A stolen boy

A haunted soldier

A cornered con woman...

Rafe Angelito thought he was done with the demons from his past—until his son is kidnapped. Blackmailed into abducting an American heiress, the legionnaire soon finds himself trapped in paradise with a fiery, daring beauty who’s nothing he expects...and everything he desires. But when he uncovers her own dark secret, Rafe realizes he’s made a critical mistake—one that could cost him everything.

Playing body double for a spoiled socialite was supposed to be Holly Ryan’s ticket to freedom. But when she’s snatched off her yacht by a tall, dark and dangerous stranger, the not-quite-reformed con artist will make a desperate play to turn her captor from enemy to ally, by any means necessary.

Yet as scorching days melt into sultry nights, Holly is drawn to the mysterious capitaine, with his unexpected sense of honor and his searing touch. When they’re double-crossed, they’ll have to risk trusting each other in ways they never imagined...because in this deadly game of deception, it’s their lives—and hearts—on the line.

Praise for Brynn Kelly’s Deception Island

“Nonstop action and romantic tension sizzle....”

—Publishers Weekly

“Deception Island is a brilliant thriller that will have you begging for more. The plot is a maze of surprising and harrowing twists and turns that lead to a dynamic conclusion.”

—Fresh Fiction

“What. A. Ride. Deception Island held me in its clutches from the very start. From the ambitious storyline to the well-crafted characters, this debut novel speaks of a promising future in fiction for author Brynn Kelly.”

—Harlequin Junkie

“It was rough, raw and real, with a storyline that hypnotized me and some of the best character development I’ve had the fortune of reading.”

—The Romance Reviews

“Kelly’s debut is an impressive, emotionally intense, pulse-pounding page-turner.”

—The Reading Frenzy

“This pulse-pounding romance will leave you breathless and aching for more.”

—Joyfully Reviewed

“Surprising twists and turns coupled with strong, dynamic characters make this one a pleasure to devour.”

—StuckInBooks.com

“It’s nonstop suspense and desire on the beaches and in the jungles of remote Indian Ocean islands.”

—Romance Reviews Today

Deception Island

Brynn Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

It took award-winning journalist BRYNN KELLY only two decades to realize all those stranger-than-fiction news reports (pirates, mercenaries, murders, conspiracies...) provided the perfect training for a new career: as a writer of larger-than-life novels.

She’s delighted that HQN Books is publishing her Golden Heart® Award–nominated debut novel because it gives her an excuse to spend her days in a bubble of delicious words and fiendish plots. Still, after all those years writing about the real world, she’s secretly terrified someone will realize she’s making it all up.

Brynn has a degree in communications with a journalism major and has won several prestigious writing awards, including a Valerie Parv Award and a Pacific Hearts Award. She’s a bestselling author of four nonfiction books in her native New Zealand.

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Copyright

Chapter 1

Time to get this over with.

Rafe Angelito signaled his two crewmen. They pushed the RIB off the beach and leaped in, the scrape of the hull on pebbles the only sound in the moonlit bay. As he’d predicted, the American had brought her yacht closer to shore than usual for the night, to shelter from the trade winds belting through the Indian Ocean.

Michael pulled in the bowline while his brother Uriel lowered the outboard motor and gunned it. Rafe tested a thin rope, coiled it and stuffed it in his pocket. A pampered heiress wasn’t likely to give them trouble, but with his son’s future at stake he wasn’t taking chances. A kidnap for a kidnap.

He cricked his neck. Time for action, at last. Since dawn they’d followed the yacht through the archipelago, awaiting the right moment to strike. A lightning operation—grab the woman, leave the yacht. Even if she got out a mayday call they’d be gone before anyone responded.

“Faster,” he ordered, the language of his childhood awkward on his tongue.

“Yes, Capitaine.”

Rafe’s jaw tightened at Uriel’s facetious comment. “Call me that again and I’ll rip out your throat.” This week he wasn’t a French Foreign Legionnaire. He was a Lost Boy again, whether he liked it or not.

Michael handed him a phone, nodding at the screen. A text. Rafe clenched his teeth. Gabriel again. What is happening, my brother?

He yanked off his glove, gripped the railing and replied one-handed in his native language. A few minutes and we’ll have her.

And I’m not your brother, you son of a bitch.

A reply came in seconds. Don’t mess this up, Raphael, or your boy is mine for good.

Rafe’s gut twisted. His son was sheltered, innocent—everything Rafe never had a chance to be. Right now, Theo was supposed to be home with his grandmother on Corsica, going to school, learning to fish, playing football. But the Lost Boys had come in the night, just as they’d come for Rafe as he’d lain sleeping in the dust of a refugee camp nearly thirty years ago.

Another buzz. He likes his uncle Gabriel. He’ll make a good lieutenant, when I’ve finished with him.

Theo’s face filled the phone’s screen, terror lacing his dark eyes. Rafe’s heart kicked. Next to his son, with an arm slung over the boy’s shoulder, a man grinned. Gabriel. Two decades older, but no mistaking the machete scar splitting his nose. Rafe tightened his grip on the phone. What kind of “uncle” would snatch a nine-year-old to blackmail his father into committing a gutless crime?

Gabriel, that was who. But why kidnap the daughter of an American senator? The Lost Boys’ usual trafficking victims were lost themselves—unwanted girls and women sold into prostitution, or orphaned boys forced to become child soldiers, like Rafe. This heiress was the closest America had to a princess. A stupid risk, but at least Rafe could ensure no harm came to the woman—or his son. Best-case scenario? Within the week her father paid the twenty million, she went home and Rafe got Theo back. Worst-case?

Crack. A cobweb of splinters spread across the screen, fracturing the image of Theo’s face. Rafe loosened his grip and shoved the piece-of-crap phone in his pocket. The worst-case scenario would not happen. He pulled on his glove. He was an imbécile for thinking a past like his could remain buried.

His gaze swept the yacht, which was silvery and skeletal with its sails stowed. No movement. With luck she’d be asleep. On signal, Uriel swung the boat around to the northwest, setting up for an approach from the yacht’s leeward side. Rafe yanked down his balaclava and signaled his crew to do the same. Wouldn’t do to have their faces broadcast on the American’s live webcam.

“No mistakes,” he growled. “Anyone hurts the girl, I hurt him.”

* * *

The halyard clinked against the mast as the yacht rocked in the swell. Holly Ryan closed her eyes and stretched out on the deck, soaking up the pleasure of dozing to the current’s ebb and flow.

She inhaled the velvety air and sighed. The sound rolled out into the night, joined by the slap of water against the hull and the strain of a distant motor. Tropical heat seeped into her skin. If only life could stay this way forever—waking at dawn and anchoring at dusk, sun-bleached hair clumped from swimming, freckled skin rough with salt.

She linked her hands behind her head. The boat wasn’t a hell of a lot bigger than her prison cell and only marginally more comfortable, but it was intoxicating just knowing the horizon wasn’t blocked by a concrete wall. Hallelujah. So what if the real Laura Hyland sipped champagne on her father’s superyacht somewhere off Bali while Holly did the hard sailing? Holly could get drunk on the smell of freedom—out here it came salty, with notes of seaweed.

Four more months of sailing and Holly would have fulfilled her end of this screwed-up bargain and earned enough money to wipe clean the disaster that had been her life so far. In the meantime, she’d damn well enjoy it. She’d done worse things for lesser reward.

Closer now, the motor whined as it was pushed faster. Bit late for a fisherman, and no villages lay along this stretch of rain forest. Precisely why she’d chosen the spot for an anchorage—the fewer people she faced as Laura, the better. Even in Indonesia, people had heard of the New York socialite and her solo circumnavigation. Though she did resemble Laura after a hurried makeover, Holly couldn’t risk anyone figuring out the truth.

The motor’s pitch dropped—it was slowing, the water swishing around it. On approach. She bolted upright, the back of her neck prickling. Moonlight glinted off an inflatable with three large figures on it. No lights, closing in. Her breath shuddered. Not one of the local fishing boats. A journalist looking for a scoop—but out here, at this time of night? Hardly. A shark-finning boat? Dozens of large sharks had glided past the yacht in the last few days.

Whoever they were, she had no escape. By the time she weighed anchor they’d be on her. A mayday call or flare wouldn’t do shit, out here in the middle of nowhere.

She skidded into the cabin, snatched up her pocketknife and stuffed it in her shorts pocket. What else could she use for a weapon? Damn the senator for refusing to let her carry a gun. She eyed the radio, biting her lip. No time for a call—if these guys cornered her down here, there’d be no escape. She sprang back up the ladder. The inflatable drew up to starboard, the men silent. Balaclavas. They wore balaclavas. Shit. She spun around. Come on, come on. Her gaze landed on the winch handle. She wrenched it out of its socket, tested its solid weight. Good old-fashioned heavy metal.

As one man tied up and pulled the boats alongside, another stepped onto the yacht’s stern, wobbling as if he straddled a tightrope. He was burly but perhaps not a sailor. That could work in her favor. She moved the winch handle behind her, out of sight.

“What do you want?” she asked, sounding more confident than she felt.

“We don’t want to hurt you.” The deep voice came from the bow of the inflatable, in thickly accented but precise English.

Her cheeks iced over. In her experience, people who said that usually did the opposite. The burly man advanced, feeling for his balance. Was that seriously an Angry Birds T-shirt?

“Who are you?”

“We are taking you with us.” The guy on the inflatable again. He said something to his crew in a language she couldn’t place. His voice was authoritative but at ease. She chanced a look. He leaned against the console, arms crossed. Confident, but casual with it—like he’d done this a hundred times. He was even bigger than the guy coming for her, but more athletic. Not good.

“You won’t be harmed if you cooperate,” he continued.

Her blood chilled. “You’re pirates? You’ve got to be kidding me.” She was almost halfway through this job, halfway to her new law-abiding life. Not even Blackbeard was going to ruin that.

He laughed, deep and calm. “I wish I was joking, Laura.”

Laura. This was no random heist. What was his accent—Russian? Eastern European? Not one of the notorious Indonesian lanun pirates who patrolled the Strait of Malacca. This archipelago was far enough south of the main shipping lanes that thieves weren’t supposed to consider it profitable. So much for sticking to safer waters.

It was a long time since she’d had to fight a man. She had one advantage—they thought she was a helpless socialite. They weren’t expecting trouble, and if they were kidnapping her for a ransom, they wouldn’t want to kill her—yet. She swallowed. She could play the frightened girl, give them false confidence and try to escape. In what—her tender? That thing wouldn’t win a race with a jellyfish.

She could tell them the truth, but why the hell would they believe her? Even if they did, what then—they’d apologize gracefully and be on their way? Fat chance.

“No, please, you can’t do this to me.” She let her nerves show in her voice. The Angry Birds guy was five feet away. Another few steps... “I’ll scream, I’ll... I’ll... My daddy’s a United States senator, a retired marine. A webcam is broadcasting your every move. He’ll track you down in minutes.” She cringed, inwardly. Too much?

“Nothing to be worried about,” said the man on the inflatable. “We’ll take you somewhere comfortable for a few days, your father will pay a ransom, you will be freed.”

“No. Please...”

Angry Birds jumped down onto the deck. Holly sprang backward, onto the bow. She slid her legs apart for stability, her bare feet compensating for the yacht’s movement. The man on the boat growled something. Angry Birds shouted back. One word was clear: Capitaine. He approached gingerly, his palms up, placating her. She cowered, as if bracing for the moment of contact, her pulse pummeling in her ears.

He inched closer. Patience. She tightened her grip on the winch handle. Her days of being someone’s punching bag were long dead. She waited until he was within a yard of her, then pivoted her torso, letting her hand whip with the momentum, and bashed the handle into his face with a dull, meaty crack. He wobbled, forced to prioritize regaining his balance over capturing her. Yelling from deep in her chest, she drove her heel into the side of his knee, buckling it. As he collapsed, she shoved him backward. The boat tilted with his weight and he slid into the water, one hand clutching the grab line. Her leg muscles clenched, finding equilibrium, her soles clinging to the deck like limpets. Gasping for breath, she cracked the handle onto his fingers. He splashed into the inky water with a howl.

The boat rocked, and she jumped backward to avoid following him in. Hands grabbed her biceps, from behind. Damn. When had a second man come aboard? She bent her knee and rammed a heel into his groin. Awkward, but effective—he grunted and eased his grip, just enough for her to swivel out of it. It wasn’t the capitaine, just the other goon, now bent double and panting. Before he could straighten, she clutched his head and rammed her knee into his face. Bones crackled, he yelped. She sprang back.

Instinctively, he brought both hands up to his face. Holy crap, she’d broken his nose? She wasn’t as out of practice as she’d thought. She launched a flying kick into his stomach, but it glanced off. Damn. He flailed but regained his balance, shook himself and fixed his hooded eyes on her. She retreated, panting. What now—the knife? She didn’t want to risk getting close enough to use it—and bloodshed wasn’t her thing. Angry Birds splashed about below, no doubt fighting the pull of his heavy boots.

Stern instructions came from the boat. The capitaine sounded frustrated with his men but bored, like he knew capturing her was just a matter of time.

Not if she could help it. She sprang behind the boom, her free hand fumbling to loosen the mainsheet. The pirate inched forward, a dark stain spreading across his gray balaclava. She swept the boom toward him. He stumbled and shot out his hands to catch it. Before he could recover she hurled the handle. It clocked his broken nose. Bingo. He roared and reeled back, but righted himself. He spat indecipherable words, blood and saliva dripping from his mask, his arms spread out for balance, hands clawed.

Damn. She should have thrown the knife—who knew her aim would be that good? She didn’t trust her chances now. She zipped her pocket, spun and plunged into the sea. Once the cool water swallowed her, she jackknifed and propelled herself under the yacht, kicking and pulling against the tug of the swell, feeling her way around the keel’s smooth curve. Her chest ached for air. She surfaced silently on the port side, in the moon’s shadow, and devoured oxygen as quietly as she could.

Urgent voices sounded above her. How long could she tread water and wait for rescue? Could she fool them into thinking she’d drowned? Laura’s website must be getting a million hits with this on the live stream. The woman’s craziest fans watched 24/7, keeping up a constant social media commentary. When Holly had sunbathed on the deck in Laura’s bikini she’d nearly broken the internet, even though the images were kept low-res to cover for the body switch. Help could already be on its way.

“Laura, you can’t stay down there forever. We will find you.” The capitaine switched languages and spoke sharply to the other men, his voice ringing out from the deck of the yacht. Two men on the yacht and one in the water equaled none in the inflatable. What were her chances of slipping away in it? Better than her other options.

She filled her lungs, pulled herself underwater and followed the hull out in the direction of the men’s boat, coming up for air in the shelter of the yacht, blinking her stinging eyes clear. The inflatable’s bowline stretched above her head, tied alongside. She retrieved her knife and popped the blade.

Clinging to the yacht’s grab line, she hauled herself up as far as she dared. The yacht shifted with her weight. She froze. Deep voices murmured as the men searched. They’d find her in seconds. She stretched up. Moonlight winked off the blade. The line was inches out of her reach. Shit. Footsteps approached.

She dived and felt her way under the inflatable. The hull was metal and shaped into a deep V—no ordinary rubber boat. If she could steal it, she could get to the other end of the archipelago, at least. She’d passed a couple of inhabited islands that morning.

She popped up on the far side and clutched a cleat, forcing herself to suck in air as if through a straw. Could she sneak aboard and release the bowline before they got to her? She’d have to get in from the stern—the sides of the hull were too steep, and heaving herself up would draw attention.

Something brushed her bare calf. She gasped, drawing up her legs. Had Angry Birds found her? Nobody surfaced. Her heart thundered. If it wasn’t the man, what was—?

A nudge, then something rough skimmed her leg. Not human. A white-tipped dorsal fin sliced through the black water. Holy crap, a shark. One of the oceanic whitetips she’d seen earlier? It’d be testing her, trying to figure out if she was prey. Oh, God. She gripped the knife with one hand and the cleat with the other, forcing her legs to still. It’d expect prey to thrash, to swim away. Stillness would confuse it, right? She fought the urge to hyperventilate. From the port side of the yacht came splashing. Angry Birds. Doubly bad—he was closing in on her and baiting the shark. Her arm shook with the strain of holding herself steady.

A panicked shout burst from the yacht. Had they spotted the shark, or her? She caught movement to her left. Angry Birds slogged through the water with clumsy strokes. Blood trailed from his nose, where she’d clocked him with the winch. He flinched, and his gaze darted below. Was the whitetip scouting him out, too? Or were there more than one? She fought an urge to order him to be still.

He yelled, suddenly thrashing. Holy shit. Fast footfalls and shouts responded from the yacht. Didn’t they have a gun? The man’s body lurched downwards, his scream splitting the air. Her hand spasmed, her muscles burning. Ah, crap, she couldn’t just watch.

“Get a life preserver,” she shouted. “If he can grab it you can pull him up.”

“Where is it?” The capitaine’s tone was urgent, but not panicked, like a shark attack was a minor distraction.

“The stern, starboard side.”

She didn’t stay to watch. With shark and men occupied, she swam as smoothly as she could to the stern of the inflatable, fear clawing her stomach. She pocketed the knife and reached for the ladder, her arm still shaking. The boat swung away. Her fingers slipped off the rung, and she splattered into the water. Crap. Sandpapery skin brushed her sole. Her blood froze. A wave rocked the boat, smashing the outboard into her forehead. She swallowed the flare of pain. Ten yards away, the water churned. A feeding frenzy? The man had stopped screaming. A cry rang out, followed by a splash—too big to be the life preserver. Jesus, had another of the men gone in? Shouts echoed from everywhere—in the water, on the deck.

Another nudge on her leg, harder. She flailed for the ladder, forcing her eyes open against the water slapping her face. How many sharks were there—a whole school? Did they even travel in schools? Did it freaking matter?

A wave dunked her, sweeping her from the boat. She fought her way back, her lungs ready to burst. Her hand hit the rung and she caught it with one finger, lurched forward and clamped the palm over it. Roaring with effort, she anchored her thumb underneath and held on, the bitter burn of salt water in her throat. With the current dragging her away, she had no chance of hauling herself up. Her forearm strained near to snapping. The water swished with the force of something big shooting up underneath her. Her every muscle clenched. She hadn’t survived twenty-nine years of crap to die like this.

Chapter 2

Something tugged on Holly’s hand, then clamped under her arms. She thrashed, a scream ripping through her. No give. No pain, either. Maybe she’d die before it set in.

She flew into the air, weightless. What the hell? Below her an oval of ragged teeth crested the water and fell away into blackness. Still she soared. Her stomach dropped. Boof. Breath smacked from her lungs, pain shot through her nose. She’d landed, on something hard. A man’s chest—the capitaine, his arms wrapped tight around her, lying under her on the floor of the inflatable. The boat tilted to starboard. He threw them toward port, then to the center. The vessel wobbled and righted. Silence cloaked them. Holy crap. The shark hadn’t caught her. He had.

Something bumped the hull. She held her breath. A few dozen teeth on a few tubes and they’d be dessert. But everything stilled except the man’s heaving chest and his quick panting rustling her hair. She wheezed in relief, gulping in air. Her nose throbbed.

“Are you hurt?” he said.

Her jellied muscles begged for reprieve. No! You’re not giving up this fight. She took a steadying breath, raised a fist and slammed it into his stomach. Her arm bounced off, pain ripping up to her shoulder. He barely flinched. His arms tightened around her, jamming her nose into his chest. He hooked his legs around hers, pinning her with solid weight. She couldn’t even wriggle.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, huskily.

“Let me go.”

“Sure. We can’t lie here all night. But know that you can’t overpower me. Run and I’ll catch you, fight and I’ll win. You are coming with me tonight.”

“Why are you doing this?”

He paused. “Money. What else?” His tone was flat with bitterness. “Cooperate, and no harm will come to you. You have no choice but to trust me.”

Trust him? She’d never met a man she could trust and wasn’t about to start with a pirate. He released his grip, though his muscles remained tense. She coasted down his body and sat up. He sprang to his feet, towering over her. Just what was she up against? The balaclava shaded dark eyes. A tight black T-shirt outlined the taut chest she’d landed on. No wonder his stomach was impenetrable—even in the moonlight she could count the ridges of his six-pack. His sleeves cut across biceps that looked sculpted from granite. How the hell would she escape that?

“What happened to your friends?” she said.

“Gone to a better place than the shit hole they came from.”

“I’m sorry.” What a way to die.

“I doubt that.” He grabbed her wrists and yanked them behind her.

“Ow!”

“I do not trust you to cooperate.” He deftly tied a rope around her wrists, tighter than handcuffs and just as unyielding.

“I can see trust is going to be an issue between us.”

The odds were better now, one-on-one, but he was right—if it came down to a battle of force, he’d steamroller her. He was iron strong, icy calm. Military, probably—and proper military, not some amateur militia. Wasn’t capitaine French for captain? A battle of wits might be a more even fight.

He moved swiftly to her feet and bound them, then secured her to a railing, disturbingly practiced at restraining a human being. Could some foreign military be behind this? Was it a declaration of war, a political statement? Instinct told her he was lying about doing it for the money. He moved to the bow, surprisingly catlike for a man of his build. Definitely military.

“You have a satellite phone on the yacht? A laptop? GPS? Weapons?”

“If I had weapons would I be sitting here like this? But, yeah, sat phone, laptop, GPS. Knock yourself out.”

“Where are they? Tell me everything I need to grab so we can take them.”

We? A tense edge had crept into his voice. Should she answer? Her options numbered roughly zero. Besides, when she escaped she’d need the sat phone to make a rescue call. She gave him a rundown.

“What else should I pack for you?”

“Sorry?”

“What else do you want to take? You know I’m kidnapping you, yes?”

“I’d figured.”

“You’ll need some dry clothes. Ah, I’ll grab everything.”

“ChapStick,” she said, automatically. Two men just got eaten by sharks and you’re asking for ChapStick?

He paused. “This is some kind of lipstick?”

“Yeah, because that’s the first thing I’d think about when I’m getting kidnapped.” She jammed her salt-scoured lips together. Shut up. He’d expect her to be hysterical, not snarky. “Forget it. Get clothes, whatever. Why am I giving packing orders to a pirate? Or are you technically a terrorist?”

The inch of brown skin visible beside his eyes crinkled. Was he smiling? This had to be the most surreal night of her life. “Go with pirate.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see. There’ll be no escape for either of us until your father pays.”

Either of us?

He checked her bindings, jumped from the bow onto the yacht’s stern and disappeared from her limited view. Agile as well as strong—a formidable opponent. His calmness chilled her as much as his strength. A sharp mind was more dangerous than a muscular body, and he evidently had both.

She shifted. Something pressed into her thigh. The knife.

This wasn’t over.

* * *

Rafe crept over the deck and dropped into the cabin. Feigning imbalance, he smashed his shoulder into the interior webcam, knocking it to the floor and stomping on the debris. Gabriel would be watching the heiress’s webcast. No need to let on that Rafe was taking all the equipment he could prize off the boat, now he was no longer guarded. Let him believe that once Rafe and the woman were stranded on the honeymoon island, they had no way to communicate with the world.

He snatched up a large backpack and tipped out the contents. He had a couple of hours at most before rescuers arrived, and he’d already lost a good half hour securing her.

He shoved in an armful of clothes, with more force than necessary. Two more Lost Boys gone tonight, their blood on his hands as much as Gabriel’s. He exhaled heavily. He’d seen too many of their kind meet death too early. Boys who grew up with no one to give a damn about them and died with no one to mourn them.

But Gabriel had survived, somehow. The aid workers must have lied about him dying in the firefight at Odeskia, to prevent Rafe running back in to find his only friend. Rafe narrowed his eyes. No use blaming them. They’d given him a chance to claw his humanity back after five years as a killing machine. Given the same mercy, Gabriel might also have become a different man.

He pulled a network of cords from the walls and shoved them in the bag. The woman had been more effort than he’d bargained for. Where did a society princess learn to scrap like that? That was dirty street fighting, not some rich girl’s martial arts hobby. And she was far prettier than the photos and videos he’d studied—a raw, strong natural beauty, not some delicate doll.

He scoffed. What had he expected? Only a fool underestimated his quarry. She’d survived three months alone at sea. And even someone as vain as Laura Hyland wouldn’t wear lipstick and stilettos on a solo sailing trip.

But she had said something about some lip thing. He swept a bunch of bottles and tubes into the bag. His heart twisted. The last time he’d packed up a woman’s things was a year after Simone’s death, when he’d finally forced himself to clear her belongings out of their villa on Corsica. The coconut scent of her shampoo still haunted him. Later, he’d found Theo sitting by the garbage bin. The kid had unpacked every bottle and tube and lined them up along the tiled floor, like miniature tombstones.

He zipped up the bag. Thinking about his wife wouldn’t help his son. Phase one was complete. Phase two was to get the heiress to the plane, then to the island. Phase three was a week guarding her—alone, now. Going by tonight’s events, that was likely to be more bruising than he’d anticipated.

The thought of phase four made his hands move faster—return the heiress unharmed and get his son back. Would Gabriel keep his end of the bargain? Rafe’s jaw tightened. He’d better. For all his vices, the Gabriel whom Rafe had known had an unshakeable sense of honor toward the brotherhood of the Lost Boys. Hopefully he still did—and still considered Rafe a part of it.

A clicking noise filtered into the cabin. He tensed. Merde. The RIB’s motor was about to start.

* * *

Come on, you piece of crap. Holly turned the key over. Nothing. Surely it didn’t need the choke—it was still warm. She couldn’t risk flooding the motor.

The capitaine bolted up onto the deck of the yacht, her backpack in hand. With the bowline untethered, the swell pulled the drifting inflatable away. He’d have to swim for it. As long as she got the damn motor started they’d be swapping boats tonight. He crouched, swinging the bag onto his back. Weird. Was he giving up that easily?

She flinched, as a thought struck. The kill switch—she hadn’t checked for one. She fumbled around and found a coiled lanyard at her feet. She must have knocked it out, in the darkness. Her hand trembled as she felt around the console. Calm down. You can do this. There. She clipped the cord onto the switch and flicked it on. The capitaine sprang up and sprinted down the yacht toward her, arms pumping like a bionic man’s. Dang, was he going to jump for it? Her heartbeat quickened. She turned the key. The motor chugged to life. Relief surged through her veins.

She reversed the throttle, just as he leaped from the yacht. Adieu, Capitaine. His large shadow flew toward her. Clonk. His skull smacked into her forehead, hurling her backward. No way. She thumped onto the deck, pain radiating out from her spine and consuming her head. Her vision fuzzed out. What was he—Superman? He had her pinned, again, his face an inch away.

He rolled off her, panting, and touched a palm to his balaclava-clad forehead. Her eyes came back into focus, zeroing in on the knife as it rolled away. She dove for it. As her hand closed, he caught her arm and spun her. In a microsecond, he was astride her, clamping her torso between his thighs. He calmly plucked the weapon from her fingers.

“What did I tell you about running, princess?” He pulled off the balaclava and sucked in a breath. “And fighting?”

Holy crap. The moonlight bounced off sharp cheekbones, tanned skin that plunged into a strong jaw shaded by stubble, and a black buzz cut glistening with sweat. His dark eyes glittered with adrenaline and his huge chest heaved. As pirates went, Johnny Depp had nothing on the capitaine.

She shook her head—the only body part she could move. He’s kidnapping you, you moron. It was far too soon to get Oslo Syndrome, or Stockholm Syndrome, or whatever was the name for loopy people who fell for their captors. She’d evidently gone too long without a good-looking man in her life. Or not long enough.

His gaze strayed to the frayed remains of the rope he’d bound her with. “Merde,” he whispered, his full lips twisting into an impressed smile. That good-looking, and he spoke French?

Focus. How long until he figured out she was an imposter? And then what? Feed her to the sharks? He’d be better off taking the yacht—fat chance the senator would pay to save her neck, with his precious daughter lying low in luxury.

“I see we need to set ground rules, princess.”

“You can get off me, for a start.”

His knees tightened against her waist. “When I say we need to set ground rules, I mean I need to set ground rules. I gather this is how a kidnapping works—the kidnapper gives the instructions, the hostage follows them or suffers the consequences.”

He flicked open the knife and made a show of running his finger along the steel. The skin on the back of her neck crawled. She’d sharpened that blade just hours ago.

“You need me alive.”

“For now, yes.” He rested the blade against her ear, just lightly enough to avoid piercing the skin. “My job is to keep you alive until your father pays, but no one said anything about keeping you in one piece. That is your choice.”

Her mouth flooded with saliva, but she didn’t dare swallow. “Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll know when we’re there.” He ran his free hand around her waist and patted down her pockets. “Get up.”

He removed the blade and loosened the grip of his legs, giving her just enough leeway to wriggle away. He leaped to his feet, like the world’s largest gymnast. “You’re driving, princess.”

She pushed up to standing. She barely reached his bowling ball of a shoulder. Short of praying for a tsunami to tip him out of the boat, her options were limited. Forget coming clean. Then there’d be no reason to keep her in one piece. She had to play this out. Maybe on dry land she’d have more chance. “Aye, aye, Capitaine.”

His jaw tightened. So the title meant something to him? “We head northwest.”

To the next island? Could she escape and find a village, maybe track down an NGO? She needed to find a chink in this pirate’s well-muscled armor, and quickly.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Holly counted two dark figures waiting on a beach ahead of the inflatable. Dense beech forest soared into a charcoal sky pinpricked with stars. No lights, buildings or vehicles, but plenty of cover. Could she grab the backpack and run, get out a message via the sat phone before they caught up?

One of the figures waded knee-deep into the water. One yank of the wheel and she could take him out.

“Keep it straight, princess.”

The capitaine slid up beside her, his voice a warning rumble, his right hand coasting down her arm to enclose her hand as she steered. Her fingers twitched, his grip tightened. She willed her breath to settle—he wouldn’t always be watching her, guessing her next move. There would be a chance for escape.

“Put it in neutral and leave it running,” he said. “The sand drops off steeply.”

They eased into shore. The man held the bow while the capitaine hauled Holly’s backpack over his shoulder. Her forehead throbbed where he’d smacked into it. He stepped into the water and held out a hand. She ignored it and jumped, splashing into warm water up to her knees, her feet sinking into fine, sloping sand.

The capitaine spoke in clipped, urgent raps. Holly picked up a word: Michael. A couple of the prison inmates had spoken a language like that. Where had they been from? Ukraine?

She fought to keep upright without the rocking of the boat underfoot. She took a step, her sea legs heavy and graceless, as if gravity had doubled its force and was coming in sideways. No way would she be able to run. Her heart thunked. There went plan A. Three months ago she’d been seasick from the ocean’s incessant movement after so many years run aground in prison, now her body was freaked out by the absence of it. Great.

The capitaine pushed the inflatable off the sand as the man jumped in and shoved it into Reverse. One down. As the engine faded, the air filled with the screech of a zillion insects and God knew what else. Would she be kept here? Surely not. The island was only a few miles from her mooring—a long stretch of land, but narrow, as far as she could remember from the GPS. Rescuers wouldn’t have to look far. The tension under her ribs unwound a notch. Maybe this wasn’t such a professional operation, despite the capitaine’s commanding presence.

His hand closed around her upper arm, urging her forward. She shook him off, but the sand rose and fell under her like a tide, and she stumbled sideways. He caught her waist, swept his other arm under her legs and lifted her as if she were a child.

“Put me down.”

“It’ll be quicker this way—and I can keep an eye on you.”

The world swayed. She gripped his shoulder, beating down a surge of nausea. What choice did she have? The disorientation hadn’t been this bad after even the longest sailing trips she’d done as a teenager. But after six years of walking on concrete and baked dirt in a Californian prison, maybe her mind wasn’t as quick to adjust. And this was the first time she’d set foot on land since she’d been dropped onto the boat off the coast of San Francisco.

When the heiress had taken the helm to sail into Samoa, then Cairns, Darwin and Bali, Holly had been secretly stashed in Laura’s stateroom in one of the senator’s superyachts, surviving on military ration packs and banned from showing her face. There she’d waited for long days while the heiress flounced off on her one-woman environmental crusades—endangered Sumatran orangutans, rising sea levels, dying coral reefs... How long until Holly got her land legs back? Hours? Days?

The capitaine adjusted his grip and pulled her into him, one hand pressing into her thigh, the other firm around her waist. His warm, earthy scent coasted around her, like rain pounding dusty ground.

At least she was doing a good job of appearing to be a helpless society-page diva, however unintentional. She might as well save her strength, while sapping the capitaine’s. Even in darkness, the air was too hot and damp for sweat to evaporate.

A short, wiry man waited on the dry sand above the waterline, his head wrapped in a red bandanna. She might be able to take him down on a good day, even if she had no hope against the Spartan. But today wasn’t a good day. And he carried an assault rifle that was almost half his size. The capitaine spoke to him in the same language as before. The man dropped his beady black gaze to her wet T-shirt, smirking, and muttered something. The capitaine snapped out a sharp answer, tilting her slightly to turn her chest into his. Protecting her honor, or staking his claim? Either way, it worked—the man lifted his gaze and sneered at her captor instead.

They plunged down a sandy path winding through rain forest, the capitaine’s stride long and sure as he followed the man’s bobbing flashlight. Insects screamed like the world’s biggest electric drill, in surround sound. After half a mile the guy’s breath hadn’t even wavered with the effort of carrying her. Lines etched between his eyes hinted at inner tension, but outwardly he was as fit as he looked. She’d kept up her fitness in prison with endless, pointless jogging around the yard, but sailing had required a different strength. It had left her with toned arms and legs, but she hadn’t stretched them into a sustained sprint for years. Running from him—even when she got her land legs back—was looking like less of an option. She’d find another way to get quality time alone with the sat phone. Even Superman slept, occasionally.

Or did he?

The thick canopy gave way to a long narrow clearing. Moonlight reflected off a small plane. In the shadows, a dark figure waited. She pressed her lips together, tasting salt. How far could they fly in that—to Sumatra, Timor, Borneo, Australia? Right up to Singapore or Malaysia? Tens of thousands of islands, a gazillion square miles of jungle—even if a search was launched, rescuers had no chance of tracking them. Damn.

Chapter 3

The capitaine lowered Holly to her feet, next to a heap of bags. The ground tilted, and she tipped onto hands and knees. Whoa. Their escort laughed. The capitaine barked orders, and he stuttered something and jogged off toward the plane.

“You’ll be okay in a few hours, princess.”

She rolled onto her back, gripping the rocking earth, swallowing bile. “You know I’m not royalty, right?”

He strode to the bags and hauled something out. “The daughter of the future American president? Closest I’ll get to a princess, princess.”

Correction: the furthest. He was Captain Calm again—the hint of tension erased from his face. She should have tried to chuck him out of the boat when she had the chance.

“You want to change out of those wet clothes?”

She shook her head. The dampness shielded her against the pulsing heat. And she wasn’t about to strip for him.

He held up a long-sleeved jumpsuit. “Time to suit up.”

“What do I need that for?”

He threw it to her, pulled her running shoes out of her backpack and dropped them on the ground. “Warmth, mostly. It’s cold up at 15,000 feet. And tie your shoelaces tight.” Why did his mouth twitch, as if he was hiding something? “Can you get it on by yourself, or do you need help?”

“I’ll be fine.” She snatched the jumpsuit. “As long as I don’t have to stand up.”

The suit was big enough for a gorilla. She wriggled it on while sitting on the ground as he pulled one on himself, followed by a harness. Were they going to clip themselves to the plane? He shouted something to his crew, then knelt beside her. “Don’t zip up your jumpsuit yet,” he hissed.

He hauled her backpack toward them, and pulled a rope and harness from his shoulder.

“No need to tie me up,” she said, lying back down. “I won’t be running anywhere.” Yet.

“It’s not for that.” He glanced at the plane and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Nerves? “Sit up. Stay still and be quiet.”

She pushed herself up to sitting, her breath shallow. He knelt and slipped his hands down each side of her neck and along her shoulders, pushing the jumpsuit off again. Her face chilled. What the hell did he intend to do?

He fiddled around inside the backpack and pulled something out—her sweater, with the rectangular outline of her laptop and sat phone inside it. “I need you to carry this.” Placing it firmly on her chest, he looped a strap in a figure eight around her shoulders, holster-style, and tied it tight. He pulled the jumpsuit back up her shoulders and zipped it to her neck. Hands a blur, he jammed and zipped other bits of electronic equipment in her pockets, his gaze darting over her shoulder to the spot the men’s voices drifted from.

He didn’t want them to know what he was doing. Why? I need you to carry this, he’d said. Like he was asking a favor, like they were in this together. He pushed the harness under her legs. Lifting her hips, she let him slide it under her bottom and up over her back and waist, her body fizzing with awareness of his touch. Ridiculous. She sure had a talent for being attracted to the wrong man. Evidently her mind and body hadn’t learned a thing since Jasper had sucked her in when she was nineteen and spat her out four years later, right into the eager hands of the Feds. You’re sworn off men, remember?

She allowed the capitaine to pull her to her feet. The sat phone was hers—now she just needed a few minutes to fire it up and get out a message. He leaned in to adjust the harness and check the clips.

“I don’t get it. What’s the harness for?”

“Safety.” His forehead was etched with concentration as he yanked tight the straps on her shoulders.

The man who’d been waiting in the shadows sauntered up and spoke. He was nearly as big as the capitaine and wore a grubby pilot’s cap. The capitaine’s gaze flicked up to catch hers for a second, eyes hooded in warning, then he calmly turned, picked up her backpack and threaded it onto his chest. The man grabbed it and yabbered something, sharply. The capitaine shrugged and muttered a reply, pulling off the bag and unzipping it. He held it out in offering. The man reached in and pulled out a bottle of shampoo, then dug around thoroughly, emerging with a bra. He held it up and grinned a gap-toothed smile.

“Give that back, you pervert.” Holly stepped forward. The capitaine shot out an arm and she tumbled into it, forced to grab his shoulder to keep from falling.

“Easy, princess.” He yanked the bra from the man’s hands, stuffed it into the bag, zipped it and pulled it back onto his chest. He strode a few yards to a larger bag she hadn’t noticed—not the one he’d pulled the jumpsuits from—and lifted it onto his back, fiddling with clips and straps.

The pervert strolled toward Holly, thumbs tucked in his belt loops, buggy eyes checking her out like she was dessert. She shuffled backward, not trusting herself to take large steps. He pulled up inches from her, his breath stinking like fish oil, and reached for her hair. “Miss America,” he whispered, in a murky accent.

She ducked away, fighting to keep her balance. If he made a play for her, what could she do? She could hardly stand up straight, let alone defend herself.

Suddenly, he lurched sideways and sprawled onto the ground. He snapped out several words, anger flashing in his eyes. The capitaine stood over him, drawn up to full height, chest massive, jaw set, arm still outstretched from shoving him. Playing good cop, bad cop?

No—she’d been caught in that game enough times to know this was for real. He was protecting her, all right. Just what was the dynamic here?

The capitaine spoke, quiet and dangerous. The pervert’s eyes narrowed. He scrambled to his feet and spat on the ground, an inch from her foot, but maintained his distance. She exhaled. Thank God that wasn’t about to happen, at least.

The man unleashed a series of bitter words and held out his hand to the capitaine, palm up. The capitaine slapped a mobile phone into it. So that was why he was so keen on her equipment—he wasn’t allowed his own. Someone else had to be pulling the strings, leaving him to do the dirty work. Was he a hired gun? His bearing and commanding tone weren’t those of a lowly henchman. This was a man accustomed to leading, a man who didn’t trust whomever he was taking orders from. That conflict could work to her advantage, as could his evident protective instinct, if she played it right. And if she was good at anything, it was playing people.

The pervert fiddled with the phone and held it up. The flash seared her eyes. Taking photographic evidence she was alive? How long did they plan to keep her that way?

* * *

Half an hour later she sat cross-legged on the cold metal floor at the back of the plane, g-forces churning her stomach and spinning her head. If her balance had been warped before, it was tied in knots now. The seawater soaking her clothes felt like it was snapping into ice in the chill of the altitude. Fat lot of use the jumpsuit was.

And what was with the transparent plastic roller door on one side of the plane? What kind of scrap-heap plane had a door like that, and no seats? The wiry man sat beside it, gun slung over his shoulder, beady eyes staring at her. Only a finger-width of metal and a pervert pilot at the controls separated her from a couple of vertical miles of nothing, with a sudden stop at the bottom. At least the roar of the engine was muffled by the helmet the capitaine had eased over her head. But why the goggles and harness? He hadn’t clipped her to the plane, so what was the point? Or had the whole getup been an excuse to find hiding places for the electronics?

She struggled for breath, the thinness of the air escalating the growing panic of watching her window of escape close. She swallowed, hard, to equalize her ears. Her body might have given in—for now—but her mind certainly hadn’t. The electronics equipment digging into her ribs was as good as an escape pod.

The capitaine eased up behind her. She flinched. He cradled his legs around hers, his knees splayed either side of her waist. “Time to strap up,” he shouted. “We’re approaching the dro...” The thundering engine engulfed his words.

“The what?”

He fastened a series of clips at her shoulders and waist and pulled on the straps, yanking her spine hard up against the backpack strapped to his chest. They were clipped together? He stretched out his legs so they rested, hot and solid, either side of her thighs. Her heart sped up. Okay, this was getting weird.

“When we open the door, wrap your legs around the undercarriage of the plane.”

“When we what? Are we landing?” She hadn’t noticed a drop in altitude.

“When we jump, I need your chest out, legs curled back and head up. You know this, yes? Like a banana. A banana with its arms out.”

“Jump? Are you shitting me?”

“Hold tight. The plane will turn.”

She swayed in time with the capitaine as the plane banked, then corrected. The thin man gave the thumbs-up and rolled up the plastic door. Wind whistled into the plane, flapping the guy’s bandanna. Holly clutched for a handhold on something, anything. All she found was the capitaine’s thighs. His quads clenched into rock under her gloves. Her belly lurched. They were parachuting? He pushed forward. She resisted, but he had all the power. She tried to twist away. He grabbed her arms and straightened her.

“If you want to live, do what I say,” he shouted into her ear. “If you fight this, if you grab for me, I might not be able to pull the cord and we’ll both die. Best thing you can do right now is relax.”

Relax? What kind of a psycho was he? He slid forward, shoving her ahead of him. Her stomach churned like a washing machine.

“Don’t be so tense, princess. I’ve done this a thousand times.”

“Pushing your luck then, aren’t you?”

Another shove and her legs dangled out the door. Nothing but thin air lay between her shoes and the ocean. A whole lot of thin air. The water shone silver in the moonlight, interrupted by patches of darkness, like black holes. She retched, and clamped her mouth shut. Vomit would only spray right back into her face.

“Best not to look down.”

No kidding. She snapped her focus straight ahead. Death was not in her game plan. As the man said, she had no choice but to trust him, for the next few minutes, at least. Just as well he was a 250-pound slab of muscle.

No. That made no sense, right? Wouldn’t his weight just mean they’d hit the ground with a bigger smack? Would she hit first, or would he? Physics had never been her thing.

“Don’t forget, wrap your legs backward,” he shouted. “Rest your head back on my shoulder and look up. When we’re in the air, keep your arms extended and curl your legs back. Banana, remember?”

Holy Moses. She was really going to do this. Wind buffeted her jumpsuit, flattening the fabric against her. She didn’t need encouragement to wrap herself into him. If she could nail their bodies together, she would. He’d obviously done this before, and right now the more immediate threat was the deep blue sea—or worse, the land. She closed her eyes, tried to block her thoughts. Banana, banana, banana.

Her stomach plummeted. Air rushed at her exposed cheeks. Her eyes flicked open. A shadow loomed overhead, retreating. The plane. Oh man, they were falling. Her sinuses pinched. Her nerves pelted panicked messages into her brain. Even through the goggles, she struggled to keep her eyes open. A piece of fabric flapped against her cheek like a jackhammer. What was she supposed to do again? Arms back, legs extended? No, the other way around. They righted and stretched out parallel to the earth as wind buffeted her jumpsuit. The pull of the harness suggested the capitaine was still attached, at least.

The pain behind her eyes intensified, as if someone was shoving needles into her skull. Was something about to pop? This couldn’t be healthy. An hour or so ago she was being rocked to sleep by a gentle ocean swell, and now this?

She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing her mind to imagine herself skimming over the water in a yacht, as she had every endless night in prison, returning her to the happiest time of her life: the three years she’d spent working at the sailing school in Los Angeles, trading honest labor for a place to crash and a chance to sail. But then she’d fallen for the wrong man and got suckered into running cons for him by her desperation for love and money and survival. Yada yada yada.

Pressure thumped into her chest, and something yanked them upwards. Oh, God. What had gone wrong? She opened her eyes. A red parachute stretched above them. The rush of the wind had silenced, leaving her panting the only sound. They’d stopped dead, as if suspended.

“Holy crap,” she said. People did that for fun?

“How was that?” He sounded as if he was grinning.

“Terrifying, you jerk. You could have warned me.”

“Anticipation only makes it worse. Do you trust me now?”

“Even less.”

“An hour ago you probably thought that wasn’t possible.”

Was it only an hour since they’d left the inflatable? How far could a small plane fly in half of that? In the hull, in the darkness, she’d had no grasp of their direction. “Where are we?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Because you don’t know?”

“Oh, I know just what I’m doing.”

If he did, he sure didn’t sound happy about it. Islands were scattered beneath her feet—dark patches among the silver, with not a light in view. Uninhabited? Dang. What body of water could it be—Andaman Sea, Indian Ocean, Strait of Malacca? The land forms didn’t look familiar from any maps she’d studied. She heaved in a breath. At the movement, something poked into her ribs. The GPS unit. It could pinpoint her location. She could get a message away on the sat phone with her coordinates and threaten to go to the media if the senator didn’t rescue her. She gritted her teeth. For now, she’d play the helpless victim. If the capitaine wanted a princess, he’d get one. But the second he let his guard down, she’d be gone.

* * *

Rafe steadied his breath to clear the adrenaline of the 200-kilometer-per-hour free fall, and pulled the toggle to ride the wind to the northeast. Once they’d dropped another three hundred feet, the air currents would take them northwest. His coordinates had been smack on, but Penipuan Island was only twelve square kilometers, and the biggest clearing was smaller than a football field. If he didn’t read the conditions right, they’d wind up snared on a tree—or worse, bobbing in the ocean. At least there wasn’t some insurgent with an AK-47 taking potshots, like the last time he’d fallen from the sky. Tonight he was in far better company.

The heiress raised her gloved hand to her ribs for the third time in as many minutes.

“Has the comms gear slipped?” he said.

“The way you strapped it on? I hardly think so.”

He raised his eyebrows. She was coping surprisingly well. He’d been prepared to knock her unconscious if she’d freaked out about a parachute drop in these conditions, but she was far tougher than he’d expected—and she had a sense of humor. She might need one, to spend a week with him.

And he might need to watch his back. She wouldn’t be the pushover he’d counted on—and with Michael and Uriel gone she was all his responsibility. She turned her head, and the skin of her cheek caught the moonlight, smooth as satin. Tough and beautiful. He grimaced. Tu agis sans passion et sans haine. You act without passion and without hatred. He’d recited the line every day of his nineteen years in the Legion, but it’d never resonated as strongly as it did now. He must put aside his anger toward Gabriel and even his fear for Theo, and treat the heiress honorably. She was a prisoner of war, not a woman to covet. The objective of his mission must remain clear: save his son.

He frowned. The Legionnaire’s Code of Honor hardly applied. If his commandant got wind of this he’d be out of a job and in a French prison quicker than he could say Honneur et Fidélité. Outcast from an outcast’s army. The commandant was already suspicious about Rafe’s claim to be on bereavement leave. Who would a widower, an orphan and a loner mourn? But Rafe had been tied to the Code of Honor so long—after too many years without one—that he couldn’t shrug it off, whatever the circumstances.

Instinctively, he calculated the distance and time to ground. “When we come in to land, raise your legs straight out ahead of you, knees slightly bent, and let me do the work. For you, it’ll be like easing into an armchair.”

“Is that where we’re going?”

He followed the direction of her finger to the dark oval of land beneath them. The breeze warmed with every foot they descended. The coolness at altitude had been a relief after days of gagging humidity. “That’s it.”

“There are no lights. Is no one meeting you?”

“It’s uninhabited.”

“So it’s just you and me?”

Her tone carried a note of hope. “You and me and thousands of miles of ocean. No boat, no helicopter, no airstrip. We’re a hundred kilometers from the nearest inhabited island, nowhere near a shipping lane, and pleasure boats don’t come this way.” Gabriel had chosen well. They were imprisoned by water. But now, he had comms. He just had to figure out what to do with them.

“They stay away because of pirates?”

“Currents and reefs, mostly. But yes, pirates, too. Don’t worry, ma chérie, I will protect you.”

“Before or after you cut off my ear?”

He flinched, and the chute lunged, forcing him to make a hasty correction. He’d forgotten his empty threat, but it wouldn’t hurt for her to believe he was capable of it. “Do exactly as I say and you won’t be harmed. We’ll be on the ground in two minutes.”

“And who will protect you from me?”

He eased the parachute into line for the final approach. He was beginning to wonder that, too. “I don’t need protection.”

Outside the Legion, the only person on Rafe Angelito’s side was Rafe Angelito. Same as it had always been. Same as it would always be.

Chapter 4

They skidded across a clearing, sea grass scraping the seat of Holly’s jumpsuit. A gentle landing, as promised. How did someone get that practiced at parachuting? You’d have to be in adventure tourism or the military, and the capitaine was no chirpy tour guide. So she was dealing with a paratrooper? Weren’t they the elite soldiers—dropped behind enemy lines on secret missions?

Her stomach knotted. He became more formidable by the minute. He unclipped them, pulled her to her feet and let go warily, hands splayed in the air either side of her, ready to catch. The earth remained steady. Gravity had begun to take her side, at least. He busied himself with unhooking clips and gathering the parachute, with the deft movements of a man drilled in the routine.

Beside the clearing, a long stretch of ocean beach thundered rhythmically. Otherwise they were surrounded by rain forest, screeching with insects. Was there a building, or would they sleep outdoors? A palm tree rustled overhead. She flinched.

“Bats,” he said, following her gaze upward, to where ragged black shapes glided. She shivered. Concrete jungles were more her thing.

“Don’t worry, they’re vegetarians. It’s the mosquitoes you must watch for.” He stripped off his jumpsuit, his dark, sleek clothing emphasizing his tall, taut body. More Batman than Superman, perhaps. Give her a brooding mystery man over a clean-cut farm boy any day.

Except today. And only ever hypothetically.

She fumbled with her gloves. “What do I call you?”

His dark eyes fixed on hers, unguarded for a second, as if it wasn’t something he’d considered. “John,” he said, his mouth curling at one corner.

“Short for Long John Silver? Or long for Captain Jack Sparrow?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I prefer Jack.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She exhaled away the tension. If he was reluctant to tell her his real name, he must be planning to let her go. But what if the ransom wasn’t paid?

She jammed her fingernails into her palms. Even if the senator didn’t intend to pay, he’d have to at least go through the motions of searching for his daughter, after the publicity of the live webcast. He wouldn’t want the bad PR of admitting Laura had misled the public, with the primaries looming. Would the US military become involved? Did this count as a diplomatic incident? Terrorism? Jack might seem like the real deal, but one man couldn’t hold his own against a whole unit or platoon, or whatever pack American soldiers ran in.

Could he?

“Stop thinking so hard,” he said, crossing the gap between them in three strides. He laid a fingertip on her forehead. She froze. Some kind of threat? He stroked down to the bridge of her nose. Holy cow, he was smoothing out her worry lines. “You have nothing to be concerned about. You’ll be back in your rich woman’s world soon enough.”

He stilled, and stared at her, his forehead creasing. She gulped. Was he noticing the differences between her and Laura? He flinched, removed his finger and shook his head slightly, as if banishing an unwelcome thought. Had touching her been an instinctive reaction, a mistake?

His focus dropped to her shoulders as he began to unclip her harness, muttering some kind of chant in French. His gravelly scent washed over her. Her body heated up, as if it’d just realized it was back in the tropics after their high-altitude reprieve. She shivered, which made no sense at all. He reached down to slide the contraption over her hips, his fingers grazing her stomach. She lurched away. “I can handle that.” This was not a man to get worked up about, no matter how fine a specimen.

She wriggled out of the harness. Beyond the white tips of the breakers, the full moon lit a silver path to the horizon. Even if she could mobilize rescuers, how long until they arrived?

“You’ll have plenty of time to admire the scenery.” Jack’s deep voice made her jump. “Now, we find shelter.” He nodded to the sky above the jungle, where heavy clouds were rapidly snuffing out the stars.

At least the horizon was still out there. This might be a prison, but it wasn’t a cell, with no stars visible beyond the floodlights, no hope of hearing the sea, no hope of anything. At least here there was still a chance of rescue or escape, however small. She was alive, for starters. And not as helpless as he might believe.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said. “Like, right now.”

He started, as if suddenly awkward. Awkward was good. She could play on awkward. She hopped from one foot to the other—as much as she dared without risking falling on her face.

“I’ll just find a tree to go behind,” she said, eyeing the fringe of darkness beyond the clearing. “Seriously, dude, I’m about to burst my bladder all over this suit.”

He grimaced. Oh yeah, he was picturing it. Job done.

“Go down to the beach,” he said, quickly. “Less chance of snakes and spiders. But watch for scorpions—keep away from driftwood and rocks.”

Ugh. She was only used to dealing with human predators. The beach could work, though. She could scoot around the sand dunes and up into the jungle. “Flashlight?”

He pulled one out of a bag. “If you’re not back in three minutes, I’ll come after you.”

“What do you think I’ll do—swim home?”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Three minutes, princess.”

That’s all I need.

* * *

Rafe began repacking the chute and harnesses. A large piece of fabric and a bunch of clips and straps could have a dozen uses on a deserted island. He looked up, lining up the Orion Nebula with the star Alnilam to confirm where north lay. The villa was on the northeast of the island, beside a lagoon.

Phase two was complete. Gabriel’s men had come through this far, at least. They hadn’t dropped him in the ocean, they hadn’t harmed the heiress, they hadn’t shot them both dead. Maybe this fool mission might actually succeed. Maybe Gabriel would keep his word. While Rafe held the trump card—the woman—he was in a position of power. As long as he kept her alive and in sight, phase three had every chance of succeeding.

In sight. His gaze snapped toward the beach. Three minutes was up. Light spilled from behind a sand dune. The jumpsuit wasn’t the easiest thing to get out of, if you weren’t used to it, if your hands were still shaking from the buzz of the free fall. He’d give her another minute.

Merde—he should have taken the sat phone. Too busy trying not to think about her bladder, or any other body part. He couldn’t afford to lose the equipment before he figured out how the hell to get them out of this, without triggering Gabriel’s suspicions.

He stuffed the last of the chute into the bag and zipped it, then shrugged both packs onto his back. The light on the beach hadn’t moved. The air grew hotter and wetter by the minute. Better get the princess to shelter before the storm hit.

He jogged to the beach. “Laura?”

No answer. The swell had increased, the waves smashing onto the sand. He yelled louder. Nothing. His chest tightened. He closed in on the beam, sinking to his ankles in sand. The flashlight was propped on a rock. No Laura. Merde.

He switched it off and gave his eyes a few seconds to readjust. She’d run off down the sand. He followed, stepping in her footprints to save energy. The trail ran out at the edge of the rain forest. He scanned the foliage, found a recent disturbance in a stand of bamboo, and stepped noiselessly through the gap. Tracking someone in jungle this thick was easy, and he was trained to operate in darkness. She’d have to push through the foliage blind, leaving tracks, making noise, burning energy. She only had a four-minute head start. He smiled. Cat and mouse. His favorite game.

* * *

Why was the damn thing not working? In pitch darkness, Holly felt for the buttons on the sat phone and punched them for the tenth time. The screen stayed resolutely black. It’d been fully charged that afternoon, so it couldn’t be the batteries. Could it have been damaged when the capitaine—Jack—jumped from her boat? Or when they’d plummeted at God knew how many miles per hour? She was screwed. What now?

A fern rustled next to her. She pulled her feet onto the rock she was sitting on. Snake, scorpion or spider? After a minute the noise stopped. She eased to her feet and backed away—into something solid. She gasped, swiveling. A tree. Get a grip, princess. Could she creep back out to the beach and make a bonfire to attract a ship or plane before Jack found her? And how the hell would she light it—rubbing sticks? Put her in a city alleyway and she’d know just how to survive. In the wild she couldn’t tell a turtle from a stone.

“Thought I told you not to run.”

She yelped. Where the hell had he come from? A click, and light filled the forest. That, at least, was an improvement. She blinked rapidly. “I walked.”

“You ran.” He rested the flashlight’s beam on the sat phone. “Hard to get that working without the battery.”

“Ugh. You took the battery.” Of course.

He tapped a pocket on his thigh. “As you said, trust is going to be an issue between us.”

White light flashed through the forest. A second later the sky rumbled. “We go this way. You take this.” He passed her the flashlight. “Give me the equipment. Stay close behind me and step where I step. Stomping should scare away snakes and scorpions—and watch for spiderwebs. You’re no use to me dead.”

Dude, I’m no use to you alive, either.

She followed him, stamping until her feet throbbed. The roar of the ocean receded. Something touched her bare neck. She gasped and froze.

He turned. “What is it?” Concern flecked his tone.

She slapped at her skin. It was wet. She exhaled. “Nothing.” Spooked by a drop of rain. More drops rattled on the broad leaves around them.

He grabbed her shoulder and coaxed her around. “Give me the light.”

He eased his fingers under the collar of her jumpsuit, brushing her nape, then scooped his palm around her upper back. She shivered. Light spilled over her shoulder as he searched. He circled his hand to her upper chest, brushing the tops of her breasts, and released her. She stumbled to reclaim her balance.

“All clear.”

“What should I be scared of? What’s the most dangerous thing out here?”

“Humans.” He returned the flashlight and turned back to the jungle. “Me, in particular.”

“That’s a given.” Humans she could deal with. “I mean, what animals, what insects?”

“Snakes, mostly,” he shouted, walking again. “Only half a dozen species will kill you, most of them in the water—cobras, kraits, sea snakes, coral snakes, vipers... If a krait gets you, you have about a fifty-fifty chance—but by the time you get the first symptoms you’re dead. And there’s scorpion fish and stone fish. The sharks you’ve already met. In these jungles a bunch of spiders will give you a painful bite but probably won’t kill you. Same with the scorpions—the sting hurts, but you’ll live.” He looked up into the canopy. “And the slow loris can give you a poisonous nip.”

“The what?” She followed his gaze. “You’re making that one up.”

“Looks like a sloth, but smaller. It probably won’t kill you, unless the bite gets infected.”

“Good to know.”

“The biggest killer’s the mosquito. They kill more people than the others combined.” He held out a hand to help her navigate a boggy patch. She ignored it. “Malaria, dengue fever, Japanese Encephalitis... Don’t worry, princess, we have spray.”

Lightning strobed. Thunder snapped through the sky and shook the ground. Rain pelted her through the thinning canopy. Jack moved faster, crashing through the undergrowth like an elephant, ducking under branches, stopping occasionally to hold them back for her. A large hulk loomed ahead—a rusty tin shed, rain shelling its roof. Their accommodation? Jack charged into a thicket of scrub, and she tumbled through behind him, into air. A path. That was an improvement.

“Nearly there, princess.”

After another hundred feet the path widened into a grassy clearing. Lightning illuminated a wooden cabin with a thatched roof. Jack crossed the lawn and took the steps to the veranda in a single stride. A lizard the size of her arm scampered out of his path and disappeared into the darkness. She shuddered.

“Stay here,” he said as she reached the veranda. He dropped the bags on the doorstep and jogged out into the rain.

She wiped her face with her sleeve, though it was just as wet. They were beside the sea again, but the waves on this side of the island lapped rather than crashed. Two arms of dark land circled a patch of still blackness. A lagoon. She inhaled the fresh, fertile scent of jungle and sea. Rain splattered all around. She’d been in worse prisons, and this one had a guard who was a step up from the correctional officers she was used to—in so many ways.

A motor shuddered to life, a hundred feet away or more. An outboard engine? But he said there’d be no escape until the ransom was paid. A light flickered on above her head, and a yellow glow spilled from a window. A generator. Not a boat. Her shoulders slumped.

Jack returned, walking as calmly as if it were a sunny day. Rain slicked his buzz cut and flowed down his face. He opened an insect screen, unlocked the door and held it open. “Your suite, your highness.”

Low lamps lit a bed scattered with pink frangipani petals and draped in a mosquito net. A window seat was stacked with red and turquoise cushions. On a glass coffee table, a bottle of champagne nested in a bucket. “Good grief.”

“Did I mention we’re on honeymoon?”

She froze. One bed. Her gaze darted to meet his, her stomach flip-flopping.

“Bed’s yours,” he said, quickly, lowering the bags to the floor. “I’ll take the hammock outside.”

She exhaled, switching off the flashlight and dropping it on the window seat. She wouldn’t put it past him to carry out his threat to relieve her of a finger or two—he was evidently a professional—but there was honor in him, too. He wouldn’t take advantage of the situation in that way.

So he’d booked a honeymoon suite—a honeymoon island. Good cover for a woman in her late twenties and a good-looking man not much older. Would someone come to service the suite, replenish their supplies? Could she get a message away—or steal their boat?

He crossed the glossy floorboards, leaving a trail of water, and unlocked another door. “Bathroom is out here.”

A covered deck held a vanity and mirror, but otherwise the “bathroom” was a tropical garden enclosed by a brushwood fence. In the center, a miniature thatched roof covered a shower. Garden lights lit spears of falling rain.

“Check for snakes and bugs before you use the toilet,” he said, indicating a door off the deck. “Hungry?” He brushed past her on his way back inside. She inhaled sharply, to make herself concave.

“Starving.” All that flipping and clenching in her belly must have burned her calories since dinner. Her meal of fish and rice seemed a lifetime ago.

She grabbed a white towel so thick it could have been a quilt, and blotted her hair.

Inside, the capitaine opened a cooler chest on a bench in a tiny kitchen. A rectangular scar nearly the size of a dollar bill dominated his right forearm, a patch of rough, paler skin gouged out of the brown. Hell of a burn.

“Pastrami, blue cheese, gruyere, olives, mussels, lobster...” He stacked several plastic boxes on the bench and carried them to the coffee table, balancing a baguette on top.

Her mouth watered. She didn’t even remember what half those things tasted like. She sat on the window seat, opened the nearest box and stuffed a strip of prosciutto in her mouth. They wouldn’t go to all this effort only to poison her, so what the hell. “This is not what I’d expected,” she mumbled, her mouth lighting up at the salty hit.

“I imagine it’s not. Look, I have nothing against you, this is not personal, so we might as well just...” He frowned.

“You were going to say, ‘Enjoy it.’”

“...eat up. And get drunk, if you like.” He waved a hand over the champagne. “All yours. The ice has melted, I’m afraid.”

“Where did all this stuff come from?”

“It’s part of the deal when you book this island. They supply everything, drop you off and leave you alone. No one will be coming to check on us, if that’s what you’re hoping. All we can do is sit tight.”

Dang. “You’d better pour me a glass, then.”

He swiftly uncorked the champagne, filled a flute and returned the bottle to the bucket.

“You’re not joining me? Are you Muslim?”

“No, just sensible.”

She sipped, and her mouth buzzed with apple and vanilla. She tabled the glass with a clatter. Last time she’d drunk champagne she’d been arrested. Jasper had bought it, to celebrate their biggest con yet. She’d been half-cut on the stuff when the door had fallen in. He’d arranged the whole thing, the alcohol ensuring she wasn’t at her sharpest in the interrogation. While she was in one room naively sticking to their agreed line that they were both innocent, he was in the next, turning federal witness against her in exchange for immunity. Which left her here, drinking expensive champagne with her pirate captor, while Jasper was no doubt screwing waitresses on some Caribbean island and wallowing in the millions of big-bank and fat-corporate money the Feds believed Holly had stashed. If only.

She scratched the spot on her lower back where Laura’s people had lasered off the tattoo of the jerk’s name. Well worth the pain. Hard to believe she’d once been so sucked in by the novelty of someone giving a damn about her—or pretending to. That wouldn’t happen again. Being alone trumped being betrayed.

“Santé,” the capitaine said, raising a bottle of water.

“You’re not what I expected in a pirate.”

He laughed, curtly. “You’re not what I expected in a princess.”

Fair point. “You can’t believe everything you read in the tabloids.”

“Obviously not. I thought you’d parachuted before, for starters.”

Her cheeks chilled. Laura probably had. She popped an olive into her mouth. “Like I say, you can’t believe everything you read.”

He tilted his head, frowning. “There was a video of you doing it, on YouTube.”

Crap. “I’ve never done it with a pirate before. Parachuted, that is.”

He sat opposite, his large frame barely contained by the wicker chair. “I find it strange that you didn’t have protection, going through these waters. Like you were just waiting for some bastard to turn up. You were a kidnapping waiting to happen—you’re lucky it was me.”

“Luckiest day of my life.”

“If you were my daughter, I wouldn’t have allowed it. Or I would have had a contingency plan, at least.”

I am the contingency plan. This was exactly why she’d been hired. Unlike the precious Laura, Holly was expendable. She pretended to chase the olive stone around her mouth, to buy time. No one in the world would notice if she disappeared—not even the parole officer she’d bought off with the senator’s money—and no one would ever believe Laura was connected to such a lowlife. Everything had been clandestine, from the way the senator’s private investigator had sniffed around to find a suitable candidate, to the way he’d tracked her down upon her release, and pounced. We need someone who can melt into the woodwork afterward, who can keep her mouth shut, he’d said. Oh, she’d heard the subtext, as clear as if he’d shouted it: they needed someone who wouldn’t be missed if she drowned, or worse.

“My father is...easily persuaded. He leaves me to do my thing, I leave him to do his. I very rarely see him—I was raised by nannies while he spent most of his time in Washington. He outsourced me.” She grinned, hoping it sounded like the kind of joke a bitter rich girl might make. Of course Laura would have parachuted—and of course she’d have put it on YouTube. What else did Jack know about Laura that Holly didn’t? She’d have to be more careful.

He studied her, his head cocked.

“What?” she said, hovering a piece of pastrami in front of her mouth. Her stomach twisted. She hadn’t slipped up again, had she? She’d read enough about Laura in gossip blogs and social pages to know the heiress rarely saw her father.

He gripped his quads and dropped his gaze to the floor, like something had occurred to him. What had she said? Her gaze rested on his thighs. She could still feel how those muscles had bunched when she’d clutched them on the plane. At the time, she’d been too terrified to process the information. But that...that was a very human reaction. A very male reaction. And smoothing her worry lines—what was that about? Maybe he wasn’t as bulletproof as he appeared.

He shook his head and pushed to his feet, weariness weighing down his eyes. “I’ll check for wildlife and leave you to enjoy your castle, princess. Put this food in the fridge when you’re finished—I’ll switch it on now. And tuck in your mosquito net before you go to sleep. We don’t want them getting a taste for blue blood.”

Minutes later, he shut the door on her, taking the electronics with him. A key turned and scraped as it was removed. Despair clanged in her chest, the way it had every time she’d been locked in her cell for the night. She sipped the champagne and let her head fall back on a cushion, fatigue enveloping her. She closed her eyes. The room swayed like a boat.

How stupid was she to think that getting this job meant her fight was over? Her entire life had been a fight for survival. Ever since she was a kid, knocked around daily by her father, she’d set herself small goals—survive the beating, survive the day, don’t let him see her fear. As long as she kept waking up every morning, she was still winning. Tomorrow she’d figure out a way to survive another day, and then another, then another.

And the quads? The worry lines? There might be a way in under Jack’s armor, after all. She smoothed a finger down the curve of the glass. Maybe it wasn’t time to say goodbye to the old Holly just yet.

Chapter 5

The hammock on the veranda creaked as Rafe settled into it, the sat phone and laptop on his chest. When he was confident the princess wouldn’t try to escape, he’d make his call.

His body ached after days of tension, but tonight sleep would evade him. Until now he hadn’t stopped moving—and hadn’t spent a minute alone. He’d flown to Indonesia under guard, prepared for the mission, tracked the yacht, grabbed the girl. Now he could do nothing but hope—and he wasn’t the hopeful type. While Theo was locked in hell, he was trapped in paradise with a beautiful woman. He’d better not have made a mistake in going quietly.

And then there was the woman. Two innocent lives at stake, because of him. He doubted he needed to worry about her emotional state, at least. She was as tough as any soldier in his company—and as beautiful as Simone. He exhaled, raggedly. So maybe it was possible for him to react to a woman like a normal man did.

Just as long as he didn’t act on it.

Focus. What time was it in Corsica—early evening? His commando team would have just finished eating. Perfect. Michael and Uriel, God rest their broken souls, had at least given him the space to quietly mobilize a backup plan.

He drummed his fingers on the laptop, hearing Laura move around inside the villa. So her father had outsourced her. Like Rafe had done to Theo, after Simone’s death. He could have given up the Legion, become a fisherman on Corsica like Simone’s brothers, or taken over her water sports school. But he carried a darkness inside him and battled it every minute. What if it spilled out one day, when he was alone with Theo?

Instead, he’d sold their home, closed her business, left Theo with his mother-in-law and embarked on ever more dangerous missions, on communication blackouts for months at a time—Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Guiana, Somalia, Cambodia... Hiding. Hiding from the guilt, hiding from a vulnerable little boy he cared about so much that it hurt, smack in the chest. Telling himself Theo was better off with a grandmother who knew how to show him love than a messed-up father who didn’t know what the hell to do with him.

It’d been the same with Simone—he might have loved her, whatever that meant to someone who’d been trained to hate. But if so, he’d been too damn scared to let down his guard. He didn’t understand normal human behavior. Why the hell she’d been attracted to him in the first place, he’d never know. They’d only married because she got pregnant. A few years later she’d had a brain aneurysm. By the time word reached him, in a desert in East Africa, the funeral had been and gone. He never got a chance to redeem himself. He rolled in his fingers the twin gray-green amulets that hung from his neck, each on a leather cord. His, and Simone’s. A warning not to break any more women’s and children’s hearts.

A mosquito whined in his ear. He slapped his face, and the squeal muted. He hadn’t been there for Theo then, and he hadn’t been there when Gabriel’s men had come in the night. He’d been en route back to Corsica after wrapping up a mission in Mali as they were sneaking his boy out of the country.

Rafe had walked into Theo’s grand-maman’s house, expecting his son to run and greet him, and found instead the terrified woman bound and gagged and three soldiers waiting to escort him away. How long had Gabriel been watching them? Rafe clutched the phone. Gabriel’s instructions were clear—if Rafe involved anyone else, he’d never see his son again.

He’d have to construct his contingency plan carefully. If Gabriel had contacts in the Legion—which seemed likely, given his intelligence on Rafe—they’d notice if several legionnaires suddenly took leave. But one? It was a gamble, but not as big a risk as doing this without backup.

Water poured off the roof, drops ricocheting up into the hammock. It was hot enough for him not to care about being wet, though that in itself was a danger. He peered out at the rain. He couldn’t risk calling from here—the less she knew the better. He dashed to the shed they’d passed earlier and shoved the door open. Something scuttled into a corner. It was a storage bunker and guardhouse, with gardening equipment, basic aquatic gear, a set of bunks. He inspected a roll of thick plastic—it’d do for a waterproof laptop case, later. Rain drilled on the tin roof. He laid out the comms gear and reinstated the batteries. Laura had been updating a blog regularly, with photos, so she had to have a strong satellite connection. After a few minutes, he figured out how to hook up the laptop to the internet connection via the sat phone, after first checking it wasn’t sending a GPS signal. It’d be suicide to make the call directly from the sat phone—whoever was paying the bills would see the number he dialed. He drummed his fingers on the laptop casing. A Skype call to a landline, using his personal account? Yes. All they’d be able to discern was that the sat phone was used in the Indonesian region.

He laid the sat phone outside the hut, where it could catch the signal, and dragged the USB cable just inside the shed door. After firing up Skype and disabling the video, he dialed his base. He asked for Flynn in English, in his best attempt at an Australian accent, shouting over the rain while muffling his voice. Not that his lieutenant ever got calls from home. After a few reconnects and holds, a gruff voice came on the line.

“Allard.”

Merde. Of all the guys to answer the phone. “Can I speak to Lieutenant Flynn?”

“Non.”

“Caporal Armstrong?”

“Non.”

“Capitaine Angelito?” For good measure.

“Non.”

Rafe pressed his lips together. He couldn’t go right through his commando team. Maybe they were all out training—or drinking, more likely. One more. “Sergent Levanne?”

“Non.”

“Where are they?”

“Who is this?”

“Flynn’s brother. It’s an emergency.” Rafe knew his lieutenant didn’t have family, but Allard probably wouldn’t. He wasn’t a guy anyone took into his confidence.

The line went quiet. Finally, Allard spoke. “Guiana—South America. Deployment. Can’t be contacted.”

Putain. “Camopi?”

“Oui...yes.”

Rafe winced. Of all the Legion outposts the team could be in, they picked Camopi, a hundred clicks upriver from nowhere? Even if Rafe got a message through, and Flynn could extract himself, it’d take forty-eight hours at least for him to get to Asia. “When will he return?”

A pause. Rafe pictured Allard’s I-don’t-give-a-shit eye roll. “Weeks. Months.”

“Thanks, mate.”

Rafe ended the call and leaned against the tin wall of the hut, clutching his temples. He could send a coded message to Flynn, over the internet, but it might not be picked up for weeks.

He was on his own.

* * *

Rafe woke to sun on his face. The insect calls had given way to birdsong. Had to be late. He sat up in the hammock, planting his feet on the floor to stop the world swinging, and pushed away the mosquito net. His mouth was as dry as the white sand on the beach a few meters away.

He pushed himself up, cricked his back and knocked on the villa door. “You awake, princess?”

No answer. A tingle of suspicion crept up his neck.

Another knock. “Princess?”

He pulled the key from his shorts pocket and unlocked the door. The bed was empty, the shutters open. A gauzy curtain sailed up before an open window, an insect screen tapping on the frame. The door to the bathroom was ajar. No one there.

Damn, he usually didn’t sleep that solidly. Years of commando training had him bolting out of bed at any suspicious noise, his instinct honed to recognize risk even as he slept. How could he have missed her leaving the villa? He hadn’t had a chance to do a proper scout of the island—what if a boat had managed to get through the infamous network of reefs and currents, and she was right now waving it down?

He jogged out onto the veranda and spotted movement in the lagoon, beyond the jetty that jutted into the azure water. She was swimming for it? No, her long, languid strokes were parallel to shore. She was...doing laps. His muscles unwound. He stepped inside, yanked a bottle of water out of the fridge and chugged it until his throat relaxed. Probably trying to keep in shape for her next photo shoot. He ripped off a handful of baguette and wandered back outside. She’d turned, heading to shore, the low sun lighting up lean, lightly tanned arms as they circled through the water.

When she reached the shallows she stood, her body glistening as she rose, barely covered by a bikini. Breasts, legs, curves.

“Mon Dieu.”

She looked up, straight into his eyes. Damn, he’d said that aloud. As she walked—sashayed—to the villa she combed her hands through her short hair.

“Not scared of sharks, then?” He deserved the Légion d’honneur for sounding that nonchalant.

She shrugged smooth, freckled shoulders. “What are the chances of getting attacked twice in twenty-four hours?”

“High, around here. I’d rather not have my treasure stolen from me when I’ve only just secured it.”

“Who says you’ve secured me? I could have slit your throat while you slept.”

He leaned against a pole and took another swig from the bottle. “With a bread knife? Might have taken a while.”

“I’m persistent.”

“You would have got lonely here.”

“I’d have coped.”

Up close, her body looked strong, toned—not as delicate as she appeared in her perfume commercials. The body of a woman who’d never worked a day in her life, who had all day to spend in a gym. And what couldn’t be fixed by a life of leisure could be fixed by a surgeon. There’d been speculation of a nose job, lip implants. The surgeon must have been good. She looked wholly natural. Her nose was straight and her lips were full and pink and...and not something you should be looking at. She strolled past, close enough that he could smell the salty freshness of her.

He allowed himself a glance at her back. Strong shoulders curved down to a narrow waist. The bikini rode low on her hips, revealing the tiny V that only belonged to a woman with a good derrière. A ragged scar was carved into her lower back, in a looping formation. He narrowed his eyes. Not a scar.

“Who is Jasper?”

Her head snapped around, her eyes wide. “What?”

“Your tattoo. Former tattoo.”

She twisted, straining to look, as if it was the first she’d heard of it. “Someone I’d rather forget.”

“The scar’s still pink. Someone you decided to forget recently?”

“Uh, yeah. I’d been meaning to get rid of it for a while.”

“Your boyfriend’s name was Logan, not Jasper. I read about the breakup. You’d been with him nearly ten years.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“If my girlfriend had a tattoo of her former lover on her body, I wouldn’t want her leaving it there for a decade.”

“Maybe that was why he dumped me. Bit slow on the uptake, Logan was.”

“Story was that you dumped him.”

“Like I say, you can’t believe everything you read in the media. I’m going to try out this shower.”

She walked inside, the screen door snapping shut after her. He watched until she faded into the dark interior. Jasper. He’d read everything about her he could find on the internet while preparing for the mission—and there was a lot—and not once had a Jasper been mentioned. Rafe would have remembered the name—there was a Jasper in his company, a shifty guy he’d long ago learned to keep an eye on.

Laura and Logan had been America’s golden couple. They’d been together since she was a teenager, so Jasper had to have come before him. A first crush, a childhood sweetheart? But why wait so long to erase a youthful mistake, when she had all the time and money in the world, and a widely reported fixation on her body image? He crushed the empty water bottle. Parachuting, Jasper. It didn’t add up.

* * *

Holly shut the bathroom door and rushed to the mirror to inspect her back. Hell. The scar had sunburned and the skin around it had tanned, so the letters stood out in sharp relief, pink on brown. They hadn’t looked so obvious a month ago—the scar had been fading into her pale skin. No wonder the damn thing had started itching. She should never have nicked Laura’s bikini—she should have stuck with her own cheap one-piece. Jack wouldn’t have known it was from the Walmart bargain bin.

Had he bought her explanation? She walked to the shower and turned it on. A hiss spat out, by the cabin wall. She yelped and sprang back. A gas cylinder firing up, not a snake. Sheesh, she was jumpy.

“Everything okay in there?” Jack shouted, over the fence.

“Fine.”

Scanning for peepholes, she stripped off the bikini and stepped under the stream of water. Or would voyeurism be a good sign? Not that Jack seemed the pervert type. A guy like that would have women lining up to strip for him, though he’d sure taken a good look at her body just now.

She closed her eyes and dropped her head under the water. The sickly sweet scent of jasmine wafted around. Bliss. Her first shower in weeks. Expensive-looking toiletries were lined up on a stand. Might as well use them—someone was paying good money for this place, someone who wouldn’t be happy if the ransom wasn’t paid. And neither would Jack.

What was his deal? He seemed so confident, yet occasionally desperation crept into his voice, or his expressions. Reading people was her strength—borne of necessity—but she couldn’t get a fix on him. His tense conversations with the men at the plane, hiding the comms equipment, the things he’d said—no escape for either of us... He obviously wasn’t the ringleader here. His bearing, the way he’d protected her from the pilot and treated her with respect...that suggested a man with principles. She didn’t buy that he was doing this for the money, so what else would drive a seemingly decent man to kidnap?

One thing she’d confirmed she read right—he was physically attracted to her. His eyes had sparked when she’d walked back from the beach. He’d studied her head to toe. She might have been in prison for most of her twenties, but she hadn’t forgotten that look in a man’s eyes. She’d exploited it in many a bank employee and rich asshole, under Jasper’s instructions. If the FBI investigator who’d interrogated her had been a man rather than a sixty-year-old woman, she might have had a better chance. Jack might not be an easy target either, but if she could get him to fall for her, he’d be less likely to kill her when things went to hell.

And just how was she going to do that? The man was made of granite.

She smoothed conditioner on her hair—that alone was more of a luxury than she’d allowed herself in years. She’d been so disgusted with herself for the cons she’d pulled with Jasper, trading on her looks and her youth and her red lips, that until her Laura makeover she’d renounced every vanity except ChapStick. Some of the jobs she’d done for him had required more than flirting. And though she’d never crossed the line from the kind of physical intimacy Jasper called “innocent” and “harmless” to sleeping with the marks—thank God—each time she’d be left feeling nauseous and dirty. She’d take a long shower—just like this—and scrub raw every part of her body, wishing she could scour her soul. But then Jasper would act so grateful and pump up her confidence, and before she knew it she’d be doing his dirty work again. My brains, and your body, babe—unbeatable. She shuddered. Just the thought of that smooth voice... The femme fatale, they’d called her at trial, the scarlet woman who’d lured and corrupted poor, defenseless Jasper. If only.

This time she’d be using her body to save her butt, not to earn acceptance. She closed her eyes and let the conditioner run off. One last con and then she’d become an honest woman. She could be that girl again—she had to.

Chapter 6

As the day heated up, the birdsong subsided to the odd call or squawk and even the insects muted. By late morning Rafe was sitting on the veranda, leaning against a pole, his eyes going screwy as he stared at the brilliant water of the lagoon. Staying still was eating him up from the inside. Somewhere out there his son was being subjected to God knew what and all Rafe could do was wait for the sign the ransom was paid, wait for a boat to collect them.

Too many what-ifs. Too much waiting. Too many troubling messages coming from Laura, telling him something wasn’t right. Too much reliance on other people. The only people he relied on were his commando team—and he wouldn’t trust some of them to babysit Theo’s pet turtle.

Had Gabriel already started Theo’s training? The thought socked him in the gut. The beatings, the emotional abuse, the humiliation—an unbearable onslaught that would flip the boy’s understanding of right and wrong, and leave him convinced no one gave a damn about him but his commander. How quickly could Gabriel brainwash him into believing his papa didn’t care, that he was all alone, with no choice but to succumb?

Rafe closed his eyes. Theo would know that wasn’t true, wouldn’t he? Rafe hadn’t prayed since his English missionary-school days. But, God, if you’re up there, give me another chance to be a father. He’d held out longer than most when he’d been inducted into the Lost Boys. But he’d already been toughened up by a lifetime of forced independence—trucked from refugee camp to refugee camp as the soldiers closed in, wishing always that at the next stop he’d find the parents he had no memory of, he’d find out where he came from and where he belonged. Until the militia had taken him and Gabriel, they’d survived by polishing shoes in villages near the camps, mostly for food or coins, but sometimes in exchange for lessons in English—the language of movies and escape and dreams. They’d vowed to never leave the other alone in that hell.

No wonder Gabriel sought revenge and had taken the only thing that mattered to Rafe. Deep inside, Rafe could still feel the hatred and violence the militia had beaten into him, like a core of molten lava. Every day he fought to keep it dormant. The last time he’d lost control, had allowed himself to retreat into that dark place of numbness where he could disengage from his conscience and do unspeakable things, an innocent woman and child had died. More than twenty years on, he could still smell the spilled blood, could still feel the anguish and self-disgust that had ripped through his chest when he’d come back into himself, when he’d realized what he’d become. It had turned him into a coward who broke a promise to his only friend.

Oh yes, he knew exactly what fueled Gabriel. The one thing that separated them was that Rafe had found a way to control the demon, by shutting himself off from anger and fear—the dangerous emotions that led to the dark place. If other feelings were shut off at the same time, so be it.

“Don’t suppose you have any cards?” In the hammock, Laura linked her arms behind her head.

Doing nothing would do his head in. He never let his company rest for too long. Rest invited doubt, bickering, impotence. What would he do if his men were sitting here, instead of the heiress? Article five of the Code of Honor: Soldat d’élite, tu t’entraînes avec rigueur, tu as le souci constant de ta forme physique. As an elite soldier, you train rigorously and you take constant care of your physical form.

“Do you run?” he said.

“Run?”

“As in jog, sprint...”

“Have been known to. Is this you making light conversation?”

“Get some running gear on.” He began yanking on his socks and combat boots.

She swung her legs onto the floorboards and took him in with blue eyes so bright they were almost painful to look at. “Seriously? It’s a gazillion degrees out there.”

Which made running an even better prospect. “It’ll be cooler under the canopy. And the snakes will be sleepy.”

“Isn’t there some law against torture of prisoners? The Geneva Convention or something?”

“Only if we were at war.” He tied the lace on his second boot and leaped up, welcoming the energy sparking in his veins.

“Some might argue that we are.”

He marched inside, grabbed her sneakers and backpack and threw two bottles of water in it. Then another two, followed by nut bars and chocolate, though it’d probably melt after a minute. As he stepped back outside, he yanked off his T-shirt. No point creating dirty laundry.

He sensed her stillness before he saw it. She was staring at his chest, her mouth open. What was it—a spider? His gaze darted down, his throat drying out. Nothing amiss.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not.” She spoke too quickly, casting her eyes down. Pink flushed her face, from neck to forehead. Because he’d removed his shirt? Oh. A grin tugged at his mouth. He clamped down on it. She hadn’t struck him as the blushing type. She was more I’ve seen it all, and I don’t give a damn. Perhaps it wasn’t just his body that was responding in inappropriate ways.

All the more reason to run it off. He tossed her sneakers over. He’d stashed the comms gear in a place she wouldn’t dare go hunting, but he’d learned the hard way not to let her out of his sight.

“Put on sunscreen. And a baseball cap. I don’t want you dying of sunstroke before the day’s out.”

She leaned down and pulled on a sneaker. “Oui, Capitaine.”

His stomach knotted. One offhand comment from Uriel and now she had a clue to Rafe’s identity. If the guy wasn’t already dead, Rafe would have wrung his neck. It wouldn’t take a genius to narrow down the options—a non-French native with a French rank. He jumped off the veranda.

She stood. The blush had settled, leaving her skin the color of pale honey and just as smooth. Her blue tank top intensified her eyes, and her frayed denim shorts ended far too soon. He turned his back on her.

“Hurry it up,” he said.

Footsteps padded down the steps. “Where are we going?”

“A trail circles the island.” Recon plus a workout. That should stop his mind straying to places it shouldn’t.

He set off down the hard-baked path behind the villa, going slowly for Laura’s sake, though his body urged him to push harder, to the point physical effort consumed thought. As a child soldier he would spend weeks on the move, hauling a rifle, his legs whipped if he slowed. His Legionnaire training had him marching eighty kilometers from the Pyrenees almost to Carcassonne in full patrol gear, and then every year the two hundred kilometers from one end of Corsica to the other with a fifty-kilogram backpack. After Simone died, he would spend his rare leave days running near-marathon distances. Anything to get out of that haunted house with a silent son and a mother-in-law whose stoicism thinly veiled her heartbreak. Losing a child had almost broken her. Losing the grandson who’d kept her functioning would be the death of her.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“Hey, Usain Bolt, slow down. Some of us like to breathe occasionally.”

“You go in front,” he said, hanging to the left to let her pass. He stared at the back of her head, forbidding his gaze from trailing down her body again. He hadn’t even looked at a woman that way since Simone. Their relationship had been a failed experiment, and that part of him had died with her. Or so he’d thought.

After his upbringing, he should have known better than to drag anyone into the twisted debris of his life. Not only had he dragged a woman into it, but a child, too. He wouldn’t let it happen again. He’d rescue Theo, then spend the rest of his life doing nothing but protecting him—even if it meant disappearing with him and leaving behind the Legion and Simone’s family. He might never be able to show Theo the love his mother had, but he could keep the boy safe, which was more than Rafe’s own parents had been able to do.

He frowned. But a kernel of hope was still buried deep in his chest—that he could placate Gabriel, that Theo could return to Simone’s family, where the boy was safe and loved, and Rafe could go back to the Legion, where he could do the most good—and the least harm. Was he deceiving himself?

He settled into the heiress’s pace. She wasn’t tall, but her strong, regular stride was comfortable enough to follow. As they ran, she seemed to relax, as if she was equally relieved to do something physical.

The trail was reasonably clear, at least. Whoever owned the island must employ someone to keep nature from reclaiming it, though gnarled tree roots snaked across at intervals. Intended more for romantic strolling than hard running, no doubt. The jungle smelled of overripe fruit, rotting leaves, rich dirt. Nothing like the deserts and plains he’d grown up in. He closed his mouth, breathing solely through his nose to let the scent wash through him, as if it could clean the muck from his brain.

The jungle eased out into a clearing. Laura bent double and clutched her thighs. He hurriedly pulled focus from the bottom of her shorts, which had ridden up almost to her butt cheeks. Merde.

“I need a rest,” she panted.

“We’ve just started.” He lowered the bag to the ground. “Two minutes. Have a drink.”

As she recovered, he dropped to the dirt and started push-ups, willing his muscles to burn, keeping a silent count in French. A couple of hundred followed by the same in abdominaux at the next stop would make up for the leisurely jog.

“You’re a freak,” she said, still breathless.

You have no idea.

* * *

Holly’s damn eyes wouldn’t stop staring. It was an anatomy lesson, at the least. Muscles pumped and rippled across Jack’s slick back like some kind of hydraulic machine. His biceps looked like they would burst like balloons, though he was jerking up and down so quickly she struggled to get a fix on him without bobbing her own head in time. Two greenish stones swung from leather cords around his neck, bouncing against his chest.

Just watching was exhausting. She stretched her arm in front of her and bent back her hand to ease the ache in her forearm. What was that from—holding onto the inflatable last night? Wow, this time yesterday she’d been sailing across the ocean, congratulating herself that for once something good had happened to her, and now she was on a deserted island with He-Man. One day this would be a story for her grandchildren.

Grandchildren. Hardly. She’d have to have children first, and no child deserved to share her life. And given that the only man she’d been stupid enough to love had used and betrayed her, she wasn’t gagging to start dating. Loneliness was a small price to pay for safety and freedom.

No, she’d stick to her plan, pirate kidnapping or not. In the new life she’d create, she wouldn’t be trailer trash fresh out of prison. Hell, she might even shave some numbers off her age—wipe away the lost years. She’d rent a cabin by the sea twenty miles from Nowheresville and live like a hermit. She’d find an honest job to pay the bills, and spend her free time fishing and sailing and watching movies, needing no one else to make her happy, and letting no one ruin that happiness.

Finally—finally—the capitaine sprang to his feet, barely sweating. She might as well be showering in hers. The air was so thick you could almost grab a handful and squeeze out the water, like a sponge. So much for the seduction act. She felt as sexy as a slug.

“After you,” he said, zipping up the bag.

He wasn’t even having a drink? She’d sunk half a bottle. She set out on the trail, scanning the path for snakes. He was military, no doubt, but not here in an official capacity—she’d seen no gun, he wore no uniform. A mercenary? Maybe he was part of some international security company, the kind former soldiers joined to earn big money.

There was at least one thing that might tempt a man like that to defy orders. If she enticed him to break a few rules, would his tight self-control begin to disintegrate? Sometimes, picking at a fraying end could loosen an impossible knot.

Determined as she was to leave her old skill set behind, right now it was her only weapon. Her idea of lighting a bonfire on the beach last night had come to nothing when she’d failed to find matches or a lighter. Besides, she’d fallen into a deep sleep while waiting for him to doze off, and had woken well after dawn—her best sleep in months. She’d felt oddly secure with him on guard. How dumb was that?

Throwing herself at him would be too obvious. The men she’d seduced on the job had either been so unaccustomed to female attention they couldn’t resist, or so arrogant they didn’t question it. Jack wasn’t arrogant or insecure. His confidence came from deep within, but he had troubles down there, too. And with troubles came weaknesses.

The path began to climb. After a few minutes her breath became ragged. The canopy lightened up and the air temperature seemed to surge with each step. She slowed to a walk, clutching her sides.

“I’m done.”

“Good timing.” He gestured to a rustic park bench, just off the path.

“You think of everything.”

As she stumbled over the crest of the hill, the lagoon spread out below them, a pool of turquoise spilling into a mass of liquid sapphire.

“Wow,” she breathed. “You really do think of everything.”

“Sit,” he said. “Drink. Eat.”

He unzipped the bag and handed her water and a nut bar. As she unwrapped it, he glugged from his bottle, then scuffed around on a patch of long grass behind the bench.

He met her quizzical look. “Checking for snakes.”

Evidently satisfied, he dropped, rolled onto his back and tucked into swift, noiseless stomach crunches. Oh, good grief. She pried her eyes away from his abs and gratefully flopped onto the seat, sucking in the sea view instead. The line marking the horizon was fuzzier than it used to be—her eyesight had shortened in prison. Too much time staring at cinder-block walls.

She bit into the nut bar. Maybe she could seek out a spot like this in her new life and live on fish and freedom. People just brought problems—especially people with washboard stomachs.

After Jack had done about a thousand sit-ups, he sat on the other end of the seat, the musky scent of dirt and exertion wafting from him. She sneakily inhaled. What was she, a cave woman?

“You know you don’t have to impress me, right?”

He scoffed. “I don’t want to impress you. I just want to watch you. I mean, need to watch you.” She raised her eyebrow. “Guard you.” He clenched his fists.

Oh yeah, that armor was chinking. “Looks to me like you’re punishing yourself. Guilty conscience?”

“I’m keeping fit.”

“It’s more than that.” She knew that urge for physical oblivion. In prison, hard exercise was the only thing that had blotted out the anger. She’d run around the yard until she was emptied of everything—every thought, every regret—counting her steps to stop herself from thinking, like a meditation. “You’ve got issues.”

“Only Americans talk about ‘issues.’ The rest of us just call it life.”

“You kidnapped the daughter of one of the most powerful men in America. I’m thinking your issues are bigger than most.”

He studied her. Flecks of caramel swam in his chocolate irises. “And you’ve been captured by a bloodthirsty pirate. Also not the kind of problem normal people face.”

“Ever met a normal person?”

“I married a normal person.”

His bitter tone suggested he was no longer married. Nothing on his ring finger, and no band of pale skin. “How’d that work out for you?”

He shrugged, and turned to the view. His profile was so finely etched she had an urge to sketch him—and she couldn’t draw a passable stick figure.

“She have trouble dealing with the whole pirate thing? Wanted you to settle down, take a nine-to-five job, get a regular paycheck, take the kids to their ball games instead of going marauding with your wooden-legged pirate pals?”

His jaw set in stone. He stood. “Break’s over.”

Okay, that had struck a nerve. Was it regret that brought the hard edge to his eye, or anger? It didn’t look like heartbreak. She sipped her water. Maybe he did have kids who played sports on Saturdays. What would make a seemingly decent guy—a guy some woman had loved—do something like this? And what would trigger him to lose his nerve and let Holly go? She pushed up to standing. Press the right buttons in the right order and she might just find out.

The path curled into the jungle and narrowed. As she ran, leaves brushed her arms, and the air filled with rustling and scratching. She hadn’t had much use for trail running in California, but she’d imagined dusty, quiet paths. Here, it felt like a million insects and other writhing creatures were hyped up and waiting for the signal to swarm her.

Behind her, Jack’s boots pounded a rhythm that matched her footfalls. How long did she have to get to the bottom of him, before the ruse was blown? And what would he do then—kill her? She had to start with dissolving some of the tension between them—or, even better, cranking it up.

A force wrapped around her stomach, yanking her backward. She squealed. Jack’s arms were circling her, lifting her off her feet, his hot chest hard up against her back. Her nerves buzzed, even as her heart pummeled.

“Watch where you’re going, princess,” he growled.

He eased her down, his hands coming to rest either side of her waist. A web hung across the path, with a fist-sized spider in the middle, its hairy legs raised to strike. Her cheeks prickled. Another step and it would have sunk into her right eye.

“Is that dangerous?” she squeaked.

“Wouldn’t have killed you, but its bite hurts like death. And you don’t want to risk an infection out here.”

She exhaled, trying to force her body to relax. Between the sudden stop, the spider and the body contact, little explosions were spreading through her nerves. They skirted around the tree the web was strung from, Jack keeping a hand on her side until they were clear.

“Drink,” he ordered, handing her a fresh bottle.

She took it blindly.

“Come on, princess. You can fight off two six-foot pirates, but a little spider scares you?”

Oh, she’d pretty well forgotten the spider—not so much the shock of Jack’s body smacking into hers. That body was the far bigger danger, in all sorts of ways. She forced down a mouthful of water and handed back the bottle.

“You go first,” he said. “And concentrate. It might be a snake next time, and I’d rather not be sucking venom out of you.”

Whoa. Lucky her face was already about as pink as it got, because that... Damn, who was seducing who here?

After another few steps the foliage cleared. They were on a cliff top, overlooking a sparkling cove nestled between steep bluffs. A boat was moored in it, close enough to make out the faces of the three Asian men aboard. One looked up, straight at her. Holy shit, this was her chance. She inhaled, ready to scream.

Chapter 7

Jack spun Holly and captured her in a bruising kiss, his hands pinning her neck. Laughter floated up from the boat. He was making them look like the honeymooners they were supposed to be.

She scratched at his back and kicked out, but he drove her backward. Her spine hit a tree, the shock spinning out through her torso. He flattened her, one arm pinning her right elbow to her side and enclosing her left wrist, immobilizing her upper body, while his other huge hand held her head in place like a neck brace. His eyes were focused on the boat below them, scoping out the men.

If he could play dirty, so could she. She drove her knee toward his groin but he turned his hip, deflecting it. He hooked a foot around her calf and captured it, leaving her balanced on one leg. She tried to wriggle, but she was stuck to him like glue. Her lungs stung. With her one free hand she clawed his waist, regretting her stubby fingernails. His skin flinched but he held firm.

She bit his lip, hard. He grunted. Warm metallic liquid seeped into her mouth. He pushed against her lips until she could do nothing but concentrate on inhaling desperately through her nose. His eyes were so close to hers, so fierce, that she shut her own. The spicy, sweaty scent of him mixed with the ripe aroma of the jungle and the fresh hit of sea air. She felt woozy, like she would pass out.

An outboard motor spat and blatted into life. Damn. The sound crescendoed, then faded, and still Jack kept her pinned. As disappointment coursed through her, her muscles relaxed. She became aware of his strength and heat, his hips driven into her, his arm flattening her breasts, his hand cradling her throat. She couldn’t move, but he wasn’t hurting her. Fight me, and I will win. No shit.

Okay, Capitaine, you win this battle. But I’ll win the war. She inhaled deeply through her nose, softened her lips against his, sinking into him, returning the kiss as she flattened her palm onto his hip, her fingers splayed over thick, tight muscles. Time she seized some control.

The rattle of the boat became hard to discern. Abruptly, he stumbled back, wiping blood from his lip. She slid down the tree trunk to the ground, panting.

His dark eyes were on fire. “Not the kind of men you want to attract, princess.”

“And you are?” She could barely spit out the words.

“Remember how I threatened to hurt you? I might show mercy. These men? They wouldn’t.”

“Who were they?”

“Pirates. The real thing.”

“How do you know that?”

“You see any fishing rods? Around here, the locals don’t go boating for pleasure. Especially not with an AK-47. My guess is they were scoping us out.”

Her eyes widened. A gun? “Can they get onto the island?”

“If they’ve got this close in a boat that small, they’re familiar with the currents and reefs. But the only place to land anything bigger than a surfboard is the lagoon right on high tide, and the entrance to it is dangerous. And they’ve lost the element of surprise.”

“I thought you said this was a honeymoon island? Being kidnapped by pirates isn’t my idea of romance. No offense.”

“Usually they post armed guards here. We waived it.”

“We? Who’s ‘we’?”

He pressed his lips together. They were flushed dark red, with a crack of scarlet where she’d bitten him. She licked her own lips, tangy with his blood. So now she was a vampire cavewoman?

“We need to be vigilant. If they’ve figured out we have no security guards, they may come back.” Parallel lines stamped into the skin between his eyes. “Let’s keep running. I want to get around the island to check they’re gone, before it gets too hot.”

Sweat trickled down her cleavage. The air got hotter than this? He strode up and swung a hand at her. She flinched, shielding her head, her pulse racing.

Silence. The blow didn’t come.

She shut her eyes tight. Idiot. Of course it didn’t.

“I’m not going to hit you, princess, just help you up.”

“Oh, right.” She swallowed as she uncurled and took his outstretched hand, willing hers not to shake. The kiss had thrown her off balance, that was all. He lifted her, so effortlessly she felt weightless.

“For the record, I wouldn’t strike a woman, or force myself on one.” He didn’t release her hand right away, just held her there, her face inches from his collarbone, his breath grazing her hair. “That was a unique situation.”

She lifted her chin. Seize some control. It brought their faces awkwardly close, but she squared her focus on his eyes. His expression was so serious she was at risk of melting. She smiled, slyly, ignoring the dart of guilt over milking his concern. “I thought you couldn’t care less about returning me in one piece.”

He lowered his brow, glowering. “Depends how well you behave.”

And if she was playing him, why did that look make her heart skip like a stone across a pond?

* * *

They ran for another half hour, far enough around the island to satisfy Rafe that the pirates were gone, for now. He concentrated on following Laura’s stride, holding himself back as the track descended to their drop zone then looped toward the lagoon. You’re punishing yourself, she’d said. Maybe so. All he knew for sure was that he could lose himself in physical exertion, the same way he used to lose himself in sex.

Sex. Holding Laura against that tree, his body had begged to mutiny and seek that escape again. If the perfume she hawked in those ads was anything near as intoxicating as her own scent, the men of America were in trouble. What did she call it? Laura Hyland—Spark, or something.

“Pick up the pace, princess,” he said. This was the price of easy running—thoughts found a way in.

Laura stumbled on a root. He shot out a hand and grabbed her arm. She shook it off and kept running. He’d expected a far more fragile woman than this. She was way out of her comfort zone, with her life in danger, and yet strength radiated from her. It fed into every word she spoke, her every gesture—as if she expected the worst from life and knew how to twist it to her advantage. How did her breeding prepare her for that?

But she’d flinched when he’d gone to pull her up. He knew that instinct—as did everyone who’d known violence too well as a child.

His gaze wandered up her body, lithe and relaxed, the muscles in her legs clenching rhythmically with her easy stride. She’d known fear. At whose hands—Logan’s, her father’s or Jasper’s, whoever he was? Fear had created the tough shell around her. And what was underneath? Whenever she met his gaze, it was unflinching. Until that moment, she hadn’t let down her guard, her wit hadn’t wavered. A sharp brain inside a goddess’s body.

He forced his eyes away, focusing over her head onto the path in front. Too much time and energy to think, that was his problem. And his lack of backup was eating him up. For now, he had no choice but to go along with Gabriel’s plan. In the meantime, he’d figure out just what Laura’s game was, and what kind of threat it posed. Recon and surveillance. Not his preferred mission, but if it kept him out of a flag-draped box...

He sprinted the last fifty meters to the villa, passing Laura as she jogged to a halt. He brought them each a can of cola from the fridge.

Her cheeks were crimson and she clutched her side. Maybe he shouldn’t have forced someone who wasn’t used to hard running to go that far, in the heat. He could go again, twice.

She opened the can, took a swig and planted it on a picnic table on the lawn. “What I really need is a swim.” She slipped off her shoes, hopping, already heading to the water. “Coming? Or are you scared of sharks—or rock fish?” Her shorts and tank followed, leaving just her underwear, transparent from sweat. Lucky he only had her back to contend with.

“Stone fish,” he corrected, numbly. Oh yeah, he could do with a whole lot of cold water right now.

She walked in ahead of him, her curves swaying against the pull of the water, then dived, her round derrière popping up for an instant before it disappeared. He strode in up to his chest, before she could surface and see the effect she was having on his body. The run had charged him up, that was all—and one part of him in particular was refusing to forget their encounter on the cliff. He prided himself on professionalism, so what in hell was going on there?

She broke the clear film of water and stood, facing him. She might as well not be wearing a bra. He could use more of that cola, but no way could he get out now. She splashed him. “Loosen up, Capitaine.”

“You’re supposed to be afraid of me.”

She splashed him again. He half expected the water to sizzle as it hit his body. “Is that in the pirate rule book?” She stroked lazily past him, the water skimming her back, her hips, her ass, her legs. “Look, it’s obvious that for some reason you’re as happy to be here as I am. This battle isn’t between the two of us, is it? So relax.”

So that was it. She wasn’t afraid because she was waiting—expecting—to be bailed out. Was that what life with money and power was like—Daddy would bail you out of any situation, even a kidnapping? That accounted for her nonchalance, if not the other intriguing questions he wanted answers to. Okay, mademoiselle, I’ll play along. He splashed her back and she grinned, her eyes gleaming as blue as the water.

He dived, the cool hit a tonic for his edginess. As he surfaced his lip stung where she’d bitten it. He touched it. No more blood. It’d been torture to ram his body against hers for so long, to press his lips to hers, having already wondered what that would feel like.

“I gave you a pretty good fat lip,” she said, twisting and sliding around him like a seal. “I’d say sorry, but it’s kinda part of the deal.”

He shrugged. “It was a smart move.”

“It didn’t work.”

“Of course it didn’t.”

“Race you to the jetty.”

She duck-dived and pulled away with the same languid strokes he’d watched that morning. He was surprised she still had energy for it. He powered through the silky water. As he neared, she upped her stroke rate. He matched it, and put on a surge of his own, glad to stretch a different set of muscles. Tension dissolved from his chest for the first time in days. They sure looked like a couple of carefree newlyweds.

They reached the end of the jetty together. “Check out the fish,” she gasped, treading water.

A school of angel fish flitted under their feet, with parrot fish circling farther down. The water was clear as vodka right to the grains of sand far below, a break in the coral that bloomed and swayed around them. Yep, it was goddamn beautiful. She was goddamn beautiful.

“Oh, look!” She touched his shoulder. “Turtle!”

He dived out of her reach, eyes stinging against the salty water, and surfaced several meters away. Turtles. Theo was crazy about turtles.

And Rafe was just plain crazy. This was crazy. Tu agis sans passion. What the hell kind of game was he playing? He needed time out—from her.

“Do you think there’s snorkel gear?” she said. “I’ve love a closer look.”

“You know this isn’t really a honeymoon?”

“Are you always this dour?”

“I’m heading in. I need to eat.” And get my head straight.

“I’ll stay out for a bit. Save some for me, honey.”

* * *

Damn. She’d struck out.

Holly starfished in the water, eyes closed against the high sun, her body rising and falling with the lagoon’s gentle swell. If only the movement would unknot her stomach. Just when she thought she was gaining ground, he’d pulled away.

Where could she get some of his self-control? Even in the water her body throbbed, from the run, and from the shock of feeling nearly every muscle in his body taut against her—and he seemed to have more muscles than regular people. She sure was screwed if she got charged up at an encounter like that. Normal people didn’t react like that, did they?

Normal. Whatever that was. He’d been married to a “normal” woman, was possibly still not over her. Maybe Holly just couldn’t compete with normal.

She swam for another twenty minutes, to collect herself and for the sheer chest-bursting liberty of it, then breaststroked to shore, her stomach still swirling.

Under a tree on the clipped lawn, he’d set the picnic table with the kind of food she’d forgotten existed. He sat on the bench seat with his back to the table, facing the ocean, wearing shorts and a deep blue T-shirt, one leg folded across the other. Wet clothes hung from a rope he’d strung up between two palm trees. He’d done laundry?

After a cursory glance her way, he reached for a towel that was draped over the seat, and tossed it to her. She took the hint, and wrapped it around her torso. Crap, her underwear didn’t leave much to the imagination. She hadn’t meant to be that obvious. Maybe she’d pushed it too far, too soon. They had a few days on the island, he’d said. A few days to take his defenses from rock to Play-Doh.

If the ransom was paid, she could go on her way without him being any wiser to her deception. If not, she wanted him on her side when the shit went down. Maybe then, she could come clean. In the meantime she was safer to play princess and hope for the best.

“You shouldn’t have,” she said, shoving her hair into what she hoped was a sleek style.

“You were right,” he said, raising a glass of juice. “We may as well make the most of a bad situation. Cheers.”

She poured herself a juice and sat at the other end of the bench. Hmm. Just what did he mean by that? A bird plummeted into the water, a flash of orange and electric blue.

“Salute,” she said. “Or is it santé?” High school French hadn’t covered drinking etiquette.

He cocked his head, frowning.

“You speak French when you’re surprised. Or turned on.” She swiveled to focus on the food as heat rose up her face. What was that about? She never blushed, especially when she was on the job. Had to be the air temperature. “Are you French?”

“Uh.” He uncrossed and crossed his legs.

Stifling a triumphant smile, she began to assemble a sandwich—ham, lettuce, tomato, olives. Anything basic and relatively fresh made her drool like a mastiff after prison food.

“Are you French, Jack? I can’t pick your accent. And I swear your English is better than mine.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple rising and dipping. “I’m a lot of things, and nothing. If I was a dog, I’d be a stray mongrel.”

Just like her. “Guess that makes me a prize Chihuahua.”

The bench shook with his laughter, deep and throaty, and only half-bitter. It did gooey things to her stomach. Man, that was so wrong.

“Pampered but scrappy as hell,” he said.

“That’s me.” Half the truth, at least.

“Your foot—it’s bleeding.”

“Really?” Blood trailed from the arch of her foot, mixing with water and grains of sand. “It’s nothing. You should have seen what I did to the shark.”

He raised one eyebrow.

“I cut myself on the coral. No big deal.”

His forehead crinkled. “We need to wash it. Coral carries dangerous bacteria and toxins. And in the tropics the last thing you want is an infection. I’ll find a first-aid kit.” He disappeared into the cabin.

She bit into her sandwich, closed her eyes and tilted her head back. The sea washed in and out, the breeze teased her face. No matter what became of her in the next week, at least she’d had the simple pleasure of this moment. In prison right now she’d be lying sleepless on her bed, trying to zone out the unvarying soundtrack of cries, groans and jeers of the other inmates. If the senator’s people hadn’t approached her, she’d be fighting a bunch of other homeless people for a spot under a freeway bridge. Here there were goddamn frangipanis. There were worse places to die—not that she planned to.

We may as well make the most of a bad situation.

Yep. They might as well.

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