Private 02 - Private Paradise

reputation and had flat out told him she wasn't about to become another notch on his belt.
    Which only made him want her more.
    In the eleven years since he'd last seen her, it didn't look like Carla had gotten any easier. With her hair straightened into a dark, silky curtain and her body toned and tight, she looked sleek and tough and ready to take on the world.
    She hadn't, however, been prepared for the bomb Chris had lobbed at her. Sam had tried to dissuade Chris from springing him on Carla unannounced. He knew damn well Carla wouldn't, as Chris claimed, “be totally psyched” to have Sam come work with her at Holley Cay.
    And based on the last time he’d seen Carla, she had a damn good reason why.
    Fresh guilt churned in his gut as he remembered the look on Carla's face that night he'd told her it was over. Her pain as he'd told her, in the cruelest way possible, that there was no future for them was seared in his brain like a brand.
    He looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw Carla and Chris coming through the French doors that opened out from the restaurant to the patio. He could see the tension on Carla's face from here. Whatever she'd discussed with Chris, it hadn't made her any happier.
    Had she told him about what had happened?
    Sam's conscience pricked him, as it had the moment Chris had told him that if he accepted the position at Holley Cay, he'd be working not for Chris, but for Carla.
    “ You remember Carla, right?” Chris had asked.
    Hell yeah, he remembered her. And not, as Sam knew Chris assumed, as the cute girl three classes behind whom he encountered at one of the many parties Chris had thrown in high school. Sam should have told Chris then, he knew. Should have come clean, been a man about it, and let him know all the reasons why Carla wouldn't want him within a hundred miles of their island paradise.
    But he knew if he fessed up, he most likely wouldn't get to see her again. And though he hadn't let himself dwell on her in years―white hot dreams where he finally got to do all the things she wouldn't let him didn't count―at the mention of her name he felt the need to see her with an urgency unlike anything he'd felt in a long time.
    In fact, the last time he'd felt it, it had been when he knew he needed to drive her away before she wasted her life on a loser like him.
    But when Chris told him about the position, and how Carla was on the verge of losing her job because of the previous security breach, Sam had been overwhelmed by the need to help her. Any flashes of common sense that tried to warn him this was a terrible idea were immediately drowned out by the urge to come to her rescue, as though somehow that could make up for the way he'd treated her before.
    As Chris crossed to him, Sam rose from his chair and studied his face, looking for signs of anger. Though he looked frustrated, Chris didn't look pissed. Sam let down his guard now that he was reasonably sure he didn't need to brace himself to take a punch.
    Check that, he thought as his gaze shifted back to Carla, who looked ready to skip the punch and go straight for a kick in the nuts.
    “ So, looks like you're our new head of security,” she said. He thought the expression on her face was supposed to be a smile but it looked more like a baring of teeth. And if looks could kill, he'd be nothing more than a pile of ash on the flagstone patio slabs. “Since Chris hired you, I'll have him show you to your office and get you set up―“
    “ I'm going to have to head out,” Chris interrupted. “We've got a wedding for five hundred tomorrow so I need to relieve the nanny.” He gave Sam a wink and slapped him on the shoulder. “Seriously, nothing but non-stop action here in the tropics. We'll have you over to our place to catch up soon.” Chris took his leave, and Sam turned his attention back to Carla.
    “ Did you know when you took this job you'd be working for me?” she asked him point blank as soon as Chris was out of earshot.
    Sam nodded.
    “ Why? In what universe did you think this would be a good idea?”
    Without waiting for an answer she turned and started marching back inside, leaving Sam no choice but to follow. “I knew you wouldn't be overjoyed to see me―“
    “ You think?” she said over her shoulder as she cut through the restaurant, back outside, and through the breezeway that connected the restaurant with the resort's main building. He followed her past the reception counter and down a hall that