Free Second Chance Bride (A Sapphire Bay Novella) by Sandra Edwards Page A

husband.” Her voice cracked. She choked the hurt back down into her gut.
    “I’d still go…if I were you.” Cami nodded.
    “What…?”
    “Hell, yes!” Cami smirked beneath deliberately raised eyebrows. “Trade Ross’s share in. Upgrade. Go in style.”
    Genie shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
    “Says who?”
    “I have to cancel the trip. Give him back half the money.” Genie’s voice wavered. “Don’t I?”
    “No, you don’t,” Cami said with an arrogant laugh. “Ross owes you a hell of a lot more than a trip to Hawaii. That’s for sure.”
    Maybe Cami was right. Ross did owe Genie for the hurt and humiliation he’d caused her today. But did she really want to spend the next week on the island of Maui—lovers’ paradise—alone?
    Genie shook her head. “That’s just what I need. A week at a resort that caters to honeymooners.”
    “The heck with that,” Cami said. “Go to Oahu. The north shore, where it’s nice and quiet. There’s that swanky resort up there. Sapphire Bay or something like that. My parents love that place.”
    Well, if Cami’s parents loved it, that was a sure sign it wouldn’t be a singles’ playground.
    Sapphire Bay sounded perfect. Exactly the kind of place Genie could mend her broken heart. A place where there would be no eligible men—at least none that’d pique her interest.

CHAPTER 1
    DONNIE TAYLOR HAD COME FROM old Texas oil money. When he turned twenty-six, he’d gone to his father with the idea for Sapphire Bay Resort—an upscale haven set in paradise. His father had been hesitant, but Donnie’s mother had insisted—even though her son would be moving half a world away.
    Five years later, Sapphire Bay Resort was no longer the best kept secret on the island of Oahu. Located on the North Shore, it appealed to the more discerning customer rather than the party crowd that liked to hang out at Waikiki. And that’s the way Donnie liked it.
    He enjoyed living in paradise. He enjoyed running the resort. What he didn’t enjoy was his mother’s constant nagging about grandchildren. It had gotten worse when she decided to move to Hawaii about a year ago, after his father died.
    Donnie hated disappointing her, but how could he make her see that he hadn’t met a women he’d want to spend the rest of his life with, much less father her children.
    But that hadn’t stopped Marla Taylor. She’d finagled her way into volunteering at the hotel’s concierge desk, but Donnie knew she was only positioning herself to scan the women as they came and went. So far, she hadn’t throw any of the hotel’s guests at him, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. Donnie knew it was only a matter of time before she found the one she deemed Ms. Right .
    He strolled through the open veranda, smiling and greeting hotel guests and staff alike with an amiable nod. His mother wasn’t at the concierge desk, and that troubled him as he headed for the elevator and his office on the second floor.
    His secretary, Lorna, hadn’t come in yet. As Donnie recalled, she’d said something about a doctor’s appointment today. Passing by Lorna’s work space, he wondered where his mother was and what she was up to?
    Opening the door to his office, he found Marla Taylor sitting at his desk. She was in her late fifties and not a bad looking woman—as far as mothers go—and Donnie couldn’t understand why she didn’t concentrate on her own love life.
    “Morning, Mother.” He called her mother because he knew it bugged her. “Something wrong with your desk?” He stood beside his chair, staring down at her.
    “No. I just wanted to talk to you.” Her Texas drawl was alive and kicking, and truth be told, so was Donnie’s, just not as pronounced. It was hard to get rid of something that’d been more than twenty-five years in the making.
    “What can I do for you?” he asked, thumbing through the files on his desk, pretending to look at them.
    “Well, for starters—”
    “Never mind.”