Still Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 10) Read online

  I consider telling him nothing. Or making it clear that it’s none of his business. It’s just that Hindi said something yesterday about how I never say anything. There’s nothing wrong with strong and silent. It’s a fucking staple, right? I’m a former SEAL and, yes, I’m a bad ass. While I might benefit from a charm school course, people can take me or leave me.

  Hindi left me.

  I try the words out. “She’s my wife.”

  Finn chokes on his beer. “Not while I’m drinking, man.” Then he pauses. “Wait. For real? As in you’re hitched right this very second?”

  I nod.

  “You did?”

  “I did. I do.”

  “Huh.” For once in his life, Finn is at a loss for words. This is the man who happily bullshitted an entire tribe of Afghans in what he later claimed was Klingon, talking nonstop for twenty minutes until our official interpreter could make it up the mountain to join us. He never stopped, never paused.

  A commercial comes on. One for a detergent followed by another for a diet something-or-other. We both stare at the screen until I break the silence.

  “I bought this island from her and one thing led to another and—” Shit. I don’t tolerate excuses from anyone—not my team, not my commanders, and definitely not myself.

  “You had like a week in Florida. Nice work.”

  Yeah. That last part does sound like a fucking question.

  “We got married.” There are plenty of words I could use to describe our brief marriage. Impulsive comes to mind. Along with unplanned, random, and off-the-cuff. But… it was also magical and kind of freaking awesome. We had the Himalayas of relationships, all sharp peaks and valleys of death. No tame geographical features in our emotional landscape, fuck you very much.

  “So you met, you married, and then you were tragically parted to never find each other again?” Finn narrows his eyes. “Because I think it’s pretty hard to misplace someone who was appearing on national television.”

  “She was in New York. I—wasn’t.”

  Finn knows where I was. As he was right there beside me, he’s just giving me shit—or trying to make a point. Duty first, work first. Everything and everyone else takes a number. But sometimes, yeah, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t done that last tour. If I’d come home then, would it still have been too late?

  “That’s what frequent flyer miles are for,” he stage-whispers.

  At first, we wrote. She sent me quirky, funny poems and weird selfies. And then her career started to take off and I had to go dark because I was covert ops, and the emails got more perfunctory and further apart. If excuses were cards, we each had a full house and neither of us was bluffing when we threw in the hand. Our marriage drifted, and that’s the truth. What was the best fucking week of my life couldn’t live up to the weeks and months that followed. I have a million excuses and none of them are any good. I got so busy chasing dreams that I forgot my first and best dream until there was the Grand fucking Canyon between us and she was serving me with divorce papers.

  I tried visiting her in New York City to try and talk our shit out. My picture appeared in Column Six entitled Hindi’s Sexy SEAL and my commanders were pissed as fuck. Hard to send a man out to do covert ops when his picture is all over the Internet. Dick pics they could have handled—it was the full facial that caused the problem. She tried one more unsuccessful visit—to my place—and then I quit working on us. I let her go and I walked away, because it couldn’t have worked between us anyhow.

  Hindi

  Being a reality TV star isn’t as liberating as you might imagine. Sure, my agent (or my agent’s people) booked us a bungalow on the ocean for this trip down to the Florida Keys. The place is super swank, the your-wish-is-my-command shit is addictive, and I don’t have to clean up after myself. Someone else also picks up the check at the end of the week, and I’m invited to swan around the beach channeling my inner movie star. But Lilah follows me around with her camera, capturing every public moment and quite a few of the private ones. We discuss what makes for the best film and what the viewers will find interesting. Nothing is entirely unscripted, and we’re always looking for that one golden moment when I do or say something that will go viral and guarantee we get renewed for another season.

  Life’s one big stage and sometimes I’m desperate for the curtain to fall.

  Think about it. If you’re a cast member, you’re always on display and someone is always watching. And judging. The network bigwigs judge whether or not I’m interesting enough to hold the attention of your average channel-surfing American. My agent judges whether or not I can land that next Big Thing or sell my lingerie into the store of the week. The people planted on the couch? They judge most of all. Would they have done what I did? Am I worth thirty minutes of their life?

  Producers love reality television because the shows are cheap to produce. One episode costs way less money than a show that requires a cast of professional actors and a script. Not that we’re unscripted. Far from it. There’s not a whole lot of reality in a reality TV show. How many people do you know who live out their entire lives, from taking a shit to sleeping with an ex-boyfriend, in front of a camera? Bet you can’t name a single person.

  We’re all about the story. And if a compelling story doesn’t present itself? The segment producers come up with one. An entire roomful of writers “edit” our weekly show. In exchange, they get a paycheck, possibly without medical, dental, or a 401K, but you take the work where you find it. It’s not union scale either, but writers like to pay their bills and have AC when it’s one hundred degrees in Los Angeles. I’d take the deal, too.

  My big break came when I drove up to New York City the week after my impulsive wedding to Ro. I’d been invited to audition for a reality TV show that would follow ten unknown designers as they competed for one hundred thousand dollars and a lingerie line launch. From the moment my van died outside the studio in a spectacular cloud of smoke and firemen (and yes, the New York City fire department is truly calendar-worthy), I was in. We filmed for three months, during which I banked four thousand dollars a month and a room in what the producers called the “design house” in New York’s fashion district. Since living in the house meant free rent and toilet paper, I made the best of it.

  You think I won because my designs were the best? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s actually not against the rules for the producers to pick the winner. Dear old Dad claimed I’d never amount to much. That I was a one-woman sideshow, a screw up, always going down in flames. He was right about the last three, but it turns out that people will pay good money to watch me implode. My Internet fandom won’t last forever, but I’ll ride the train to the last damned stop.

  So I park my butt on the floor of my swank bungalow and design instead of enjoying the beach just outside my door. Lilah spends the better part of the morning taking calls and discussing story scripts with the Los Angeles team. They’re white-boarding potential scenes for the upcoming season, some of which are an automatic hell no on my part. Yes, there are lines I won’t cross—and doing Ro on the beach while Lilah films from a discreet distance is a hard limit for me. Plus, I’m pretty sure you’d need him to sign a release for that one since Angel Cay is private property and he has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

  While Lilah works Skype like a dominatrix, I do what I do best. I design. Right now, I’m putting together a mood board for my next collection. I scrawl snippets of possible designs on cards and pin them in place, matching them up with swatches of fabric. For reasons that have nothing to do with my current location, I’m drawn to the bright blues and jewel greens. I want something lush and exotic, soft and yet structured enough to support my tits and ass. I want to look better than I ever have—and I’m sure you feel the same way. Even if no one sees my goodies, I need to know I’m stunning, sensual, and… fuck. The blue and green combined with the feathers makes me feel like I’m channeling a peacock and that’s not helping my I am a bad ass campaign.
I’m launching a new line at Miami Fashion Week in another two months, but then I need to hit the ground running on this new line.

  Eventually, Lilah signs off her last call and tosses her headset onto the couch with a wink. “They love you.”

  I blow her a kiss. “Tell that to my agent. He’d love to charge them more.”

  She flops back on the couch, latching onto her sixth diet soda of the morning—there’s no room for slow in our world and too many of the assistants work off a cocktail of vitamins, caffeine, and drugs. Lilah sticks just to the first two, which is another reason we get along so well. I don’t need more crazy in my life.

  She lobs the empty at the recycling bin, looking as drained as the can. “The meet and greet with your not-so-ex went well, but we need more if we want the network bigwigs to green light the next season.”

  Color me shocked. While part of me hoped I’d come down here, let Ro know about our unexpected marital status, and then leave, I knew that wasn’t actually on the table. I could have done that by email, after all. The network wants dramatic, colorful, can’t-not-watch footage, and it’s my job to get it for them. They don’t care that spending quality time with Ro seems like a really bad idea. It’s too easy to remember all the ways that we did work (which were in bed, naked, and going at it like sexed-up bunnies) and forget the bad moments.

  Ro’s still far too hot, and somehow he’s an even better kisser now than he was six years ago. Has he practiced? It seems likely. I mean, come on—hot, built US Navy SEAL? He thought he was single, and I have no one to blame but myself for that. Yes. That stings. I’m a little dog-in-the-manger about my not-ex-husband, but I’m not admitting that out loud.

  I need to focus on the next step in the Keep Hindi Gainfully Employed plan, and that does not include imagining all the women Ro’s slept with since we split up. That’s not productive.

  I think about it for a minute. “Ro knows we’re still married.”

  “So what does he do next? Or is he going to wait for you to take the lead?” Lilah taps her fingers rhythmically on the hardwood. She claims it helps her focus, but I’ve heard more than one writer threaten to duct tape her fingers together. She got a manicure once with acrylic tips and emptied out the entire writers room. Rumors abounded that two of them had nefarious plans to waylay her with a pair of nail clippers.

  “Wait is not part of Ro’s vocabulary,” I tell her dryly. I don’t feel like sitting still any longer, so I pop to my feet and prop the back door open. There’s a too-skinny gray cat that prowls around our bungalow. He has a funny face, his head too large for his body, and he’s indicated a willingness to consume my food. He’s particularly partial to take-out sushi and chicken salad, although we’re working out a Fancy Feast compromise.

  He’s also a big fan of eating under the cover of darkness, so I’m generally not allowed to approach him when the sun’s up. He watches me from beneath a palm tree as if it’s entirely my fault that the world is so brightly lit and determined to expose him. His need to hide is trumped by his need to find a mate, however. As soon as the sun goes down, he starts howling. Lilah has suggested that my next lingerie line include fur of the feline variety; I’ve countered with an offer to import female companionship for my lonely boy. In the end, it really won’t matter. In the three days that I’ve been camped out here, I’ve been allowed to touch him precisely once. I’ve apparently used up my quota for the foreseeable future too, because I haven’t been allowed near him since. He hangs back at a safe distance.

  “You know you can’t keep him,” Lilah says from behind me.

  “It’s not up to me.” I open my sandwich up, so Yowly (yes, I’ve named him) can pick out just the parts he likes. Butter tops his list of favorites, but I’ve discovered he’s not a fan of lettuce or carbs.

  “Is too,” Lilah counters, much to my surprise. I nudge the plate out onto the top step and wait. Maybe I could build a duck blind.

  “I don’t need a cat,” I tell her and I almost mean it.

  “I didn’t mean the cat.” She sets about opening her next diet soda. “That husband of yours isn’t half bad.”

  Yowly pokes his head out from beneath a low-lying palm branch and then hesitates. “I think he heard you.”

  Lilah waves a hand dismissively. “Hello, not the topic of discussion. We’re on men, not felines. Why not keep Rohan?”

  “Because—” I pause. When we broke up, I had a list of reasons why our split was Actually A Good Thing, but it’s true I haven’t looked at it recently. In fact, right now I’m having a hard time remembering exactly what my objections were to the married state in general and Rohan MacCarthy in particular. And while I’m sure that the bullet points will all come flying back to me if I spend much longer in his company, right now the only thing that comes to mind is that he’s hot.

  Really, really, fantastically hot.

  Which means one thing.

  “He’s been unattended property for the last six years. If you left a really gorgeous Coach purse sitting in a shopping cart, would you really expect to find the bag waiting for you when you remembered it? You don’t think someone else would pick it up and take it home, thinking score!”

  Lilah grins. “And our handbag-stealer is busy thinking She didn’t cherish the ever-loving fuck out of this, but I will?”

  “Don’t tell me he hasn’t dated.” And by dated, I really mean got naked with some other girl.

  Lilah rolls over and grabs her tablet. For someone who gets as much done in a day as she does, she does a surprising amount of it while horizontal. She claims it’s an energy-saving technique. I tell her to save it for the bestselling self-improvement book she’ll write some day.

  “I don’t need a slightly used SEAL,” I insist. “Plus, I like to know where my man’s been.”

  Yes, it puts me into stalker territory, but I mean it in the nicest way possible.

  “So Google him.”

  Lilah makes everything sound so easy. Got a question? Look it up on the all-knowing Internet. Not just because you’re curious, but because once you have the information, you can make an informed decision and move on. She’s the member of my team who told me that I should come down to the Florida Keys for my divorce, because it was quicker to get officially uncoupled here than it was in the fine state of New York. Lilah likes having a plan and next steps. Not just because it’s part of her job as my assistant and photographic nemesis, but because she’s just made that way. She would never, ever hop in her car and drive off on an unplanned road trip.

  I totally would.

  In fact, it’s pretty much what I did after she dropped her everything’s-easier-in-Florida bombshell on me. I sprinted out of the studio, headed for home, grabbed some clothes, and drove. Lilah, being good at her job, was in the front seat waiting for me when I emerged from my brownstone dragging two suitcases.

  Lilah waggles her fingers. “Let us consult the all-knowing Google.”

  Thirty seconds later, I have come to several conclusions. First, the man turns out to be more terra incognita than the lost continent of Atlantis when it comes to social media. He has a Facebook page—for Search and SEALs. He doesn’t tweet, doesn’t Bing, doesn’t Ning, Flickr, Instagram, or ever seem to feel the need to talk with a virtual pal. Search and SEALs, however, is all over the place. It’s a business! It’s a rescue foundation for slightly used and worn out military working dogs! It’s the best goddamned thing to ever happen to national security!

  I’d like to pretend that Ro’s just got a big head, but the testimonials on Search and SEALs’ website are impressive. I don’t think you can bullshit four-star generals into blessing your business endeavors. Plus, there are animal pictures. The cute kind that makes you spend your entire lunch hour surfing from one fuzzy, happy face to the next. Thank God they don’t have puppies. Honestly? Ro’s success comes as no surprise. Ro’s the kind of man who serves his country, earns medals, comes home, and then does it all over again as a civilian. He’s a bona fide her
o—a decent, hard-working, world-saving, do-gooder.

  “You should treat him like a dog,” Lilah says decisively.

  I love her like the sister I never had (hello, only child), but this is unexpected even for her. I swear she’s the most contrary person I know, and she has plenty of competition.

  “I thought you were advocating he was a keeper?”

  She nods happily. “Absolutely.”

  I think about that for a second, but nope. It doesn’t compute. “I’m seeing a conflict there.”

  Yowly is slowly edging closer to the steps and his breakfast. I’ve invested in a case of Fancy Feast and clearly the way to his heart is via his stomach. He looks at me when he gets close and then makes his usual decision to lunge for the plate. At this rate, he’ll let me touch him by Christmas.

  “A wounded dog.” Lilah holds her hands over her head, which makes me reconsider the whole love-her thing because the woman must have some serious abs to hold a position like that.

  Maybe she’s not really speaking English? “Give me more words.”

  “Don’t chase him. Wait for him to come to you—because he will. Reward him for good behavior.” She shrugs, slowly lowering her upper body back down. “It’s simple.”

  “This is how you make a man fall in love with you?” Lilah and I are friends, but we’re not terribly close. We’ll bitch about our lives or squee over the good stuff, but I’m actually not sure how often she dates or who. Given her wounded dog strategy, it’s possible she doesn’t date.

  Because that strategy sucks.

  And strategies aside? There’s no way our marriage could work for real. Reason number one million and seven? I’m not a nice person. Ro entirely, really, un-fucking-believably is. Behind his grumpy exterior, that is. It’s not like smiles and social skills are actually hero prerequisites.

  Lilah gives me a Cheshire cat smile. “Try it.”

  My phone vibrates in my hands, followed by a riff of music from one of those sharks-circling-all-you-can-eat-people-buffet movie scenes. If you know anything about sharks, you know that most of them aren’t actually interested in people fare. Apparently, we taste like shit and then there’s the issue of the packaging. Wetsuit tastes as bad as you would expect, and sharks aren’t fans. Still, there’s that sickening thrill when you’re bobbing up and down in the water and see those fins, right? And in the movies, people top the delicacy list. Agenting can be damned similar, although as the client, I’m usually the human in the boat—and not in the water.