bad for her and he was most certainly one of them.

  Sabrina found herself praying for a way out. The knock at the door gave her reason to ignore his question while she went to the bar and picked up her bottle of wa
ter. He strode across the room and pulled open the door. A young woman about Billie’s age, thin and tanned, moved past Edoardo holding about a dozen swimsuits over her arms. Her gaze swept the room and landed on Sabrina with a look of surprise.

  She smiled tentatively. “Ma’am,” she said. “Where would you like me to place these?”

  Edoardo waved a hand toward her room. “Lay them on the bed,” he ordered.

  She hurried to do as she was told, then retraced her steps to the door, glancing briefly at Edoardo with a little batting of her eyes, but he ignored her.

  “Thank you,” Sabrina called as the girl went out the door.

  Edoardo smiled disarmingly and winked. “I look forward to seeing your selection,” he said. “Since you have so many to choose from, I will give you some time. Meet me back out here dressed for our swim.” He glanced at his watch, “Say thirty minutes?”

  She nodded.

  He grabbed a wine cooler from the refrigerator, went into his private room and shut the door.

  Sabrina released a sigh and turned back to the bar. His cell phone was lying there lit up. Someone had sent him a text. She leaned over and read the words before the screen went dark. Her gaze narrowed. What did that say? She glanced back at Edoardo’s closed door before sliding her finger across the screen and opening chat. She quickly perused the conversation and gasped.

  •••••

  Adam heard Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody playing beneath his head and groggily reached for his phone under the pillow. He rolled over to his back. “Yeah?” he said, his voice soft and gruff.

  “Adam, I’m sorry for waking you,” his mother’s voice said, briskly impatient and not that sorry. “I completely forgot that it’s a three-hour time difference but this just couldn’t wait. I’m worried about your Margaret and I don’t have her number.”

  He forced his eyes open. They felt gritty as if the sandman had just come and filled them up. Rubbing a hand over his face, he cleared his throat. “Mom. It’s after midnight. I just got to sleep. Why are you worried about Margaret all of a sudden?”