LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER TWO

      BY THE time Sophie had bathed and changed, another flower-scented night had fallen, the third since Barbara’s death. The cocktail crowd had gathered around the outdoor bar. She could hear their laughter mingling with the clink of ice on crystal and the throbbing beat of the steel drums. Was Dominic Winter part of that group, his brain sufficiently desensitized by alcohol that the edges of his pain had blurred? Or was he holed up in his room, determinedly drinking himself into oblivion?

      “It’s not your business, Sophie,” she muttered, slipping silver and amethyst hoops on her ears. “Let him deal with what’s happened on his own. It’s safer that way.”

      Still, she found herself scanning the crowd, looking for him, when she went downstairs. He was not in the dining room, nor, as far as she could tell, was he outside on the wide, tiled patio. But the table she’d shared with no one since Wednesday tonight was again set for two.

      She had finished the chilled cucumber soup and was halfway through her conch salad when he appeared. He wore the same open-necked white shirt and ecru linen trousers that he’d worn that afternoon. His hair had been combed repeatedly—by very irritable fingers. There was the faintest shadow of beard on his determined jaw. He looked like a man who’d had one too many—a man looking for trouble and ready to take on the entire world.

      Forcibly reminding herself that he had just lost the woman he loved and was more to be pitied than reviled, Sophie forbore to point out that adding a monumental hangover to his troubles would not make them any easier to bear. Instead, she nodded pleasantly and waited for him to make social overtures if, and when, he felt so inclined.

      He quickly made it clear he did not feel inclined. “Looks like the hotel is determined to throw us together every chance they get,” he remarked caustically, flinging himself into the seat opposite with rather more grace than one might have expected from a drunk. “Or did your Mother Teresa complex prompt you to request my company so that you could keep an eye on me in case despair drove me to the same sad end that Barbara suffered? Because if it did, I wish to hell you’d just butt out of my affairs.”

      His deft handling of the cutlery and lack of slurred speech gave Sophie pause. Dominic Winter was not drunk, as she had first supposed. He was a powder keg ready to explode—wanting to explode—and searching futilely for an excuse to do so. And there wasn’t enough alcohol on St. Julian to do the job. He could have imbibed all night and still remained painfully sober. It was there for anyone to see in his smoldering green eyes. The torment was eating him alive.

      “I’m not trying to interfere in your affairs,” she said quietly. “I just want to do whatever I can to help.”

      He picked up the scrolled sheet of parchment on which the dinner menu had been printed and slid off the silk tassel encircling it. “It would help me enormously if you’d get on with your meal without feeling the need to engage me in conversation. And it would help me even more if you’d do so quickly and then quietly disappear.”

      Normally, Sophie would have refused on principle to do any such thing, even given that his painstaking rudeness had robbed her of her appetite. But in his present mood, she had no more wish to spend time with him than he had with her. So why did she half rise from her seat, then pause uncertainly as if about to change her mind, thereby giving him opportunity to insult her further?

      Sensing her hesitation, he glared out from behind the parchment. “I do not want your company, Ms. Casson, nor do I need it,” he declared brusquely.

      Cheeks flaming, she dropped her napkin beside her plate and, like the spineless ninny she undoubtedly must be, scuttled away.

      She did not see him again until the following evening. “Monsieur has gone to police headquarters with Chief Inspector Montand, to take care of the necessary paperwork, you understand,” the clerk at the front desk told her when she stopped by shortly after breakfast the next morning. “Such a shocking loss of a life can never be dismissed lightly, mademoiselle.” He wrinkled his nose as though to imply that only someone as inconsiderate as Barbara would behave so boorishly in alien territory. “Hélas, that is especially true in the case of foreigners who die while they are here.”

      Sophie understood. Fellow guests who’d been friendly enough before the tragedy avoided her now as though afraid she’d somehow cast an evil spell on her friend and might do the same to them. If there’d been any way to cut her holiday short she’d have done so on the spot, but there were only two flights a week in and out of St. Julian, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Whether she liked it or not, she was prisoner there for another four days.

      She spent the afternoon at an orchid farm and returned late to the hotel, leaving herself with barely enough time to shower and change for the evening meal. To her surprise, Dominic was already seated at the table when she went down to the dining room.

      “Ah, Ms. Casson,” he murmured, rising smoothly and pulling out her chair, “I was hoping you’d favor me with your presence again tonight.”

      He looked quite devastating in pale gray trousers and shirt. Urbane, sophisticated and thoroughly in control of himself and the situation.

      Very much on her guard, Sophie said, “Were you? Well, I hate to add to your troubles, Mr. Winter, but if you’re hoping to drive me off again by plying me with insults, I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment. I’m far too hungry to allow you to get away with it a second time.”

      Even after only one day of tropical sun, his olive skin was burnished with color, so it was difficult to be sure but she thought perhaps he blushed a little at that, an assumption that gained credence with his next words. “I’m afraid I behaved very badly last night,” he said contritely. “I must beg your pardon. I wasn’t at my best.”

      You don’t have a best! she felt like informing him. Except she didn’t really believe that. She’d thought for a long time that he was far too good for Barbara. She’d even gone so far as to wish....

      Conscience-stricken, she picked up the menu and pretended to read it. Bad enough she’d allowed herself to fantasize when Barbara was alive. To do so now was tantamount to dancing on her grave!

      Glancing up, Sophie found his gaze trained on her face. He was different tonight. The rage in his eyes had been replaced by a clouded emptiness as though the reality of Barbara’s death had at last sunk in and he realized no amount of ranting or blaming was going to bring her back.

      Sophie almost preferred the other Dominic, the one breathing fire and condemnation. That one moved her to anger despite her better nature; this one moved her to pity—dangerous territory at the best of times.

      “I really do apologize,” he said.

      “Apology accepted.” She shrugged and searched for another subject, one that would draw her attention away from his broad shoulders and the burden they carried. He was a Samson of a man not intended to be broken, but Barbara’s death had brought him perilously close to the edge. “What looks good for dinner, do you think?”

      After some discussion,

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