LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIVE

      ARGH! WHY HAD she drunk that second glass of champagne? Their beach wedding had got to her, that was why. She had been swept away by the romantic setting, swept away by Logan’s kiss. The kiss that had sent shivers up and down her spine and driven silly ideas into her head. Ideas of him wanting things to go further, him wanting her. Not just physically but intellectually and emotionally.

      But he had drawn a line in the sand. Do Not Cross.

      Layla plonked herself down on the bed in her room with a despondent sigh. She’d made a class-A fool of herself, practically begging Logan to kiss her. Shame washed through her at how gauche she had been—how unworldly and foolish to think he might want to tweak the rules on their relationship.

      But his kiss had been so…so genuine. So authentic. So powerfully passionate she could feel it on her lips even now. She only had to close her eyes and she was back there on the warm grainy sand, with the waves washing against the shore with their fringe of white lace, and Logan’s mouth clamped to hers as if he never wanted to let her go. The need he had stirred in her was still humming in her body—a faint background ache she couldn’t ignore.

      Layla hitched up the hem of her dress and wriggled her feet and curled her toes. The white jagged scars on her left leg a jarring reminder of her past. The past that contained memories she wished she could forget. Painful memories that were embedded so deeply into her brain she still had nightmares.

      Babe. The word she loathed because her father had used it to address her mother in love and hate and everything in between. The word her father had said in the moments before the car had slammed into the tree.

      Layla pushed herself off the bed and walked over to the windows overlooking the beach. She hugged her arms around her body, trying to contain the disturbing images that flashed into her brain every time she thought of the accident. Accident? What a misnomer that was. It had been no accident. Her father had wanted to kill them all and had just about succeeded in doing so. He and her mother had died at the scene but Layla had been saved by a passing motorist—an off-duty nurse who had controlled the bleeding until the paramedics had arrived. Lucky Layla. That was what she’d heard the medical staff call her at the hospital.

      Why, then, didn’t she feel it?

      Layla blinked away the past and focussed on the beach below. The turquoise water beckoned but she hadn’t swum since rehab after the accident. And you could hardly call that swimming. She wasn’t sure she could even do it anymore. And she couldn’t imagine doing it without a body suit on, because going out in public with her scars on show drew too many stares, too many pitying looks, too many intrusive questions.

      But on a whim she still couldn’t explain, she had bought a swimsuit when she’d bought her wedding dress. It was a strapless emerald-green one-piece with a ruched panel in the front and a matching sarong. It was still in her suitcase—she hadn’t bothered unpacking it—because taking it out would be admitting she longed to swim, to feel the cool caress of ocean around her body, to be lifted weightless in its embrace. Free to move with perfect symmetry instead of her syncopated gait.

      Layla narrowed her gaze when she saw a tall figure walking to the water. Logan had changed into a black hipster swimming costume, which showcased his athletic physique to perfection. Lean and taut with well-trained muscles, his skin tanned from numerous trips abroad, he turned every female head on the beach but seemed completely unaware of it. He waded through the waves until he got to deeper water and began striking out beyond the breakers in an effortless freestyle that was both graceful and powerful.

      She turned away from the window with another sigh. She was on beautiful Maui in Hawaii with her brand-new husband who didn’t want her other than as a means to an end.

      Where was Lucky Layla now?