Page 8 of Scandalously Yours

Alessia

It’d been three days since I had met Kristopher Simon. The man was a walking wet dream, and it was no mystery he made me very nervous. It wasn’t even that I was worried about what he might do to me, but vice versa. I could barely keep my thoughts sane when around him, which was often. Whether intentional or coincidental, we often ran into one another during different panels, then later at night. I’d had dinner with him the last two, and tonight was our last one on the island before we caught our flights to return to the real world.

I wanted to think I would feel relief at having resisted the most temptation I had ever known, but there was a sense of regret that wouldn’t relinquish me from its grasp. Since the night on the beach when he kissed me, I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head. I’d hurried back to my room after I’d left the bar that first night, and using the wine as liquid courage, I imagined he had done more than just kiss me. It hadn’t taken long to pretend that he was inside me. While my battery-operated boyfriend was old and trusty, the fantasies of this man were new and exciting.

He hadn’t kissed me since that night, and I had come to accept it truly had been inappropriate with his pending divorce, not to mention that he would soon be my boss. I had tried to put those thoughts out of my head and focus on his company.

“You’re really easy to talk to,” I had told him last night after I had confided about the surrogate process and how it had changed me. I obviously never mentioned who the parents turned out to be and most people would think I was crazy if I was ever at liberty to tell anyone anything about them. What plagued me wasn’t their stature. It was the hole in my heart that the baby left, and no one I had dated could understand it. That wasn’t even all. My parents and grandparents had known about the surrogacy, but they never judged me. They supported me the best they could, and no one even brought it up anymore outside of my grandfather.

That man was my hero, and he was slowly fading away from me. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a few years earlier, he was the driving motivation behind the extra research I had been doing with the Alzheimer’s Foundation. Watching such a strong man decline so rapidly had gutted me like only one other thing in my life had. Kris seemed to understand what I was going through. He was a doctor, and as such, he also took the same oaths I had. He even mentioned joining forces with me when it came to the progressive disease once we were both back in New York City.

“You’ve made me feel a lot better in just a few days. There has to be something I can help you with.”

“Unless you can make my soon to be ex-wife sane again, I’m afraid there isn’t.” He had then gone on to explain how their fairytale romance burned to ashes. Kris sounded as if he had once loved her very much, yet his current voice was one of resentment and bitterness.

“I’m afraid I’m not much help on the relationship front. I’ve barely been in one that has lasted longer than a year.”

Aiden Petty had been the one I thought I was going to build a life with. He was in law, and we were both working toward what we hoped would be successful careers. I had told him everything about me, and I thought he’d done the same. About thirteen months into our relationship, he asked me to give up medicine and have his children. I thought he had understood not only how being a doctor had been my dream, but I also expressed how deeply the surrogacy affected me which changed my views on pregnancy altogether.

I know it was irrational, but I used to have dreams of giving birth again only for the child to be ripped from my arms. It was another reason why his parting words as he grabbed the final suitcase from the hall had devastated me. “Surely we can work this out,” I had begged, and he sneered at me in return.

“It would never work because I would have to worry about you handing our child off to the first person who waved a wad of cash at you.”

Knowing my fears, he’d thrown them up in my face and I watched him walk out the door and out of my life. Although I was sad, I refocused on school which was essentially trading one dream for another. I didn’t regret it then, and I wouldn’t allow myself to do it now.

“You do help me, Ale.” Kris expressed how happy our newfound friendship made him. Being friend-zoned four nights into whatever this was that I had concocted in my head had been hard to deal with, but his company also made me feel good, so it was as if we were on equal footing.

That was the reason I didn’t understand why was I so nervous about tonight. Was it because he had asked me to meet him for dinner? It couldn’t be because we had eaten together the last two evenings. Maybe it was the whole awkward goodbyes we would tell each other until we met once more in the halls of New York Presbyterian. I couldn’t figure out what had me on edge, so I pulled the brush through my wavy locks and left my hair down tonight. I had chosen to wear a long, flowing maxi dress with large, bright flowers and strappy sandals. If I would’ve been back home, I might’ve taken more care with my appearance, but this was vacation, and I didn’t want to primp in front of a mirror for an hour when there was a paradise just outside my double doors.

I grabbed my phone and went downstairs to meet him. When I got in the lobby, my eyes scanned the wide open space and I had almost missed him because instead of the casual style of dress I’d seen him in over the last few nights, he was still in a suit. I was gawking at him once again. I’d heard the term “suit porn” and seeing him wearing one definitely made me wet. He must’ve sensed my presence because he turned and smiled, while I foolishly remained rooted in place.

“You look beautiful,” he told me as soon as he walked over to me.

“You don’t look half bad yourself,” I teased, then let out a soft exhale.

He took my hand and led me away from the onsite restaurant where we’d gone the last few nights and out to a golf cart. I looked at it, then him in confusion.

“JC has arranged something for us. Our dinner awaits on the other end of the island.”

He had mentioned knowing the man who owned this resort, and I suppose he hadn’t been embellishing the truth when he’d told me how the close the two had been. I just never imagined it would be this much.

I should’ve been more nervous that he was taking me away from the safety of our peers, while also excited to get to spend some alone time with him. Being here with him in this way had been almost like a fling, minus the sex. My smile faded as that realization hit me, especially seeing I was already aroused by his outward appearance. We had kissed that one time, and while he put the few other men to shame, it didn’t mean I gave him the same reaction.

I climbed onto the golf cart and held onto the arm rail with one hand as he veered away from the resort and toward the private part of the island. The trek was a bit bumpy, and combined with the nerves, it made my stomach ache just a bit. By the time he hit open land once more, everything settled, and I spent the rest of the ride taking photographs of the dense foliage and large flowering plants.

“We’re here,” he told me as he came to a stop in front of a small building. I wasn’t sure where we were, but before I could ask him, he turned to me. “I hope you don’t mind but after dinner, I plan to make you very wet.”

“What?” I asked, unable to believe what he just said. I suppose it was better than telling him that he’d already accomplished that.

“You’ll see,” he told me, then helped me off of the golf cart. I followed him inside the small house and saw a table with domed trays, but that hadn’t been what caught my attention. I walked over to a nearby chair and picked up what looked a lot like my green striped bikini. “I took the liberty of having housekeeping grab that for me.”

“Y-you did?” I didn’t know whether to be impressed or angry.

“The main reason I wanted to bring you here requires a slightly different attire than you currently have on.”

“And that would be?”

He grinned. “Do you want dinner? Or would you rather see what the surprise is?”

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