LITMIR.BIZ

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that started low in her abdomen was also disturbingly familiar.

      It can’t be Caine. I must be hallucinating. Or seriously concussed. Or both.

      “Hello, Katherine.” The deep voice, curt and businesslike, hauled her back to one of the lowest points in her life—even lower than this one, and that was saying something.

      “What are you doing here?” she managed, still hoping she’d conjured him up from the depths of her sunstroke.

      But then the shifting sunset glinted off the dark waves of his hair—no longer subdued by the buzz cut of five years ago—and cast a golden glow over his rugged features for the first time. A jolt of awareness hit her insides like a lightning strike, frying the tight knots of tension in her gut.

      “Rescuing you,” he said, with only the barest hint of sarcasm. “Now, get in the car before you fall on your face.”

      * * *

      Jared Caine watched the horrified shock widen Katherine Whittaker’s emerald-green eyes as he searched her slender frame for any signs of injury.

      She looked grubby and tired but otherwise okay—the sight of him more distressing than whatever had happened to have her sending her sister a garbled text about being in a spot of trouble hours ago.

      It looked like more than a spot to him.

      He forced himself to take a deep breath.

      You’ve found her. She’s okay. Now all you have to do is get her on a plane back to New York and you can forget about her again.

      The tension which had been grinding in the pit of his stomach since noon—and during the long hours of the afternoon, as he and a team of his men had combed the five square miles to where his IT guys had managed to triangulate her phone signal—began to ease. At least he’d found her before dark.

      “I don’t need rescuing,” she said, her dazed expression hardening with animosity.

      The fist which had been tightening around his throat for the last twenty minutes as he watched the sun head for the horizon thumped his larynx with a one-two punch.

      “You’re kidding, right?” His gaze drifted over her, taking in the butt-hugging cut-offs, the dusty shirt, the tank top showing the subtle curve of her breasts, the filthy feet which... Where the heck were her shoes?

      She planted one fist on her hip, the other one clinging to a carved wooden box that looked almost as heavy as she was. “No, I’m not kidding.”

      She puffed with indignation, but the sweat-soaked hair stuck to her forehead stayed firmly in place. Unfortunately it did nothing to disguise her high cheekbones, the full, mobile mouth or the sunburnt patch on her nose. Or the exhaustion shadowing her mermaid-green eyes.

      “I’m good,” she said, her arms tightening on the wooden box and her chin jutting out. “I don’t know how you found me, but you can just unfind me again. Okay?”

      “No, that’s not okay.”

      Frustration and extreme irritation twisted his insides.

      It was a reaction he recognized. From the last time Dario had asked him to ride herd on his kid sister-in-law—and the single heartbeat of madness when he’d reacted without thinking to the sharp, spicy taste of that mouth.

      “I’m not unfinding you,” he said. “And I’m not leaving you here. Dario wants you on a flight back to New York as soon as you’re found.”

      Her eyebrows launched up her forehead. “I’m not going back to New York,” she said, sounding adamant for a woman who looked as if she was about to collapse. But then the box she was holding slipped. She struggled to regain it, stumbled, and then yelped as her bare foot landed on a rock.

      “Okay, this conversation’s over,” he said.

      Stepping forward, he scooped her and the box into his arms.

      She gasped and went rigid. “Put me down.” The angry glare infused the rest of her face with a shade of red to match her sunburn.

      “Nope.” The spicy scent of lemon, sea salt and female sweat tightened the screaming tension in his gut as he marched up the track toward his car.

      “What do you mean no? I... Oof!”

      He dumped her unceremoniously into the passenger seat and slammed the door. After striding around the front of the muscle car, he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition. “This isn’t a negotiation.”

      Placing his arm across the back of her seat, he began to reverse down the track, wincing when he heard the muffler bounce off another rock.

      “I see you still get off on ordering women about,” she said, but the insult lacked heat.

      He slipped his sunglasses on and ignored her. From their sparring matches five years ago, he knew her default position was mouthy and it was better not to engage.

      Katherine Whittaker had always been a piece of work. But, if the tabloid press was to be believed, her behavior had gotten a whole lot worse in the years since her old man’s trial and their aborted kiss in her housekeeper’s Brooklyn apartment. She’d dropped off the radar for the past few months, but according to Dario that was only because she’d left Manhattan and had been bumming around Europe on her own, freaking her sister out. So, basically, Katherine Whittaker had just spent the last few months causing trouble incognito.

      He backed onto the coast road, slotted the transmission into drive and hit the gas. He could feel her angry glare but didn’t trust himself to speak.

      This woman had everything—a lavish home, a family who loved her and the smarts to make something of herself. Instead of which, she’d chosen to thumb her nose at it all and behave like a kid in a candy store for years, probably all on Dario’s dime.

      “I don’t know where you think you’re taking me, but you can’t make me do anything,” she said.

      He glanced across the console. Her tip-tilted eyes had gone squinty around the corners.

      “I’m not nineteen years old anymore,” she added. “And I don’t take orders from anyone, least of all you.”

      He turned back to the road, but not before he’d noticed the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the soft cotton of her tank top.

      “You want to get out and walk some more?” he asked, calling her bluff.

      She glared at him but then swung her face away.

      I didn’t think so.

      Her slim shoulders slumped against the seat—reminding him of the troubled nineteen-year-old with a big mouth and a crush on him he’d taken great pains to ignore, until she’d gotten under his guard for a few gut-wrenching seconds.

      The dying sunlight caught the gold in her hair and made the sweat misting the slopes of her breasts glimmer. Reaction kicked him hard in the gut.

      Sometime in the last five years, the gawky duckling with the smart and way too tempting mouth had turned into a long-legged and stunningly beautiful swan, even under the layer of dirt, sweat and animosity.

      He punched the gas to pass a truck laden with fruit trees. The sooner he got rid of Katherine Whittaker, the better.

      “Why are you even in Italy?” she murmured. “Please tell me you didn’t come all this way just to get in my face?”

      He let the snotty comment go, because even the hostile tone couldn’t disguise the weary resignation.

      “I’m staying on Capri until Monday,” he said. “The company’s running security for the press opening of the new Venus resort. Dario contacted me to coordinate the search when you texted Megan this morning.”

      “How fortuitous,” she said, the bite of sarcasm dulled by fatigue.

      Not that fortuitous, really. The Venus project

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