The look on his face is stricken. “I’m sorry, baby.” He reaches for me again. “I just . . . you don’t belong here. You’d be miserable and feel trapped.”
“Are you kidding? I love you.” The words choke from my mouth. “Wherever you are, I want to be there. Even if it’s back in the jungle. Say the word and I’ll go there with you. I just want to be at your side. Showing you that you’re worthy of being loved.” I lean forward again and press a kiss to his mouth. “Because I love you, Rafe Mendoza. All the bullshit aside, all the people and the bargains and the islands and the jungles and jobs and whatever other crap you think might stand in our way, I love you, and without you, I’m just sad, lonely Ava. And I’m tired of being her when Rafe’s Ava is so much better.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
RAFAEL
I stare wordlessly at her because she’s struck me mute and dumb. I press her face into my neck because I can’t look at her and say what I need to.
“There are no nightclubs here. You can’t want to stay. What about the city? And parties? And fancy restaurants? There’s very little shopping here. You’re a model. Your hands will heal and you can go and model again.”
“And I can’t do that from the island?” She pushes away from my embrace. “Did Bennito not get on a plane today and get me all of this?” Her hand cups her satin-covered breast.
“That plane is two screws away from falling apart. I’m not putting you in that.” I scowl.
“Baby, it doesn’t matter. I wanted to live in New York because that’s where Rose lived. She’s not there anymore.”
“The fact that I couldn’t save her is even more reason you should be leaving,” I growl harshly.
Her lips quiver. “I don’t know why Rose was there but no one could save her.”
I feel myself weakening. My desire for her is overcoming every honorable instinct. Insidious parts of me whisper that I can afford a better plane with the money the government deposited in my account after I delivered the goods. Davidson was just extra security for them. There are plenty of men coming and going from the island, undertaking different trips. Even if she wants to take up modeling again, there’d be transportation available. And as for keeping her safe, there is no place on Earth safer for Ava than this island, this room, and my bed. “Even if I believe you, what is there for you here?”
She gives me a small, secretive smile and unlocks the handcuff.
Disappointed, I rub my wrist as I watch her walk over to the French doors, admiring the flex of her bubble-shaped ass. I could watch her endlessly.
With a flick of her wrist, she throws the doors open and turns to me, gesturing. “What do you see?”
I rise to stand behind her, looking at the grove of palm trees separating us from the beach and then the ocean. The sun is setting and the water looks as if it’s been painted by a master artist in golds and blues and silvers. “Sand. The ocean. Stars.” You. Your beautiful body, your amazing spirit. I see all the hope I’ve never had but wanted . . . in you.
She laughs. “No, over there.”
I follow the line of her pointed finger where a few of the women that we have brought with us from the favela are taking down laundry that they hung earlier in the day. Their colorful dresses wave like flags in the light breeze, and a couple of the children run in and out of the women’s legs, playing tag.
“People?” I don’t know where she’s going with this.
“No, baby, this is a family. Rose was my family. She loved me. Maybe she had shit taste in men, but she had the hugest heart. She never backstabbed or gossiped about the other girls. She was the first one to congratulate you when you got a job, even if the job was the one that she had wanted. She would genuinely be happy for you. I miss her so much. I miss my family.”
“And I took her away from you.”