An Innocent In Paradise

Seven

Logan stood beside the limousine and watched Aidan jog down the stairs of the brothers’ Gulfstream G650 jet before strolling across the tarmac. He was followed closely by their Senior VP, Eleanor, and two corporate staffers as a crew of airport workers began unloading luggage from the plane onto a cart.

“Welcome home, bro,” Logan said, and grabbed his brother in a bear hug. Then he shook hands with Eleanor and the two staffers. “You all did a great job in New York. Thanks.”

They all piled into the limo and while they waited for their luggage to be loaded into the trunk, Logan passed around bottles of beer to anyone who wanted one. He knew he did. He’d spent the past two hours dealing with Pierre, his irate hotel manager, and the entire housekeeping staff, who were in various stages of tears and anguish after Pierre had reamed them for stealing from a hotel guest.

Nobody had confessed and Pierre was on the verge of firing every one of them. But armed combat was unexpectedly averted when the hotel guest called Logan’s office to announce that, oops, she’d found her diamond necklace after all, in another handbag she’d forgotten she brought.

Pierre was still simmering and the staff were all nursing grudges that would eventually fade. Pierre tended to hit pretty high on the drama meter, but he was also savvy enough to make it up to the staffers for insinuating there was a thief among them. They were all used to Pierre’s over-the-top reactions, but the fact that he cared so very much about the guests’ safety and comfort was what made him an excellent manager.

Still, that was the last time Logan would ever make the mistake of casually asking the hotel manager how things were going.

After the short drive back to the hotel, Logan and Aidan waved off the staffers and headed for Aidan’s suite.

While his brother changed from a business suit into a pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt, Logan pulled two more bottles of beer out of the refrigerator, opened them and handed one to his brother.

“Thanks,” Aidan said, and took a long drink. “Damn, feels like I’ve been gone a month.”

Logan sat in an overstuffed chair and rested the beer bottle on his knee. “And to me, it’s as if you’d barely left.”

“Ah, feel the love,” Aidan said, laughing. The two brothers grinned at each other, staring into identical blue eyes that reflected the exact same image back at them.

They had grown up so identical that no one besides their father had ever been able to tell them apart. Even close friends and family members, people who should’ve been able to tell the difference, couldn’t. Their mother, for instance, had always mixed them up, from the time they were born. But then, she’d never really bothered to get to know them. And when she disappeared when the twins were seven, no one was too surprised.

Ancient history, Logan thought, and shook off the grim memory. Aidan wanted an update on anything new that was happening at the hotel and Logan brought him up to date on each department.

As he spoke about the latest housekeeping kerfuffle and filled his brother in on new staffing and such, Aidan unpacked. He made several piles of laundry on the bed, then put in a call to housekeeping.

“Tomorrow after the conference call, we need to finalize the Dukes’ visit,” Logan said as soon as Aidan was off the phone.

“Good thinking.” Aidan found his briefcase and pulled out a thick, leather-bound notepad. “I’ve made some notes.”

Logan still couldn’t quite believe he and his brother had never met their Duke cousins until this past year. Adam, Brandon and Cameron Duke were the adopted sons of Sally Duke, who was the widow of the twins’ father’s brother, William.

Logan grinned. The convoluted nature of their relationship confused him sometimes, too.

But a year ago, Logan’s father, Tom, had received a call out of the blue from Sally Duke, explaining the connection.

Brothers William and Tom had lost their parents in a car crash and been sent to live in an orphanage in San Francisco for a few years until William was adopted. In those days, there was no concern for keeping siblings together, so the boys never saw each other again.

Once he was old enough, William tried to contact the orphanage to find his brother, but the place had burned to the ground five years earlier and all the records had been lost.

Sally had picked up the lost trail after William died and spent years trying to track down Tom. Thanks to the miracle of internet search engines, she finally found him, along with his two boys who were now grown men. Sally had arranged for a family reunion and now they all tried to get together as often as possible. And it seemed to Logan that their father might’ve developed a bit of a crush on Sally.

Since the Duke brothers built hotels, it had been a natural move for Logan and Aidan to eventually invite them to Alleria to see if they might be interested in expanding their empire to the Caribbean.

They’d be here next weekend, and Logan and Aidan intended to pull out all the stops and show them the best that Alleria had to offer. And thinking about that, Logan was reminded that he really needed to show Grace the hot springs in the rain forest.

Putting thoughts of a wet, naked Grace out of his mind, Logan watched his brother move around the room putting his things away. In that moment, Logan realized that a part of him felt much more relaxed now that Aidan was back on the island. It was almost as if he’d been missing a body part or something. It was no big deal, just another weird twin phenomenon he and Aidan had laughed about their entire lives.

“You want to go for Mexican food?” Aidan asked.

“How’d you know?”

Aidan just grinned as he used his foot to straighten the line of shoes in his closet.

Logan lined his shoes like that, too, he thought, and added the quirk to the list of oddities that went along with being a twin. Although, watching Aidan go down the line of shoes again, nudging them minutely, he wondered if this particular quirk wasn’t more like a case of mutual OCD.

He finished his beer and tossed the empty bottle into the recycling can. “Let’s go.”

After returning from the rain forest, Grace had tried to track down Logan to tell him about the temptingly secluded pool she’d seen and what she’d like to do about it with him. But one of the clerks had told her he’d gone to the airport to pick up his brother, so she went to her room instead and had been studying spores ever since.

At least, she’d tried to study the spores when thoughts of Logan weren’t interfering. She wondered if she would see him in the lounge tonight. Would he introduce her to his brother, Aidan? Would Aidan like her? She hoped so. She knew that the two men were twins. Everyone on the staff talked about them, especially the women. Apparently, it was impossible to tell them apart.

That’s when another thought suddenly interfered: How would Grace know which one was Logan? Would she embarrass herself in front of his brother?

She couldn’t imagine not being able to tell the difference between the man she’d spent so many hours laughing and talking and making love with, and his brother. What kind of woman would that make her?

She couldn’t wrap her mind around that possibility, so she forced herself to concentrate on her work. She’d studied slide after slide of the new spores and under the microscope, these new batches appeared to have the exact same qualities as the original group. But time-and her ultra-powerful electron microscope back in the laboratory-would tell.

She jolted when the buzzer on her travel alarm went off. She pressed the off button, then closed up her notepad and began to prepare to take a hot shower before heading out to her evening job in the cocktail lounge.

Removing her clothes, she folded them on top of her bed, then walked into the bathroom. A sudden image of Logan standing in the shower with her, his broad chest glistening with soapy water, brought a shiver to her spine and a smile to her face as she waited for the water to get hot.

“At this rate, you’ll need a cold shower,” she told her reflection in the rapidly fogging mirror, then stepped into the shower stall.

As she washed and rinsed her hair, Grace’s thoughts drifted back to Logan’s reaction at finding out how smart she was. Most men she’d known would’ve brushed her off. For goodness’ sake, if she was being honest about it, even her own father and mother had brushed her off. But Logan seemed to enjoy the fact that she was knowledgeable, that she paid attention and enjoyed learning new things. It was heartening that he seemed to like her and to want her to stay with him, because the feeling was mutual. She’d never wanted anything quite as badly as she wanted him. Even temporarily, which was all she could really hope for anyway.

She’d given up trying to lecture herself on falling in love with him since she was pretty sure it was too late. Maybe she should’ve tried a little harder; because, after all, in case she needed to be reminded, she really couldn’t be trusted when it came to her feelings for men. Remember Walter.

But as she rinsed her hair one last time, she realized that she couldn’t exactly recall Walter’s face. How odd was that? It would be wonderful if Walter and his face were truly just a vague memory now. If she was lucky, she would never have to see the man again.

Logan was another matter altogether. His face was etched in her memory so clearly, she was pretty certain she would never forget him. Still, she thought it might be nice to ask Dee to take a surreptitious photograph of Grace standing next to Logan. It would be lovely to have something to look at and remember him by. But even if she couldn’t get a picture, she would never forget his face. Or his body. Or his voice. Or his kiss.

She really would need that cold shower at this rate.

Turning off the water, she grabbed a towel and dried off. She couldn’t help it if her thoughts continually turned to Logan. He was simply the loveliest man she’d ever known and part of her wished, foolishly, that she would never have to leave Alleria.

Her more practical mind argued that nothing lasted forever. Even if she stayed on the island, Logan might very well grow tired of her. And what would happen then? Would he fire her? Or would he just make it so impossible for her to be happy here that she would end up leaving anyway?

That thought was such an unhappy one that it left an achy feeling in her chest. She absently rubbed her sternum to ease the pain as she told herself firmly that it was better all the way around to leave when she planned. Before Logan began to look at her with boredom, or, worse…irritation in his eyes.

Shaking off the heaviness around her heart, she applied a touch of mascara and lip gloss, then walked over to the dresser and pulled out the bikini and sarong that made up her uniform. And since she was standing by the dresser anyway, she checked the microscope slide again.

Then she checked it one more time.

“That can’t be right,” she said. She rechecked her notes. Had she made a mistake in notating the circumference around the edges of the new spore gathering? She didn’t think she had, so she looked back at the slide. Then her notes.

Either she was seeing things, or the spores were replicating at least three times faster than the ones back in the lab at the university. If it was true, if she wasn’t hallucinating, then these new spores from the top of the rain forest were stronger, faster and more efficient than any she’d found before.

She did a little happy dance. It was an unexpected breakthrough, a development she couldn’t have foreseen in a million years. She should’ve been itching to get back to the laboratory and the more precise equipment she could use to measure things more accurately. But all she wanted to do was track down Logan and share her news with him. After all, it was Logan who’d allowed her to stay on the island, thus providing her with the opportunity to find these spores and accelerate her experimentation. She thought it only fair that she thank him for that.

Her face heated up as she considered the many inventive ways she could show him how grateful she was.

Lively mariachi music floated out to the patio of Casa Del Puerto, where Aidan and Logan sat enjoying the three items the restaurant was most famous for: fajitas, homemade tortillas and an unsurpassed view of the picturesque harbor of Tierra del Alleria. The margaritas weren’t bad, either.

The quaint Tierra marina was where Logan and Aidan had first docked their boat on their original visit to Alleria. They’d needed to have their boat overhauled and intended to stay a week while the work was done. It had never crossed their minds to buy land here, least of all the entire island.

But when the week was over and their sailboat was ready, they decided to stay another week, slowly falling in love with the sleepy harbor town, its charming residents, miles of white-sand beaches and an amazing rain forest.

They learned during that visit that one of the smaller cruise lines featuring sailing yachts had recently negotiated to add Tierra to its itinerary. The brothers recognized that the island was on its way to becoming a key Caribbean destination within a few years. They made an appointment with the major landowner on the island about buying property and that’s when they found out that the island itself was up for sale.

The brothers had survived on their gut instincts long enough to have a sixth sense for knowing when something sounded right. They spoke to their fledgling investor group and within two months they were the proud owners of their very own Caribbean island. Once the ink on the contracts was dry, the first order of business had been the design and construction of a luxury resort that would truly establish Alleria as a premier destination for the most discerning travelers in the world.

Now, seven years later, that goal had been met, and the hotel also served as the corporate headquarters for all the Sutherland enterprises. They had offices in New York and San Francisco, as well; but Alleria was the home as well as the heart of their operations.

Logan smeared a fresh tortilla with a hearty spoonful of refried beans and a healthy dab of hot sauce, then wrapped it up and bit into a little taste of heaven.

Aidan sat back in his chair, patting his stomach. “That’s it for me.”

“I’ll be done after this last bite,” Logan admitted.

“Good,” Aidan said. “Then we can talk.”

“We’ve been talking all night,” Logan said, gazing at his brother with suspicion as he took a sip of his drink.

“Yeah, but, funny thing, this subject never came up,” Aidan said, stretching his legs out to the side of the table. “You see, Ellie was talking to Serena day before yesterday and she mentioned a certain new cocktail waitress you’ve been spending time with.”

It was a good thing Logan had swallowed his margarita or he would’ve spewed it all over the table. And that would’ve been a waste of good alcohol. His eyes narrowed on his brother. “So now you’re listening to employee gossip?”

Aidan shrugged. “When the source of the gossip comes from the management level, I’m willing to pay attention.”

Just his luck, Logan thought. Serena was manager of catering which included the cocktail lounge and the various restaurants throughout the hotel. And Ellie was one of her best friends. “So what’s the problem?”

“Dude, you’re dating an employee?” Aidan said. “Are you out of your mind?”

“She’s not really an employee.”

Aidan snorted. “Interesting that you’d say that since she’s on the payroll. And, according to Serena, she actually does work in the cocktail lounge. Sounds like an employee to me.”

“Temporary employee,” Logan said.

One wary eyebrow shot up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Logan pushed his plate away and sat back in his chair. It had only been a matter of time before the subject of Grace came up, so he figured he’d better deal with it here and now and put a stop to the gossip.

He explained to Aidan how the new cocktail waitress had come to the island under false pretenses and how he’d fired her, then spelled out the circumstances under which he’d allowed her to stay on.

“Okay.” Aidan nodded agreeably. “I get how she arrived and I’m willing to go along with her staying, if you think it’s justified.”

“It is.”

“But I haven’t heard how all that turned into you dating her.”

“Because she’s…”

Aidan leaned forward. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that. What’d you say?”

Logan scowled. “None of your damn business.”

“Ah.” Aidan nodded, his mouth twisting in a grin. “So she’s hot.”

“Shut up.”

Aidan chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.” His smile faded and he said, “Look, when we talked the other day, I heard something in your voice I don’t remember hearing before. So sue me for being concerned.”

“Nothing to be concerned about.”

Aidan studied him for another long moment. “I’m not convinced.”

“Tough. It doesn’t matter anyway. Grace doesn’t expect anything from me but great sex. Besides, she’ll only be here for another few weeks and then she’s leaving.”

“You sure she’s leaving?”

“Yeah. She’s leaving.” Saying the words aloud brought a frown to Logan’s face. Strange, but he didn’t want her to leave just yet. He was still having a good time with her. Why break it off when they were having a good time?

Okay, yeah, Grace was unlike any woman he’d ever known; so, yeah, he could admit he was, well, sort of captivated by her. Who wouldn’t be? She was a beautiful woman with an amazing brain and an even more incredible heart. He liked her.

But that’s all this was. It wasn’t like he cared for her. He didn’t care for any woman. It was just that she was…unique. Funny. Smart. And sexy as hell. They’d been having fun together and that would continue for as long as it lasted. Then she’d go home. Things would be over between them and that would be the end of it. No harm, no foul.

But Aidan had been watching him carefully and now he shook his head in disgust. “Crap, man. You’re falling for her.”

“What?” Shocked at the idea, Logan snorted a laugh. “That’s a load of bull. I’m not falling for her.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Irritated by his brother’s scrutiny, Logan grabbed his margarita and chugged it down. “How stupid do you think I am? I haven’t forgotten that she lied and manipulated her way onto the island, so why on earth would I ever trust her, let alone fall for her? So let it go.”

“You’re sleeping with her.”

“So what?”

“You of all people should know how women are.” Aidan sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees and shook his head. “Once you’re sleeping with them, they think they’ve got you by the balls. And, damn it, what do you really know about this woman? She comes here under false pretenses with this bizarre story about spores, which is damn strange to begin with, by the way. I mean, really. Spores? Is she into biological warfare or something?”

“They’re good spores,” Logan muttered.

“Oh, I feel so much better, thanks.” Aidan shook his head. “So, anyway, once this woman gets here, she latches onto you faster than a tic on a hound dog and now you’re falling for her. How did that happen?”

“I’m not falling for her,” Logan repeated through gritted teeth. “It’s nothing like that. And seriously? Tic on a hound dog?”

“I just spent two days on the phone with Tex,” Aidan said with a shrug. “I’ve gone country.”

“Good to know.”

“Okay, now look,” Aidan said slowly. “I understand if you have feelings for this girl.”

“You don’t understand squat.”

“No really, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You’re completely off base,” Logan said. “Just drop it.”

But Aidan was on a roll. “I’ll drop it as soon as you hear me out. Has it occurred to you that she’s after your money?”

Logan barked out a laugh, then laughed harder at the very idea. Grace? A gold digger? Come on. “You’re so wrong it’s not funny.” He relaxed in his chair. “Look, you don’t know her, so I’ll give you a pass on that. But trust me, it’s impossible. She’s not like that. Her whole world is wrapped up in her research. You should see her room. She’s got a microscope and all this equipment and reams of notes. There’s no way she’s…”

Aidan continued watching him as Logan mentally replayed a few conversations he’d had with Grace. “Well?”

Logan shook his head with firm resolve. “Nope. Absolutely not.”

“I think you’re not looking at her from an objective point of view.”

“Duh.” Logan glared at his brother. “Just because I’m not being objective doesn’t mean I’m some naive idiot, either.”

“Fine. Prove it to me, then.”

“Yeah? How?”

Aidan smiled and his eyebrows lifted high on his forehead. “Easy enough. I say we need to pull the Switch.”

Logan leaned forward and pounded the table with his fist. “No way. Don’t even think about it.”

Over the years, the brothers had occasionally pulled the Switch on women, usually just for fun or when one of the brothers seemed to be getting too serious about a woman. Aidan had always called it a test, implemented merely to see if a woman was paying attention to which brother was which.

The last time they’d employed the Switch was when Logan suspected that his wife, Tanya, was being less than faithful to their marriage vows. He’d asked Aidan to pull the Switch on her. Tanya didn’t pass the test.

“Fine,” Aidan said, holding up his hands in surrender. “You win. But I still want to meet her. Let’s just swing by the lounge on the way back so you can introduce me to her.”

“You’re not meeting her.”

“You know how stupid you sound?”

Logan clenched his teeth together, then blew out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I’m pretty clear on that. Fine, we’ll swing by, I’ll introduce you, you’ll say hello, then you’ll shut up and leave.”

Aidan grinned. “You’re not doing yourself any favors here.”

“I know,” Logan muttered. What was wrong with him? It was no big deal if Aidan met Grace. But there was no way he’d allow his brother to pull the Switch on her.

“So what’s her name?”

He hesitated, but his brother’s expression switched to one of such abject pity, he finally blurted, “Grace. Her name’s Grace.”

Aidan smile in satisfaction. “Pretty name. Where’s she from?”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Minnesota.”

“Ah, a farm girl,” his brother murmured.

“No, a scientist,” Logan said flatly.

“Oh, right, the spores. Tell me more.”

“They’re rare spores only found on Alleria. Grace is studying their replication patterns in hope of curing diseases and saving lives someday.”

“No kidding?”

“Yeah.”

Aidan folded his arms across his chest. “Seems to me you know a hell of a lot about spores all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, I do,” Logan said, taking a long sip of his drink. “We’ve got miracle spores on Alleria and I’m swollen with pride over that.”

Aidan choked on a laugh. “Damn, it’s good to be home.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” Logan said dryly.

“Right.” Aidan grinned. “You sure you don’t want to reconsider the Switch? It’s always worked for us before. And wouldn’t you rather know the truth for sure?”

Pissed off now, Logan flopped back in his chair. Knowledge was power, even when the truth sucked. Besides, he had more than a sneaking feeling that Aidan would carry out the Switch whether Logan approved or not. And there was the added fact that once Aidan had met Grace and seen how sincere and real she was, he’d back off and leave Logan to enjoy her for the short amount of time he had with her.

“Fine,” he said, lifting his margarita glass in a toast. “Give it your best shot. But if you hurt her, I’ll have to kill you.”

“Fair enough,” Aidan said with a laugh, and called for the check.