Island Love Songs: Seven Nights in Paradise / The Wedding Dance / Orchids and Bliss

Lawrence took another step backward. “I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you again,” Lawrence repeated, too dispassionately for Melanie’s liking. “Maybe that’s my own way of getting closure.”

“Closure?” Melanie nearly choked on the word as she said it. “You—you kissed me for closure?”

“Good night, Melanie.”

“Good night?” Melanie repeated, totally baffled.

But he was already turning, already starting to walk back toward the hotel.

Melanie scrambled after him. “I don’t understand. You follow me out here, you kiss me like that—and then—and then—”

“And then nothing.” Lawrence paused. “You don’t trust me, remember? I’m a man, so I’m bound to cheat. Right?”

Melanie didn’t want to think about what she had said to him, the words she had used to push him away. Because right now, she wanted to be lost in his kiss again. The sensations she had just experienced were overpowering and so delicious that nothing else mattered.

“You’re right, I was wrong to mention those women,” Melanie said.

Lawrence raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“What I’m saying is that, right now, it doesn’t matter.”

“It might not matter for you, but it matters for me.”

Lawrence began to walk again. Melanie was hot and bothered and utterly frustrated. She continued after him. “Okay, I don’t believe you slept with that girl from the bar. I’m just saying that, even if you did, I don’t have a right to be upset. I pushed you away.”

Lawrence stopped, looked at her. “Great. See you around.”

Melanie was at her wit’s end. He couldn’t leave her like this!

Holding up her dress, she ran in front of him and stopped him by putting her palms on his chest. Her heart was beating hard. She smoothed her hands over his firm, hard muscles and drew in a shaky breath. Oh, how she had missed this.

“Lawrence, I don’t understand. You come out here on the beach with me, and you kiss me like—”

“You needed to let me go, and I needed closure.”

“Then why stop at just a kiss?” she asked. “Why don’t we... Why not make it a night of real closure? One last time.”

She knew she sounded desperate, and she was. That kiss... She wanted more of him.

Lawrence placed his hands over hers, and Melanie’s heart began to beat more rapidly. But then he lifted her hands from his body, removing rather than caressing them, and the night air around her seemed to suddenly chill.

“No,” Lawrence said.

“No?” Melanie said, her voice sounding like a little cry.

“You don’t understand, Mel. I can’t do what you want. I can’t make love to you without emotion and just go on.”

“Why not?” Melanie asked, one last desperate attempt. Again, she was aware that her words had come out wrong. But she didn’t want to argue, to bring up the past. Because she was certain that once they fell into bed together, everything else would fall into place.

“Because I’m not the kind of guy that you made me out to be,” Lawrence said, holding her gaze. “I never was.”

Melanie swallowed.

“It’s okay, Mel. Now that we don’t have the pressure of a relationship between us, we can be friends.”

Friends?

“Like I said...I’ll see you around.”

And with that, he walked away from her with long, fast strides.

Melanie watched him, feeling as though her heart was breaking.

All over again.

* * *

Walking away from Melanie had been one of the toughest things that Lawrence had ever done. To see the look of lust in her eyes, to know that she wanted him in her bed... It would have been so easy to simply say yes. Say yes and end the nine-month dry spell with the woman he still loved.

But he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. He wanted all with Melanie, or nothing.

And he had a plan. Sort of. The kiss had been calculated. To give her a taste of what she had walked away from. And if a part of her still loved him, then she would now be remembering that love.

He knew that she wanted him physically. But he wasn’t about to start a booty-call relationship with the woman he had once planned to marry.

Oh, no. He wasn’t going to do that. But if she loved him, he was willing to try and work things out.

Because the truth of the matter was that he had come here, halfway around the world, to escape the memories of Melanie. And yet she was here. Making forgetting her impossible.

And maybe, just maybe, there was a reason why.

Fate?

Shemar would tell him he was an idiot, but he couldn’t help how his heart felt. When he and Melanie were together, snuggling in bed, or talking about their hopes and dreams, he saw a passionate woman he wanted in his life forever. So if fate had any hand in trying to give them one more chance at love, he was willing to take it.

But the ball was in Melanie’s court. She had to show and prove now that she wanted the same thing.

And if she didn’t... Well, then he would be able to move forward with a sense of closure.

* * *

Melanie had a night of tossing and turning and sweating. But mostly, she spent the hours thinking of Lawrence when she was awake and dreaming of him when she was asleep.

She couldn’t forget the kiss they had shared, nor could her body. And knowing that Richelle was spending the night making love to her new husband only had her feeling more alone in her beautiful resort bure.

Melanie was still hot and bothered the next morning. And confused. Why would Lawrence kiss her like that, claiming it was for closure, and not want to take it to the next level?

Of course, she knew she was speaking as a woman whose body hadn’t been touched in nine months.