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He toed off his shoes and socks then strolled out onto his balcony overlooking the beach about a hundred feet away. The sound of the waves rolling against the shore soothed his ragged nerves and for the first time in a long time he wasn’t thinking about his next cabinet meeting or his big proposal—to lead his brother’s cabinet advisors—or the new rules and stipulations that his brother’s cabinet members should be releasing any time now.
No. As he stood in the soft night breeze, the scent of jasmine and sea drifting around him and the stars twinkling down from the clear sky above, all he thought of was how lovely it was here on this secluded island.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a quiet voice came from somewhere to his left.
Rehaj glanced over to see Ani sitting on the balcony of the villa beside his. She’d mentioned them being neighbors earlier, and from the looks of the fifty feet separating them, she hadn’t been kidding. He walked over to the chair at the furthest end of his veranda and plopped down, resting his feet on the railing in front of him. Normally, back at the palace he would never consider acting so informally around a virtual stranger, but here in the darkness it seemed as if a safe zone had been created. Ani was sprawled out herself, on a chaise lounge, that pale green silk dress of hers sliding up to reveal slim, toned, tanned thighs and those same cute pink toes.
For an insane second, Rehaj wondered what it would be like to run his hands up said thighs, to feel those legs wrapped around him as he drove them both to ecstasy. To take each of her cute, pink-painted toes into his mouth and suck and kiss them until she begged him for mercy.
Until she begged him to take her, again and again.
He shifted slightly in his seat to remove the growing pressure off his groin. Damn. He’d barely met the woman and he was already fantasizing about her. Not good. Especially when they’d be spending the entire day together tomorrow. To divert his erotic thoughts, he tried to make small talk. “Did you see the itinerary?”
“Recover Love Rehab?” Ani snorted. “Yes, I saw it. Looks like they partnered us up.”
“Yes.” Rehaj stared out at the silver-tipped waves reflecting the moonlight. “When I first arrived it appeared that everyone in the lobby was a couple.”
“That’s probably because they are.” Ani sighed. “This is a couples-only resort. I’m suspecting the only reason they let you and me on the island is so they’d have an even number. Guess you’re stuck with me for the duration.”
“Hmm.” He should be mad. How dare his sisters foist this vacation upon him, knowing what they were setting him up for. And Rehaj had no doubt they knew exactly what they were doing.
For the last few months, since his younger brother’s marriage, their eldest sister Jessenia had taken a keen interest in Rehaj’s love life—or lack thereof. Seemed she’d declared herself family matchmaker and intended to see him paired up and walking down the aisle one way or another. As the last unmarried Nazari male, he almost felt it was his duty to hold out as long as possible. Well, that and the fact that he didn’t deserve a long and lasting love. Not after what had happened with Ayesha. He rubbed his face and stared up into the heavens. “And you are stuck with me. For better or worse.”
* * *
Ani got up before dawn the next morning and got ready in her yoga gear. She’d taken up the exercise shortly after her nasty breakup with Marcus, thinking it might help settle her and clear her mind. It had done both, though nothing seemed to help the aching hole left in her heart after the man she loved had betrayed her.
She stretched and got a bottled water from her minibar then decided to roll her mat out on the balcony to enjoy the sunrise and greet the new day. It was cooler now than it had been last night, but by no means cold. They were in the tropics after all. A light breeze stirred the palm fronds above the balcony and the soft calls of birds in the trees signaled a new day was coming soon.
As she went through her routine, starting in a seated mediation lotus pose before gradually working into Downward-Facing Dog and Plank. Some of the tension left over in her muscles from the day before eased as her body lengthened and relaxed.
Perhaps, she conceded, her sister’s insane idea to send her here hadn’t been so crazy after all. Gwen, two years younger than Ani, had been watching her mope around for months now after Marcus had gone and maybe it was time to get back out there again, no matter how scary the idea.
Ani stretched each leg up and behind her, trying to remember a time when she hadn’t been tied to someone else’s wants and needs and had a hard time imagining it. Before the Marcus years, there’d always been her mother. Smart, funny, accomplished—Diana Brightbridge was the figurehead and spokesperson for their family charity, The Brightbridge Foundation, which fought for women’s and children’s rights around the world. Funny then, that the one woman who should be so confident, so fearless in the face of adversity, was the most overwhelmed by it all.
She could still picture the first time she witnessed her mother have one of her panic attacks. Young Ani had been only six and her mother had been about to give a speech to a large group of women donors to their cause. Ani had seen her mother swallowing pills before, but Diana had always assured her daughter that they were from the doctor to boost her confidence. But that day the pills had run out. In her dressing room before the speech, Diana had fallen to the floor, clutching her chest as if she couldn’t catch her breath. It was the scariest thing young Ani had ever seen. And it had left an indelible mark on her consciousness.
These days Ani still lived by those long-ago beliefs. That confidence was something outside yourself, something you wrapped yourself in like armor or a cloak. Or in Marcus’s case, a diamond necklace he’d given to Ani for that purpose. Marcus had used a Ferari for his own armor. Either that or the closest available supermodel. Ugh. Confidence was a necessary evil. One Ani knew she needed more of for herself.
Too bad she had no idea how to get it.
Now the man she’d met yesterday, Rehaj? He had confidence in spades. She bet he could teach her a thing or two in that department.
Probably in the bedroom too.
Ani sighed and quickly shoved those thoughts aside as she pressed upward into a Forward Fold position. She wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone again, especially some rich playboy who was only looking for a good time until the next pretty young thing showed up. She’d had more than enough of that with Marcus Winters, thanks so much. And the soul-sucking loss had just about killed her in the end.
To the impressionable, gullible seventeen-year-old Ani, Marcus had seemed like a hero from one of the romance novels she’d loved to read so much. They’d first met when working together at a mission’s clinic in Africa for her family’s charity. She’d been a senior in high school then and had hung on Marcus’s every word as if it were gold. He’d been kind and generous, donating a huge sum to build a permanent women’s clinic on the site, and he’d wished her well as she’d returned to the States to finish her senior year. Nothing untoward, nothing but platonic. But she’d developed a serious crush nonetheless on the dashing twenty-seven-year-old tycoon who hung the moon and stars, at least in her mind.
They’d met again two years later. Ani had started college and was going for a marketing-slash-public-relations degree so she could someday follow in her mother’s footsteps. Marcus had come to the UCLA campus to speak to the MBA graduates and she’d immediately fallen right back under his spell. This time, Marcus had treated her as an adult, not as an eager puppy following him around. He’d wined and dined her and three weeks after they’d reunited, he’d taken her virginity. On her nineteenth birthday, she’d told her parents she was taking a year off to travel the world with Marcus. She never went back to UCLA, a move she still regretted.
Nine years they’d spent together, nine years she’d turned a blind eye to his philandering and lies. Nine years she’d played the dutiful, doting, dumbass girlfriend of a man who couldn’t keep it in his pants if they’d had a padlock on them.
Familiar anger and sadness squeezed her chest and she straightened into a final Namaste position to finish her routine. Marcus was gone and she’d been left to pick up the pieces after him. Marcus, who’d always needed consoling, always needed her affection to prove he was still attractive, always needed her constant emotions to show that she cared. Rehaj had called her dramatic yesterday. Was it any wonder after what she’d lived with for the past decade?
The sun was starting to rise now in the east and the sky was shot through with lightening shades of pinks and golds and lavenders. Beautiful.
Ani sighed and stared out at the sea, noticing movement just off shore. She squinted and realized it was a man, rising up out of the ocean. A very well-built, tanned, and toned man. Long, muscled legs, sculpted chest and abs, and that raven-black hair that she’d dreamed about running her fingers through last night.
