But Casey had given him the blow-off in her messages. Maybe he needed to try something else, another sexy type of product. He turned around, grabbed the phone, and dialed Grant Abbott at Entice. He knew the guy because the Victoria Hotel in Chicago featured an Entice boutique in the lobby.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?” Grant said, his southern drawl coming through loud and clear from New Orleans all the way to Manhattan.

After a bit of friendly chatter, Ethan tackled the matter at hand. “What are the chances that we can expand our deal with Entice?”

“You know I’d love to do something with you. But right now my energy is focused on this new partnership with Joy Delivered. But perhaps, we can discuss it as soon as that’s done.”

His spine straightened and his radar went off. There was that name again. What the hell was Casey up to? “What are you doing with Casey?”

“Just launching a new product with them. It’s the ultimate pleasure toy on the path to prolonged orgasm,” Grant said, speaking in an over-the-top voice as if he were narrating an infomercial.

“Which means?”

“Apparently it’s like being licked and fucked at the same time,” Grant said, choosing bluntness now. “That’s not how we’ll be positioning it in our boutiques, but that’s what it is and what it does, evidently. Tried it out myself with a lady friend in Hong Kong and it pretty much sent her flying. So there you go.”

When the call ended, Ethan flipped open his laptop and hunted through his emails to Casey Sullivan. He stabbed his finger at the screen as if he’d caught her red-handed. Because right there, in black and white in her reply from a few days ago, she’d told him that she was already working with another hotel. His antennae went into overdrive, a memory resurfacing. Hadn’t Nate told him on the phone when he’d called to give him the Danya report that he was doing business with her?

What the hell? Had she taken his idea and given it to fucking Harper?

Searching through his sent messages in a flurry, he found his original note to her. Early June. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.

Harper again. Coming out ahead.

If she’d stolen his idea and handed it over to the man who took the job he’d wanted . . . well, he’d find a way to get what rightfully belonged to him.

30

The Maldives, sunrise . . .

She was stealthy that morning.

Her pink bikini was already on—she’d retrieved it from her villa after the first rays of a bright orange sunrise peeked over the horizon—and her breath was minty fresh. She had her sights set on one thing—destination waterfall. The night before, she hadn’t been able to see it in the dark, but it was one of the first things she spotted when the soft peach dawn painted itself on the sky this morning. There, in a little lagoon next to an outcrop of rock was a waterfall, serene and falling softly.