Page 32 of Forbidden Virgin

Chapter 12

Six months later…

“Hey Graham. Are you still working?” Sheri asked.

Graham simply nodded, and continued away at his keyboard like an invisible person kept dictating an urgent document for him.

“You know you hired a pretty competent team for the new opening,” she said, mentioning the resort he had bought in Kauai and started to rebrand.

He stopped typing and took a deep breath, swiveling his chair to see her. She’d been bugging him for weeks now, but what else could he do? He had to distract himself from thinking of Kate, and her sweet smile. Kate, and the way her body came undone with his touch. Kate, and the naughty things she did to him.

Damn. There it was again. At night, he glared at the sky and twinkling stars and wondered if she would do the same. If she thought of him when she saw the moon. Or if she’d be making out with some young European guy and barely remembered him.

“You know this is a stupid rule. One year’s too long,” Sheri said.

He agreed to a degree. It proved too long to be away from her, but he’d needed the time to make sure she really wanted him and wasn’t just infatuated. Her feelings shouldn’t be a result of hot sex. If she still wanted him, he’d happily marry her. He’d go all the way with the only woman who’d ever made him want to. But he couldn’t put her through her family’s shunning without being one hundred percent sure. He rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“Are you even sleeping well?”

“I’m sleeping enough.” His empty bed mocked him at night. Images of her luscious naked body surfaced and there wasn’t enough touching that would save him from the stubborn erection.

“Did HR contact you? Aaron said he won’t talk to the press or anything,” Sheri said.

A month earlier, Aaron had asked to speak with Graham after he considered his yearly review by his manager unfair. Graham allowed it, and Aaron used his affair with Kate as bait for a promotion. He’d threatened to talk to newspapers about how not one but two couples had carried on an affair at the hotel and management didn’t care.

Graham had fired Aaron and explained blackmailing constituted a crime. And if he wanted to gossip about him and Kate and the housekeeper who had an affair with the maintenance guy he could, but no one would take him seriously. Kate was long gone and the housekeeper kept excelling at her job—while her maintenance fiancé worked at a different property. “He never scared me. Just a dumb kid who didn’t appreciate someone not feeling for him as he did for her.”

“How about you, Graham?” Sheri lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you ever wonder if she still feels for you the same way as you do her?”

* * *

11 months later…

Kate hurried out of the plane.

She gripped the handle of her carry-on and rolled it through the gate.

It’d started a week earlier, when she’d seen a post on Sheri’s Facebook page about an annual company beach day. She’d posted pictures with many coworkers during the sunny retreat, and Kate couldn’t help but stalk. She recognized some faces and her heart swelled.

But when she’d spotted Graham in one of them—in his board shorts and white T-shit, perfect beach attire—she’d zoomed in on the picture, touching the screen as her body tingled as if she touched his skin and not a computer monitor. A swirl of color caught her attention. A new tattoo on his arm that until then hadn’t had any ink. She clicked it and her heart slammed against her ribcage.

A couple of cherries on the inside of his arm, drawn in dark red, with the name Kate in cursive black. A tear had rolled down her cheek. He hadn’t given up on her. He’d meant what he said back at the hospital.

She’d called Sheri and asked her to schedule her a flight but to keep it a secret. The past year had been hell for her. Sure, she enjoyed traveling and meeting new people, but the more people she met the more she missed Graham.

And now, he had no excuse. Sheri had told him Mark Preston had emailed and asked him to pick him up at the airport himself for an important emergency meeting. Knowing how invested Graham was in keeping the success of his Davenport brand, she knew he’d be there.

Then he’d see Kate after a whole year. Would it be different face-to-face? For months she stalked his company’s Facebook profile and hunted him on Google. He didn’t seem to appear in a lot of pictures, mostly business stuff and thankfully without any women by his side.

Sheri agreed to fly her and to her plan but hadn’t mentioned much about her boss. She seemed invested in helping her like she believed the two of them should be together, but what exactly did that mean?

She clutched her hand on the handle of the luggage and kept her stride. Her palm slicked against the metal, and she held it tighter. God. Maybe surprising him wouldn’t be such a great move after all. Wearing red high heels instead of sensible sneakers had not been a good idea either—but Sheri had bought her first class tickets so she’d known she wasn’t going to wait in long lines.

She’d chosen a little black dress—sans underwear—and a red jacket. The red jacket she’d stuffed inside her oversize tote, so she could not only feel but see the goose bumps on her arm.

When she made it to ground level, she stepped hard each time to make sure she wouldn’t mess up and slip and fall. Her eyes scanned the place, searching for the only man who had the power of weakening her knees.

When she spotted him walking toward her, her heart froze for a moment. He frowned, probably surprised as she, for he wore a designer suit instead of casual clothes. And damn it, he looked the most handsome she’d ever seen. His hair was due a cut, and his eyes continued being those two pools of dark mystery.

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