The Marriage Promise (Billionaire Games Book 4) Read online

  They crossed the street, and John hurried the girls through the Outrigger to the Shore Bird. When Emily was hungry, she tended to get testy. Best to remedy that immediately.

  While John paid one of the cashiers, the other gave Amy the “reserved” card. Amy passed it off to Emily with an eye roll. Emily took it gleefully and paraded through the crowded restaurant.

  John finished with the cashier and, while stuffing his wallet into his pocket, he scanned the restaurant for the girls. Emily was standing at the head of the aisle between the window tables and the unoccupied bar. Amy had claimed a seat at the bar.

  “Dad,” Emily said as he approached. “There aren’t any tables.”

  After a quick scan, John said, “Well, we’ll just have to sit over there.” He pointed toward the darkened interior of the restaurant—far, far away from the windows. That wouldn’t please Emily.

  She let out a soft moan.

  “If three chairs are enough…” A soft, feminine voice came from behind them. “You’re welcome to join me.”

  John looked over his shoulder to find a woman at the first table along the windows, sitting alone. She was a petite little thing. Her hair, long and brown, had red and blond streaks running through it. She was too pretty to be alone. “Are you sure?” Normally, he wouldn’t entertain such a notion, but sitting by the window would appease Emily, while giving Amy something real to complain about. John wasn’t about to dismiss a distraction, especially one with as pleasant a smile as their good Samaritan.

  The pretty stranger said, “Be my guest.”

  Swiftly, Emily claimed the seat across from their new table mate by hanging her purse with the glittery pink dragon on it on the back of the chair, while Amy stayed glued to the barstool across the aisle.

  John stepped toward Amy, “Sweetheart…” he said softly. “Don’t you want to join us?”

  “Eat with some stranger?” She huffed. “No. Not particularly.”

  “Suit yourself.” He shrugged and stepped toward the table.

  Amy had started rebelling about a year after Jessica’s death, and since then, she’d been holding the family hostage. Everything John and the girls did together had become all about Amy. John had let her make the final decisions in every sector of their lives—where they dined, where they vacationed, what movies they went to see—all in the hopes of making Amy happy.

  He knew that giving in to her was a bad idea, but until he could come to terms with his own loss, it just seemed less complicated to let her have her way.

  But when Amy pitched a fit about the trip to Hawaii—she’d rather go to Paris—John had to put his foot down, because this trip was not about Amy. It was about Jessica and honoring her last wishes. So he’d mustered up the courage to tell his eldest daughter that she was welcome to stay home with any one of her aunts or uncles or even her grandparents, but he and Emily would make the trip to Hawaii, with or without her.

  It was the best thing he’d ever done. When she realized that Dad and little sister were going forward with their plans, whether she came or not, she quickly warmed up to the idea.

  That’s when it hit John. The only thing Amy seemed to hate more than not being in control of their lives was being ignored.

  The tactic worked here in Hawaii, too. Before John made it to the chair beside Emily, Amy dashed in front of him and slid into the seat, leaving him with the empty chair beside the young woman as his only choice.

  He gladly claimed it. “John Sinclair.” He offered his hand.

  She accepted it, shook it and said, “Deidra Ferguson.” She had a slight accent. French, maybe. The scent of her perfume wrapped around him like a flowerbed after a warm summer rain.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Deidra,” he said. “These are my daughters, Amy and Emily.”

  “Amy. Emily.” She nodded to each of them with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Amy crossed her arms at her waist. “Is there any French toast up there?” she asked sullenly.

  “Yes, I believe there is.” Deidra nodded.

  “If it’s not good, I’m not eating it.”

  Deidra glanced up at Amy. “There’s plenty more options to choose from.”

  John almost laughed out loud. He’d guess Deidra was not a mother, and that she hadn’t spent too much time around angry pre-teens, because she certainly hadn’t adapted to Amy’s surly attitude. Good for her.

  Amy huffed and glowered at John.

  “On the other hand…” John shrugged. “It might be a long time before lunch,” he said with a sharp glare. It was one thing for Amy to be rude to him, but he would not tolerate her inflicting her bad behavior onto anyone else. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said to Deidra, then walked off casually toward the buffet with Emily and a less-enthused Amy tagging after them.

  Deidra watched the handsome man and his daughters. Shore birds, two or three of them, scurried out of his path as he made his way toward the back of the restaurant in search of the buffet.

  The birds, although entertaining, were a nuisance; they rambled around the restaurant, looking for food. The birds would even wait for the chance to hop up onto the tables to steal leftover food after the unsuspecting diners had gone back to the buffet for seconds. Moments before John and his daughters had come in, Deidra witnessed one of the birds tipping over a glass of orange juice while the diner had gone to the buffet.

  The waiters and waitresses were equipped with squirt bottles that they carried in a loop on their aprons, and it was like a sport to use them to shoot the birds. They didn’t like it, of course, and would fly off to the planters just outside the open windows—where they’d start the process all over again by slipping back inside as soon as the shooters turned their backs.

  John, with a plate in hand, headed back toward Deidra. His daughters trailed close behind. He was drop-dead gorgeous with his neatly-trimmed blond hair and those smoldering sable eyes. As for his daughters, the little one was sweet, but the older one, Deidra suspected, was a handful. Briefly, she wondered where their mother was. Maybe that was the cause of the elder child’s behavior—she wasn’t taking the divorce well.

  Oh well, no matter how scrumptious this guy was, Deidra wanted no part of the drama that was obviously attached to him. Even so, she could be cordial and share her table with them in this crowded restaurant.

  Mr. Gorgeous and his daughters settled in at the table and began feasting on their breakfast.

  “Thank you again for sharing your table with us,” John said, slicing into a portion of ham.

  “It’s my pleasure.” Deidra shrugged. “Now I don’t look so hopelessly alone.” She chuckled under her breath.

  “What brings you to Hawaii? Alone.” John glanced up at her. “Forgive me if I’m being too forward.”

  Deidra shook her head. “I don’t mind the inquiry.” Still, she wasn’t ready to talk about why she’d come here alone—at least not with a total stranger. “I just needed a little R&R.” She offered John a smile that she hoped placated him.

  “I can understand that.” He nodded and gave her a devilish grin. “We’re due for a little ourselves.”

  “Ms. Ferguson…?” the older girl spoke up with a measure of anxiety in her tone.

  Deidra looked at the girl, then said, “Please, call me Deidra.”

  “Deidra…” she said slowly. “Do you surf?”

  Deidra shook her head. “No.” She shrugged. “But then, I don’t swim either.”

  “Oh,” she said softly and went back to poking her fork into her waffles. The girl blew out an exaggerated sigh, adding, “I just really wanted to learn how to surf.”

  “I can understand why you’d want to do that.” John’s tone had a bit of a bite to it. “Since there are so many opportunities for it in northern Nevada for it.” Clearly, he wasn’t interested in pursuing surfing lessons for himself or his daughters.

  The eldest rolled her eyes and huffed.

  “Of course, if I could swim—” Deidra nodded. “—I
’d definitely want to learn to surf.”

  CHAPTER 3

  THE NEXT MORNING, John Sinclair clicked his phone off and looked at his daughters. This was Amy’s fault, or maybe his for letting her get away with constant disruptions to their schedule. “It’s all settled. We’ll take a car to the airport after breakfast.”

  “Can we eat at the Shore Bird again?” Emily’s eager tone wrapped John in guilt.

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Yay!” Emily squealed. “Maybe we’ll see Deidra again.”

  “Ms. Ferguson,” he corrected Emily gently. Truth be told, he wouldn’t mind seeing Deidra again, either.

  Instantly, John filled with shame. Hell, he’d come to Hawaii to bury his late wife at sea, and here he was hoping to run into another woman.

  He shook the idea of Deidra Ferguson out of his head and fixed his gaze on his eldest daughter who, oddly, had no opinion on the subject. If she did, she was keeping it to herself. So unlike Amy.

  “There will be no opposition from you.” He pointed a finger at Amy, wondering if, hoping the gesture would produce the desired effect. “Your mother wanted us to have fun on this trip.” He used the word fun loosely. “And we are going to do our best to do that for her.” He nodded with certainty. “We’re going to start by touring the island by helicopter.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “Don’t forget about the luau.” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  Could it be? Was John’s eldest daughter—the paragon of difficulty—on the verge of having fun?

  Thinking about it, he couldn’t recall the last time Amy had appeared happy. Certainly prior to Jessica’s illness and subsequent death.

  After leaving the hotel, they prepared to cross the street. John glanced up and down Kalia Road. The wave of pedestrians far outweighed the automobiles creeping along, drivers trying to maneuver around those bold enough to walk in the roadway.

  Jessica had been like that. When they’d come here, less than a year after they’d married, she was one of the few who’d dared it. She’d said they could either get run over by a car or stampeded by a horde of pedestrians. But that was Jessica. She always stood out in a crowd. That’s how she captured his attention on New Year’s Eve back when John was in college.

  Just like most college kids, John and his friends were out for a night on the town. It had been a trendy little club whose name he couldn’t recall, but every detail inside the place, from the moment he’d laid eyes on Jessica, was etched firmly upon his psyche.

  She was wearing a red dress, one that fit her like it’d been painted on. The sheen of her chestnut-brown hair glistened under the soft lighting over the bar as she leaned against the counter and spoke to the barmaid. Seconds later, she handed the barmaid money in exchange for a drink. She took the glass and glanced up. That’s when their eyes locked for the first time.

  Three months later, they married. And now, thirteen years later, John was alone, save their two daughters. Jessica had been gone three years and he missed her. He missed her terribly. But more than that, he missed having someone in his life.

  As John and the girls hurried across the street toward the Shore Bird, from out of nowhere, a thought of Deidra Ferguson flittered through his mind. The possibility of seeing her inside the restaurant filled him with hope. John wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  Strolling through the Outrigger Reef’s portico, he couldn’t stop the desire to see Deidra from mounting inside him, even though he knew this was the absolute worst time to be thinking about a woman who was not his wife. Still, his heart pounded against his chest. Butterflies swarmed in his gut. And he realized that his palms were sweaty—all at the prospect of seeing Deidra Ferguson again.

  As he paid the cashier, he scanned the restaurant. It was packed. Unfortunately, none of the patrons were Deidra. His hopes deflated, leaving him feeling flat and letdown.

  Oh, well. Maybe it was for the best. He was here to carry out Jessica’s last wishes—scattering her ashes. The task was not an ideal ice breaker, and he felt like a heel for thinking it.

  After braving the buffet line and returning to the table, John and the girls ate in silence until Emily spoke. “I wish we could’ve seen Deidra again,” she said, poking at her food.

  John cleared his throat. His natural instinct was that Amy and Emily should call her Ms. Ferguson, but since Deidra had urged the girls to call her by her first name, there wasn’t much he could do about the formalities that had been drilled into him since childhood. His family was an old-fashioned one with old-fashioned money, but John wasn’t overlooking the fact that they were living in a newfangled world. One that was far, far different than the one he’d grown up in. “You will at least address her as Miss Deidra.”

  If Ms. Ferguson wanted the girls to call her Deidra, then he would agree to a compromise, but it mattered little since they’d probably never see her again.

  Deidra left the Embassy Suites by the front entrance and headed across the street toward the Aloha Landing Bus Depot at the Sheraton Waikiki. When she booked the helicopter tour, she had no idea that adding a shuttle ride to the airport meant she’d have to face the massive crowd she found herself amid now as she approached the depot.

  A swarm of tourists scurried about, trying to find a tour guide who could, hopefully, point them in the direction of the right bus. And speaking of buses, large ones, the kind that transport people across country who couldn’t afford to or, for whatever reason, chose not to fly lined the driveway of the depot, filling it up.

  Deidra checked her watch. She was fifteen minutes early. She cut through the maze of people and squeezed herself onto a bench along the far wall, and waited. She wondered if the crowd would ever clear out, and how in the world was she supposed to know when her bus had arrived?

  “What have you got planned for today?” asked the elderly lady at her side.

  Deidra turned to her. “Umm…” And then went silent while she tried to overcome the shock of a perfect stranger striking up a conversation with her. “I’m going for a helicopter tour.”

  “Alone?” the lady asked.

  “Yes.” Deidra nodded.

  With arched eyebrows, the woman persisted, “I’d think a pretty little thing like you could find a man to accompany her.”

  Deidra studied the lady for a moment and then offered the stranger a friendly smile while she chastised herself silently. I should’ve ordered a car.

  She had a luau booked for Saturday evening, and even though she’d booked a shuttle ride to the event, she now had every intention of cancelling the shuttle and ordering a car to take her to the luau. She didn’t want to ride to the other side of the island on a bus full of strangers. It was nearly an hour’s drive if the traffic cooperated. Forty-five minutes. That was long enough for some well-meaning meddler to have the entire bus feeling sorry for her.

  Deidra didn’t need or want people feeling sorry for her. She was fine with being in Hawaii alone. Besides, this wasn’t a vacation, per se. She was here to fulfill her parents’ last wishes, and part of that was to enjoy herself while she was here.

  John Sinclair and his children, who she’d met at the Shore Bird yesterday, crossed her mind. She wouldn’t mind seeing them again. Even the older girl, though she seemed to be quite a handful.

  Deidra gave herself a mental smack. After all, he most certainly had a wife tucked away somewhere. Working, perhaps? But wasn’t it odd that he and the girls would come to Hawaii without her?

  Half an hour later, the bus Deidra had gotten on pulled up to the front door of the helicopter tour terminal. She wasn’t sure why she’d chosen this particular company. It kind of spoke to her, she guessed.

  As she left the bus, a cool Hawaiian breeze blew past her. She covered the few steps from the bus to the entryway where a man was holding the door open for the bus’s passengers. She gave him a polite smile as she stepped inside the terminal.

  Deidra scanned the interior. Office to t
he right. A set of wall lockers just past it. A gift shop of mostly tee shirts behind that. On the other side, a large waiting area with a TV on the wall showing a video of the company’s featured tour.

  Deidra sat down on the couch in front of the television and settled her attention on the screen. She could hardly wait to see the aerial view of the island in person. She just didn’t want to answer more questions from prying strangers.

  And she didn’t want to think about John Sinclair—a man she doubted she would ever see again.

  The limousine rolled to a stopped next to the empty tour bus sitting at the entrance of the helicopter tour terminal. The driver hopped out and rushed to the rear, opening the door. John stepped out, then offered his hand to Emily first, then Amy.

  Memories flooded John’s mind of when he and Jessica had taken the helicopter ride here just after they got married. They’d done the Extreme ride—without the doors. John didn’t think the girls, ages twelve and nine, were ready for that kind of adventure though. So they’d be taking the standard, doors-on flight.

  Amy would probably like the doors off, given half a chance. Jessica had been a daredevil, and it was starting to look like their eldest daughter might follow in her footsteps.

  John held the entry door open for the girls and felt a twinge of sadness that Jessica would never again cross a threshold outside his memories. Accepting Jessica’s death, even though he’d known it was coming, had been incredibly hard. John didn’t want to go through the agony of losing anyone, ever again.

  Just inside the door, he scanned the building’s interior. Sitting on the couch just a few feet in front of him was none other than Deidra Ferguson.

  In Deidra’s peripheral vision, she could see more people coming in. She cut her eyes toward the door, seeing the girls she’d shared a breakfast table with yesterday. Their father was close behind and, when he saw Deidra, a gentle smile creased his handsome, clean-shaven face.