During a slow song, Jesse held Gail close, swaying slowly with her in a sea of dancing couples. He kissed her fragrant hair and nibbled on her bare shoulder. He could barely make out the words she whispered into his ear.

“I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Jesse pulled her tighter, fear and longing coursing through him simultaneously. He moved her body in rhythm with his own until he was ready to respond.

“I feel the same,” he said. “You’re very easy to love, Professor.”

That night, after Gail checked to make sure the girls were home safe, she returned to his house. She stripped off her simple robe and joined him in his bed, kissing him from head to toe. Jesse felt the love pouring out of her and into him. Her love felt like a blessing, and the most intimate gift anyone had ever given him.

“I want you to come back to Key West soon,” he said. “As soon as you can.”

Gail sat up, letting one leg dangle over the edge of his bed. She tipped her head and smiled at him tenderly. “I appreciate your saying that. But I’m worried that after a while you might forget me. It would be perfectly natural.” She gestured at their naked bodies in the moonlight. “This sort of thing usually turns into nothing more than a nice memory.”

Jesse sat up, too, and grabbed her face in his hands. “That’s not going to happen, and you know it.” She tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her. “Gail, what I’ve had with you has been special. Unique. And I don’t want it to end with your vacation.”

Her smile spread.

“But there’s something you need to know about me first. Please hear me out.”

A tiny crease formed between her brows. “Okay,” she said, her voice tentative.

He took a deep breath, knowing there was no way to do this but push through it. Jesse owed her the truth, and it couldn’t be postponed another second.

“Something happened to me last year,” he said softly. “A woman came to stay in the house next door—your house—and she seemed really great at first. I’d never allowed myself to fall for a tourist before her.”

Gail gently pulled at his wrists until his hands fell away from her face. The look of confusion in her eyes nearly killed Jesse.

“Go ahead. I’m listening,” she said.

“It was nothing but a setup, Gail. She basically blackmailed me, almost ruined my life.”

“But…” Gail shook her head as if trying to sort through her thoughts. “She didn’t succeed, right? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

“She sure as hell tried.”

Gail blinked, remaining silent. Slowly, she began to scoot back on the bed, never taking her eyes from his face. She brought the sheet to the front of her body, that beautiful body she’d become comfortable sharing with him. It was painful to watch.

“I’m not sure I understand,” she said, resorting to her tightly wound professor voice. “I always assumed I wasn’t the first tourist you’ve been involved with. Are you just reminding me of that reality?”

He’d made a mistake. He should have told her up front. Chago had been right—this was the train wreck he’d seen coming.

“Not at all,” he said.

Gail suddenly laughed. “Wait a minute—you know what?” She smiled and held up her hand, palm out. “We’ve had a wonderful time together. Let’s not ruin it. You don’t owe me an explanation about anything.” She began to stand up. “I should probably go home and pack.”

“Please don’t.” Jesse placed his hand on her shoulder. “Please.” She stayed but angled her body away from him. “Don’t shut down on me, okay? I’m telling you this because you deserve the truth.”

She lifted her chin. “Then just say it.”

“The woman hired a smarmy lawyer and spread gossip about me.” Jesse watched as Gail’s eyes went huge. “She spun a fantasy about how I smacked her around, got her pregnant and then kicked her to the curb. She took me to court and filed a fictional paternity suit against me. The whole mess was picked up in the tabloids and the celebrity magazines.”

Gail reared her head back and frowned. “Was any of it true?”

Jesse laughed. “No! Of course not! It took a ton of money and a few years off my life span, but I got everything thrown out. She was a nut job.”

Gail nodded very slowly. “I’d like to say I’m sorry for the pain she caused you.” Her eyes were earnest, hurt. “But why did you pick this moment to tell me about her? You wanted me to know there was another spring-break slut before me, is that it? That you’ve done this kind of thing before?”

“Oh, God, no,” Jesse said, his heart breaking. This was a nightmare. “You are nothing like her, Gail. There’s no comparison.”

“Then why are you telling me this?” Gail’s voice was ominously flat. “And better yet—why would celebrity magazines give a rat’s ass about what happened between a tourist and a part-time tour guide? And where did that ‘ton of money’ come from?”

Jesse automatically tried to touch her but she recoiled. Clearly, she wasn’t interested in his touch.

“Did you teach her to salsa?” Gail’s lips began to quiver. “How about skinny-dipping at a private beach? Did she get the VIP treatment like I did, with the dolphins and the private lunches and the fancy dresses and everything else you did to make me feel so special?”

Jesse raked his fingers through his hair. This was worse than he imagined it would be, and he hadn’t even gotten to the good part. “Please hear me out.”

“I thought I already had.” Gail stood, reaching for her robe. She whipped it off the floor and onto her body, yanking hard on the sash around her waist. “You just said you were falling in love with me and you wanted me to come back soon, but this—” Gail waved her arm around. “It’s like you’re giving me a warning not to get my hopes up, that I’m not all that special after all, that you did this before and you’ve always regretted it.”

She turned away from him. Jesse leaped from the bed. “Gail, don’t. That’s not why I’m telling you.”

“Then why?” she asked, spinning around.

“Because I need to explain to you who I am. She targeted me because I’m sort of famous. She wanted my money and her fifteen minutes on TV.”

Even in the low light, Jesse could see Gail’s face drain of color. “Sort of famous?”

Jesse grabbed his own robe from the bedpost and hastily wrapped it around himself. He flicked on the bedside lamp.

“You know how I told you I was a writer?”

She nodded, frowning.

“I’m J. D. Batista. I’m a bestselling suspense writer. Have you ever heard of the ‘Dark Blue’ series set in the Keys?”

Gail turned her head to the left and stared off into space, as if she was trying to conjure up a distant memory. “Vaguely,” she said, looking at him again, her eyes suddenly devoid of emotion. “Then again, I’ve never really cared for that kind of trash.”

Her words stung. “Okay. I deserved that.”

Gail laughed. “This is hilarious,” she said, the sarcasm oozing from her voice. She put a shaking hand to her mouth before she went on. “So let me see if I got this straight—you lied to me about your writing, telling me that you hoped to be published one day when you already had a major career? And you did this because you thought I was another psycho tourist out to get you?” The tendons in Gail’s neck stuck out like guitar strings. “Is that what this is all about?”

Jesse couldn’t help but see the irony of the situation. Gail Chapman was the only woman whose opinion mattered to him, and she was sickened by his deceit and thought his work was trash.

This hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped.

“Gail, please listen. I only wanted to be sure you liked me for who I was as a person before you knew I had money and fame.” Jesse’s legs felt weak. He’d blown it with her. He knew it. “I always planned to tell you.”

Gail laughed bitterly. “Really? When? When I was already home? When I came upon your books in some Walmart somewhere?” She flapped her arms in agitation. “Or maybe you wanted to wait until after I’d fallen completely, totally in love with you! Oh, wait—that’s already happened!”

“Please forgive me. I made an awful mistake.”

“You know what the worst part is?” Gail’s cheeks had become red and blotchy with anger. “You knew how important honesty was to me! I told you, Jesse. I told you that I’d been burned by a lying, cheating, embezzling asshole, and that honesty was the only thing I absolutely had to have from a man.”

Jesse’s head felt as if it would explode. In trying to protect himself, he’d hurt her. “I am so sorry,” was all he could say.

Gail wasn’t finished. She poked a finger in his chest. “But think about this—however bad that girl hurt you, Curtis hurt me more. It was my husband who betrayed me, not some tramp from the vacation house next door. Yet I still opened up to you, Jesse! I had the courage to be myself with you!”

He’d never felt this low in his life.

Gail spun around. She headed out his bedroom door and made a beeline directly toward his office, the door to which he’d intentionally left closed whenever she came to the house. Jesse watched her flip on the light and stand in the doorway, nodding.

He came up behind her and leaned an arm on the doorjamb. He’d never before felt queasy with embarrassment at the sight of his framed book covers and rave reviews.

Gail spun around to find that his arm blocked her way out. She stared at him with cold, hard eyes. “The tragedy is that I did love you for who you are—who I thought you were, anyway—and if I’d known from the start that you were some famous mystery writer I would have found a way to love you in spite of it!”

“It’s really more suspense than mystery,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.

She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re a total dipshit, J. D. Batista. Hey, that must be what the ‘D’ stands for! Dipshit!” She ducked under his outstretched arm and raced down the stairs in her bare feet. He ran after her.

“Gail, wait! You can’t just walk out. We need to talk!”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she said, reaching for the front doorknob and looking over her shoulder. “I’ll let you know when and if I ever feel like talking to you again.”

Jesse placed his hand on her back, but she jerked away from his touch. Those soft brown eyes burned.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” she said, preparing to slam the door behind her. “Thanks for the vacation memories!”

Chapter eight

JESSE SAT AT HIS DESK. He stared out the window at the banyan tree, his first cup of morning coffee in his hand, still reeling from what had happened with Gail the night before. What his agent just told him hadn’t improved his mood any, either.

His publisher had said no on the two-week extension request. They wanted the manuscript by 10:00 a.m. the next day. But for good reason, Beverly told him in an excited voice. They’d moved up the pub date of that book by six whole months. And they’d decided to send him out on tour with his summer release.

“This is a sure sign that they believe in you, Jesse, that they’re certain you can turn those numbers around.” Beverly waited for some type of enthusiastic response from him, but when she didn’t get one, she continued on. “I’m not sure you realize how big this is. Authors aren’t getting this kind of support right now, Jesse, not in this economy. And they’re behind you even though your numbers are down.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Jesse? Do you hear what I’m saying? Isn’t this fabulous?”

Not exactly.

Gail was leaving in twenty-four hours, the exact same time his publisher expected to have his completed manuscript in hand. How was he supposed to send in a halfway decent manuscript and win Gail back at the same time?

Jesse got up from his chair and began to pace. “So I guess this isn’t a good time to tell you that I was about to ask for a two-week extension on top of the two-week extension they just nixed?”

Beverly didn’t answer right away. “No,” she eventually said. “That wouldn’t be smart.”

He walked back and forth in front of the eight custom-framed book covers hanging at precise intervals on his office wall, knowing in his heart that Gail had been right. He was a dipshit.

His agent had one more point to make, apparently. “I have to ask you, Jesse, what’s going on in your life that’s more important than your career? You seem quite distracted. You’re not having more problems with that crazy tourist, are you?”