Page 11 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
She’d lost all sense of time and her knees were killing her, but she’d done one hell of a job, even if she said so herself. She dared the mighty Jario to find fault with—
A shadow fell over her. Shading her eyes, she looked up. ‘Umm, can I help you?’ she asked the stern-faced guard.
He held out a bottle of water and a tube of the eye-wateringly expensive sunscreen she’d only seen in the guests’ suites.Reserved for guests only.
‘No, thanks. I’m not thirsty.’ She winced inwardly at the blatant cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face reply. ‘And I’ve already used some...’ Her voice trailed off as her skin tingled and she raised her gaze.
One deck above her, Jario leaned against the railing, a crystal tumbler in his hand.
‘Orders of the boss,’ the guard said belatedly.
Stopping herself from rolling her eyes, Willow stared at Jario. He returned her gaze with all the time in the world. Slowly raising his glass to his sensual lips, he took a healthy sip, content to watch her from on high as she sat back on her knees.
Willow absently accepted the items from the guard, barely registering his retreat as she and Jario locked gazes in silent battle. Her neck grew uncomfortable but she refused to look away. To back down.
Almost inexorably, sensations from last night began to seep in.
First, the thickness in the air that made it hard for her to draw breath.
Then the tight furling of her nipples. The dampness at her core.
The blaze and tingling of her skin that had nothing to do with heat from the sun.
It should’ve been maddening the sensations he drew from her, but Willow was too busy being disarmed by them to be livid. She’d never experienced anything like it and...hell, it was entirely too fascinating to wish it away just yet.
So she risked a crick in her neck as he held her gaze captive. He lowered his glass and his voice rasped, ‘Drink. Now.’
The order was gruff, barely audible, but she heard every syllable as if he’d shouted it. ‘You can’t order me around,’ she snapped to counteract the mystifying melting occurring inside her. ‘Like I told your minder, I’m not—’
‘You haven’t hydrated in two hours. Inviting heat stroke or passing out won’t get you out of this. Drink.’
Her parched throat screamed at her not to be stubborn. Hell, she suspected he would revive her just so she could keep scrubbing his precious deck. Ensuring her defiance was patently visible, she snatched the top off the glass bottle and tilted it to her lips, fighting a relieved moan as the cold water slipped down her throat.
Maddeningly, watching him take another drink as she swallowed hers sparked another volley of intense awareness that drew goose bumps all over her body. Her senses were going haywire when she lowered the empty bottle and raised an eyebrow in a challenge she couldn’t seem to suppress.
‘There you go. Any more orders you’d like to throw my way?’
He drained his glass, the ice clinking as he lowered it, then pointed a slim finger behind her. ‘Yes. You missed a spot. Start again.’
She was Paul Chatterton’s daughter.
Hours later fury still simmered in his veins at the knowledge.
Jario knew the unsettling feeling stemmed from the not so brief lusty thoughts he’d had this morning. The ones that arrived during his shower.
He’d been caught off guard by the very carnal near-eagerness to see her again. Enough to consider throwing caution to the wind.
Discovering her identity had dredged up a ton more emotions, none of them of the soft, fluffy variety. And yes, he felt a fool. Because for a sliver of time, when he’d demanded to know the reason for her presence, a part of him hadhopedit was pure, eerie coincidence. Something he could excuse because deep down he didn’t truly believe in visiting the sins of the father on the daughter?
Perhaps.
But no. Her motives were as he’d suspected.
And therefore, Jario had zero regret for the punishment he’d dished out.
Dios mio, the Chattertons deserved infinitely worse.
Rage galloped through him as he drew his hands down his face, the stress he’d marginally worked off last night back in full force, along with mild self-disgust for what he’d almost done. Thepleasurehe’d almost taken from the woman bearing the name of the man who’d decimated his family.