Quick & Dirty

Travel writer Parker Ryan wants to erase every last trace of her ex from her mind, body, and soul, and what better way to forget a man than to take an all-expenses-paid trip to Tahiti?

She’ll have ten days to write a feature piece about The Windward Hibiscus Resort. That leaves plenty of time for fun and sun— And a smoking hot fling with Tate McAllister, billionaire resort owner, scuba instructor, philanthropist, and let’s face it—sex god.

Parker knows she’s not supposed to mix business with pleasure, but Tate’s ready and willing to wow her in and out of the bedroom. She can get the job done and let him fulfill all her fantasies, can’t she?

But she won’t, repeat—won’t—fall in love with the man. Even if every part of her wants to.

“Hey, it’s me again. Look, I know you’re pissed, but it’s really for the best. You weren’t making me happy. I need a woman who has more spark. More fire. More passion. You’re like a dead fish, really. I think you might have some daddy issues there, darling. Not enough hugs growing up or something.” His syrupy-sweet voice made me wish there was an app where you could reach inside your phone and throat-punch the caller on the other end. How I wanted to just watch him choke and gasp for air, his smarmy eyes bugging out as his hands found their way to his neck and he looked at me in panic.

Motherfucker!

Daddy issues?

Fuck him. He knows nothing about me. NOTHING!

But like the mouse that keeps going back to the same freaking trap, I put my ear back to the receiver.

“I need someone who is going to be there for me when I need her, you know? Besides, were you even happy? Half the time I can’t even tell. Happy, mad, sad. For a woman who doesn’t get Botox anymore, you sure have a face like one. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’ve put all your things in a box and had my chauffeur drop it off at your apartment.”

Swallowing the taste of bile that had suddenly formed a thick film on my tongue, I deleted the message on my phone before his voice could continue.

Fuck him!

Fuck Xavier Rollins and his millions.

Fuck Xavier Rollins and his beautiful downtown penthouse apartment.

Fuck Xavier Rollins and his nice cars, his family’s private jet, his enormous yacht.

Fuck him and fuck everything else.

Fuck everyone else.

Fuck everyone he knew, he worked with, fuck them all.

I was done.

I’d wasted three years of my life with that asshole.

Three fucking years. And apparently during the last year (but who really knew? It could have been the whole damn time) he’d been screwing everything with two X chromosomes that batted heavily mascaraed eyelashes at him. His assistant, his secretary, his kid’s nanny, his ex-wife apparently from time to time.

You name the bitch, and chances are Xavier had slipped his pasty-ass body between her thighs.

And yet the bastard had the audacity, the audacity to dump me.

“I’m not sure it’s working anymore,” he’d said on New Year’s Eve as we ate dinner in one of Xavier’s New York restaurants. The entire place had been closed down for a private party hosted by Xavier himself. The room was packed with New York’s most elite socialites and celebrities, all “friends” of the eccentric millionaire and giddy as can be to be part of such a lavish event.

“You’re never around. You’re always off working. And you’re, well . . . ” He actually had the decency to grimace slightly. “You’re not exactly warm or adventurous in bed, darling. I need a woman who’s willing to, you know . . . ”

I shook my head and blinked at him a few times before deciding to open my mouth. “No, I don’t know. What is it you would like me to do?”

I scanned the nearby tables, hoping nobody was eavesdropping on us, but it was a party, it was New York, it was Xavier Rollins.

People were listening.

They always were.

Bringing my voice down a little lower and leaning closer to him, I swallowed before speaking. “Can we not discuss this here, please, Xavier?”

He took a sip of his rye and tonic while simultaneously giving a half-wave and a smile to Gigi Hammond across the room. She winked at him and bit her lip the way a woman does when she wants you to bite her “other” lips.

“No, we’ll discuss it right here. I want a woman who is adventurous.”

“I’m a travel journalist. I go on adventures for work. You’re not making any sense.”

He coughed slightly while his eyes took on an almost bored, glazed-over look. “Yes . . . but not in bed.”

Suddenly my cheeks felt as if they’d gone up in flames. “Please,” I said with a hiss, “let’s not talk about this here.”

He flicked his wrist again as if I were not more than a pesky fly buzzing around his head, a mild irritation he could just bat away. “I’m sorry, darling, but you’re boring. You’re boring me. I want a woman who is around more. You’re like a dead fish. Cold, boring, lifeless. We’re through.”

I shook my head, still not entirely able to process what was happening but nonetheless feeling the harsh sting of his words.

Cold.

Boring.

Lifeless.

A dead fish.

A distant ringing sound began going off in my ears, and my chest hurt.

Was I having a heart attack?

A stroke?

I shook my head and shrugged. “What kinds of things in bed are you wanting? You’ve never said anything. You want me to quit my job and just follow you around like some groupie?”

“Not a groupie.” He got a wistful look in his eye. Xavier had always wished he could be a rock star. Live the life of a rock star. And despite the fact that he had millions of dollars and hobnobbed with the richest of the rich, partied with rock stars and movie stars, models and politicians, he wasn’t a rock star. He was heir to The Handy Dandy Soap Company, a big household cleaning supply company that his grandfather had founded decades ago. Sure, over the years Xavier had bought up restaurants and a couple of nightclubs, made a bit of a name for himself, but no matter how much he tried to run, he couldn’t escape The Handy Dandy Soap Company or his nickname, “Bubbles.”

“Not a groupie,” he said again. “Just a doting girlfriend.”

“I am. When I’m home.”

“Which is not enough and why this won’t work any longer,” he said blandly. “You’re not what I need. You’re not who I want.” He raised a hand and signaled the waiter for another drink. “You. Me. We’re through, darling. I’ve moved on and so should you.”

My bottom lip dropped and nearly hit the table. “You’re dumping me? Here? In front of everyone?” I asked. “All because I’m not adventurous enough for you, which by the way is the first I’m hearing of your discontent with our sex life.”

He looked about ready to get up and leave.

Bored out of his tree and wanting to find a more lively conversation companion. “That and the fact that you work too damn much.”

“But you suggested I take this job. It was your idea. I like what I do.” Only when I said the words out loud, they tasted foul on my tongue, because the truth was, I didn’t really like my job anymore.

I was tired of it.

Tired of the travel, tired of never being home more than a few days a month, tired of living out of a suitcase, tired of eating at restaurants.

I wanted to cook my own meals, sleep in my own bed more than two nights in a row, and have a closet full of clothes I could stare at while complaining I had nothing to wear.

But I also wanted to do something worthwhile.

I’d never understand these millionaires’ and billionaires’ wives who did nothing all day long, simply because they didn’t have to. Even if Xavier and I got married one day, I would still want to work in some way. Devote my life to charity work or fulfill my lifelong dream of writing a book.

I couldn’t simply spend the rest of my days playing tennis, getting my nails done and making wait-staff feel like garbage at the country club bistro.

No, I needed more.

He lifted one shoulder cavalierly. “It was either now or tomorrow morning. But I would rather take Felicity home with me tonight. So now it is.” And as if on cue, his little assistant, Felicity with her size zero waist, Double-D chest and mile-long legs, sauntered up in a barely-there black leather miniskirt and matching crop top. Jesus Christ, how old was this chick? Xavier was forty-seven; was he old enough to be her father? I wouldn’t doubt it.

Felicity perched on his knee and wrapped one svelte arm around his back, her coal-black eyes fixing me with a lethal stare.

What the fuck?

We used to be friends . . . sort of. She and I had grabbed lunch in the past. I babysat her cat, and it’d barfed all over my Aubusson rug. And now, all of a sudden, she’s his new fuck buddy and I’m chopped liver?

“So . . . what? You want me to stay the rest of the night at the party, or should I just go?”

I didn’t know what to do.

People would be wondering why I’d left.

It’d be all over social media by morning, if not sooner.

The breakup, the speculation as to why.

Rumors, some true and some not, flying out from every moron with opposable thumbs and a cellphone, trying to somehow cash in and weigh in on a very public breakup.

And then the memes would start.

I’m sure people were snapping pictures of us at this very moment.

My mouth hanging open like a codfish, Xavier sitting there all smug with his hand up Felicity’s skirt, her siren-red lips nibbling on his ear as if it were some piece of decadent chocolate and not old-man ear with hair sticking out of it.

Well, now I wanted to barf as well as scream and throw things.

Fucking Xavier Rollins.

Fucking Bubbles!

“Oh, no. Of course not. That would be incredibly awkward for me . . . and for you. You can go.”

I gawked at him.

He was dismissing me?

Three years I’d wasted with this asshole.

Three goddamned years, and I meant that little to him that he was breaking up with me in a room full of people with his mistress perched on his lap like a puppet in a crop top. I continued to just stare at him, stare at what I was losing.

And then it hit me.

How had I not noticed any of this sooner? The greasy, poufy hair, the semi-squinty brown eyes, the nervous twitch in his left eye —  I’d been blind to it all.

Blinded by love.

Because even though I’m not sure I’d ever said it to him, I did love Xavier.

At least I thought I did.

“Did you hear him, Parker?” Felicity asked with an almost giggle, well, more like a cackle. “He said you can go.”

And you can go straight to hell, you traitorous little bitch!

But I didn’t say anything. Over the years I’d learned that it wasn’t always important to have the last word. Sometimes the best thing to do was gather up what remained of your dignity and leave with your head held high.

I reached for my purse and my coat, then, with nearly a hundred pairs of eyes on me, I walked out of the “XR” restaurant, hailed a cab and didn’t look back.

And now, two weeks later, I was on the tropical island of Moorea and about to interview a billionaire.

“Stupid fucking Xavier . . . ” I muttered after I thanked the man from the shuttle for retrieving my suitcase from the back of the van. I clicked the handle up and headed to the lobby to check in. “Stupid fucking Xavier. I can be warm. I can be adventurous!”

I rolled my suitcase down the slate path toward the big open doors, the rhythmic clickity-clack sound of the wheels on the exposed rock drowning out the din of hotel lobby noise while the strident cry of a random tropical bird punctured the air like a car backfiring in a quiet street.

I scanned the entrance into the hotel, not quite sure what exactly I was looking for but knowing I’d know when I saw it.

“Stupid fucking Xavier,” I said again.

Maybe I’d just sleep with the first man who said “Hello” to me.

How was that for adventurous?

Rock his world, give him all the warmth and attention Xavier said I never gave him.

I’d give it to a complete stranger.

Yeah, I’d have sex with a complete stranger.

Quick and dirty sex to get over my breakup.

An innocuous tropical fling.

Nobody knew me here.

Yes, I was here for work, but no one besides me and the owner of the hotel knew that. And as long as he didn’t find out what I was up to, I could have a different man in my bed every night if I wanted. I was here for ten days; that’s ten different men.

This place could be my rebound playground.

The further I got into the lobby, the more I liked my idea.

I was going to fuck away my worries.

Fuck away my problems.

Use someone else to exorcise the plague that was Xavier Rollins from my mind, my body and my soul.

Now I just had to find the right guy . . . 

“Hello, and welcome to The Windward Hibiscus Hotel. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Eyes as green as the surrounding mountains flared with curiosity and perhaps a dollop of fear. But I hardly took notice of his eyes and their long camel lashes, because the rest of him was just that handsome . . . no, handsome wasn’t the right word . . . yummy? Delicious? Sex on a stick? No, he wasn’t a stick. Too much muscle to be a stick. A sex god? Yeah . . . this guy was a walking, talking, sex god. He just had to be. Tall and dreamy with just a hint of danger.

Muscles, toned and hard, threatened to rip right out of his crisp white dress shirt, while stubble, thick and impeccably groomed, covered his jaw, cheeks and upper lip.

Oh mama! You, you are exactly what I’m looking for.

Without even thinking, I gave him my best assertive stare. “Yes!” I said with a huff, lifting my head just a tad to look him in the eye. He was a good six inches or so taller than me. “You can take me into the nearest broom closet and fuck me senseless.”

“Uh . . . ” he replied, his dark brown eyebrows nearly shooting clear off his head.

I shook my head and shrugged. “Or I can go find someone else. A pool boy or landscaper.” If I were to guess by the nice designer shoes, expensive shirt and the way he greeted me, he was probably high up on the management chain. But that was okay, I could slum it just this once.

Hotel managers had needs, too.

And if anything, I’d bet he’d be even more discreet than a guest, not wanting it to get back to his boss, Mr. McAllister.

I watched as his eyes slowly, appreciatively raked my body from head to toe, a big smile spreading across his mouth as his gaze landed on my breasts.

I made a noise in my throat, and his head snapped back up.

“So? Broom closet?”