Trial By Seduction
Kathleen O'Brien
Sleeping with her enemy!Mark Connelly had always been the black sheep in his family, and Glenna knew she was playing with fire the day she walked back into his life. Once a sexy rebel in a leather jacket, Mark had transformed himself into a seriously rich financial hotshot. But he still had women falling at his feet.Not Glenna, though. She'd returned for revenge, not seduction - and to uncover a ten-year-old scandal in Mark's past. Only, her search for the truth seemed destined to begin - and end - behind Mark's bedroom door!Presents Extravaganza 25 YEARS!
Letter to Reader (#ub4102e92-3d18-5a20-a031-d7c6bb9dd19c)Title Page (#ub07873fc-d798-50c3-b654-d0b8cd775cd1)Dedication (#ueaf4ace3-237e-5eaf-ac9d-4e7be25d8734)CHAPTER ONE (#u1528a688-0a7a-5090-a86e-8c649b7efd4f)CHAPTER TWO (#u70b03121-2186-58af-837b-cef871c67d68)CHAPTER THREE (#uf92ce213-67c3-511d-8e5c-391aa964c8f8)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader,
How thrilling to be twenty-five! Twenty-five is young. Sexy. Sizzling with energy. And yet twenty-five is mature. Powerful. It has come into its own.
This year Harlequin Presents
turns twenty-five, and, as any Presents
reader will tell you, it is definitely all those things!
I fell in love with Presents first as a reader. I adored the intensity, the sophistication, the heart-stopping sensuality. For me, becoming a Presents author was a dream come true.
Twelve books later, my love affair with Presents hasn’t faded. I still open each one eagerly, knowing that I’ll be transported to irresistible places, introduced to red-hot heroes, inspired by heroines of wit and courage. I still close each book with a satisfied sigh.
Happy birthday, Harlequin Presents. And thanks for all the blissful hours, both in front of the keyboard and behind the pages. May your next twenty-five years be filled with love.
Warmly,
Kathleen O’Brien
Trial by Seduction
Kathleen O’Brien
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the memory of my father, Michael J. O’Brien, who so
loved Florida and its waters. I think of him whenever I
see the Gulf. And whenever I don’t.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS the last silver hour before dawn, and Mark Connelly did not want to spend it indoors at another of his cousin Edgerton’s interminable, idiotic meetings. But he’d skipped the last three meetings, and for the sake of Edgerton’s blood pressure, he supposed he ought to show up.
But, damn it, he really wasn’t in the mood. He’d been up most of the night. He just wanted to go fishing and forget the whole thing.
No such luck. If he didn’t show, Edgerton would probably die of apoplexy, and then Mark would have to run the Moonbird Hotel himself. God forbid. He shuddered at the thought of spending the rest of his life indoors behind a desk. He’d rather ride hungry sharks bareback for a living.
He paused at the door of the hotel bar, his black leather jacket dangling over his shoulder from one hooked forefinger. He took a deep breath and held it, as if he could analyze the room better by smell than by sight. But his eyes were busy, too—scanning, appraising, sizing up the quality of the darkness and the mood of his two cousins who waited inside.
Just last night his girlfriend—ex-girlfriend, he amended—had accused him of entering every room as if it were a minefield. She hadn’t been joking—she had been angry, defeated, leaving him. He might have a sophisticated collection of bedroom tricks, she’d said bitterly, but he didn’t know a damn thing about real intimacy.
She had been right, of course. She wasn’t the first woman who had begun by viewing his emotional in-accessibility as a challenge—and ended cursing it through her tears. But, as he had told her from the first date, he couldn’t change.
Wouldn’t, she had insisted acidly. He wouldn’t change.
Whichever—did it really matter? Caution was an old friend, and it had served him well. He couldn’t shake it now—not even here, at the hotel that had been his home for twenty years. Not even now, when his life had long since ceased to be a war.
Besides, there might be a battle yet this morning. Edgerton and Philip, his cousins and business partners, stood with their backs to him, but he could read the rigidity in the tall man’s shoulders, the slight tremor in the shorter man’s hands.
Mark swallowed an exasperated sigh. Not dawn yet...could Edgerton already be in a temper? Was Philip already drunk?
They were studying something out on the darkened beach and they didn’t hear him come in. As he moved past the huge central aquarium, the strange, bright little fish swarmed toward him in synchronized curiosity. He tapped the glass with his knuckle, an apology for having no food.
Edgerton heard that. He swiveled his head slightly, shot Mark a disapproving glance and tilted his head back to drop a pill into his mouth. Antacids by the fistful.
Poor Edge. Must be tough to be sixty years old at only thirty-five.
“You’re late,” Edgerton said tightly, chewing with short, irritated snaps.
Mark dropped his jacket on the nearest table and wandered toward the gleaming teak bar. “Sorry, boss,” he said politely, leaning over to extricate a bottle of spring water. “I didn’t notice you’d installed a time clock.”
Edgerton snorted. Boss indeed, the snort said. They both knew better. “You don’t have on a suit, either, damn it. You knew I wanted you to wear a suit. You look like a—” he fumbled for a word “—a hoodlum movie star.”
Mark twisted off the cap and drank deeply, the water sparkling in the light from the fish tank. “Gosh,” he said, drying his upper lip with the back of his hand, “I must have missed your memo on the dress code, too.”
Philip turned around for the first time and patted Edgerton’s arm consolingly. Though Philip was younger, his expression sweeter, anyone could have known the two were brothers. They shared the same blond-over-blue surfer good looks.
Mark, on the other hand, had hair so black even the Florida sun couldn’t bleach it. He’s the Connelly cousin, people had observed sotto voce, watching as the three boys roamed wild over their tropical island. The poor relation You know the story. So sad.
“Give it up, Edge,” Philip said, smiling the crooked smile that was his hallmark. “Everything’s under control. Besides, Mark doesn’t own a suit, and you know it. So what? He’ll charm the socks right off every female guest in the place anyhow.”
Mark grinned back. “I think that’s what Edgerton’s afraid of.”
Edgerton adjusted his tie irritably, but Philip wiggled his eyebrows and cocked his head toward the window. “Speaking of which...Edge and I were just trying to decide how long it would take you to part this particular specimen from her bikini.”
Edgerton sputtered. “I was not—”
“Well, I was.” Philip moved to make room. “Come see. I know you don’t usually hunt beach bunnies, but this one is...well, she’s different. Kind of a cross between a librarian and a lollipop.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Edgerton’s voice sharpened, and he stalked away from the window. “We’ve got three hours—three hours—before this hotel is overrun with people. Reporters. Critics. Politicians. Opinion-shapers. Not to mention about a hundred paying guests. Do you think you can get your mind off women long enough to help me here?”
Philip ignored him as usual, but Mark, sensing that Edgerton was about to overload his circuits, grabbed another bottled water and ambled toward the two men. “Here,” he said, handing the drink to Edgerton. “See if this will put the fire out.”
He joined Philip at the window and peered into the silver mist.
“Show me,” he said cooperatively, though he didn’t really expect to see anything of interest. Philip’s taste in women ran to the type whose IQs were as skimpy as their bathing suits. Unfortunately, Mark required more than a D-cup to engage his attention. In fact, he couldn’t imagine what it would take to interest him anymore....
“Darn, she’s moved out of the light.” Philip sighed, and Mark’s jaw tightened at the whiff of blended whiskey that floated over him. God—Philip was really tossing it back.
Somehow Mark fought down his annoyance, trying to feel sympathetic. Edgerton’s plans for today’s grand reopening festivities were a maze of social and political intricacies. Philip was probably scared blue. But why, just once, couldn’t he think of some less destructive way to stiffen his spine?
“Wait—yeah, there she is, just beyond the light now, heading for the water.” Philip clutched his cousin’s forearm. “Oh, my God, took—she’s taken off her shoes.”
“Easy boy,” Mark said calmly. “You have seen feet before.”
But as his gaze focused on the woman’s slim figure, his carefully cultivated cynicism began to peel away like an old coat of paint under a bright sun.
By God, this wasn’t just another of Philip’s over-endowed bimbos. This one actually was different. She was... beautiful.
Yet it was so much more than that. Beautiful wasn’t enough to account for this tightening of his gut, this startling sense of recognition. No, it wasn’t just beauty—it wasn’t even the way the wind blew her white shirt back against her breasts, outlining their feminine swell with a curve of silver mist. Bathing beauties were as common on Moonbird Key as coquina—his eyes saw them, but they had long since lost the power to stir him.
So what was it? What kept him here at the window as silent as an awestruck schoolboy? He let his shoulder drop to rest against the wall, trying to affect a casual air while he studied the vision before him, trying to pinpoint the difference.
Her hands were clasped demurely behind her back, dangling white sandals, and her shoulders were bravely squared. She had reached the water’s edge now, and as the incoming waves licked at her toes she cast one last look back at the hotel, seemingly watching for someone.
Philip was still chattering stupidly. “Was I right or what? Isn’t she a babe?” His tone was proprietorial, as if he had not just discovered but actually invented her.
A babe? Perhaps... Mark nodded mutely. She was so small, so heartbreakingly delicate that her sensual perfection of form was somehow surprising, like the tiniest fluted turbonilla that had ever escaped the pounding of the sea. Next to her, the Gulf of Mexico seemed clumsily dangerous.
Philip shivered comically as the wind lifted her full white skirt, exposing a slim, pale and graceful thigh. “Ooo-weee, man, is she hot,” he said, exhaling a liquored breath.
For one hot black instant, Mark thought he might shove his cousin, thrusting him from the window, denying him the right to watch. Shut up, he wanted to shout. He hated the tone, the bawdy, half-drunk lechery...
Somehow he checked himself. Philip didn’t understand. How could he? He saw only the high, rounded breasts, the long blond braid...
Mark saw more, felt something completely different from Philip’s lip-smacking lust. And yet lust was part of it. His fingertips pulsed with a burning awareness. He wanted suddenly, almost painfully, to touch her. She needed to be touched—he felt it as keenly as if she had cried her need out loud.
She might have been a little girl, lost and afraid, except for the somber, self-possessed quality of her slow march toward the water. Not lost, he thought, the clamps tightening in his gut. Exiled, rather. Sent out unarmed to meet the demon.
“Goddamn it, you two voyeurs knock off that gawking and get to work.” Edgerton’s voice cut through the strange, tingling fantasies like a cold dousing, and Mark looked at his cousin, oddly surprised to remember that Edge was in the room.
Good God. He squeezed his eyes, trying to clear his vision. What the hell was the matter with him? He needed a new woman in his life about as much as he needed sunstroke. He must be more tired than he’d thought. Yes, that was it. The gauzy silver-blue mist was playing tricks with his tired brain.
“Somebody has to meet the temps.” Edgerton was shuffling papers irritably. He flicked on the light over the bar. “And this timeline just doesn’t work. I don’t know who we’re going to get to staff the pressroom.”
Mark bit back his irreverent response. He might as well cooperate—the Moonbird Hotel’s grand reopening was also designed to kick off Edgerton’s campaign for a seat in the state legislature, so the poor guy was doubly uptight. He wasn’t going to rest until Mark and Philip were marching in lockstep, alongside the army they’d already hired.
Mark straightened, turning away from the window, ignoring the stupid pinch that felt like the snapping of a psychic cord. Nonsense. There was no such thing.
But as he crossed the room toward his cousin, hand outstretched to accept the typed agenda, he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder, just once, to convince himself that he had been seeing things.
It was merely another woman. Gorgeous admittedly, but ever since he’d turned eighteen Mark had been littering the beaches of Moonbird Key with beautiful women, lovers who had foolishly dreamed of possessing him—or perhaps his money. He had buried those dreams without regret, like so many pirated jewels smothered under the thick, wet sand.
Yes, he’d been around far too long to start spinning Andromeda fantasies about a total stranger. It had to be the mist. One last look...
But, God help him, the one last look was fatal. While he watched, the woman bowed her head and, as if someone had cut the strings that had been holding her erect, suddenly crumpled to her knees at the water’s edge.
He could hardly bear to watch. She was, somehow, the personification of pain. Incoming waves frothed around her legs, lifting her sodden white skirt, then sucking it down into the sand, but she was oblivious. She lowered her face into her hands, and her shoulders began to shake softly, as if her heart was breaking.
Mark made a low noise in his throat and, without a word, strode past Edgerton, who stood frozen in disbelief, his hand full of typed agendas thrusting at empty air.
“Hold on there, buddy. Where do you think you’re going?” His words were aimed at Mark’s back like buckshot. “After that girl out there? For Pete’s sake, man, you don’t even know who she is! You don’t even know if she’s a paying guest.”
Mark hadn’t intended to stop, hadn’t meant to respond, but he found himself pausing once again in the doorway. What an officious hypocrite the man was! The only thing Edgerton liked better than a pretty blonde was a pretty blonde with money. Twenty years of repressed anger surged to the fore, temporarily subduing twenty years of kinship.
“You may find this hard to believe,” he said as calmly as he could, though his hands had folded into involuntary fists, “but I really don’t give a damn.”
Glenna McBride hardly knew why she had arrived at the Moonbird Hotel so early. She wasn’t due for another four hours—and Purcell Jennings, the photographer she would assist on this assignment, wouldn’t arrive until dinnertime tonight.
So why was she here now, prowling this empty, seaweed-strewn beach in the half-light of dawn? Wasn’t this gesture a little too melodramatic for a woman who prided herself on her practicality and emotional control?
Morbid, that’s what it was. And she did not do morbid—except perhaps in her dreams.
She should at least have brought her camera. This haunted landscape would make wonderful pictures—especially her kind of pictures. Purcell Jennings might be the acknowledged king of lush, colorful coffeetable books, but Glenna was getting fairly good with black-and-white film.
She checked her watch, making an automatic note of the time. Five forty-five. Dawn was only a pearly promise on the horizon. The water was gunmetal gray, and the shore was a ribbon of silver, dotted blackly with bits and pieces of seaweed, shells and driftwood. Playthings of the sea gods, dropped carelessly like toys at bedtime when the tide receded.
But what difference did it make what time it was? She wasn’t going to return some other morning to take photographs no matter how interesting the lines and shapes of this monochromatic landscape.
She hated the Gulf of Mexico. She had no desire to capture its undulating malevolence and hang it on the living-room walls.
Look at it now... Like a patiently crouched jungle beast, it hardly moved, the rhythmic breathing of the tide its only sound. Its surface was calm, giving no hint of the strange creatures that peopled its depths or the blind currents that blew across its floor, stronger than any human could imagine—or withstand.
But she knew. God help her, she knew.
Glenna shivered though it was not cold. Try as she might, she couldn’t rid herself of the fantasy that the water was waiting for her. It was as if, in her long years of hating it, she had made herself its enemy. Now it recognized her, and it was deciding what to do with her.
“Hogwash.” Embarrassed by her lapse into melodrama, she spoke aloud. She had always rather liked that word, which was used frequently by the son of her neighbors back in Fort Myers. She had heard him say it to his boastful friends and had admired the succinct but encompassing disdain it conveyed. “Hogwash,” she repeated, but it didn’t have the same authority out here in the strange, misty dawn. She shivered again.
She’d been standing too long in one place and she felt the soggy sand give slightly under her heels. She pulled her sandals off and held them behind her back, but that didn’t help much. The ooze of the sand between her toes was disturbing, too, and she had to will her legs to start walking.
If she kept going, she thought, she would soon walk right into the Gulf. Would the water recognize her? Would it associate her with Cindy? Or would it even remember Cindy? Had it perhaps swallowed her so greedily it hadn’t taken time to know her?
A bird burst suddenly from the mangrove trees just behind the hotel, its wings beating the air noisily. Her heart beat, too, with great, swollen thumps, and she had to fight the urge to run back toward the hotel. She’d been running for ten years, damn it. It was time to face the enemy.
Somehow she held her ground. But what, she asked her stabbing heartbeat, had she hoped to accomplish here, at this ungodly hour, ten years after Cindy’s death?
Had she thought the ocean would speak to her, giving up its secrets?
Was she trying to vanquish her nightmares by reliving them? Did she really expect to see Cindy floating here now, her blond hair matted with seaweed, her blue eyes wide with dead horror, the way she floated through Glenna’s dreams? .
Cindy...
Touching her face, she realized that salty tears were running down her cheeks, dropping to endless anonymity in the sodden sand. She looked at her damp fingertips, confused. She had never cried over Cindy, not even ten years ago, when as a scared twelve-year-old kid she had been told that her glamorous, golden sister was dead.
But maybe, she thought in numbed surprise, that was what she had come for. To cry. To let go.
Surrendering with a strange sense of relief, Glenna fell to the sand, lowering her face to her hands. She doubled over tightly, almost unaware of the small shells that dug into her forearms. Cindy...
And then suddenly she was sobbing openly, harsh, desperate sounds that rang through the misty air. It was as if ten years of tears had been magically preserved, waiting for this day.
She wept for Cindy, who had been so willful. If only she hadn’t been so determined to snare one of the wild and sexy Connelly boys. The boys flirted carelessly with all their pretty guests. But only one of them had died.
She wept for herself, too, for the loneliness and the guilt she’d held inside so long. If only she had called out the moment she saw that darkly tanned male hand reaching in through the window, balancing Cindy as she climbed over the sill.
“I’m awake,” she should have cried. “Don’t go.”
She buried her face deeper into her hands, trying to shut out the visions. Her sister’s blond hair in the moonlight, the man’s hand....
On the inside of the wrist was a small tattoo, just two inches long but unforgettable. The moonlight gleamed on the design, and Glenna had recognized it instantly—the legendary moonbird, its outstretched wings undulating eerily.
The moonbird. Only three people wore the moonbird tattoo—Edgerton, Philip and Mark Connelly.
For years, the bird had flown through her dreams every night. Strange and ghost white, silent and menacing, its wings pumping up and down slowly, beating with some primitive rhythm that was both sensual and dangerous. Oh, God, Cindy... If only they had both been a little older, a little wiser.
The flood of tears had finally begun to slow. She rested her forehead on her knees, not caring that her hair was mopping the muddy sand. How long had she been crying? Her chest hurt; her eyes burned. She felt as limp as a strand of seaweed. No wonder she had postponed this emotional storm for so long. It hurt. It hurt like hell.
Lost in the pain, she didn’t hear the footsteps approaching. The cool hand on her back was a shock, and with a gasp she lifted her head, peering with swollen eyes into the glimmering dawn light.
A man knelt beside her, hovering protectively, the way he might have bent over a wounded bird. His faint scent of clean masculinity mingled with the musky smell of the mist. He smiled, just a little.
“You know,” he murmured softly, skimming his fingers lightly across her shoulder blades, “an old Indian legend says that the ocean was created from tears. And all mankind will have to share in the making of it.”
She blinked at him, bewildered, half-mesmerized by the gentle touch, the unexpected words. His voice was low, sensual—but somehow casual, as if he was merely continuing a conversation they had begun a long time ago. As if he was completely comfortable with both legends and tears.
“But surely,” he went on, drawing aside a strand of hair that had stuck to her forehead, tucking it behind her ear, “no one heart should have to contribute so many.”
She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. His eyes were impossibly green, she noticed irrelevantly, fringed with the blackest lashes she had ever seen. And his hands were strong. Masculine. Deeply tanned. Hands that women dreamed about...
Her gaze fell slowly to the inside of his wrist. His white shirtsleeves had been rolled back almost to the elbow. She knew what she would see. She had known ever since she had heard the first mellow syllable of his hypnotic voice.
And there it was. Like fear made visible, like the mark of Cain. The outstretched wings of the moonbird tattoo.
CHAPTER TWO
NO! SHE WANTED to cry the word aloud, cursing the fate that had brought him out here. Not Mark Connelly. No...
She couldn’t be so unlucky. She’d known she would see him eventually, of course—but she had expected to meet him in an office, with Purcell Jennings at her side making the introductions. Not here, not when she was speckled with sand and swollen with tears. Not wet and defenseless and emotionally spent.
She clambered to her feet, brushing at her skirt, miserably aware that the soaked fabric clung to her bare legs. It was hopeless. She peeled one last patch from her wet thigh and then gave up.
“You’re right,” she said. Horrified to hear the catch in her voice, she cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ve cried far too much. I’m fine now.”
He was still down on one knee and he tilted his head to look up at her. Mark Connedly.
For a moment, in spite of the tattoo, she couldn’t quite believe it was true. She had remembered him so differently. Surely his full, hard lips used to have a sneering twist. And his eyes...they used to be cold, slightly cruel. Didn’t they?
Ten years... Suddenly she felt unsure of herself. Just how much did she remember, really? It had been such a long time. That slightly saturnine arch to his black brow—she remembered that. And his intensely masculine, sexually charged aura—yes, she remembered that, too.
But somehow she had forgotten just how plain all-American handsome he was. The rising sun, which had finally burned through the mist, lit the sea green of his eyes. It touched the bronze plane of his cheekbone with peach highlights and buried itself in the healthy blue-black sheen of his thick hair.
He was hardly the decadent devil she remembered. He was actually quite beautiful.
“Really, I mean it. I’m fine now,” she stumbled on, aware that she was staring. “You’re right. I was just being foolish.”
“I didn’t say anything of the sort,” he said calmly, still not rising. “There’s nothing foolish about a broken heart.”
She frowned. A what?
“My heart isn’t bro—” she began, but suddenly she stopped. He knew, she realized with a horrible sensation of emotional nudity. He knew all about the pain that had been fracturing her heart into jagged little pieces.
She looked away quickly, out toward the water. The sun, climbing fast, was transforming this landscape right before her eyes.
Her stark, broody study of gray on gray was disappearing. Now this beach was Purcell’s province—the Gulf a shimmering blue ribbon flung out beneath a pink-and-gold streaked sky. Blue and cream and peach-colored bits of shells were scattered along the sand like confetti.
The vivid beauty unsettled her. It was almost too perfect—like this man. Mark Connelly, her number one suspect. Had he always been so gorgeous? How could her memories have been so wrong?
She concentrated on squeezing the water out of the tip of her braid and then tried to brush away the tear trails that crisscrossed her face. But her sandy fingers deposited their gritty residue on her cheeks. She was just making things worse.
“I don’t know what came over me,” she said stupidly, unable to find even a sliver of her usual poise. She desperately wanted him to stop looking at her like that. “I don’t usually do this...this kind of thing.”
“Don’t you?” Finally he rose beside her, and she took an involuntary step away. He was so tall, so male...and, even worse, so knowing. It made breathing difficult. “Maybe you should.”
She frowned. “No—I mean...” She tried to smooth back the tendrils of hair that had escaped the tight braid and now curled damply against her forehead. “I don’t need to. I’m usually much more...controlled.”
“Ahhh...” He raised his brows. “Is there so much to control, then?”
She stared at him, unnerved equally by his astute perceptions and his indifference to the universal rules governing small talk between strangers. Had he always been like this? Yes... A sudden memory flashed through her brain like heat lightning. This same man, that same tone...
Ten years ago. Mark Connelly had been only nineteen, but he had already possessed a man’s body and a lethal sexuality that even a twelve-year-old could sense.
Cindy had talked about Mark more often than any of the others. “He’s not the prettiest,” she’d say, “but he’s the most dangerous.” And when Glenna had asked why on earth anyone would want a dangerous man, Cindy had just laughed.
One day, tired of feeling invisible to the teenagers who noticed her only when they wanted her to fetch something, Glenna had wandered away to pout. She had been busy gouging resentful runnels into the sand with a seashell when Mark had plopped down beside her.
She remembered being stunned by the attention. He had been kind in a rather offhand way. Without ever actually saying so, he had hinted that he understood how rotten it was to be the youngest, to be teased and ignored and exploited. And when he had risen again after only a few minutes, he’d looked down at her with something she interpreted as pity.
“It will happen, you know,” he’d said.
She had scowled, instinctively resenting any sympathy. “What will?”
“You’ll grow up.” He’d smiled. “And boys will think you’re pretty.”
She’d been too shocked to answer, staring at him as if he had just whisked a rabbit out of a hat. Without another word, he had ambled away, returning to the cluster of young men who daily attached themselves to Cindy like so many barnacles.
Back then, Glenna had been too naive to realize that it was just a parlor trick. Mark could dip into a little pop psychology, a superficial understanding of human nature, and the girls believed that he had read their minds. Other boys pretended to pull pennies out of the girls’ ears—Mark Connelly pretended to pull secrets from their hearts. Same game, different props.
But now, at twenty-two, she saw through him all too clearly. He played the flirtation game even better today, and she had dealt him the perfect card. You meet vulnerable woman weeping on the beach. Advance three spaces. Skip past small talk, enter premature intimacy.
But he had the wrong sister this time.
“I appreciate your concern,” she said crisply, “but honestly I’m fine. Actually I’d better be getting back to my car.” She brushed her palms together briskly, removing as much of the sand as possible, and held out her right hand. “Thanks again.”
He narrowed his eyes as if her attitude, or perhaps her tone, somehow sparked his curiosity. Taking her hand, he cocked his head and let his gaze slowly rake her face. “You seem so familiar.” He lifted one corner of his lips. “This is an old one, but I have this feeling... Have we met before?”
Not a very imaginative line, but she knew that, for once, it was spoken sincerely. She felt her heart do a two-step and fought to keep her face neutral. She had always known this would be the trickiest part of coming back.
“My name is Glenna McBride,” she said politely. She wouldn’t lie outright—but she could pray that he didn’t remember her real name. Why should he? The teenagers had always simply called her Mouse, Cindy’s pet name for her tiny, timid little sister. “Hey, Mouse, here’s a dollar. Go buy me a Coke, would you? And hurry—I’m dying in this heat.”
Her last name was different now, too. Her parents’ marriage hadn’t survived the trauma of Cindy’s death—they had divorced within two years. Both remarried quickly, as if eager to make fresh starts. Keg McBride, her mother’s new husband, was a good man and he had adopted Glenna right away.
Mark was shaking his head. “Glenna McBride,” he repeated, the name soft on his lips. “No, I guess I’m imagining things.”
He hadn’t let go of her hand. Glenna shifted it subtly, but he ignored the signal to release her. Glenna suspected that Mark Connelly ignored a lot of the signposts in his life.
“Did you say your car? You aren’t leaving, are you? I had hoped you were staying at the Moonbird.”
She took a deep breath. He didn’t recognize her name. First hurdle cleared.
“Well, I am, actually,” she said, plunging ahead. “I’ll be working with Purcell Jennings. The photographer. He’s going to take some pictures of the hotel for a book on old Florida inns.”
Slow down...no babbling, for heaven’s sake. As a member of the Connelly family, Mark would already know about Purcell.
But she plowed on, her confidence growing with every coherent sentence she managed to produce. “Purcell arrives tonight, but I came early to scout around a bit. He’s not as mobile as he once was and he likes me to narrow down the locations for him first.”
Yes, that was better. The half lie sounded fully authentic. She was finding her stride, regaining control.
“But that’s perfect,” he said, obviously pleased, as if complimenting fate for doing such a good job arranging things to his satisfaction. “I’ll show you around.”
Irked, she removed her hand from his with one firm tug. He looked slightly surprised—as if few women ever struggled to make their way out of his grasp.
Well, good, she thought, lifting her chin. An ego like that could use a couple of knocks. And he might as well learn right now that the drooping damsel he’d found weeping on the shore was not the real Glenna McBride.
“I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible. I concentrate better if I’m alone.”
His mouth quirked. He was clearly prepared either to speak or to grin, but she didn’t have time to discover which. Just behind his shoulder, she saw movement along the beach, and a strong voice carried toward them on the clear morning air.
“Mark!” The tones were deep, authoritative. With a jolt of recognition, Glenna knew immediately that the voice belonged to Edgerton Connelly. The oldest Connelly boy, the leader of the pack. Self-important, slightly bossy. How perfect, she had thought when she heard he was running for the legislature. “Mark,” he said now, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Edge.” Mark turned toward his cousin, who looked impressively elegant but completely out of place here on the beach in his expensive suit. “I’m glad you’re here. I’d like you to meet Glenna McBride.”
Edgerton flashed a smile toward her, a good politician’s smile that warned her he was much too busy to chat but at the same time suggested that he was awfully sorry about it. He also diplomatically refrained from noticing her disheveled state. Apparently even wet, sandy beach-weepers had been known to vote.
“Ms. McBride,” he said with a smooth nod of his well-coiffed blond head. “I’m sorry to have to pull my cousin away, but he’s needed rather urgently up at the hotel.” He angled toward Mark. “The senator’s wife will be here soon, old buddy, and you know she’ll be crushed if you’re not there to meet her.”
Glenna couldn’t see Edgerton’s face, but she thought she heard real irritation lurking under his nicely oiled tones. What the hell, the tone asked, was Mark doing wasting time with a nobody on the beach when The Senator’s Wife was waiting?
Snob, she thought, addressing his Armani jacket.
But Mark either didn’t notice his cousin’s anger or didn’t care. “Sorry, Edge,” he said cheerfully. “Tell Philip to cut the biggest scarlet hibiscus he can find, stick it in a pitcher of sangria and take it to her room. Believe me, in half an hour she won’t even notice I’m not there.”
The Armani jacket stiffened. “Not there?”
Mark patted his shoulder. “Sorry. I can’t. You see, I had just offered Glenna my services as a tour guide.”
Edgerton made a small choking sound, but Glenna broke in quickly. “And I,” she said, “had just refused them. I appreciate the offer, Mr. Connelly, but as I said, I work best alone.” She met Mark’s quizzical gaze steadily. “Besides, I wouldn’t dream of letting you disappoint—” she lowered her tone “—The Senator’s Wife.”
Surprisingly he didn’t try to persuade her. He didn’t even look disappointed. Instead, he looked curious. He lifted one black brow. “Did you say Mr. Connelly?”
“Mark,” she amended indifferently. If he wanted to rush to a first-name basis, she could handle that. She brushed at her skirt one last time. “Well, it was nice to have met you both—”
“But you didn’t.”
She looked up, perplexed. “Didn’t what?”
“Meet me.” He was studying her hard. “And yet you already knew my name.”
She kicked herself mentally, realizing how close she had come to giving herself away. What a stupid move! Honestly, she must have cried her brains right out into the sand.
“Well, after all, there’s no need for false modesty,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “Everyone who lives on Moonbird Key knows the Connellys.”
“But you don’t. Live on Moonbird Key, I mean. Believe me, I’m sure of that.” He held out his hands, palms up. “And, false modesty aside, I don’t flatter myself that my fame extends much beyond the bridge to Fort Myers.”
“Perhaps,” she countered, wondering whether her voice sounded acerbic or flirtatious, “you underestimate yourself.”
Edgerton snorted. “Oh, yeah, sure. Mark underestimates himself. That’ll be the day. Well, come on, we’d better get going.” His voice was more openly irritable now. He took two testy paces toward the hotel and, sensing that no one was following, turned back. “Mark. Ms. McBride said she works alone. We’d better let her get to it.”
Mark didn’t answer him. He hadn’t taken his gaze off Glenna. She met his appraisal as serenely as possible, but the intensity in his eyes made her skin tingle. His curiosity was as tangible as a touch.
“Damn it, Mark. Mark?” Edgerton’s impatient bluster was dissipating, replaced by a thin tremor of anxiety. “Mark, you know I really need you. Please?”
Please? Glenna’s gaze shot toward the older man. Since when did Edgerton Connelly, undisputed leader of the Moonbird boys, have to say please to Mark?
Mark was the poor cousin, the one who lived at the Moonbird on sufferance, the one who hadn’t a penny to his name. “Is that what makes him dangerous?” Glenna had asked her sister. And Cindy had chuckled melodically. “Sort of, Mouse,” she’d said, ruffling Glenna’s hair. “Sort of.”
For a minute she thought Mark might ignore the desperation in Edgerton’s voice. But finally she felt his gaze shift, releasing her like a butterfly unpinned, and he pivoted toward his cousin.
“You’re right, Edge,” he said agreeably. “We wouldn’t want to intrude. Well, goodbye, then—and good scouting.” He started to move away but immediately halted, as if something had just occurred to him. “You’ll be at tonight’s dinner dance, though, won’t you? Purcell will want to come. So I’m sure we’ll see each other there.”
His smile was wicked. He recognized her reluctance to let him come any closer, that smile said. But it also said that he wasn’t so easily thwarted. He was intrigued by her—he wanted more, and he intended to get it sooner or later. That was no surprise.
What did shock her was the small thrill of anticipation that shimmered through her like a silver fish skimming just below the surface of her mind. Dangerous, she thought with an internal shiver. Cindy had been right. This man was damned dangerous.
“Oh, yes,” she said, meeting his laughing eyes, accepting and answering the challenge. “I’m sure I’ll have no trouble finding you. You’ll be the one dancing with The Senator’s Wife, right? The one with the hibiscus between his teeth.”
Actually it was much easier than that.
Even without a hibiscus, Mark Connelly stood out. Suntanned and swarthy as a pirate in his elegant white tails, he was quite simply the sexiest man in the room.
Which was no small feat, because by nine o’clock that night the Moonlight Ballroom was awash with beautiful people. Every adult in Florida who had any pretensions to glamour, power or wealth was here. To miss the grand reopening of the Moonbird Hotel apparently was to declare oneself a nonentity.
Glenna sat quietly at a table with Purcell Jennings. Comfortable together, they didn’t speak. His intense silence told her that his photographer’s eye was already framing, lighting, capturing the essence of the scene before him.
And what a scene it was! In honor of the legendary moonbird, the ballroom had been renovated entirely in shades of white. The walls were covered with creamon-ecru flocked paper; the white ash planks of the dance floor were polished to a starry gloss. A luxurious bouquet of miniature Snow Bride roses adorned each table, and overhead huge chandeliers dripped hundreds of crystal teardrops.
The invitations had requested that the guests wear white, too, and as the women swirled by, Glenna could see how the Moonlight Ballroom got its name. The shades of ivory, cream, vanilla and pearl were like moonbeams dancing on silvered water.
Glenna was impressed—in fact, she had to make an effort not to be downright enchanted. Connelly money had managed to re-create a level of splendor that hadn’t been seen for nearly a century. There must be, she thought, a lot of Connelly money.
“You should be dancing.”
Glenna turned toward Purcell, surprised. As his Parkinson’s progressed, it was getting harder for him to talk, and ordinarily he confined himself to articulating only the essentials. Film, please. Or Less light. Surely he didn’t intend to waste his breath trying to persuade her to dance. He knew it was futile.
“Should I? Why?” She put her hand over his, aware of how little padding covered his long, elegant bones. “I’m enjoying myself here with you. And I suspect that all this pageantry is more beautiful viewed from the outside anyway.”
Purcell shook his head. “Not more beautiful,” he said slowly. “Safer. You always think outside is... safer.”
“Nonsense.” She felt herself flushing. One drawback to Purcell’s condition was that he didn’t waste any time beating around the bush. He stared at her with a piercing gray gaze that shamed her. “Well, maybe,” she modified, pleating the corner of her napkin pointlessly. “But what’s wrong with keeping a cautious distance? What you call cowardice seems like common sense to me.”
Purcell’s thick white eyebrows drew together. “Bah!” His hand twitched irritably, but he didn’t take it away. “Pure twaddle. You need to get to know these people if we’re going to get any decent pictures. Feel, Glenna. Feel what this family, this hotel, are all about.”
“I know, I know.” Glenna smiled, trying not to notice the twinge of conscience that stung her. Purcell approached all his shoots that way—feeting the atmosphere first, then trying to capture it on film.
And for once his dictates dovetailed with her own private agenda. She wanted to get to know the Connellys, maybe even ask a few subtle questions. Perhaps, before the photos were finished and their bags were packed, she might even learn which of the three young men had lured Cindy out on that fateful night.
She’d already met Philip here tonight. He might be a good place to start. He had always been the sweetest Connelly, somehow less intimidating than Mark’s roguish audacity or Edgerton’s handsome grandeur. Tonight he seemed to be hitting the champagne bar pretty hard. Even better, she thought. Champagne loosened tongues quite nicely.
“You know,” she said, hoping to distract Purcell, “we really should have brought our equipment. You could have taken some wonderful photographs here tonight.”
Purcell studied the room. “Too damn much white,” he pronounced finally. “Only thing worth shooting is the food.”
Glenna’s gaze shifted to the huge buffet table that dominated one corner of the large room. He was right. The rich red of the strawberry pyramid, the golden brown of the stuffed Cornish hens, the bursting suns of tangerine tarts and orange scones... It made such dramatic visual contrasts with all the elegant moonbeam people.
That woman, for instance, with her multilayered choker of pearls and her elaborately coiffed blond curls, was dangling a blood red strawberry between two fingers, pressing it laughingly against the lips of a man who...
Who looked like...
Who was Mark Connelly. Glenna’s stomach tightened as Mark slowly parted his lips and closed his teeth over the berry. Pale pink juices trickled down the woman’s fingers.
With another coy laugh, she held them up for Mark’s inspection, obviously inviting him to lick them clean. Glenna made a low, reproachful sound—this woman, though beautifully groomed, was clearly old enough to be his mother. Lick her fingers? Surely not.
Smiling comfortably, Mark circled the woman’s wrist with his thumb and forefinger and lowered it. With his other hand, he whisked a handkerchief from his pocket and gently swabbed at the wet fingers. The woman pursed her lips in a mock pout, but she didn’t look terribly disappointed. She looked besotted.
Glenna turned away. She grimaced at Purcell, who had been watching the tableau, too. “Ugh,” she said. “What a display.”
To her surprise, Purcell was smiling. “Why shouldn’t they flirt?” He tilted his head. “A beautiful woman. A handsome man. Soft moon, sweet music, flowing wine—”
“She’s twice his age,” Glenna broke in irritably. “I’m not a prude, but surely a woman of fifty—”
“Sex has no age,” Purcell said firmly. “And you are a prude, my dear. Just a little. You work at it.”
Stung, Glenna tossed her napkin on the table, leaning forward to argue the point, but at that moment a shadow fell across her plate. She looked up, startled, and found Mark Connelly standing just behind her chair. He had brought his strawberry-stained friend with him.
“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “I’d begun to wonder if you had stood us up. I’m glad you didn’t. I’d like you to meet Maggie Levenger.” He smiled right into her eyes. “The senator’s wife.”
The senator’s wife. Of course. Glenna summoned up polite murmurs as the introductions were made, noticing with surprise that Purcell stood to welcome the newcomer, something he rarely did anymore.
Up close, Maggie Levenger looked even older, maybe nearer to sixty, but her eyes were bright and intelligent, her smile generous. Her voice was brassy, a touch too loud, but it was full of self-deprecating humor, and Glenna suddenly regretted her earlier hasty condemnation.
“Mr. Jennings, I know your work well. I adore you.” Without ceremony, Maggie deposited herself in the chair closest to Purcell, leaving the chair by Glenna free for Mark.
Still smiling, he raised one brow—his only acknowledgment that he needed her permission to sit. She nodded reluctantly, reminding herself that his attentions fitted into her agenda nicely. Get to know the Connellys, maybe even ask a few subtle questions....
But frankly, Mark didn’t seem nearly as safe a place to start as Philip would have been. She couldn’t imagine being quite subtle enough to fool Mark. And besides, he was physically too...powerful. He seemed to send out electromagnetic signals, inviting women to dash themselves against him like ships against the shoals.
As if unaware of all that, he settled comfortably in the chair, draining his drink, something clear and on the rocks. His open gaze studied her without subterfuge.
“I really am glad you came,” he said, his tone low and somehow intimate. “You look radiant tonight. Like...starlight.”
Toying with her fork, Glenna shot him a look of half-cloaked cynicism. Were his genes automatically programmed to spew compliments when greeting any female? Besides, it was obviously a massive overstatement. In her simple, white-beaded sheath with its demure jacket, she knew that she couldn’t hold a candle to the glamorous guests in their frothing laces, their clinging satins, their cascades of pearls and diamonds.
“Surely you mean moonlight.” She met his gaze directly, to show him without delay that she was not in the market for a flirtation. It would take more than free-flowing flattery to get past her defenses. “After all, that’s the general idea, isn’t it? Moonlight Ballroom, moonbird...”
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, treating her comment as if it had been quite serious. “No, in your case, I think the effect really is more like starlight. Just a little sharper, brighter than moonbeams, you know. A shade less mellow.” He smiled. “But also a shade more exciting.”
She stared at him, momentarily at a loss. “Well,” she said finally, “I’ve washed off most of the sand since you saw me last. That’s undoubtedly an improvement over this morning.”
He let his gaze run slowly across her collarbone, down her arms. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “A dusting of sand can give a woman a rather primitive appeal, don’t you think? Earthy. Abandoned. Sensual.”
She shifted on her seat, wishing he didn’t have such an uncanny knack for getting under her skin.
“On the contrary. It’s dirty. Gritty. Uncomfortable.” She punctuated her words by tapping her fork against the tablecloth. “I much prefer to be clean, brushed and pulled together.”
“In control.” He raised that eyebrow again, and she was struck anew by the brilliance of his green eyes. They were more dramatic than ever in this room full of colorless moonlight, like two emeralds blazing in a bed of seed pearls. “You like control, don’t you? You need it.”
“Of course I do.” Her voice was slightly thin. “Doesn’t everyone? Don’t you?”
He considered. “In its place, I suppose I do. I definitely enjoy control over my finances. And my enemies.” He paused. “But I place a higher value on freedom. I’ve always believed that a little judiciously placed abandon makes life worth living.”
Her smile felt brittle. “Judiciously placed abandon? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Is there such a thing?”
“Of course there is,” he said, leaning back. “Here’s a good example. You’ve decided not to dance with me.” He raised a hand to quiet her confused denial. “Yes, you have. I could see it in your eyes when I sat down. You froze up like the Snow Queen. And why? Perhaps because you’re afraid to get that close to me. You’re afraid you’d lose a little control, maybe melt that icy casing just a little.”
“Good heavens.” Her voice nearly trembled.
“What a preposterous—”
He didn’t seem to hear her. He simply lifted that devilish eyebrow a millimeter higher and kept talking. “But I have to ask myself—what would be wrong with that? It’s only a dance. Even if it was the steamiest dance since Salome, when the music stopped, you probably wouldn’t find yourself morally compromised, socially ruined or pregnant.” Grinning, he hoisted one long, lean leg over the other. “So you see, succumbing in this case would be a perfect example of judiciously placed abandon.”
She smiled reluctantly. And then, in spite of herself, she laughed.
She couldn’t help it. He made it all sound so ridiculous. And, she supposed, it probably was ridiculous to be so determined to keep him at arm’s length. He was just a man. No real threat to her, not in the long run.
She knew his type—the consummate flirt who found her reserve challenging, but who, having once conquered it, would yawn and prowl off toward his next victim.
So why did the idea of dancing with him still feel so dangerous?
“Goodness,” she protested mildly, careful not to overdo it. “You make me sound rather neurotic. But believe me, I’ve never once, in the whole twelve hours I’ve known you, been afraid of you. And I’m certainly not afraid to dance with anyone.”
His eyes glittered with something like triumph. “Wonderful,” he said, taking her hand in his. “In that case...I think they’re playing our song.”
The clever devil. It had all been carefully staged, hadn’t it? Like a complicated chess game. But her urge to laugh was fading fast. His hand was so warm over hers. She could feel the rich blood pulsing in his fingertips.
“I would love to,” she said as calmly as she could. “I truly would. Except that I really must stay here with Purcell.”
Mark glanced over at the photographer, who was still lost in huddled conversation with Maggie. “Must you, Snow Queen? Looks to me as if you could take a slow boat to the North Pole and be back again before he ever noticed you were gone.”
Glenna glared at Purcell, willing him to look up. But, damn the man, he seemed to have forgotten she was alive. Maggie’s trilling laughter wafted toward her, and she sighed, abandoning hope.
She was stuck. She would have to stand up, let Mark fold his strong, warm arms around her, rest his tanned cheek against her ear, enveloping her in the mist of sensuality he exuded. If only she really were made of ice, or snow, or brittle, glittering starlight...
“All right,” she said, swallowing her nerves and smoothing her skirt. “I’ll—”
But at that moment a tiny whirlwind of organdy came swirling toward them, launching itself at Mark’s knees.
“Mark! Help!” The little girl’s voice was desperate, and she wound her fists into his dress shirt. “Daddy says I have to go to bed after this song. He won’t dance with me, but you will, won’t you?”
As Mark hesitated, the little girl twisted her head, noticing Glenna.
“Oh,” she said, managing a smile through her shine of tears. “Hi, Ms. McBride.”
Glenna smiled back. She had met Amy, Edgerton’s five-year-old daughter, earlier that afternoon out on the beach. An uninhibited, precocious child, her yellow bathing suit slipping off one shoulder, her arms poking out to accommodate puffy plastic water wings, she’d been pathetically determined to befriend “the camera lady” and had followed Glenna around for an hour.
“Tell him to dance with me, Ms. McBride. I want to dance with Mark.” Amy’s stubborn frown was ferocious, but somehow, to Glenna, irresistible.
Glenna smiled up at Mark, whose rueful, one-sided grin proved he knew he’d been foiled. Leaning over, she freshened Amy’s crumpled white organdy bow and patted her soft blond hair. “I’m sure he would be honored, wouldn’t you, Mark?” She kept her tone innocent. “In fact, he was just saying that he felt like dancing.”
To his credit, Mark gave in graciously. “That’s right, haif pint. I was.”
Amy bounced gaily. “Awesome,” she said, clapping her hands. “And then when we’re finished, will you take me up to my room, Ms. McBride? Daddy can’t leave the party, and Mamma’s sick again—she’s been sleeping since lunch.”
Glenna looked into the little girl’s expressive eyes—and, though she might have been imagining things, she believed she saw a deep longing behind the brassy audacity. What a life this child seemed to have! Building solitary sandcastles, bothering strangers on the beach. Sleeping alone in a hotel room. Daddy always busy fawning over his important guests. Mamma too frail to bother...
“Sure,” she said impulsively, not allowing herself to wonder what the Connellys would think of such an intrusion. Mark could have stepped in, prevented her involvement simply by volunteering to take the little girl upstairs himself. But he hadn’t said a word. “I’d love to.”
“All right!” Amy threw her arms around Glenna’s neck, indifferent to the crush of expensive organdy ruffles. “Now you’ll both have to tell me stories. Two stories for me!”
“Both?” Glenna glanced at Mark quickly, her heart lurching in sudden nervous awareness. So that’s what his silence was all about. “Two stories?”
“Yes.” Mark rose and took Amy’s hand. “Stories from both Ms. McBride and me. I guess it’s your lucky night.” He cocked his eyebrow as he tossed Glenna a smile over his shoulder. “I think I’ll tell her the one about the Snow Queen.”
CHAPTER THREE
AN HOUR later, Amy was finally asleep.
Glenna saw right away that Amy had wanted an extra bedtime companion primarily to help delay the dreaded moment when she actually had to get in bed. First she’d insisted on touring Glenna through her entire collection of stuffed animats. Then she’d made a fuss worthy of a prima donna out of choosing a nightgown, soliciting Glenna’s female judgment on every detail.
Even after they’d tucked her in, she’d fought hard to stay awake. Mark had to improvise his way through The Snow Queen, The Snow Queen’s Revenge and Son of Snow Queen before the little girl finally gave in to the exhaustion she clearly felt.
As they tiptoed out, Glenna glanced around the room, aware that she had badly misjudged at least this one element of Amy’s life. Edgerton hadn’t selfishly transplanted his family to the Moonbird for the duration of the campaign simply to facilitate entertaining. They lived here, in a charming suite of rooms on the fifth floor of the hotel. The top floor, the one with the most commanding view of the Gulf. Of course.
“Oh, Mark, it’s you.” A quiet, thin voice came from the far side of the living room. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Glenna followed Mark’s gaze to the spot where a door had cracked open to reveal a pale, dark-haired woman standing hesitantly, holding the edge of the door with both hands as if unsure whether she should shut it or not.
“Hi, Dee,” Mark answered cheerfully, obviously not at all surprised to see her. “We just put Amy to bed.”
The woman sighed. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I was sleeping.” She fumbled briefly with the lace at her wrists, adjusting it, and then, holding her robe closed around her throat, finally ventured out into the room. “I just came out to get a glass of water. To take some pills.”
Mark introduced them, and Glenna had to swallow a murmur of amazement. This was Deanna Connelly, Edgerton’s wife? She searched her memory, trying to dredge up a picture of Deanna in the old days—but she realized she had never actually seen her.
Edgerton had only just become engaged to socialite Deanna Fitzwilliam that summer ten years ago. Moon-bird Key was abuzz with the news. What a catch she was, even for a Connelly!
Whenever Glenna saw Edgerton nuzzling the neck of a bikinied blonde, she would ask Cindy if that was the fiancée. But Cindy had always said no, of course not, Mouse. Dee the Debutante wouldn’t risk getting sand in her tiara.
The bowed head of the woman standing here now didn’t look as if it could support the weight of a crown. After the introductions, Deanna seemed to summon up a little energy, but the effort to make small talk clearly wearied her.
Glenna once again revised her assessment of Amy’s family. Deanna wasn’t just a princess complaining over a pea. She was truly frail, apparently quite sick.
After exchanging stilted pleasantries with Glenna, she looked toward Mark. “I thought you might be Edgerton,” she told him, her voice low. “But that was foolish. Of course he’s busy. So many people to talk to, so much to do.”
Mark put his arm around her shoulder. “Oh, you know Edge,” he said lightly. “He’s got to be host, chef, gardener and chief dishwasher all in one. Perfectionists are like that. He’s probably down there right now telling the guy with the piccolo how to hit high C.”
Deanna nodded, fidgeting with the lace around her wrist. She tried to smile, but when she looked up, her eyes were red. “I know he thinks I should be there,” she said, her gaze locked on Mark, “but honestly, I’m really not well enough yet. And there are so many people....”
“Edgerton understands that, Dee.” Mark’s voice was even more gentle than it had been as he kissed Amy good-night. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to try. He just wants you to rest and get better.”
“Yes,” she said, obviously clutching his reassurances like a security blanket. She patted his shirtfront gratefully. “And I think I will. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better just go back to bed now and rest.”
And then, with a slight smile that hauntingly hinted at the beautiful, vibrant woman she ought to be, she was gone.
Mark stood watching the door she had shut behind her, his face expressionless. Glenna couldn’t quite imagine what he was thinking. She didn’t even know what she thought herself.
“She didn’t get her pills,” she said tentatively, just in case it was important.
“She doesn’t need them.” Mark’s voice sounded slightly harsh.
The silence stretched on. “Perhaps I’d better go,” Glenna ventured finally, when it became uncomfortable. “I’ll just say good-night to Purcell and—”
“No. Wait.”
It was an order from a man accustomed to giving orders. Surprised, Glenna obeyed without thinking and watched as he picked up the phone and waited for the concierge to answer.
“Easton, it’s Mark,” he said succinctly. “Send someone up to the suite ASAP.” He glanced at the door again. “No, I don’t think we need an RN, but do make sure it’s a woman. I want her here until Edgerton comes up.”
No argument ensued from the other end apparently, because in two seconds Mark had hung up the phone and turned to Glenna.
“Now,” he said, a hint of a smile returning to his lips, “you were saying?”
Glenna hardly remembered what she had been going to say. She felt a little as if she had just stepped into a very strange dream where nothing looked or sounded as she expected it to. She knew ten years was a long time but...
Things certainly had changed around here. Philip’s manner downstairs had stunned her. He had seemed rather sweet and simple ten years ago, perhaps the most “normal” of the three Connelly boys. When had he changed from boyish charmer to sloppy drunk?
Now this. When had Deanna Fitzwilliam faded from trophy bride to shadow wife? And even more amazingly, how had Mark Connelly made the transformation from poor relation to power broker?
He was waiting. Desperately she found her train of thought and grabbed it. “I said I probably ought to go now. You have things to do—”
“You can’t leave yet,” he said, but the authoritative bite was gone from his voice. In its place was the old playful tone, the teasing note of cat and mouse. “You still owe me a dance.”
“I do?” He just smiled. She looked around. “Well, even if I do, I don’t see how we can—”
A soft rap interrupted her, and she closed her mouth, frustrated. Mark must think she was an airhead. She felt as if she hadn’t finished a single sentence in his presence tonight.
Without comment, he answered the door, ushered in a no-nonsense woman in a white uniform, exchanged a few inaudible sentences with her and then held out his hand to Glenna. “Come with me,” he said, his grin back in full force. “And I’ll show you how.”
She resisted, but only a little, dragging ever so slightly on his hand as he strode toward the elevator, plunged them down three stories and then swept her out onto the wide second-floor veranda.
He took her acquiescence for granted. And with good reason, she had to admit, wondering at herself. Her resistance was purely token. As his pace accelerated, her feet hurried after him as if her evening slippers had come equipped with wings.
But why? What was happening to her? She had felt slightly on edge, different somehow, ever since her fit of weeping on the beach this morning. Was it possible that letting go of some of her bottled-up grief had been therapeutic—inching aside an emotional boulder that had been blocking her for years? Or was it just the primitive animal appeal of Mark himself? His personality was so vibrant, his nature so recklessly vital, that she was drawn to it and afraid of it in equal measures.
But when she had seen him standing next to that tragic, washed-out Deanna Connelly—well, somehow in that moment the balance had shifted, and Glenna had felt a sudden piercing craving for...for the life force he represented.
Across the veranda then and around the western corner of the hotel, to where a small minaret jutted out, an architectural whimsy that had clearly been included primarily to offer an appropriate nook for clandestine assignations. Open to the night air, it overhung the first-floor ballroom, and the music floated up easily, filling the tiny tower with haunting, half-heard melodies.
Glenna looked around, suddenly disconcerted. This might have been a mistake. The orchestra was playing the “Moonlight Sonata”. Of course. What else?
She tried to make a joke, something lame about Mark’s impeccable timing and how much he must have paid the pianist to play that song on cue, but she couldn’t quite find the right words. When she reached for a sentenceful of bracing cynicism, she came up mute. So instead, buying time, she went to the edge of the tower, looked out—and felt herself tumble over the last razor edge of resistance.
“Oh, look,” she said, as breathless as a debutante herself. “How beautiful it is!”
No, not even sensible Glenna McBride could resist such a night. The sky was like a dowager wearing all her jewels at once—a thousand diamond-chip stars glittering across her dark blue velvet breast.
As Glenna watched, the round moon smiled, then retreated behind a drifting veil of silver lace. And below, more beautiful than all the rest, lay the black satin Gulf, dancing a silent, erotic waltz with the wind.
“Yes, it is.” Mark was right behind her. Her pulse sped slightly as he put his hands on her shoulders. “Very, very beautiful,” he murmured, and turned her toward him.
Did they dance? Perhaps. But her body was registering so many rhythms at once it was difficult to know which one to follow. The heavy rolling sweep as the tide stroked the shore; the soundless, measured throb of Mark’s heart against her hand; the languorous trickle of moonlight through the piano keys.
No dance she’d ever learned could encompass all of that. They moved slowly. Sometimes not at all.
“Relax.” His voice was low, insistent, very near her ear. “Remember—it’s only a dance.”
But how could she? It was so strange to hold him like this—sweet and dangerous at the same time. Without taking a single physical liberty, he made it an act of amazing intimacy.
She stiffened her spine, which seemed to want to melt into itself. No. She might have surrendered to the beauty of the night, but she hadn’t relinquished her soul to him. Yes, that was right, hold something back. She was determined to keep one part of herself untouched, one corner of her mind that the music and his scent couldn’t infiltrate. Outside is...safer.
But it was so difficult. Her fingers trembled against his back from the effort. She felt as if she’d never really heard the sonata before—had there always been such a deep, insistent counterpoint below the softer, rippling treble notes? Where once she had heard lovely sadness, lovers parting beneath the moon, she now heard something different. They were not parting—they were coming together, and the experience was both glory and despair, death and redemption....
It’s only a dance.
But now his firm, long fingers were tracing the contours of her spine—the muscles contracted in his wake, arcing her toward him. Her eyes drifted shut; her skin warmed where it met the ridged wall of his chest.
She felt his power slipping inside her defenses; the safe corner of her mind buckled dangerously under the pressure. He wasn’t a man who tolerated locked places. He wanted it all, expected it all, whether it was for the length of a sonata or for a lifetime.
It’s only a dance.
Somehow, by sheer will, she held on, and when the music stopped, she pulled back slowly. She looked at him, bewildered by how depleted she felt. She touched two fingers to her temple as if she could corral her thoughts. But it was like trying to force rain back into the clouds, tears back into your heart.
“That was...lovely.” She tried to smile lightly. “Your orchestra is very good.” She pushed a few stray hairs back into her French knot. “You know, though, I really do think I should go back downstairs now.”
“Let me guess.” His tone was softly mocking. “Purcell needs you?”
She laughed awkwardly. “Well, yes. Surely by now the senator has come to claim his wife—”
“I hope not. The senator died ten years ago.” Mark leaned against the balustrade. The full moon rimmed his dark hair in silver. “We call Maggie the senator’s wife out of habit. No, actually I suspect she probably has Purcell lounging on a chaise on the beach right now, watching the moon and drinking sangria.”
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