he said. ‘I got to know how they operate pretty well. And that was before I started working in the kitchens of one at the age of fifteen.’
Zoey stared at him incredulously as they burst through the final set of doors and into the only slighter cooler night air of the island. ‘You? Ash Carmichael, heir to the Carmichael millions, worked as a hotel cook?’
‘It’s billions, actually. Or will be soon, if my father gets his way. And I was deputy washer-upper for three months before I was allowed anywhere near the food.’ Ash scouted around the back of the hotel, making sure there were no loitering guests to see them run. ‘My father is a firm believer in earning your place—even if you’re born into it. I worked in every part of a hotel in the three years before I went to university, and after that I worked my way up through every department of Carmichael Luxury Travel before I was allowed anywhere near the top offices.’
‘Huh. Grace always said you worked hard, but she never mentioned all that.’
Ash shrugged. ‘Why would she? It was just a job.’
And his job—and his money, for that matter—had always been the least interesting thing about him to Grace. Which was one of the reasons he’d fallen so hard and so fast for her. She’d loved him in spite of his name, not because of it.
‘So, where do we go now?’ Zoey looked out at the darkening skies, a nervous line marring the skin between her eyes.
A gnawing feeling of doubt settled in Ash’s stomach. Was he doing the right thing, taking her away from this wedding? He’d promised her just two weeks ago that he’d make sure she went through with it. But even then he’d not felt entirely comfortable making that promise.
Watching her with David, he’d been worried. Or unsettled, perhaps. Nothing Ash could put a finger on, but just a sense of wrongness. Maybe it was the way that David’s eyes never left her, especially when she was talking to other people. Or perhaps the way that they only ever said yes to engagements he wanted to go to, and arrived and left on his clock, not Zoey’s.
Or maybe it was just that Ash didn’t like him much.
Whatever it was, Ash had to admit that he was glad Zoey wasn’t marrying him. If she’d gone through with it, there was an interminable future of boring dinners listening to David talking about how important he was, and how magnanimous, supporting Zoey in her little job at the gallery.
Yeah, he was definitely doing the right thing.
‘The company has a villa on a private island, not far from this one. Freshly refurbished and awaiting inspection by yours truly next week. I even know where the spare key is hidden. We could borrow one of your guest’s boats and be there before bedtime.’ He nodded to the array of boats moored up at the hotel, ranging from small speedboats to large private yachts. Many of the wedding guests had decided to make a longer trip of the event and hired boats for the occasion to tour the region—relishing the excitement of island-hopping in the tropics instead of yachting around the Med for a change. Ash had been hoping for a chance to take a trip out on one of the boats anyway, so really he was killing two birds with one stone.
Actually, this all sounded like a pretty good plan for one he’d just come up with on the spur of the moment. Hopefully the villa had an equally luxurious drinks cabinet, and he and Zoey could wait out the wedding sipping cocktails by the pool before they headed back to face the music.
‘Borrow a boat from somebody?’ Zoey asked, sounding less enamoured of his plan. ‘Doesn’t that mean going back into the hotel we just escaped from and telling one of my guests that we’re leaving? Kind of defeats the object, don’t you think?’
‘Well, I wasn’t exactly going to ask,’ Ash admitted. He’d always found it better to seek forgiveness rather than permission in situations like these.
‘So you want to steal a boat. From one of David’s friends and family? Because I can’t see that making me any more popular with them.’ As if she thought running out on her own wedding wasn’t going to achieve that on its own. Sometimes Zoey had no sense of priorities.
‘No,’ Ash explained patiently. ‘We’ll bring it back tomorrow. After the wedding that won’t be. And we’ll only borrow a small one, anyway. They probably won’t even notice it’s gone.’
‘I’m not sure—’ Zoey broke off abruptly as another voice filled the air. David’s.
‘Zoey? Are you out here?’
‘Boat?’ Ash whispered.
Zoey nodded. ‘Boat.’
And then they ran.
* * *
As if she wasn’t feeling guilty enough already, now she had boat theft to add to her weighty conscience.
Ash had commandeered a small yacht with surprisingly little trouble—one that had been hired, she had a feeling, by David’s boss—which made Zoey wonder if he’d actually done this before. Funny, if she’d been asked this morning she’d have said that she knew everything there was to know about Ash Carmichael. After all, Grace had talked about him incessantly since the moment they met, so it was hard not to. And that was even before Grace died, and suddenly all they had was each other.
A tragedy like that brought people together. Made them close. Helped them know and understand each other in a way they never would have done, otherwise.
But somehow she still hadn’t known that he’d worked in a hotel kitchen, or that he knew how to hotwire a boat, or whatever it was he’d done to steal this one.
It was a nice boat, Zoey decided, standing by the rail looking out at the rapidly receding island hotel where she wouldn’t be getting married tomorrow. Stretching out from the main island itself was the long wooden bridge out over the water that led to twenty or so individual hotel suites on stilts, looking as if they almost floated on the waves.
It was an incredible place, Zoey had to admit. Under other circumstances, she’d be sorry to leave.
As it was...
She sighed and turned away, back to where Ash was steering the boat. And frowning. A lot.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, drawing closer. ‘Having second thoughts?’
He flashed her a smile. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be asking you that.’
Zoey considered, taking a reading on her internal feelings. A lot of guilt, as usual—and, really, who had a ‘usual’ for a situation like this?—but no regrets. No second thoughts.
She might regret letting her relationship with David reach this point, but not walking away. Her whole body sang with the rightness of that decision.
But that didn’t explain Ash’s frown.
‘I’m absolutely fine. What’s up with you?’
‘Not me,’ Ash said shortly. ‘The weather.’
Zoey looked up and saw the sky ahead was a different colour to the sky behind. And, from Ash’s expression, it wasn’t just the usual gradients of colour of sunset in paradise.
‘A
