“You’re wrong,” she said and set her wineglass down on the stone railing. Lifting her chin, she stared up into his eyes and challenged him with a hot glare. “I do know you, Gabe. You haven’t changed that much in ten years. And for some reason you’re supremely pissed off-not at me. At yourself.”

He choked out a laugh and looked away from those blue eyes because damned if they weren’t seeing too much. Staring out at the moonlight scattering across the ocean’s surface, he said, “Now you’re a psychologist? Well, you’re wasting your time analyzing me, babe. I’m a happy man. My life is just the way I want it. Can you say the same?”

“Mostly.”

“Yeah? What about your bigamist boyfriend?” He shot her a hard look. “That make you happy, did it?”

Her bare foot tapped against the stone floor as she inhaled sharply, deeply. Then blowing the air out of her lungs in a rush, she said, “Made me happy to lock his ass up.”

“Uh-huh.” He turned, leaned one hip against the railing and watched her now, relishing the sparks flashing in her eyes. “And just how’d that happen? You catch him with his other wife?”

“No.” She took a drink of her wine and then she was the one who shifted her gaze out to the ocean and what lay beyond. “I got a call from someone wanting to book a ’round-the-world cruise. She came to the agency to talk it over, but she wasn’t there to book the trip. She had another woman with her. Both of them were Mike’s wives. They showed me pictures. Marriage certificates. And they wanted me to go with them to the police to file charges.”

He watched her and though her voice was clear, steady, he saw the dregs of pain and humiliation in her expression and didn’t enjoy it as much as he might have thought he would. “Must have been rough.”

She shrugged it off, as if it were nothing. “Rougher on them. They had kids with him. The bastard.”

He picked up her wineglass, handed it to her, then took another drink himself. “Here’s to lucky escapes, then.”

“Yeah. Real lucky.” But she drank, then shifted a look at him. “Why so interested?”

“Curious, that’s all. Wondered what kind of man it was you said yes to.”

She swallowed hard, stared into her wine as if looking there for a script to read. “I didn’t want to walk away from you, Gabe.”

“Really?” he asked, irony coloring his tone even as a wry smile curved his mouth. “Because you didn’t seem to have any trouble with it at the time.”

“We had nothing,” she said quietly.

“We had everything,” he argued.

She finished off her wine, then held the empty glass between both hands as if needing something to hold on to. “We were in school, still. No money, no prospects.”

“We had plans,” he reminded her, feeling again the long-ago sting of realizing that she hadn’t believed in him.

“It wasn’t enough.” She pushed one hand through her hair, scraping it back from her face as she looked up at him. “Don’t you get it? I told you then that I had to finish school. I needed to find a stable career. One that I could depend on. I couldn’t take a chance-”

“On me?”

Her eyes filled with tears she blinked to keep at bay, but he wouldn’t be sucked into feeling sympathy for her.

After a long moment or two she sighed heavily and said, “I told you about when I was a kid…”

He nodded, remembering. He’d had a family. Security. And it had been hard for him to identify with what she’d gone through, but it hadn’t mattered. All that had mattered for him then, was her.

“About how my mom lost her job and for a while, we even lived in our car.” She sucked in a breath as if it were her last and said, “We had nothing. No home. No money. Nothing.” Turning her gaze back to the sweep of ocean, she said, “Then, later, when Mom was back on her feet and she got so sick, we couldn’t afford a damn doctor.” A single tear rolled down her cheek and glistened like silver in the moonlight. “I watched her die by inches, knowing that if things were different, if we’d had insurance, or savings, we could have found someone. I don’t know. A specialist, maybe. Someone who could have helped her. Saved her.”

“So you walked away from me because I didn’t have money.”

“It wasn’t about money,” she said hotly. “It was about security. Stability. Easy enough for you to dismiss it when you never had to wonder if you were going to eat that day or not.”

“I loved you.”

“And I loved you.”

“You just didn’t believe in me.” And that still stung. Still gnawed at him at the odd moment.

“Do you think it was easy for me to leave? To turn you down when I loved you so much?”

He turned from her and walked back into the living room because he couldn’t stand beside her and not touch her again. And, damn it, he didn’t want to touch her at the moment. “I think your idea of love was wrapped up in the wrong things.” He spun around and faced her as she followed him. “You said yes to this Mike guy. What? He have a good job? Insurance? Savings accounts?”

“He wasn’t rich, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“But stable?” He laughed. “A stable bigamist. Good call, Deb.”

“Easy for you to throw stones, isn’t it, Gabe?” She waved both arms out, as if to encompass the entire resort. “You’re the king of your own little empire. What do you know about it?”

Fury exploded inside him. He took one long step closer to her then forced himself to stop. Glaring at her, he said, “Let me get this straight. When I didn’t have a dime, you dumped me. And now I’m loaded and you’re still giving me a hard time? What is your deal, anyway?”

She fisted both hands at her hips and leaned in toward him. “You never understood. You still don’t. It wasn’t about money, Gabe. It was never about money. It was about being safe. I never wanted money so I could run barefoot through it. I just wanted to know that the rug wasn’t going to be pulled out from under me again.”

“You should have trusted me,” he said, his voice a low throb of old hurt and new fury. Irritated the hell out of him that this should still be bugging him. He’d thought he’d put the past and her behind him years ago. Apparently, though, there were still a few things that needed to be said. “Should have had faith in me. In us. Yeah, your life was hard, but I was there. I loved you. I would have taken care of you.”

“Don’t you get it?” she countered. “I needed to take care of myself.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

She pulled at her hair. “You are the most irritating, frustrating man I have ever known in my life.”

“And you are the most distrustful, mercenary…”

“Mercenary?”

“You heard me.”

“You jerk, I just tried to explain-”

“I’m a jerk?” He laughed shortly. “Right. Whatever helps you sleep nights.”

“You know what’ll help me sleep nights?” She stepped up closer, planted both hands on his chest and shoved. Didn’t budge him an inch. “Getting off this damned island.”

He grabbed her wrists and held on tight. “Yeah, well that ain’t gonna happen.”

“Why not?” She tried to pull free, but his grip was too strong. “You don’t want me here. Despite what just happened between us. So just help me leave.”

No. That single word echoed over and over again in his mind. He took her chin with his fingers and tilted it up so that she met his gaze. “It’s because of what happened between us that you’re not leaving. Not yet.”

“What?” She pulled out of his grasp.

“You heard me.” He rubbed his fingers together as if he could still feel the touch of her face. “We don’t have a future and the past is gone. What we do have is the present. Here. Now.”

“And that’s it?” she asked, shaking her head and backing away from him. “Just sex. That’s all we’ve got?”

He speared her with a cold, hard look. “What else is there?”

“I guess you were right, after all,” she said softly. “I don’t know you anymore.”

Seven

“What do you mean, Culp and Bergman canceled their contract?” Debbie leaped up out of her chair as if she’d been electrocuted and tried to listen to her manager’s voice through the roaring of her own blood.

She’d just talked to her manager the day before and everything at home had been fine. But then again, just yesterday she’d only been Gabe’s captive. Not his lover/captive. Oh, what a difference a day made.

“Just what I said, Deb,” Kara Stevens told her over the phone. “The CEO’s admin called this morning, said they’d decided to use another agency.”

Debbie’s stomach pitched and rolled. It wasn’t enough that she’d spent most of the night before miserable that she was in love-again-with a man she had no future with. Oh, no. Wasn’t enough that Gabe had used up her body and dismissed her heart.

Now she had to find out that her travel agency’s biggest client was leaving her for someone else.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she sputtered, stalking around Gabe’s living room.

“I know. I was totally stunned, too. Yesterday, I sent over the papers for their company cruise, just like you told me to. Everything was peaches and gravy, you know?” Kara was babbling, words tripping over each other as she rushed to get all the bad news said at once. “And then this morning, I get the phone call and they’re dumping us. They didn’t say why or anything, either, and I swear I didn’t do anything wrong, Debbie. Honestly. Worked up the papers just like last year’s, but…”

“This can’t be happening.” Debbie moved onto the stone terrace and stood in a slice of brilliant sunshine. She squinted against the glare and watched colorful sailboats glide across the ocean through narrowed eyes. It was a postcard kind of day at Fantasies.

Yet here in Debbie’s little world, it was midnight and howling with a bitter wind.

Dread coiled in the pit of her stomach and sent cold, thick tendrils out to freeze every square inch of her body. She swallowed hard against the knot of nerves lodged in her throat. “Did they say who they were going with instead?”

“Nope,” Kara answered quietly. “Just that they were through with us. God, Deb, I’m so sorry. I feel so totally bad right now, you don’t even know. I mean this is just such a class-A bummer and everything…”

Bummer?

This was way bigger than a simple bummer.

Kara didn’t know the half of it, Debbie thought. Without Culp and Bergman, Debbie’s travel agency was going to be on shaky ground. She’d been building her business slowly over the last several years, but the corporate account she’d snagged with C and B had really been her main source of income for two years.

The fact was, there were so many people booking trips online these days, that no one thought they really needed a travel agent anymore. They were wrong, of course.

Sure you could book your own trip. But what if an airline went on strike while you were vacationing in Ireland? What if your luggage was lost in Istanbul? What if you needed an emergency ride home and couldn’t get online?

A good travel agent could take care of any problems. She’d saved her clients all kinds of aggravation over the years. But did anyone care about that when they could just click and buy? No.

“So what do you want me to do now?” Kara was asking.

“Nothing,” Debbie said, curling her fingers around the railing. There was nothing Kara could do. Heck, nothing Debbie could do, trapped as she was in la-la land. “Don’t do anything until I get home.”

“And when’s that gonna be?” Kara’s voice shifted from worried to complaining in a blink. “I mean, I know I agreed to manage the place while you were gone, but you were supposed to be home like a week ago, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Debbie said as frustration churned and frothed in the pit of her stomach, making an ugly mix. She should be home right now, dealing with this. If she were, she could go to C and B herself. Get to the bottom of things. Maybe strike a deal. But no…“Something came up here and I can’t leave yet.”

“Until when?”

“I’m not sure,” Debbie admitted, wishing she had the stupid jewel thief in front of her. She’d give that woman such a kick. “Soon, I hope.”

“Well me, too, cuz I don’t think I’m cut out for being the boss, Deb. This is just way too stressful.”

Debbie groaned, let her chin hit her chest and rolled her eyes. Kara was nice, good with people and had a sharp eye for details. But her stress-o-meter was a lot lower than Debbie’s. Kara tended to freak first, ask questions later. Of course, this was the perfect situation for a little freaking.

This went beyond problem into the scary realm of disaster. With a capital D. If Debbie couldn’t get C and B back in the fold-or find another corporate client-her business would fail. She simply couldn’t make a living on walk-in customers.