Chapter One
Sometimes I dream about killing him.
I wake up in the middle of the night
drenched in sweat, my heart pounding, remembering how he very nearly succeeded
in destroying me. I think about the pain he caused me with his stupidity and
greed. Thinking about him makes me want to stick a knife in his heart and twist
it as he goes to his knees in the sand.
Then, as the waves of terror recede, I remember
where I am. I hear the deep breathing of my love asleep beside me, and I know I
don’t want him to die. It’s too easy, too quick.
I want his failures to torture him. I
want him to know that he hasn’t beaten me, he hasn’t hurt me;
that I am, in fact, still alive and insanely happy, and there’s nothing he can
do about it now. I am safely beyond his reach.
He is my uncle. Calvin Gamble. My mother’s brother.
My adventure (if you can call it that)
really began four days before I turned 21. Up to that point, I’d had a fairly
normal life. Calvin still owned me for those four days, but I’d soon be free.
Well, he didn’t really own me, he owned my island and my resort.
My name is Gianna Deveraux. Pronounced Gee-AH-na .
Hard G. My parents owned the resort island of Tiago. I know you’ve never
heard of it. It’s under the jurisdiction of Florida, though it sits just inside
the northernmost point of the Bermuda Triangle. It’s the secret playground of
the rich and famous. They like Tiago because they can be themselves without
the paparazzi hunting them.
I’m amazed that they’ve managed to keep
it a secret from the outside world for this long. I thought for sure that
drunken bimbo whose first name begins with B was going to spill the beans a
couple of years ago. I beat the crap out of her when she was here, and her
people whisked her away. They posted pictures of her in the gossip rags with a
black eye and everything. Said she wrecked her car while DUI. My ass.
Most of the people who vacationed on
Tiago were assholes. They wanted to drink, eat, and get laid, not necessarily
in that order. Being rich and famous seemed to give them the notion that they didn’t
have to play by the same rules as the rest of us. I didn’t care. I just wanted
them to spend a lot of money.
My parents were killed in a plane crash
three years ago, and of course, the whispers started immediately. Had they
been sucked into a vortex in the Bermuda Triangle? Nah. Stupid fucking pilot
didn’t fill it with enough fuel to make it all the way from Miami to Tiago.
That’s what happens when you put your life in the hands of a drunk. We had
wreckage, bodies, and everything. They didn’t disappear into some mystical
vortex.
I wish I could have. I had lots of
experience running the resort. I’ve been doing it all my life. But my parents,
for reasons that I still can’t understand, delivered me and Tiago into the
hands of another drunk not a whole lot older than me. My uncle Calvin.
Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.
I’m an only child. I guess they thought
I couldn’t handle it. Like Calvin was a big help. All he did was drink, spend money,
and screw women. And I’m not entirely sure he didn’t screw an occasional man. He
sat in the house all day long on his fat ass while I was out busting my own ass
bartending, fixing things, solving problems.
He practically salivated when he heard
that mom and dad were dead, and he was now my guardian. It was disgusting. I
didn’t know him well, but it didn’t take long for me to learn to hate him. He
always looked at me as though I were an insect he wanted to flick away with a
snap of his fingers. I think it royally pissed him off that he needed me. He
didn’t know the first thing about managing the resort.
He sure knew how to spend money. When
he got here, he immediately took over the master bedroom and spent a fortune
remodeling it to his taste. He moved me from the room I’ve been in since I was
a little girl to another,
Sometimes I dream about killing him.
I wake up in the middle of the night
drenched in sweat, my heart pounding, remembering how he very nearly succeeded
in destroying me. I think about the pain he caused me with his stupidity and
greed. Thinking about him makes me want to stick a knife in his heart and twist
it as he goes to his knees in the sand.
Then, as the waves of terror recede, I remember
where I am. I hear the deep breathing of my love asleep beside me, and I know I
don’t want him to die. It’s too easy, too quick.
I want his failures to torture him. I
want him to know that he hasn’t beaten me, he hasn’t hurt me;
that I am, in fact, still alive and insanely happy, and there’s nothing he can
do about it now. I am safely beyond his reach.
He is my uncle. Calvin Gamble. My mother’s brother.
My adventure (if you can call it that)
really began four days before I turned 21. Up to that point, I’d had a fairly
normal life. Calvin still owned me for those four days, but I’d soon be free.
Well, he didn’t really own me, he owned my island and my resort.
My name is Gianna Deveraux. Pronounced Gee-AH-na .
Hard G. My parents owned the resort island of Tiago. I know you’ve never
heard of it. It’s under the jurisdiction of Florida, though it sits just inside
the northernmost point of the Bermuda Triangle. It’s the secret playground of
the rich and famous. They like Tiago because they can be themselves without
the paparazzi hunting them.
I’m amazed that they’ve managed to keep
it a secret from the outside world for this long. I thought for sure that
drunken bimbo whose first name begins with B was going to spill the beans a
couple of years ago. I beat the crap out of her when she was here, and her
people whisked her away. They posted pictures of her in the gossip rags with a
black eye and everything. Said she wrecked her car while DUI. My ass.
Most of the people who vacationed on
Tiago were assholes. They wanted to drink, eat, and get laid, not necessarily
in that order. Being rich and famous seemed to give them the notion that they didn’t
have to play by the same rules as the rest of us. I didn’t care. I just wanted
them to spend a lot of money.
My parents were killed in a plane crash
three years ago, and of course, the whispers started immediately. Had they
been sucked into a vortex in the Bermuda Triangle? Nah. Stupid fucking pilot
didn’t fill it with enough fuel to make it all the way from Miami to Tiago.
That’s what happens when you put your life in the hands of a drunk. We had
wreckage, bodies, and everything. They didn’t disappear into some mystical
vortex.
I wish I could have. I had lots of
experience running the resort. I’ve been doing it all my life. But my parents,
for reasons that I still can’t understand, delivered me and Tiago into the
hands of another drunk not a whole lot older than me. My uncle Calvin.
Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.
I’m an only child. I guess they thought
I couldn’t handle it. Like Calvin was a big help. All he did was drink, spend money,
and screw women. And I’m not entirely sure he didn’t screw an occasional man. He
sat in the house all day long on his fat ass while I was out busting my own ass
bartending, fixing things, solving problems.
He practically salivated when he heard
that mom and dad were dead, and he was now my guardian. It was disgusting. I
didn’t know him well, but it didn’t take long for me to learn to hate him. He
always looked at me as though I were an insect he wanted to flick away with a
snap of his fingers. I think it royally pissed him off that he needed me. He
didn’t know the first thing about managing the resort.
He sure knew how to spend money. When
he got here, he immediately took over the master bedroom and spent a fortune
remodeling it to his taste. He moved me from the room I’ve been in since I was
a little girl to another,
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