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  Sun, Sand, and Sleeping with the Enemy by Emmy Dee

  What do you do when you wake up in the bed of your mortal enemy?

  Throw up on his rug and eat his breakfast of course.

  I thought a work conference at the beach would be an easy couple of days of sun and surf. But like always, Bennett McMillan has to make things complicated.

  Chapter 1

  Ugh… I can’t remember the last time I drank that much. But man, was it worth it.

  I roll over in the plush bed and pull the pillow over my eyes. The only regret I have is this killer headache.

  “Feeling a little under the weather?” His voice comes from the direction of the bathroom. It’s deep and warm, but the sarcasm is hard to miss.

  Flinching, I peek out from under the pillow. The morning sun is aware of my condition, and it gives absolutely no fucks. The little shit is shining brighter than a disco ball at a roller-skating rink, and I have to squint to see who’s speaking.

  Okay, make that two regrets. Bennett McMillan is standing in the bathroom door with a towel wrapped around his waist, glorious abs on display, and water dripping from his shaggy dark hair. He's sporting his signature smirk.

  Noooo… I didn’t…

  I groan, rolling back over so I don’t have to look at that smug face. Of all the people to wind up in bed with, why did it have to be him?

  Bennett McMillan has been a thorn—albeit a sexy thorn—in my side for years. We met at a tech convention where both of our companies were announcing their next big product. It was lust at first sight. There are very few men in the world who are as hot as him.

  Our fates intertwined, though, when Bennett and I collided and I dropped the notes I was taking to my boss, Jack. I had been preoccupied, making sure that I had everything, and we walked right into each other.

  Bennett wasn’t an asshole like most guys would be if you bumped into them. He even helped me pick everything up, which only increased my attraction to him. But as soon as he saw the notes, he asked me if I wanted to come and work for him and his company. Apparently, he couldn’t find a decent secretary and Jack had been bragging about how wonderful and organized I was.

  When Bennett picked up my notes, he realized who I was, and that’s when the trouble started.

  After the convention was over, he started calling me every day at work. I guess distance provides clarity, because I soon realized that he was, in fact, not perfect. Bennett McMillan is as persistent as they come and he doesn’t hear the word no.

  Initially, he would call and ask for Jack, but it was always in the mornings before he got there. Then he would try to start up a conversation with me instead. It annoyed me at first, but after a while he dropped the pretense of needing Jack and just spoke with me. I didn’t mind talking with him, and it was a good way to pass the time in the mornings when I was caught up with work. But without fail, after every conversation, he would ask if I wanted to come and work for him. I hated it.

  I guess we’ve moved on from phone calls to stalking.

  “You’re ignoring me, Audrey. I don’t like to be ignored.” His voice gets closer, and the bed dips by my feet.

  “Why are you here, McMillan?” I ask, pulling the pillow tight against the back of my head. Maybe I’ll pass out. Then I won’t have to have this conversation.

  “I’m here for the conference this weekend, as I’m sure you are too. I came early because I felt like I deserved a mini vacation, since on top of all my regular CEO duties, I’m also doing secretary work. But also, this is my room. I think the question you should be asking is why are YOU are here?” He cocks his eyebrow, smirking.

  I peek out from beneath my pillow protection to glance around.

  Holy shit… this is definitely not my room. In my hungover state, I must have missed the fact that I’m in a king-sized bed instead of a queen. But that’s not all. This is the mother-effin’ presidential suite. This room is easily twice the size of my room, and I can see a living area with a huge T.V. through a doorway in front of the bed.

  I avoid looking at Bennett to see the sitting area in the bedroom. Sliding glass doors lead out onto a large balcony, which I can only assume overlooks the ocean beyond.

  Dammit…

  “So… why am I here?” I go ahead and ask, even though I really don’t want to know the answer.

  Bennett stands and walks into the walk-in closet. Of course, there would be a walk-in closet in the presidential suite.

  “Do you want the truth? Or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?” His voice is slightly muffled, but it sounds… upset?

  What could he possibly be upset about?

  “Obviously, I want the truth. Did we sleep together last night?” The question makes me cringe, but I gotta know if I slept with the most annoying man in the world.

  He stops moving around in the closet, then pokes his head out, his brow is drawn together. “Of course not. What kind of rapscallion do you take me for?”

  Rapscallion? What is he, a gentleman from ye olden times who had his valuables stolen by a pirate?

  “Well then, why am I in your bed and you’re just getting out of the shower?”

  Bennett exits the closet buttoning up his very floral Hawaiian shirt. He’s matched it with some khaki chinos and is still barefooted. I’m not gonna lie, as far as feet go, his are not hideous.

  “If you really must know, I defended your honor last night.” He holds up his hand. “And before you interrupt me…”

  How did he know?

  “I slept on the couch, but I wanted to shower, and all my stuff is in here. You weren’t awake yet, and I didn’t know if you’d even wake up today. You drank your weight in those potent fruity cocktails.” He furrows his brow and sits on the foot of the bed again. “What were you thinking?”

  What WAS I thinking? I push myself into a sitting position. I never drink like that. What even happened last night?

  “You didn’t answer my first question.” I deflect because I’m still trying to remember anything about yesterday, but I also really need to know the answer.

  “I brought you here after…” He pauses.

  “After what?”

  “You really don’t remember anything?”

  I throw my hands up. “No, okay? I really don’t remember. I’ve got a headache from hell, and I just want something to eat and about thirty glasses of water. Clearly you know more about what’s going on than I do, so please, do us both a favor and enlighten me.” I cross my arms in front of my chest and look away from his pity-filled gaze. Those big brown eyes should be a sin.

  “Audrey, that guy you were hanging out with yesterday was going to take advantage of you… He kept buying you drink after drink, and when you were so drunk you couldn’t resist him anymore, he pulled you away from the tiki bar and started walking back to the resort.”

  What?

  Think, Audrey, think. I rub my temples. Maybe this will get some blood moving around up there. A flash of a memory appears. Something about volleyball? Beach volleyball. A tall blonde guy laughing?

  Oh… Now I remember… I think his name was Trevor.

  There were about eight of us playing beach volleyball yesterday morning. I was on one team and Trevor was on the other. He had been flirting with me all morning. He wasn’t bad-looking, and he had abs… Well… he had ab. Okay, he didn’t have a beer gut. Whatever. I’m single. I’m on vacation… I can live life on the edge.

  Except, apparently not if I almost got taken advantage of…

  Anyway, back to my useful train of thought while my brain is still functioning slightly. I spiked a ball in his face, and instead of getting mad, he laughed. Then we had lunch together, and he made me laugh a couple of times, so I thought things were going well. We went on a glass-bottomed boat ride, petted some dolphins, and then had dinner, which he paid for. After that, we went to a late-night beach party. There was a band and dancing and lots of drinking. It was fun. But I guess at some point I lost control of all my faculties because I don’t remember anything after the dancing.

  I do remember something else that happened before that, though… I glare at Bennett.

  “You were following me yesterday,” I say, pointing my finger at the guilty party.

  And guilty he is. A sheepish look crosses his face, and there is no way he can deny it.

  “I wasn’t following you.”

  He really denied it. God, I hate him!

  “You guys just happened to be doing all of the things that I wanted to do,” he says, crossing his arms and getting off the bed.

  He walks out into the living area. The nerve of this guy! We were having a conversation here. I huff, throwing the covers off and swinging my legs—slowly—off the bed. My head spins as I stand, so I pause. Damn headache. How am I supposed to follow him if I can barely stand up?

  When the spinning mostly stops, I finally manage to make it into the living area to find that it’s not just a living area. There's also an eight-seater dining table and a fully functioning kitchen with modern appliances. There are two more doors that lead to what I can only assume are bedrooms, and there is another balcony off the living room. Now that I’m in here with it, the T.V. is bigger than the hometown I grew up in… and I thought my four-hundred-square-foot hotel room with a bathroom was nice.

  I ease myself onto the couch, lean my head against the plush cushions, and rest my arm over my eyes. This is definitely the worst headache I’ve ever had.

  “I am never drinking again.”

  “Here,” Bennett says, handing me some ibuprofen and a glass of water. “I’ve ordered some breakfast. Eggs and bacon should help with the hangover.”

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the offered meds and water. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m perfectly capable of handling my own hangovers.”

  He shakes his head. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want it, but it would be a shame to let it all go to waste.”

  There’s a knock at the door, and Bennett goes to answer it, then moves immediately to the side to let the hotel worker in. The cart he’s pushing has several silver cloches on them. The worker removes the lids, revealing what looks to be different types of omelets and the last of the cloches contains a literal mountain of bacon. As soon as I see the breakfast of champions, the scent hits my nostrils, making me groan.

  Both the hotel employee and Bennett give me a look, but I don’t care. It’s bacon or death, and I choose bacon.

  “I suppose I could stay for a bite or two…” I push myself to my feet and immediately bend over to barf on the very white rug.

  Well… that’s not embarrassing at all.

  I hear a gag coming from the direction of the door, but I can’t look up to see who did it because another wave of nausea overtakes me and more of last night’s mistake makes itself known.

  “I’ll… be… back… with… help…” a voice I don’t recognize struggles to say. I guess I know who the gagger was.

  “Thank you,” Bennet replies and shuts the door behind the poor hotel employee. “Are you all right, Audrey?”

  “I will be in a bit.” I manage to spit out around gasps of air and gagging. “I need a shower.”

  “You know where it is,” is all he says before he exits the suite.

  Chapter 2

  Wow… What an ass. I mean… I am throwing up all over his carpet… but still, he could be a little less snippy.

  I avoid the puddle of vomit and go back through the bedroom and over to the door I first saw Bennet standing in. If I hadn’t already barfed my brains out, I might throw up again at how magnificent this bathroom is.

  Everything is white marble and all the fixtures are gold. The floor, the shower, the counters, the sink, all marble. It looks like someone took a giant hunk of the stuff and carved this bathroom out of it and then threw little splashes of gold around to break up the white. It’s so extra, and I absolutely love it.

  I take my clothes off and leave them in a pile at my feet. I feel a little better since I threw up, but I know that a shower and some of that delicious bacon will help even more.

  The thought of bacon spurs me into action, and I turn on the water and stand under it. My head starts to clear a little, and I think about the guy who supposedly saved me. Bennett is so hard to read. One minute, he’s a cocky asshole: “You should be asking why YOU are here?” And the next, he’s bringing me medicine and water and trying to help me get rid of my hangover. Then he asks if I’m okay but gets snippy and leaves when I say I need a shower. Not to mention he pretty much ignored me when I brought up that he followed me around all day yesterday.

  I think back to make sure I didn’t make the whole thing up, but I know I’m right.

  He was at the table across from us when we had lunch, and he wouldn’t quit staring at Trevor the whole time we were eating. Then, when we went on the glass-bottomed boat, he was a passenger as well. He sat down on the other side of Trevor, and every time Trevor tried to touch me, Bennett would fall into his lap claiming, “bumpy wave,” or “this is the most extreme off-roading I’ve ever done,” or some other nonsense. By the end of the trip, the other passengers couldn’t tell if Trevor was with me or with Bennett.

  When we were petting the dolphins, Bennett “tripped” and knocked Trevor into the pool with them. The dolphins were friendly and tried to nudge Trevor out of the pool, but he would freak out every time one of them touched him. Which, now that I think about it, doesn’t really make sense. Why would he be okay to touch a dolphin, but not be okay getting touched by a dolphin?

  Finally, at dinner, I thought we had lost Bennett for good. I was wrong. Someone told the waiter that it was Trevor’s birthday, and they made him put on a grass skirt and a coconut bra and do the happy birthday hula. Trevor turned the color of the lobster he ordered and wouldn’t make eye contact with me for the rest of dinner. Clearly, it was Bennett.

  I thought our “date” was over until he suggested going to the beach party.

  I didn’t see our stalker at the beach party at all, and I was enjoying the fruity drinks that Trevor kept buying for me, but that’s where the memory ends.

  I guess I should be a little bit grateful that he stopped anything bad from happening. I wonder how he got Trevor to back off.

  A knock sounds at the door to the bathroom, which I left wide open. “I went to your room and grabbed you some clothes… I’ll leave them on the bed for you.”

  “Okay, thanks!” Wow… that’s nice… but how did he get into my room?

  When the door to the bedroom closes, I shut the shower off, grab a towel off the shelf, and comb through my hair with my fingers. Maybe I’ll just throw it up in a messy bun. That’s cute and beachy, right?

  I’m not sure what to expect from the clothes he picked out. Sometimes men don’t have the best taste when it comes to fashion. My brother will straight up put on a red shirt and a pair of basketball shorts in a different shade of red, and I saw that Hawaiian shirt Bennett came out of the closet with earlier. My expectations are not high, so when I walk into the bedroom and see the sundress laid out on the bed, I freeze.

  That dress was for if I was feeling pretty or if I had a date I wanted to impress, but I didn’t think I would actually get to wear it. Beside it was a pair of my more modest underwear. He even brought a pair of sandals, and they actually match the dress.

  Voices in the other room draw my attention, and I brush my surprise aside to get dressed. I forgo the sandals for now and pull my hair up like I had planned, pulling a few strands out to make it look like I put more effort into it than I actually did. My head still hurts, so I don’t know how long this hairdo will last, but if Bennett can go to my room and get some of my clothes after I’ve thrown up all over his rug, then I can make myself not look like a trash troll while we eat breakfast.

  When I feel presentable again, I head back into the living area. The hotel employees have pushed the couch back and are rolling up the barf rug. After a few minutes, they lug the soiled oversized carpet square out into the hall and unroll a bright fresh new rug in its place. Then they replace the couch, and Bennett walks them to the door, handing each of them a hundred-dollar bill.

  I guess he feels as bad as I do that they had to deal with that.

  When they’ve left, he closes the door and turns, looks me up and down, and nods. I guess he approves.

  “Thanks, by the way,” I say, gesturing to myself as I mosey into the kitchen, the smell of bacon too strong to resist anymore.

  “Don’t mention it.” Bennett grabs one of the omelets and cuts into it.

  “How did you get into my room?” I ask, grabbing another omelet and loading up my plate with bacon.

  “Your key card was in your bag.” He gestures to the fanny pack I carried around with me all day yesterday and then goes back to eating.

  “So you just went through my stuff?” My eyebrows are practically in my hair, I’ve raised them so high. Who just goes through other people’s stuff?

  “Yep.”

  That’s all I get? Yep? What’s with him? Normally when we talk on the phone, he can’t shut up. And earlier when I had just woken up, he was being all snarky and stuff. But now, it’s like he can’t even stand the sight of me. Maybe this means he’ll quit calling me when we return to our normal lives after this vacation/convention is over.

  The rest of the meal is spent in silence. It’s oddly both comfortable and awkward.

  Bennett finishes before me and sits quietly until I’m done. I’ve gone back for seconds on the bacon.

  “Wanna go for a walk on the beach with me? The fresh air might do you some good,” he asks as soon as he’s sure that I’m done eating.

  “Sure.”

  My headache has diminished to a dull ache, and I want to talk more with Bennett about what happened yesterday.

  He goes into his room and comes back out with a pair of flip flops on and my sandals in one hand. After I put them on, I grab my sunglasses out of my fanny pack and we leave the suite.