LITMIR.BIZ

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Matthew realized that the dunk he was planning in the ocean was suddenly becoming something necessary to cool his overheated libido.

      “So I’m staying,” he told her, not too sure where she was in her speech but wanting to at least make that clear. “And I’m going for a swim. Coming?”

      Corinne was breathing a little heavily. Perhaps her speech had gotten a little out of hand. The good news, though, was that he had listened to her and had taken her advice. He was doing what he wanted to do and that was stay. Since it was what she wanted him to do, too, things had really worked out for the best.

      “No, you go ahead. I’m not a real big swimmer.”

      This clearly confused him. “Why would you come to an island if you don’t swim?”

      Haughtily, she answered, “That’s non-swimmer discrimination.”

      “It is? I thought it was just a question.”

      “Just because I can’t swim doesn’t mean that I should be denied the privilege of coming to an island. I like to look at the water. And maybe later, if I want to, I will sit by the pool, too.”

      He simply shrugged. “Okay.”

      “For now, however, it’s getting late. I think I’ll head back to my room.”

      “So, I’ll meet you for dinner tonight. Around seven in the Pirate’s Cove,” he stated rather than asked. How was that for being aggressive and telling her what he wanted? Whether it worked or not remained to be seen.

      He studied her face for a moment, and her expression was priceless. First, there was a little surprise at his forwardness, then a little outrage, then finally the realization that he had done exactly what she had instructed him to do. She was probably mentally congratulating herself on her success.

      “Are you asking me to dinner?”

      “I don’t think I’m asking,” he replied boldly.

      She squinted her eyes at him, but then after a beat nodded her head. “Yes, I suppose I can meet you at the bar.”

      Corinne packed up her things and headed back up the beach. Matthew gladly watched the graceful movement of her hips as she sashayed her way to the hotel. Only the stupid sarong that she had wrapped around her waist prevented him from getting the full view. That was her sister’s doing, he thought. Just because Myra was reed-thin, Rinny thought she had to hide the fact that she wasn’t.

      “You know, Rinny,” he called out to her impetuously. “Your hips aren’t all that big. You really don’t need to cover them up with that sheet thing.”

      That being said, everyone within earshot immediately turned to stare at Rinny. And her hips.

      Stiltedly, Corinne turned and shot death rays at him with her eyes. So powerful were they, he was relatively sure she would have killed him had she been a super-hero. Turning away from him, her chin held high, she removed the sarong, as if to show her viewing public that she had nothing to be ashamed of, which she didn’t, and stormed off. His Rinny always knew how to make an exit.

      MATTHEW PLUNGED through the water and the gentle waves, finally diving beneath the surface of the clear ocean. When he came up he tried a few strokes, but instantly his lung started to hitch and his arm stiffened up. The one thing they never showed in the movies or on TV was how long it took to recover from a bullet wound. Most heroes just slapped a bandage on it and off they went. Here he was several months later, and he still wasn’t up to snuff.

      Don’t regret getting shot, Matthew told himself as this time he took on the water a little more slowly. In retrospect it was the best thing that ever happened to him. If he hadn’t gotten shot, he might never have woken up to the fact that time was passing, and he and Rinny weren’t getting any younger.

      After all, he was sure she wanted to have children. She talked about having them with the Golden Boy, although he couldn’t imagine him being anything more than an absentee father. Golden Boy was too self-absorbed for children. But Rinny would be an excellent mother, of that he was sure.

      Yep, it was time for them to get started with their life together. All he had to do was convince her that she didn’t love Golden Boy and that she did love him. Not an easy task, but not an impossible one. What had she said earlier, something about needing a course of action?

      She was right.

      He could always tell her how he felt about her. But after her speech about needing to open up to people, he had the sneaking suspicion that she had reduced his feelings for her to a minor crush, one rooted in the fact that she had been there for him. If he declared his love now, she might mistake it for misguided gratitude.

      No, in this case, honesty was not going to be the best policy. Lousy poker face or not, he was going to have to give it his all to try and hide his true feelings for her. At least until he was sure that she could accept them for what they were.

      There was always the friendship angle, but he’d played that card since the day he met her and all it had gotten him so far was her, well…continuing friendship.

      Maybe he should tell her about Brendan and what a scoundrel he was and how Marjorie from human resources wasn’t the first woman to make his eyes wander. No, any attack on Golden Boy would only lead to her leaping to his defense. Matthew wasn’t up for another round of the poor-misguided-insecure-Brendan soliloquy.

      So what was left to him?

      Matthew flipped onto his back and began to back stroke. The sky was a shade of blue that he couldn’t quite label, but knew that when he got back to his condo in New Jersey, he would try to replicate it with his paints. He had no doubt he would fail. It wasn’t that he was a pessimist. Just bad with colors. Not to mention he wasn’t a very good painter. It was simply the process and its contrast to working with numbers all day that pleased him.

      Then it clicked. The process. That was his course of action. He had to stop thinking about the end result and concentrate on the process. The end result was love and happily ever after. It was the ending that most people hoped for any time they began a relationship. But the process was the wooing. The dating. The flowers. The dinners. And the sex.

      If Matthew couldn’t get Rinny to fall in love with him, maybe he could get her to have an affair with him. Technically, she had broken up with Golden Boy, so she couldn’t cry infidelity as an excuse. Then there was the added element of them being outside their normal realms on this island. Away from the office, their friends, anyone who knew them, they could be anybody they wanted to be.

      It would be tricky. He would have to convince her that it would strictly be a two-week gig. No regrets or recriminations when it was over and they were back in the office. Of course, if he had his way there would be no “over.”

      Instead, there would be happily ever after and a nice house and babies and…Rinny.

      It wasn’t going to be easy. Pulling this off meant that he would have to be sneaky and manipulative. Two things he utterly failed at. But this particular poker game was for the jackpot. And he didn’t plan on losing.

      A vacation fling. It just might work.

      3

      TO TIE OR not to tie. That was the real question. Matthew was dressed in a pair of gray slacks to which he dared to add a soft-blue oxford shirt with a white collar. It wasn’t his normal style. He preferred plain white. What with his lack of talent for color, it made it much easier to match his ties with his shirts.

      However, fashion seemed to be important to Rinny. Or maybe not fashion so much as style. She was forever commenting on his absence of it. She’d given him this shirt as a Christmas gift last year so he had to assume it would meet with her approval. And there was the added fact that he simply wanted to wear it for her.

      Besides, these were the islands. It was time to cut loose and live on the wild side.

      He had gone so far as to

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