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Chapter 5
After the late afternoon—and evening—spent in bed with Abby, Sadiq was more certain than ever that she was the woman for him. He wanted to tell her, to let her know of his growing feelings. But he couldn’t.
Not yet.
First he had to find out how she felt. He suspected she cared for him a great deal, but there was something holding her back. Or rather someone. Today he would find out. Just as soon as she arrived. With her laundry. He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. If Nisha could see me now. She would point and laugh, and never ever let him forget it.
“Knock, knock,” Abby’s voice sounded through a window and he smiled at finding her standing at his patio. Her grin was infectious as her gaze studied him before darkening with appreciation. “Oh no, that just won’t do.”
He frowned and looked around. “What?”
“Luggage is for airports and traveling, not doing laundry.” She giggled at his bewildered expression and he thought the sound was beautiful. “Luckily for you I came prepared.” She reached to the side and pulled up two mesh bags, one black and one white, filled with her own laundry.
“Two bags, really?” He would never understand a woman’s need to over pack.
“No silly we can’t wash them together. They have to be separated by whites and colors.” She gave him a patient smile. “If you wash your red boxers with your crisp white shirts you’ll end up with pink shirts.”
“You’re the expert,” he told her with a shrug and opened his suitcase.
“I can’t believe you were going to do your laundry in designer luggage. Cute but completely impractical.”
He frowned. “Did you just call me cute?”
She nodded, opening her bags and motioning for him to put his things in with hers. “You are. Such a big strong man but you’re completely baffled by the idea of laundry. It’s adorable, really.” Her lips twitched as she tried to contain her amusement. She failed. Miserably.
He packed up the bags and set them outside the bungalow before pulling her into his arms for a welcoming kiss. “Good morning.”
Her smile beamed bright and seductive, her arms wrapped tight around his waist. “Excellent morning now.”
It took no time to find a place to clean their clothes in town, even if locals had looked at them as though they lost their minds. But Abby didn’t seem to be bothered by it, conversing with the other women to figure out the best brands of detergent to use. When all that had been decided, she walked back with a smile and set two small boxes and a small plastic bottle on the machines. “What’s all that?”
She pointed to each one. “Washing powder, fabric softener and dryer sheets.”
“Sheets?”
She nodded and gave him an indulgent smile. “To keep clothes from getting too hard and scratchy, especially on your delicate rich guy skin.” At his affronted look, she burst out laughing. “Just kidding.” He let her guide him through the process of loading the machine and adding detergent. “It’s so strange to do this without quarters,” she said as she placed the tokens in their slots.
It was now or never and Sadiq knew he had to get answers to his questions. “Can you tell me what brought you to Fiji?”
She sighed and looked up at him through wary green eyes. “I told you I’d been planning this trip all year.”
She did say that, but like now that was all she said. “Alone?”
“No Sadiq not alone. I was supposed to come here with my boyfriend of two years but I made the mistake of trying to surprise him.” She huffed out a bitter laugh. “Turns out I was the one to get a surprise. I thought it would be nice to get a jump on our vacation and went to his house to, you know,” she rolled her eyes in embarrassment. “But when I opened the door I got the surprise of my life. His blonde head was buried between the legs of a very chesty redhead while a strapping young blonde pounded him from the back.” She shook away the memory and looked up at him. “Now you have the whole sordid tale. I walked out and told him we were done. That was the day before I left to come here.”
He hated she had to go through that but there was another question burning in his brain. “Do you still love him?”
She shook her head so aggressively her sun kissed curls swiveled around her head. “No I don’t. The strangest part of all was when I realized that I was angry with him. Not hurt or sad but angry. And then I knew that he’d actually done us a huge favor, although in the nastiest way possible.”
“I could kill him for being so careless with your safety.”
She smiled affectionately and cupped his jaw with one hand. “I went to an all night clinic and got tested. They called me with my results the first week I was here. No problems to speak of or we wouldn’t have made love.”
He smiled. Sadiq had been expecting the more casual and incredibly American saying of ‘have sex’ and to hear her call it making love made him feel hopeful about their future. “I believe you. I’d still like to pound his face in though.”
She laughed. “How about I let you take the clothes from the washer and put them, very forcefully, into the dryer?”
“Smart ass,” he mumbled and took the clothes to the dryer. He wondered if her boyfriend’s action had impacted her ability to trust him. Or any man.
