CHAPTER 5: "THE VILLA"
1395 Words
POV: Maya
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She grew up in two rooms in the Bronx.
This villa had twelve rooms and no walls.
Maya stood in the great room of Isla Paraíso and tried to remember how to breathe. The ceiling was two stories high. The floor was polished stone that felt cool under her bare feet. The far wall was made entirely of glass, open to the sea breeze, no separation between inside and outside.
"You look overwhelmed," Julian said from somewhere behind her.
"I am overwhelmed."
"That will pass."
"Will it?"
He didn't answer.
Rosa appeared from the kitchen. She was sixty-two, silver-haired, with hands that looked like they had been kneading dough and wiping counters for fifty years. She hugged Maya before Julian could introduce them.
"Welcome," Rosa said. Her accent was Spanish, soft and warm. "You must be tired. I'll show you to your room."
"Her room," Julian said, "is the east suite."
Rosa looked at him then she looked at Maya. Then she smiled in a way that made Maya want to crawl under the polished stone floor.
"The east suite," Rosa repeated. "Of course."
Day One.
Maya unpacked her suitcase in the east suite.
The bed was enormous with white linens and had a view of the ocean from three different windows. A bathroom with a tub the size of her entire bathtub in Brooklyn, plus a shower with two heads and a bench made of some dark stone she couldn't name.
She put her linen dresses in the closet while she lined up her sandals on the floor. She placed Ramona the succulent on the windowsill, next to a vase of fresh gardenias that Rosa must have put there.
Then she stood in the middle of the room and tried not to think about the fact that Julian was sleeping in the west suite, thirty yards away, through a hallway that had no doors.
She failed.
Julian:
He found her on the terrace at sunset.
She was wearing the same linen pants from the plane, but a different shirt—loose, white, the kind of thing that looked like nothing and cost more than she wanted to know. Her long black hair was down. Loose waves instead of the severe bun.
She looked like a different person.
"I didn't hear you," she said.
"You were staring at the water."
"I was thinking."
"About what?"
She turned to face him. The sunset caught her dark eyes and turned them gold.
"How big the sky is here," she said. "In Manhattan, the sky is a strip between buildings. Here, it's—"
"Overwhelming?"
She laughed. It was the first time he had heard her really laugh, not the sharp laugh from the office or the polite laugh for clients but real laugh.
"That's the word," she said.
Maya:
Dinner was on the terrace.
Matteo, the chef, was a small man from Martinique with a temper and a genius for fish. He brought out plates of grilled snapper and rice with beans and something green that Maya couldn't identify but ate anyway.
"I didn't know you had a chef," she said.
"You didn't ask."
"I didn't think to ask."
Julian was sitting across from her. His jacket was gone with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and dark blond hair was slightly disheveled from the sea breeze.
He looked like a person. Not a CEO or a Croft just a man eating fish on a terrace.
"I play chess," he said.
"What?"
"Chess. Do you play?"
"I haven't played since college."
"Then I'll go easy on you."
She raised an eyebrow. "You'll go easy on me?"
"I'm a gentleman."
"You're a lot of things, Julian but a gentleman isn't one of them."
He almost smiled. "We'll see."
Day Two.
He did not go easy on her.
She won in twenty-two moves.
Julian stared at the board. His grey eyes moved from the pieces to her face and back to the pieces.
"Rematch," he said.
"That was the rematch. You lost the first game too."
"Best of five."
"You're going to lose the best of five."
"Then best of seven."
Maya laughed. She couldn't help it. He was sitting across from her in the great room, the glass wall open to the night, the sound of waves below them, and he was sulking over a chess board like a child.
"You're competitive," she said.
"I don't lose."
"You lost twice."
"I'm counting those as practice rounds."
They played until midnight. She won three games while he won two. When Rosa came out to ask if they needed anything, they were both leaning over the board, their heads close together, their shoulders almost touching.
"No," Julian said. "We're fine."
Rosa looked at them. She smiled that same smile from the first day.
"Of course you are," Rosa said. Then she disappeared back into the house.
Maya:
Day Three.
She stopped wearing office clothes.
It happened without her planning it. She woke up, opened her suitcase, looked at the linen dress she had brought for the beach, and put it on.
She looked in the mirror.
She barely recognized herself.
"You look different," Julian said when she came out for breakfast.
"I look like I'm on vacation."
"You look like you."
She didn't know what to say she stayed quiet
They spent the morning on the terrace. He read a thick, serious book with a worn spine, and she read Jane Eyre again. The sea was bright blue, and the sky was clear. A woman named Carmen, who looked after the gardens, came by to water the hibiscus and introduced herself.
"You're the assistant?" Carmen asked Maya.
"I was the assistant."
"Ah." Carmen looked at Julian. Then back at Maya. "And now?"
Maya didn't have an answer.
Julian:
Dinner was on the terrace again. They had fish again, and the same green vegetable Maya still couldn’t identify.
"It's callaloo," Julian said.
"I didn't ask."
"You were staring at it."
"I was thinking."
"About what?"
She looked at him then the candle between them flickered. Her dark eyes caught the light.
"About how strange this is," she said. "Being here with you without the office."
"Is it strange?"
"Yes."
"Bad strange or good strange?"
She was quiet for a moment. "I don't know yet."
Maya:
It started raining.
Not the slow drizzle she was used to in New York. A Caribbean rain—sudden and warm and heavy, the kind of rain that came out of nowhere and soaked everything in seconds.
She stepped off the terrace and into the garden. The rain hit her face. Her linen dress clung to her skin. Her loose hair stuck to her cheeks.
She didn't care.
"What are you doing?" Julian's voice. Close. Too close.
"Feeling the rain."
"You're getting wet."
"That's the point."
She turned around.
He was standing six inches away.
His white shirt was transparent. She could see his chest and shoulders. The dark blond hair on his arms. Something on his ribs—a tattoo, maybe, but she couldn't tell in the dark.
His grey eyes were on her mouth.
"Julian," she said.
"Maya."
"We shouldn't—"
"We shouldn't."
Neither of them moved.
The rain fell. The gardenias smelled like everything she had ever wanted and couldn't name. She could feel his breath on her face. She could see the pulse in his throat, fast and desperate.
He leaned closer.
She leaned closer.
"Señor Croft?" Rosa's voice, from the terrace. "Señorita Reyes? I have towels."
They stepped apart.
Julian's jaw was tight. His hands were shaking.
"Thank you, Rosa," he said. His voice was steady but hands were not.
Rosa handed them towels. She did not smile this time. She just looked at them with something that might have been pity or hope or both.
Maya:
She stood in her room.
The east suite with the enormous bed and The gardenias on the windowsill next to Ramona the succulent.
Her forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window.
The rain was still falling. The sea was dark. Somewhere in the west suite, thirty yards away, Julian was probably doing the same thing. Pressing his forehead against a window. Thinking about six inches of space and everything that could have happened.
She wanted him.
She had never wanted anything this dangerous.
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END OF CHAPTER 5
- Writer
