Villa Blue by Isla Dean Page B

before I came here and I’ve just begun to learn who I am by myself, without distraction.” She shoved at her shirtsleeves, pushing them to her elbows.
    “Distraction,” he repeated.
    She opened her mouth to speak but he interrupted.
    “I’m sorry about earlier today. I really am. Goodnight Ivy,” he said in a low growl then left.
    He’d had countless adventures with women, where neither party meant anything beyond the moment to the other, both just in it for the fun. He’d been a distraction for women as much as women had been a distraction for him. The label “distraction” didn’t bother him.
    No, it didn’t bother him at all.
    He shoved open the front door to Villa Blue, strode through the place in the dark, then headed straight for the shower in his en suite bathroom, releasing the water.
    Then he cranked off the water lever when he realized he’d already taken a damn shower.
    He really did need to get a grip. This was a business trip. And he was good at turning business trips into adventures. But he wasn’t, he knew, good at dealing with sticky emotions.
    And something about Ivy was sticking with him.
    So tomorrow he’d stop being a distraction and stop being distracted. He’d explore the island, do his due diligence, then move on to the next place.
    And what was his opinion on purchasing Villa Blue? He had no damned idea. He’d gotten off track somehow and it was time to correct that.
    Aiden glanced out the window at the silvered moonlight that shined on rippled water. The shimmering surface surrounded like a barrier protecting the island, protecting its peace. It was a place of solitude, a world away from everything else.
    So what was Ivy Van Noten hiding from behind that barrier? he wondered as he slipped under the cool covers of the bed. She’d been married for five years but had been on the island for a year. That was news. Though it explained, maybe, why she’d been crying. But she didn’t strike him as the weak and weepy sort, nor did she seem like the type to hide.
    Not that it mattered or factored into anything. If his father’s company purchased Villa Blue, she’d have to leave and find somewhere else to live. He knew his father well enough to know the whole place would likely be stripped down, a new luxury hotel would be built in its place, and the prices would be set to accommodate the affluence of the new clientele. Ivy and her studio didn’t fit into that picture. Both would have to go.
    Only he didn’t want her to go.
    He’d never encountered the idea that he would want to protect a piece of real estate from his father. Was he okay risking an opportunity to ensure that a stranger who thought of him as a distraction had a place where she called home, where she created? But what if he stopped his father from acquiring it then someone else came along and did the same thing his father would’ve done?
    Questions filled his mind, more questions than he was comfortable with, and they hovered just above his dreams as he slept.
     
    Ivy stared sleeplessly at the stars through the glass ceiling above her bed. She felt like she’d been riding on a comet, fast energy through the unknown, then had abruptly tumbled into a weightless fall through darkness.
    And when the reprieve of dawn came, finally lifting the night away, she kicked off the sheet and climbed out of bed.
    Monotony moving her through her morning routine, she brushed her teeth, splashed water on her face followed by a smearing of sunscreen, pulled on leggings and an oversized blue and white striped T, tugged her hair up into a knot on her head, then carted her supplies outside.
    Today would be another day of pulling teeth, the pain of each brush stroke being yanked out of her, she knew.
    One step forward through the artist’s block, two steps back. But she’d keep inching forward the best she could. She had a gallery show to prepare for and it didn’t matter if yesterday was a day of inspiration and today was already clouded