Malone's Vow

Liam picked up the little plastic globe. “You were looking at this thing as if it were a crystal ball.”

“Was I?” She tried to smile, didn’t quite make it and shrugged her shoulders instead. “It’s just weird, that’s all. I mean, one minute, the scene inside is so peaceful. Then you just give it a little tilt and it’s as if this storm comes along and sweeps everything away.” To her horror, her voice suddenly quavered. “It’s frightening. That the world can tilt and your whole life can change in the blink of an eye.”

“Let the world tilt,” Liam said softly. He put his arm around her, drew her against his side. “I promise, I’ll keep you safe.”

* * *

THE PLANE THAT AWAITED THEM was small, and they were the only passengers. It lifted into a black sky hung with a huge ivory moon. Ivory, like the color of her wedding gown, Jessie thought, and shivered.

Liam shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it around her shoulders. He put his lips to her ear so she’d hear him over the roar of the engine. “Cold?”

“A little.” She hesitated, then put her mouth to his ear. “How far is it to—what did you call this place?”

Her breath tickled his skin, her fragrance rose to his nostrils. Liam closed his eyes, told himself to take a couple of deep breaths when what he really wanted was to take a fistful of her hair and bury his face in it. But that would only make her more skittish than she already was. Jessie was vibrating like a tuning fork and only an idiot wouldn’t have realized that she was having second and third and fourth thoughts. The last thing he wanted to do was rush her, or let her see how much trouble he was having hanging on to his self-control. He never lost control. Never. And that was all he’d done today, all he’d done since last night.

He sat up straight and cleared his throat.

“Flamingo Island,” he said calmly. “I’ll let you know when it comes into view.”

When he did, Jessie looked out the window. All she could see was a glow in an otherwise inky sea. The plane circled, began its descent, touched down lightly. Liam thanked the pilot, climbed out, helped her down and led her to a canopied Jeep waiting in the short grass alongside the runway. The driver greeted him by name as they climbed into the back seat, and they set off.

“You won’t be able to see much in the dark,” Liam said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll take you for a tour tomorrow. Okay?”

“Fine,” she said, and she’d have laughed if she hadn’t been afraid the laugh would turn into a sob. What was she doing here, in the middle of nowhere, with a man she didn’t know? With her entire life, her oh-so-safe life, a million miles away?

The driver said something about the weather. Liam answered. Jessie just sat there, taking deep breaths and planning how and when to tell Liam she’d changed her mind again because she surely had. She wasn’t going to stay on Flamingo Island and she certainly wasn’t going to sleep with him.

Not that he’d said anything about sleeping.

Carefully, as if he might not notice, she eased free of his encircling arm.

They were traveling a road that skirted the water. She could hear the boom of the surf, smell the salt tang, but Liam had been right when he’d said she wouldn’t be able to see much. Jessie bit her lip. Actually, all she wanted to see was the desk clerk, so she could find out how to arrange for a flight back to the mainland.

Finally the Jeep slowed. Several small buildings, and then a much larger one, blazing with lights, were just ahead.

Thank God, she thought—but the driver didn’t stop. Jessie craned her neck and looked over her shoulder. “Wasn’t that…” She licked her dry lips. “Wasn’t that the hotel?”

“That was the main building, yes. But we have a private villa.”

A private villa. She was still processing that when the Jeep bounced to a stop. Liam leaned forward, exchanged soft words with the driver. The man handed over a key; Liam handed over a tip and helped her from the Jeep. From the effusiveness of the driver’s thanks, she knew it was a large tip. She’d been right, then, when she’d figured that his luck had been good lately. That was the way it went for men like Liam Malone. Good luck, followed by bad luck. One woman, followed by another.

She spun toward the Jeep. “Wait,” she started to say, but she was too late. The vehicle was roaring away.

“Jessie?”

Liam held out his hand. She hesitated, took it, and he led her up a narrow path of crushed white shells toward a villa that rose like a block of white sugar in the moonlight. She hung back as he opened the door and switched on the light.

Jessie caught her breath.

The villa was one enormous bedroom. White tile floors. Soaring white walls. Wood ceiling fans, blades turning lazily. A wall of glass looking out on a white beach. And a bed. An enormous four-poster bed mounted on a low platform like something out of a stage set, and draped in yards and yards of gauzy white lace.

Liam had brought her to a lover’s paradise. Long, hot days in the sun. Longer, hotter nights in that bed. She felt as if a cold hand had wrapped around her heart. They weren’t lovers, she and Liam Malone. They were a man and a woman brought to this place by lust, and once they’d sated their hunger, they’d go their separate ways. She’d understood that.

Except, she couldn’t go through with it.

She took a quick step back. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do this.”

Liam shut the door, leaned back against it and folded his arms. “And just when, exactly, did you reach that decision?”