It's in His Kiss Contemporary Romance Box Set Read online

  “Where do we go from here?” he whispers. I think about this, and I tell him the first thing that comes to my mind.

  “Wherever we feel like going.” I smile as his lips crash into mine.

  I came here dreading this wedding. Find out that my ex, that I thought I was in love with, means nothing to me, and my best friend is not even a friend. I am leaving Aruba with the dead weight removed from my life and possibly a new man. How fast things can turn around when you finally let go and live your life like you want to.

  The End

  For other titles by Ellie Meade

  Kisses on Fire

  By Ashley Blake

  Reeling from a broken heart, the last thing Abby Hunter, twin daughter of billionaire Joshua Hunter, ever wanted on her vacation was to meet Zane Andrews. He was tall, sexy, and mysterious…everything her parents warned her about. He chases her and she runs, but with her vacation coming to an end Abby wonders if it’s time to stop running and time to start healing.

  Copyright 2014 Ashley Blake

  Chapter 1

  The plane back to New York had just taken off, and as I looked out the window I thought about how much my life had changed in the last five days. If you had told me at the beginning of our trip that I would be leaving so much happier, in such a short time, than when I arrived, I would have said you were nuts. When we planned the trip, it was for me to get away and nurse my broken heart. Lying on the beach and reading, that was all I had planned to do. The day after we got there, everything changed. As the plane climbed higher into the sky, I thought about the day we left.

  “Abby, hurry up we’re going to miss our flight!”

  “I’m coming Claire, I just have to grab my e-reader!” A pile of clothes spilled out of my chair and each piece landed on the floor as I hurriedly searched for my tablet. I had to find it because all I wanted to do on vacation was lie on the beach and get lost in someone else’s life. I couldn’t get Scott out of my mind and I had to figure out a way to move on.

  “Are you planning to just read the entire time we’re there?” My twin sister almost sounded like she was whining.

  “No, of course not, just most of the time we’re there!”

  “Abby! You have to come out with me while we’re there, I’m not going to go out by myself!”

  Yep, she was definitely whining. Claire and I were identical twins and we were as different as night and day. I mean, okay, we did have a few things in common, but our personalities, our taste in clothes, our taste in music and our taste in guys was completely opposite. We were strikingly pretty girls and we both had dark hair, mine was really long, down my back, and Claire’s hair brushed her shoulders. We had perfectly toned bodies from years of dancing, but that was where the similarities stopped.

  When we were younger we were really competitive, each of us trying so hard to have our own identity, and as we got older that competitiveness turned into unfailing support for each other. We were both professional ballerinas but Claire was always the star of the troupe. I kept telling myself that one day I would be the star, so I was okay with taking a back seat to my sister, for a little while. We had just finished our first tour, with me as Claire’s understudy, and this vacation was exactly what we needed.

  I was almost working up a sweat rushing around my room looking for the tablet and then I saw the corner of it peeking out at me underneath my chair.

  “Found it!” I grabbed it, grabbed my suitcase and rushed into the hall where Claire was waiting for me by the door.

  “Finally! Come on, the jet has probably been waiting for us at the airport for a half hour.”

  We hurried downstairs to the town car and off we went to the airport. Claire and I had just graduated from college and we hadn’t taken a vacation yet. She was my best friend and we were inseparable. I couldn’t wait to feel the cool sand between my toes and the warm sun wrapping its rays around me. I wanted to put hundreds of miles between me and Scott Dawson and I wanted to forget I had ever known him.

  Scott and I met during our junior year of college and had dated for two years. He made me believe that we would get married after we graduated and I was so in love, or at least I thought I was. A week before Claire and I left for our trip, I went over to Scott’s place to surprise him with his favorite pudding. He’d had a really bad day at work and he told me that he was just going to crawl into bed and shut out the world when he got home that night. Ever since he tried my pudding the first time, he told me that it was so delicious it could make any bad day better. Wanting to be a sweet girlfriend, I made him some pudding that day and went over to his place around 8:00 that night.

  I had a key to his place so I quietly went inside not wanting to wake him if he was sleeping. I tiptoed to the kitchen to put the pudding in the fridge and as soon as I closed the door I could have sworn I heard a female giggle. I froze in my tracks when I heard it again followed by a soft moan.

  What the hell?

  Nerves kicked in as I quietly made my way to Scott’s bedroom and as I opened the door I saw what no girlfriend ever wants to see. Some big-boobed redhead had her legs in the air and Scott’s face was buried between them. I thought I was going to throw up. I slammed the door against the wall and they both turned to look in my direction, completely startled. Scott quickly grabbed his shorts from the floor and was blabbering something about being sorry and it didn’t mean anything.

  I was so angry I was numb and I didn’t say a word as I glared and Scott and then turned to leave. He reached out and grabbed me, begging me to hear him out and I quickly snatched my arm from his grip. With eyes that were steely and cold I looked at him and it took everything in me not to slap him across his face.

  “You will never touch me again!”

  “Abby, give me a chance to explain! I made a mistake, come on, you have to let me make it up to you!”

  I was completely disgusted as I watched him groveling for my forgiveness. My lip curled up in a snarl as I spat my words at him.

  “Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t email me, and forget you ever met me!”

  The tears wanted to come but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I narrowed my eyes at him and with a voice filled with dead calm I said the last words I would ever speak to Scott. “You don’t exist to me anymore.”

  He was shocked and speechless as I turned away from him and went to the kitchen to get my pudding. He didn’t deserve it so I took it back and planned to enjoy it myself. The tears silently rolled down my cheeks as I went back home and cried myself to sleep. Scott had ruined everything.

  He tried to contact me every single day, multiple times a day, but I refused to communicate with him in any way. I had found out through the grapevine that big boobs wasn’t the first girl he had cheated with. I felt so dumb that I had ignored all the signs. We hadn’t had sex in five months, but he kept saying it was because work was stressing him out. I believed him because I had seen some documentary that said men’s stress levels directly affect their desire for sex. Scott also worked late a lot, but I didn’t notice because so did I. I would be at the dance studio until 10:00 many nights. Silly me thought how great it was that my boyfriend and I both had late schedules and how perfect it was because I didn’t have to worry about him being upset that he couldn’t spend time with me. I never really doubted him and that was my first mistake. I really thought that we were going to get married one day.

  I couldn’t stop crying so I asked Claire to take a quick vacation with me so that I could get away from him and get him out of my mind. She was always up for a vacation so we booked a trip to Cancun the following week.

  We took our family’s private jet to Cancun and someone from the hotel met us at the airport when we landed. Our bodyguards were with us and they blended into the crowd but they were never very far from us. Yes, we had bodyguards. Claire and I’d had bodyguards all of our lives so it was second nature for us to have them around. We used to complain about our lack of privacy and we begged our da
d to let us travel without them but he wouldn’t even entertain the idea.

  I remembered his words very clearly. “Girls, the attempted kidnapping of billionaire’s children happens way too often. As my children, you will always be a target.” It was true, as the offspring of Joshua Hunter, we learned at a very young age that we were not like other children. So, even though we didn’t always see them, our bodyguards were always around.

  When we arrived at our hotel it was around 2:00 p.m. and Claire and I immediately changed into our bikinis and went to the beach. Our bodyguards were able to take a break for a few hours because the only people allowed on the private beach were guests of the hotel, and my father made sure that all of the guests were checked before the travel agent made our reservation. Daddy never let us stay anywhere without knowing who would be around us.

  Our room was about 500 feet from the gorgeous white sand so we were there in less than two minutes. I settled into a lounge chair and closed my eyes, listening to the waves crash against the shore, the sun beating down on me as Claire went to dip her toes in the water.

  I took a deep breath and smiled to myself. This is more like it.

  A few minutes later Claire went back to the room to get more sunscreen and as I turned over on my stomach I heard the most delicious male voice.

  “Can I get you something to drink, ma’am?”

  I glanced up and peered over the top of my sunglasses at the sexiest man I had ever seen. His dark hair fell lazily over his eye and his tan muscular arms begged to be touched. I wanted to run my fingers along his skin, up over his toned biceps and glide my fingers through his hair. I was instantly mesmerized. Never before had I had this type of reaction to a man.

  I sat up so that I could get a better look at him. Oh yeah, that’s what I would call smokin’ hot. His dark eyes roamed over my bikini clad body and I could tell that he liked what he saw.

  “I didn’t realize that the hotel sent someone to the beach to get refreshments for us.”

  Tall, dark and sexy gave me a little smile. “Yes, ma’am, we want to make your stay here as pleasant as possible.”

  “Please don’t call me ma’am, my name is Abby. And you are?”

  “My apologies, Abby. My name is Zane, so if you need anything just ask for me. I am at your beck and call.”

  “Hmmm, beck and call, I like the sound of that.” I could feel that my cheeks were turning bright red as soon as the words slipped out of my mouth. I normally was not so forward but I couldn’t help it, this guy was hot!

  Zane looked at me and I could tell that he wanted to say something but thought twice before opening his mouth.

  “I’ll have a sparkling water, for now. Are you around all day, Zane?”

  “Yes, my shift is over at 6:00. I’ll be right back with your water.”

  I watched him walk away and just as he rounded the corner out of my line of sight, Claire came sashaying over to me.

  “You look like a dog in heat! Who was that?”

  My hands immediately flew to my cheeks. “You don’t think he noticed, do you?”

  "I have no idea. Who was that? I haven't seen you look at a guy like that since Scott, and even then you didn't look at him like that.”

  “He’s our cabana boy, or whatever the equivalent to a cabana boy is here. He’ll be right back, he went to get me some sparkling water. Claire, he is so gorgeous! Don’t even think about flirting with him, I saw him first.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Our types are night and day. When have we ever had an issue over a guy?”

  Just then Zane came back with my water and he looked surprised to see a mirror image of me standing next to me.

  “Oh wow, twins. Here’s your water, Abby.” He turned to Claire. “Can I get you anything, Abby’s twin?”

  She giggled at him. “Cute. My name is Claire, and I’ll have a sparkling water also. And you are?”

  “Zane, I’ll be right back.”

  Claire looked at me with approving eyes. “Wow, Abby. Not bad.”

  “I told you.”

  “Don’t get too wrapped up in him, he lives in Mexico and mom and daddy would never let you move here. It’s too far away from them.”

  “Give me a break, Claire, I’m not moving to Mexico, I don’t even know the guy!”

  “I know, but you know how you can get, Abby. If you like a guy you get pretty wrapped up in him really fast.”

  She was right, I did tend to fall pretty hard pretty fast. My sister knew me so well. If I did end up liking Zane, I would probably be telling her how I was going to figure out when I could move to Mexico. Our parents were overly protective sometimes and the thought of any of us moving away made my mother dissolve into tears immediately so I knew that it wasn’t a real possibility. But that never stopped me from dreaming.

  Zane came back with her water and we chatted with him for a couple of minutes before he went over to another group of people.

  Claire sat in the chair next to me and we both just relaxed in the sun, enjoying the perfect weather. A couple of hours later we went back to our room to shower and get ready for dinner.

  The resort had a five star restaurant and Claire and I stuffed our faces until we couldn’t eat anymore.

  “Remember, Abby, this is just because we’re on vacation, we can’t eat like this every day.”

  I laughed out loud at that statement. “Are you saying that for my benefit, or yours? Claire, our diets are nearly perfect so we’re allowed to indulge every once in a great while. It won’t ruin our figures or cause us not to be able to dance anymore. You need to relax a little, we’re on vacation.”

  “You’re right, you’re right.” We sat there in silence enjoying the relaxing ambiance in the restaurant and I saw a couple who looked like they must have been on their honeymoon. They were sitting right next to each other at their table, and he had his arm around her shoulders. A deep feeling of sadness fell over me as I looked at the two of them, and I couldn’t help but think about Scott. I thought we had something that would last and seeing the couple in front of me reminded me that I was now alone.

  Claire must have seen the look on my face because she reached out and gently put her hand over mine which was resting on the table.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I know I probably shouldn’t, but I miss Scott. Seeing that couple over there reminds me of what we used to have.”

  "Abby, you deserve so much better and you will be better off without him. Someone great will come along and make you forget all about him, I promise.”

  I looked down at the table and didn't say anything. I knew that she was right but at the moment it didn't make me feel any better.

  "Come on, let's go back to our room. We have had a long day and I am sure that you are exhausted. You'll feel better tomorrow Abby, I promise.”

  When we got back to our room, I got ready for bed and I think I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.

  The next day, we explored the resort and went horseback riding for part of the afternoon. We had both fallen in love with horses when we were little girls, so it was a nice treat to be able to ride horses along the beach on such a beautiful day.

  We laid out for the rest of the afternoon on the beach, soaking up as much sun as we could. I casually glanced around wondering if I would see Zane but he was nowhere to be found. I felt a little bit disappointed at the thought that he might have already left the resort, but I pushed that thought out of my head because it didn’t really matter. It was not like anything would ever happen between the two of us anyway so I just wrote him off as a really hot guy that I met on our vacation.

  At around 6:00 Claire and I went back to our room to shower and we made plans for that evening.

  Claire looked over at me as she brushed her hair. “There is a really cool bar on the resort and they’re having a musical showcase tonight, so we should go check it out after dinner.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want to stay out too late, I am emotion
ally drained from all of the Scott stuff so I’m really looking forward to climbing into bed and drifting off to la la land tonight.”

  “Okay, deal. We’ll just watch a couple of the acts and then turn in. We can plan a bigger night out tomorrow night.”

  I let out a deep breath and tried my hardest not to whine.

  “Claire, I hope you don’t think that we're going to go out every single night we’re here. This is not the kind of trip where I'm going to need to take a vacation from my vacation by the time I get home, is it? I want to relax while I’m here.”

  Normally, I would be the one dragging us out every night and I knew that she was coming from a good place, she was trying to help me get over Scott, but I really didn’t feel like hitting the bars every night, at least not during this trip.

  “No, it’s not, don’t worry. I just want to make sure you have a little bit of fun. I don’t want you moping around thinking about Scott the whole time.”

  “Honestly, Claire, the gorgeous beach and weather are helping me forget all about…what’s his name again?”

  We giggled as we walked back to the room and she put her arm around me.

  “That’s the sister I know and love.”

  Chapter 2

  When we walked into the bar the room was completely packed that night. It wasn’t a typical, small bar, it was more like a nightclub that you’d find in New York. It was huge. I looked over at Claire and she looked just as puzzled as me.

  “I didn’t know they had a place like this on the resort!” The music was really loud so I had to shout.

  “I know, I feel like we’re at home!”

  We turned a lot of heads as we made our way to a roped off VIP area. Our travel agent had arranged for us to have VIP treatment everywhere we went during our vacation. Not to sound spoiled, but it was the life we were used to.

  We had been ballet dancers since we were little girls and while we didn’t get special treatment in class, we did get special treatment everywhere else. As we got older we both wanted to be just like all of the other kids but we found out that it wasn’t possible. The only other place we felt like everyone else was at our private school. Everyone’s parents were wealthy and all of the kids were like us. It wasn’t until we joined dance class that we were able to meet kids from different economic backgrounds. Claire and I gravitated toward them because they seemed to have such a normal life, a life that we craved.