Page 4 of Charmed By the Enemy

“Are you okay?” Keith asked as we got into the car and he started it up. He didn’t put the vehicle in drive, twisting in his seat to look at me instead. “You’re acting weird.”

I sighed. “I feel weird,” I admitted. “You know that old friend of mine? Our relationship is...complicated.”

“Complicated?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Summer is more than just an old friend. She was...let’s just say we were close. Hell, ourfamilieswere close. Our dads were in business together for nearly thirty years, owning a chain of restaurants. Summer’s dad, Will, was the innovative one. He created the menu for the first restaurant. The guy knows food. My dad ran the business side of things. It was a hell of a partnership for a long time.”

“Was?”

I knew my smile was bitter. “Yeah, it started as a simple disagreement, not the first one they’d had over the years. But they’d always managed to work things out in the past. This time, there was no common ground. Dad wanted to expand the business and open some restaurants overseas. But Will didn’t want to do it. It’s not exactly risk-free, and he wanted to stick to the U.S. When they couldn’t come to a compromise, dad made the decision to force Will out of the company. It was a fucking catastrophe for Will and his family. The fallout was huge and Summer hasn’t talked to me since.”

“Wait, what?” Confusion furrowed his brow. “Why would she avoid you if your dad was the one that did it?”

That was complicated, as well, and I didn’t really want to go too far into that explanation. Rehashing the part I played wasn’t exactly my favorite thing to do.

“Honestly, she’s right to be pissed,” I said, rubbing a hand along the stubble on my jaw. “It’s all my fault.”

Keith’s phone rang then, and I counted my blessings for the interruption. He picked up the call, putting the car in gear and joining the flow of light traffic as we headed for our hotel. I tuned out his conversation with his girlfriend back home and let my mind linger on Summer.

Her presence on this island felt like an opportunity, one that I wasn’t going to let pass me by.

CHAPTER3

Summer

Iloved a good bath, and my hotel room happened to have a soaking tub. I would have to remember to thank Faith later for picking such an awesome place for us to stay. I had checked out the room online before we came, so I brought my lavender bubble bath and Epsom salts to make sure I was able to enjoy the big bathtub properly.

It was the little things that brought me happiness.

The welcome party earlier in the evening had been fun, and I had a Lady Gaga song stuck in my head from the karaoke that I’d sung with the best man’s sister, Poppy. By the time my bath water grew cold, I had hummed the melody to Poker Face at least three times and my fingers and toes were shriveled.

Getting out of the tub, I dressed in my favorite pink pajamas, a pair of tiny shorts and a thin tank top. It was almost midnight, but I wasn’t tired yet. Sitting on the foot of my bed, I towel-dried my hair and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until I found an old Mel Brooks comedy. I was just about to settle in under the blankets to watch the show when I heard a knock on my hotel room door.

I frowned, double-checking the time. Who could be here this late?

I went to the door and looked through the peephole. Levi was standing there in the hallway. How in the hell did he find me?

My shock made me act without thinking, and I threw open the door without taking the time to decide if I even wanted to talk to him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, glaring at him. “How did you know where to find me?”

Levi didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he allowed his eyes to trail over me, from my face to my toes and back up again. My skin tingled in response to his intense gaze, and I suddenly realized just how exposed my body was. Not only were my legs on full display, but I was braless beneath the thin tank top.

Knowing that the treacherous desire burning inside of me was about to make my nipples harden, I crossed my arms over my chest.

But that did nothing to stop the heat from blooming inside of me. I used to have feelings for Levi before I started to count him as my enemy—a crush that led me to fantasize about ending up with him someday. But I truly believed that I put all of that behind me when I embraced my anger toward him. I was completely over this guy. Thisjerk.

The problem was that my stupid body hadn’t gotten the memo and was responding to him anyway. The attraction hadn’t gone away completely, and I hated that he still had such an overwhelming effect on me.

“What do you want, Levi?” I snapped, and he finally met my eyes again.

It was startling to see the lust there, darkening his deep brown eyes. I’d never seen him look at me like that before, and the fact that it came now was more infuriating than anything.

“I want to talk to you,” he said, a slow smirk crossing his face. “And it was easy to figure out what hotel you were at using social media.”

I frowned. I hadn’t even thought about that earlier when I tagged my location in some pictures I took at the welcoming party.I should probably be more careful from now on.

It had been way too easy for my nemesis to track me down. “And how did you discover what room I was in?”