LITMIR.BIZ

      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

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