Deception Island by Brynn Kelly Read Free Book Online Page B

his buzz cut and flowed down his face. He opened an insect screen, unlocked the door and held it open. “Your suite, your highness.”
    Low lamps lit a bed scattered with pink frangipani petals and draped in a mosquito net. A window seat was stacked with red and turquoise cushions. On a glass coffee table, a bottle of champagne nested in a bucket. “Good grief.”
    â€œDid I mention we’re on honeymoon?”
    She froze. One bed. Her gaze darted to meet his, her stomach flip-flopping.
    â€œBed’s yours,” he said, quickly, lowering the bags to the floor. “I’ll take the hammock outside.”
    She exhaled, switching off the flashlight and dropping it on the window seat. She wouldn’t put it past him to carry out his threat to relieve her of a finger or two—he was evidently a professional—but there was honor in him, too. He wouldn’t take advantage of the situation in that way.
    So he’d booked a honeymoon suite—a honeymoon island. Good cover for a woman in her late twenties and a good-looking man not much older. Would someone come to service the suite, replenish their supplies? Could she get a message away—or steal their boat?
    He crossed the glossy floorboards, leaving a trail of water, and unlocked another door. “Bathroom is out here.”
    A covered deck held a vanity and mirror, but otherwise the “bathroom” was a tropical garden enclosed by a brushwood fence. In the center, a miniature thatched roof covered a shower. Garden lights lit spears of falling rain.
    â€œCheck for snakes and bugs before you use the toilet,” he said, indicating a door off the deck. “Hungry?” He brushed past her on his way back inside. She inhaled sharply, to make herself concave.
    â€œStarving.” All that flipping and clenching in her belly must have burned her calories since dinner. Her meal of fish and rice seemed a lifetime ago.
    She grabbed a white towel so thick it could have been a quilt, and blotted her hair.
    Inside, the capitaine opened a cooler chest on a bench in a tiny kitchen. A rectangular scar nearly the size of a dollar bill dominated his right forearm, a patch of rough, paler skin gouged out of the brown. Hell of a burn.
    â€œPastrami, blue cheese, gruyere, olives, mussels, lobster...” He stacked several plastic boxes on the bench and carried them to the coffee table, balancing a baguette on top.
    Her mouth watered. She didn’t even remember what half those things tasted like. She sat on the window seat, opened the nearest box and stuffed a strip of prosciutto in her mouth. They wouldn’t go to all this effort only to poison her, so what the hell. “This is not what I’d expected,” she mumbled, her mouth lighting up at the salty hit.
    â€œI imagine it’s not. Look, I have nothing against you, this is not personal, so we might as well just...” He frowned.
    â€œYou were going to say, ‘Enjoy it.’”
    â€œ...eat up. And get drunk, if you like.” He waved a hand over the champagne. “All yours. The ice has melted, I’m afraid.”
    â€œWhere did all this stuff come from?”
    â€œIt’s part of the deal when you book this island. They supply everything, drop you off and leave you alone. No one will be coming to check on us, if that’s what you’re hoping. All we can do is sit tight.”
    Dang. “You’d better pour me a glass, then.”
    He swiftly uncorked the champagne, filled a flute and returned the bottle to the bucket.
    â€œYou’re not joining me? Are you Muslim?”
    â€œNo, just sensible.”
    She sipped, and her mouth buzzed with apple and vanilla. She tabled the glass with a clatter. Last time she’d drunk champagne she’d been arrested. Jasper had bought it, to celebrate their biggest con yet. She’d been half-cut on the stuff when the door had fallen in. He’d arranged the whole thing, the