Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Misty’s words become garbled mush. If Sebastian chose someone already, I don’t want to know.
“Enough already!” Ginger splashes Misty. “Tell us who picked whom. Or are you bluffing?”
“Would I do a thing like that?” Misty asks, feigned innocence dripping from her voice.
Sienna rises, water dripping from her naked body. “I’m calling it a night, ladies.”
I rise as well. “I’ll come with you. We’ve got an early day tomorrow. If you call ten a.m. early, which, on vacation, I do.” I grab two of the towels we brought from the pool house and hand one to Sienna. “Here you go, love.”
“Thanks.” Sienna wraps the towel around her chest.
I grab my robe and Sienna takes the men’s shirt she came into the tub with. The two of us leave the screened-in area and walk toward the mansion.
“She’s so full of it,” Sienna says to me.
“Misty?”
“Who else?”
“I agree. I don’t for a minute think she knows anything.”
“I know who she’s gunning for though,” Sienna says.
“Really? Who? And how do you know?”
“River. She told me.”
“And you think she’s telling the truth?”
Sienna shakes her head, sighing. “I honestly don’t have a clue. But Alex and I saw her jump into River’s arms in the ocean earlier. After that she told me River was hers and to back off. Alex is apparently her second choice.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Alex? Interesting. The two quieter men.”
Sienna draws in a breath and then clears her throat. “That’s what she said.”
“But you and Alex…”
“We…started something on the beach, but we got interrupted.”
“By the tide that washed away your clothes.”
“Yeah, and then by River and Sebastian.”
“River and Sebastian? Whyever would they interrupt you?”
She shrugs. “Tell me and we’ll both know.”
We reach the mansion. The kitchen is vacant. Evangeline must have called it a night.
Sienna and I walk to the third floor where our suites are and say goodnight. Once in my room, I find my dratted sewing kit at the bottom of my computer bag. The one place I didn’t look when Ariel and I were here earlier, after Sebastian tore my dress. I’m not sure how it got there, but I don’t bloody care.
I’m ready to let this day die.
I jump in the shower to wash the chlorine from the hot tub from my hair and skin, dry off, and toss on a tank top and lounge shorts. I step toward my window, which looks down upon the courtyard where we had the opening party. To my right is the pool house. I can’t see the hot tub from here, but Rachel, Ginger, and Misty are no doubt still there. Misty probably still hasn’t told them who has chosen whom.
If anyone has chosen, it’s probably Brett.
The way he looked at Ariel as they were leaving the pool area…
Sebastian looked at me with lust in his eyes, but Brett…
He looked at Ariel with something more.
It couldn’t have been love, of course. But it was something. Something stronger than lust.
I lie down on my bed, but sleep doesn’t come. I’m antsy. This whole evening was sensory overload, between the men, the drink, the food, the location, the naked dancing…and of course my interlude with Sebastian.
How am I supposed to sleep now?
I toss and turn for twenty more minutes before someone knocks on my door.
For a second I hope it’s Sebastian.
“Who is it?” I ask through the door.
“It’s me. Sienna.”
I open the door and she steps in quickly. “Sorry to bother you, but I just saw the guys come back.”
“All of them?”
“Not Brett, but the other three. They’re downstairs. Want to go down?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.” She blows out a breath. “I understand. I just can’t sleep.”
“Me neither. But throwing ourselves at men isn’t the way to do this, See.”
“I know. I just… I thought Alex and I had something. I know it’s too early to tell. I guess I got caught up in the romance of it all. It felt good after being so unceremoniously dumped by Leroy.”
“I get it. I can’t believe Brett and Ariel are still out there.”
“He’s with Ariel?”
“Yeah. They went off together a while ago.”
“Lucky her.”
“Lucky you. You got more than most of us.”
Her cheeks redden.
“You may as well tell me all of it. I can see it on your face anyway.”
“It could have been so amazing,” she says, a dreamy look on her face. “It was amazing, but then the tide… And then…”
“The guys,” I finish for her.
“Right. And he just let me go. He let me walk off with Misty and didn’t even try to stop me.”
“I know what you’re feeling. Sebastian and I had a little above-the-waist action earlier—”
“That’s why he wasn’t in the courtyard for the announcement,” she says.
“Bloody gold star for you. Anyway, now I’m like the plague, apparently.”
“Alex said something to me tonight that made a lot of sense.”
“What was that?”
“He said they all had to get to know each one of us. That they couldn’t pick favorites just yet.”