“You’re going to wear a hole in that lounge chair staring at me like that,” she called out without looking up from her book, a smile playing at her lips.
“Worth it,” I called back, pulling myself out of the pool and grabbing a towel. “What you reading anyway?”
She held up the cover, allowing me to see the burnt orange book.
“A Taste of Grace by Monica Cox,” she said with a grin that told me she was up to something.
We swam that afternoon, the water warm and clear, sunlight glinting off her skin. She tried to dunk me, and I let her think she had a chance until I flipped us both, dragging her under with me. When she came up sputtering and laughing, hair plastered to her cheeks, I realized no one else in this world would ever see me like this. She got the soft, the silly, the parts of me that weren’t meant for the streets.
My father spent the afternoon on the terrace, puffing cigars with a couple of locals he’d somehow befriended within hours of arriving. Their laughter carried on the breeze while Karyn flitted between the villa and the boutique strip, coming back with bags full of sarongs and jewelry, “oohing” and “ahhing” over every little trinket like she’d discovered buried treasure.
The afternoon stretched lazily and perfectly. We shared fresh conch fritters and cold beer, watched the water change colors as the sun slid across the sky. Later, stretched out on the loungers by the pool, she fed me pieces of fruit from a plate between us. Pineapple, mango, whatever the staff had brought up. She acted like she wasn’t watching me, but her eyes kept drifting down,catching every reaction. I acted like I didn’t care, like it was just food, but the way her thumb brushed my bottom lip every time? She knew exactly what she was doing.
Coco dozed off in the shade while I handled a few calls, keeping my voice low so I wouldn’t wake her. Even business felt different here—less urgent, more manageable. Out here, she wasn’t just fitting into the backdrop. She was rewriting it. The ocean could crash, the palm trees could sway, but she was the view. And sitting there watching her, I couldn’t shake the thought that paradise didn’t make her glow. She made paradise look better.
By the time the sun dipped low, painting the sky pink and gold, the laughing and splashing had quieted into closeness. We moved inside to get ready for dinner, the villa carrying us naturally from room to room, marble counters and soft lighting doing what Turks did to everybody — made the whole world feel far away.
At night, we found our rhythm. The sound of the ocean crashing outside the villa while she let me slowly undress her, taking my time with each button, each strap. The way she laughed when I told her I planned to worship every inch of her before the night was over.
“You’re insatiable,” she whispered against my ear, but there was no complaint in her voice.
“Only for you,” I murmured back, and meant every word.
Later, as we lay tangled in sheets that smelled like sea air and her perfume, I traced patterns across her bare shoulder, letting the silence stretch.
“This is nice,” she said softly. “Having you all to myself. No business calls, no emergencies, just us.”
“Get used to it,” I said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking we make this a tradition.”
She lifted her head to look at me, eyes bright even in the dim moonlight. “Tradition? You planning to keep me around that long?”
“You stuck with me. Forever. That’s not a plan, that’s just what it is.”
The words landed heavier than I meant, but I didn’t take them back. Couldn’t. And when she smiled and leaned into me, I knew she heard me for what it was, a promise. Not a deal, not an arrangement. Us.
Iwoke up in paradise with his arm heavy across my waist. Lesley slept hard when he finally let himself, chest rising slow and steady, lips parted just enough to remind me he wasn’t as untouchable as he wanted the world to believe.
My body still felt wrung out from the night before—his mouth, his hands, his need to touch every part of me. On that jet, I swore he’d branded me for life. By the time we touched down, I couldn’t pretend anymore. I was his, period.
The villa only made it worse. Open windows, ocean air, sheets that smelled like salt and us. He hadn’t let me out of his sight since we landed, and I hadn’t wanted to be anywhere but under him, next to him, pressed up against his heat.
If there’d been any doubt about how I felt, Turks and Caicos ripped it out of me. I loved him. God help me, I loved him.
But loving Lesley Grimson meant carrying weight most women would run from.
Later that morning, we walked through the local market in town. Lesley had suggested it casually— “Want to see how the locals live?”—but I suspected he just wanted to get me out of the villa before we never left the bedroom.
The market was alive with color and sound. Vendors called out in accented English, offering everything from hand-carved jewelry to locally grown mangoes. The air smelled like spices and ocean breeze, and I found myself stopping at every stall, charmed by the craftsmanship and stories behind each piece.
At a fabric vendor’s booth, I ran my fingers over a bolt of silk the color of Caribbean water. The older woman behind the counter smiled, launching into the story of how her grandmother had taught her to dye fabric using flowers from the island.
“This one,” she said, pointing to the silk, “takes three days. Very patient work. Like love, yes? The good things, they take time.”
I felt Lesley step closer behind me, his presence warm at my back. When I glanced up, he wasn’t looking at the fabric or listening to the vendor’s story. He was watching me— memorizing the way I looked in this moment.
“You want?” the woman asked, already reaching for her scissors.
“She wants,” Lesley said before I could answer, pulling out his wallet. His voice was rougher than usual.
