The Island Hideaway

Chapter 3

Noah Wales would not be swayed by a beautiful pair of eyes. Or all that dark skin. Or the curves this woman possessed. Oh, no. He would not.

Wasn’t that the whole reason he’d come to the island house in the first place? To get away from women like the one standing in front of him?

Yes, yes it was.

He blinked and backed up a step, though this was his house—fine, his family’s house—and he didn’t have to go anywhere. He gripped the spatula he’d been using to flip eggs, wondering why he still held it.

She blinked too, confusion coloring those dark, chocolatey eyes. He hated that description, as if everything had to be related to food. But when he tried to come up with another way to categorize her eyes, it was related to coffee.

He sighed. “Did my mother hire you?”

“Is your mother named Petra?”

“Yes,” he said. “But you said it wrong. It’s not Petra, like your cat is a pet. It’s Petra, like…peat moss.”

“Petra,” she said correctly, swinging the cat carrier behind her back as if Noah hadn’t already seen it. “Then, yes. Your mother hired me.”

Noah’s mind raced. He didn’t want his mother to know he was here. He didn’t want anyone to know he was here. He didn’t want this woman here with him. He just needed somewhere to lie low for a while until he could figure things out, repair his reputation, and then return home to Triguard.

anyone“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Zara Reddy.” She extended her hand like they’d be bunkmates. He looked at it for a moment past comfortable and then gave it one pump.

Could he send her away? Would she text his mother?

Her phone shrilled out a few quick beeps in a row, stealing her attention and giving him some time to think. She tapped out a quick response and looked at him. “So, what are we going to do?”

“Well, I really don’t need a house sitter,” he said. Boomer’s claws clicked against the tile as he came closer. “As you can see, I have a guard dog. So I’ll be fine.”

“I need this job,” Zara said, her phone chiming in rapid succession again. “I’ve already sent your mom my payment info.”

Noah nodded. “That’s fine. She doesn’t need to know.” So maybe he spoke the last sentence with a little too much feigned nonchalance, because Zara’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows went up.

“She doesn’t?” She c****d her hip and put the hand holding her phone on it. “Does she even know you’re here?”

“This is my house,” he said. He didn’t have to defend himself to her. An inward sigh practically had him giving up. The truth was, he had to defend himself and his actions to everyone. He had since the moment he was born into the royal family, the Wales of Triguard.

my“Your mother hired me this afternoon,” Zara said, a definite measure of desperation in her words.

“I’ll bet she said no pets.” He c****d an eyebrow at the cat carrier, where a definite low meow still emanated.

“You have a dog,” she said. “And he’s huge, and he’s definitely the shedding type.”

“This is my house,” he repeated, wondering if she’d even heard him the first time.

Her phone rang this time, and she sighed like he was the most annoying man on the planet, and said, “Excuse me a moment, would you?” She lifted her phone to her ear without waiting for him to say anything. “Hey.” She turned her back on him and wandered a few steps further into the house.

Noah needed to get rid of her. If any reporters saw her come through the gate, there’d be a dozen cameras watching the place. Where had she parked? Probably right out in the open, and he groaned as he turned to look out the tall, skinny windows that flanked the front door.

Yep, her beat-up sedan sat right there, out in the open for anyone to see.

“Sorry,” she said, and he turned back to her. “There’s this huge celebrity wedding on the island this fall, and the owner of the wedding planning place needs extra hands all summer.” She shook her head as if she was saying something crazy, but Noah seized onto the information.

“Is she paying or is it volunteer work?” If he could get some volunteer credit, maybe he could start to repair some of the damage he’d caused in Venice….

“I think she’s paying.” Zara squinted at him. “Why?”

“Why what? Nothing.”

“You have a look in your eye.”

“What look?” He scoffed. “You met me five minutes ago. I don’t have a look.”

“Mm hm,” she said, nodding. “I know your type. Rich, spoiled, handsome. Living up here on the bluffs like you own the world just because you can see a lot of it. Always looking to play an angle. What is it this time? Knocked up a woman and need to play nice with the press now? Or maybe…maybe you’ve had a bit of a scandal and need a way to clean up your image.”

Noah simply stared at her. Had she crawled inside his mind and rooted around in there until she’d found his exact situation?

“I have not knocked anyone up,” he said with disgust. “And I really can’t have the press here. So I need you to move your car. Now.” Had she said he was handsome?

Yeah, right after rich and spoiled.

Yeah, right after rich and spoiled.“Where?” she asked.

“The garage,” he said. “Then we’ll talk some more about…stuff.”

“Stuff?” She stood there with that strap over her shoulder, her bag bumping her hip.

“An arrangement,” he said, the idea swirling around in his mind. “I’ll go put coffee on. Unless you prefer tea?”

She blinked at him, and Noah himself was a little weirded out by the way he was whiplashing between polite and defensive.

“Coffee’s fine,” he said, moving away from her. As he went, he caught the scent of her perfume, and it was part flowers and part something else that he couldn’t quite name. As he left her in the foyer and entered the kitchen, the word came to mind.

Chlorine.

She smelled like chlorine. He checked over his shoulder to make sure she hadn’t followed him, and relief ran through him when he heard the front door open and close. “All right,” he said to himself and Boomer as he filled the coffee pot with water. “Let’s just hear what she has to say, okay? Maybe this won’t be so bad.”

Zara took so long to return to the house that Noah thought she may have left. But she’d left her bag and her cat in the front foyer, so he poured himself a cup of coffee and waited. After all, he was the youngest child of a king, and waiting was practically part of his genes.

When she finally did come in, it wasn’t through the front door but the one that led into the garage. “This place is huge,” she said. “Did you know there are four doors leading out of the garage? I thought I’d never find my way inside.”

Noah smiled at her, enjoying the exuberance in her expression. “Well, you found the right one at last.” He indicated the coffee pot and the ruby red mug he’d gotten down for her. “Coffee?”

She eyed him as she moved closer and poured her own cup of coffee. After putting in a spoonful of sugar and quite a lot of cream, she stirred and faced him again. “So, Noah. You sounded like you had a plan.”

“Sort of,” he said, his mind still tripping on some of the finer details. “Where did my mother say you’d be sleeping?”

Zara set her coffee mug on the counter and pulled out her phone. “Let’s see. She said I could have any of the guest rooms to the right of the main staircase, or I could stay on the main level in any of the three rooms on the west side.” She looked at him. “I thought you didn’t need a house sitter.”

“I don’t.”

“Then what—?”

“I need the privacy of this place,” he said carefully. “I know my parents won’t be back for months. I need to…lie low for a while. No one can know I’m here.” He didn’t know Zara at all, but she seemed like a smart woman. Her quick wit while they’d traded jabs in the foyer told him she might be able to pick up what he was laying down without him having to spell it all out.

“So you want me to ‘house sit.’” She made air quotes around the last two words. “To keep people away? So they think no one’s here?”

“Bingo,” he said. “And you can stay here. Get paid for sitting the house. Lie by the pool. Bring up groceries. Whatever you were planning on doing.”

“Bring up groceries,” she said. “You mean your groceries.”

your“I might make a few requests,” he said as if that were a perfectly reasonable thing for him to do. Then he wouldn’t have to go into town. The idea really was coming together. “Everyone will think the house is empty. The paparazzi and cameras won’t need to stay or try to find me here.”

“Whoa. Paparazzi?”

“They’re relentless,” he said. “And they know I left Venice.” He hoped they didn’t know where he’d gone yet. He really just needed some time.

“Oh, of course,” Zara said with sarcasm dripping from the words. “Venice.”

Noah regarded her coolly. So she was beautiful. Smart. But she had a cat, and he generally disliked felines. Boomer didn’t seem to mind, as he’d followed Noah back into the kitchen and now lay panting near the fridge.

“So here’s my deal,” he said. “You can stay here as you’d planned. Pick any of the rooms on my mother’s list, but I am staying on the second floor to the right of the staircase. Use the pools. All of that.” He took a step toward her, surprised and even more attracted to her when she didn’t back away from him.

“But no one can come up here. So no pool parties or anything like that. You’ll get the groceries and other things I might need so I don’t have to leave the house. You’ll still get your summer here. You’ll get paid.”

“And you? What do you get from this?” She folded her arms. “Because I’m not one of those women.” Her dark eyes flashed dangerously.

those womenNoah laughed. “Trust me, Zara. I’m not one of those men either. I just got out of a really bad relationship. I’m not looking for another one.”

those men“Or a summer fling,” she said. “I don’t do flings.”

“Great. Makes two of us.” Just because she made his stomach flip didn’t mean he was going to act on the attraction.

“You still haven’t said what you’re getting from all of this,” she said. “Except me buying your groceries and running your errands and taking care of your house.”

yourPerhaps she had heard him when he’d said this place was his.

“I get the time I need,” he said. “The anonymity I’ve never had. And the chance to volunteer on that celebrity wedding.”

Her eyebrows went up again, and he wondered if she practiced such a flawless motion in the mirror. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked.

“I have my reasons,” he said. He’d been raised to serve others, and volunteer work was the best way to repair bad public perception. Now, if Noah hadn’t been “the bad boy of Triguard,” he definitely wouldn’t have logged over ten thousand volunteer hours over the past thirty-one years of his life.

was“So what do you think?” he asked, calmly taking another sip of his coffee, the way he’d seen his father do many times.

Zara studied him for several long moments, clearly working through something in her mind. Probably a lot of somethings. Finally, she said, “I think I’m crazy. I can’t believe I’m going to say yes to this.”

Noah grinned at her and plucked his own phone out of his shorts pocket. “Great. I’m just going to need the number of that wedding planning place….”