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But he’d already left and even his younger brother hadn’t known where he’d gone. At least, Devlin Vaughn hadn’t wanted to tell her.
“I went to your house,” she said, wanting him to know that she hadn’t simply turned her back on what they’d had. “But Devlin told me you were gone.”
“No reason to stick around, was there?” He sliced off a piece of his swordfish and ate it. Then he gave her a small smile. “Don’t look so guilty, Deb. You did what you had to do. So did I.”
True, she had. She’d wanted to be with him, but her own fears hadn’t allowed that choice. If her heart still hurt for chances missed and roads not taken, that was something she’d simply learned to live with.
But her throat was tight and swallowing wasn’t easy. So she forgot about dinner for the moment and had another sip of wine. “Well then, tell me what Dev’s up to. Is he here working for you?”
“No, Dev runs his own businesses. He went into the military not long after I left. When he got out, he started a security firm—Top Dog. He keeps a team here on the island to work for the celebrity guests, but he’s based out of L.A.” Now his smile was genuine and even Debbie could see that the Vaughn brothers were as tight as they’d always been.
“Say hi to him for me when you see him next.” Her fingers tapped restlessly on the tabletop as nerves jittered through her system. Didn’t seem to matter that she kept trying to relax. Her body simply wouldn’t allow it.
“Sure. Look.” He leaned across the table again and reached out to lay one hand over her dancing fingers. “I know you’re worried about the situation, but you’re just gonna have to trust me. You couldn’t do it ten years ago. Try harder now.”
She frowned at him. “Gabe, I’m trapped here. Hard not to be a little on the anxious side.”
“Trapped?” he repeated.
“I can’t leave, can I?”
“No.”
“Then…” She pulled her hand out from under his, picked up a braised carrot and took a small bite.
The candle flames threw dancing shadows across his face and his green eyes caught with the tiny fire. “I’ll do what I can to help. I already told you that. And there are worse places to be stuck.”
“I know that, it’s just—”
“You never could stand not being in control,” he mused, and eased back in his chair.
“So much for not talking about the past, then,” Debbie pointed out.
He tipped his head. “You always were stubborn, Debbie. Determined to have things your own way.”
“So were you.” She waved one arm, encompassing their lush surroundings. “You built a world just the way you wanted it to be. How is that any different from me?”
“Suppose it’s not,” he agreed. “But in this case, what you want has to wait on a few other factors.”
She dropped her fork and it clinked musically against the fine china. “No one is really going to believe I’m the jewel thief, are they?”
He shrugged negligently, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “The authorities have to check it out.”
“And how long is that going to take?”
“Things move a little slower in the islands.”
“Fabulous.”
He laughed shortly. “I can promise to be an understanding jailer.”
Debbie looked across the table at him and wished she could see into his thoughts. His smile was cool, pleasant, but his eyes held secrets and that bothered her more than she cared to admit. Just the night before he hadn’t seemed so eager to make her happy. Hadn’t he said something like, I own everything on this island, including you? So what happened to change his attitude?
“Something wrong?”
“You tell me,” she said, pushing her plate away since clearly she wasn’t going to be able to swallow anything beyond her wine. “Why’re you being so nice all of a sudden?”
He reached up, loosened the tie at his neck and then undid the top button of his dress shirt. Instead of making him look more relaxed, it only served to make him appear edgier. Sexier, God help her. Her palms went damp and her mouth went dry.
His eyes glittered and his features stiffened. “Maybe I just don’t see any point in being enemies.”
She wanted to believe him. She wished she could. “Really?”
“Really.” Gabe looked at her for a long, silent minute. He heard the hope in her voice, saw the vulnerability in her eyes. And he knew this was going according to plan. She was trusting him. Of course, what choice did she have?
She watched him and his gaze slid over her in appreciation. His body reacted in an instant. She was beautiful. Enough to take a man’s breath. She was made for moonlight. Her skin seemed to glow, her eyes shone and her mouth…
He pulled in a breath, reminded himself that this was just a ploy. He was here to lower her guard, not his own. He was being nice, as she put it, with that single goal in mind. And he was a man who never gave up once his course was set.
He wanted her.
Hell, he’d always wanted her. From the very first time he’d laid eyes on her. She’d been only eighteen years old, and his blood had pumped and his brain had dissolved. She had been the one sure thing in his life.
Until she’d walked away.
Now, he had her right where he wanted her. And he was going to seduce her into thinking all was forgiven. He was going to make her want him as she once had. And then when he’d had her under him, over him, every way he could think of, he’d be the one to walk away.
With that thought in mind, he took a sip of wine, arrowed his gaze into hers and said, “So you never got married, either, huh?”
She blinked. “Wow. There’s a change of subject.”
He shrugged. “Just a question.”
“Right. Okay.” Nodding, she sipped at her own wine and said, “No, I never married. I was engaged earlier this year, though.”
Something inside him fisted. He didn’t like how it affected him to know that she had found a man she loved enough to say yes to. A man she apparently had loved far more than she had him. Strange that after all this time, he would even care. But there it was. “So you managed to say yes to a proposal, after all.”
She flushed and shot him a quick look. “Gabe.”
He shook his head, forced himself to smile. “But even after saying yes, you backed out. Haven’t changed much, have you, Deb?”
“I didn’t back out.”
“Really? So where’s your husband?” Gabe looked past her at the crowd as if searching for a particular face before shifting his gaze back to hers.
“I said I didn’t back out.”
“Ah,” he smiled then, “so he turned the tables on you, did he?”
“No.” Scowling now, she blew out a breath and said, “It just didn’t happen.”
“Why not?”
He watched her, saw emotions churning in her eyes and couldn’t identify any of them. There had once been a time, he thought, that he knew what she was thinking. That they were so connected, they could have completed each other’s sentences. But that time was long gone.
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Her fingers swept up and down the stem of her wineglass and her mouth firmed fiercely as if she were biting back words that battled to get free. Finally, though, she met his gaze and said quietly, “I found out that Mike was already married. To two other women.”
“Ah…” Despite the fury trembling in her voice, he heard the pain, too, the humiliation, and a small part of him was glad of it. Why should he be the only one to remember how it felt to have someone you loved pull the rug out from under you? Besides, he wasn’t here to sympathize. “So you chose badly, again.”
She took another sip of wine. “All those years ago, Gabe,” she said, “we were too young.”
“I loved you.”
“And I loved you.”
“Not enough.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “But love isn’t everything.”
Now she reached across the table toward him, but Gabe pulled his hand back.
He resented her bringing their shared past back to gnaw at him. For years, Gabe had deliberately kept those memories in lockdown, refusing to think about them, refusing to wallow in what he had concluded had been a mistake, right from the beginning. The past had no part in his life. His present was just as he wanted it and his future was planned out.
And she wasn’t a part of it.
Yet, just by being here, she was neatly undoing all of those carefully arranged locks he’d put in place. But damn, if he was going to make it easy on her.
“We keep heading down that road and I’m just not interested in the past, Deb. It was a long time ago and we’re different people now. You said it yourself. People change.” He stood and shoved both hands into the pockets of his tux. Looking down at her, he said, “Stay. Enjoy your dinner. I’ve got some things to look into.”
“Gabe, don’t go.”
The softness in her voice pulled at him. The yearning in her eyes tugged at something deep inside. He didn’t want to be tugged, but no way would he be the one to bend in this little contest.
He lifted one hand to her face, stroked his fingertips along the soft, smooth line of her jaw and said, “I’ll see you later.”
* * *
“You want me to what?”
Gabe leaned back in his desk chair and looked up at his head of security. Yes, his brother, Devlin, kept a team of private security on the island, but this man, Victor Reyes, worked for Gabe. Victor had been in charge of island security for four years now and in that time, he and Gabe had become friends.
“I want you to make sure Debbie Harris knows she’s being watched.”
Victor was a tall, muscular man with a fierce expression, forbidding personality and black, glittering eyes. It was usually enough for him to simply show up and anyone causing trouble at Fantasies was quickly convinced to change their mind. “Can I ask why?”
“She thinks she’s under suspicion of being the jewel thief wanted on the islands.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed. “You have reason to believe she’s the thief?”
“No.” Gabe got up and turned to face the wide bank of windows behind his desk. “She’s not a thief. But I’m not ready for her to leave the island just yet and I’m willing to do what I have to do to keep her here.”
There was a long moment of silence and Gabe knew that Victor was considering his next words before he spoke. A careful man. “I guess you’ve got your reasons.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“All right, then,” Victor said. “You’re the boss.”
Gabe glanced over his shoulder at the other man. “But you don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You don’t pay me to think, Gabe,” Victor said, folding massive arms across his chest. “But if you want my opinion, no. It’s not the best idea you’ve ever had.”
Probably not, Gabe thought, turning back to stare out at the spread of the world he’d built stretching in front of him. Would have been smarter to let Debbie go never knowing he was on the island. But this felt right. He’d learned long ago to listen to his instincts, so he was going to go with that. There was a score to be settled between him and Debbie Harris.
Turning around, Gabe faced his old friend and nodded. “You’re probably right, Vic. But we’re gonna do this my way.”
“Okay by me. But what’re you going to do about Ms. Madison?”
“Huh?” Gabe felt the world tip slightly, but looked at his friend and asked, “What’re you talking about? What’s Grace got to do with this?”
Victor shook his head and pulled a PalmPilot from the pocket of the lightweight jacket he wore to cover up the gun at his hip. Turning the device on, he scanned the screen, looked up at Gabe and said, “According to the schedule, Ms. Madison’s due to arrive in three days.”
“Damn it.”
How could he have forgotten this? Grace’s visit had been arranged more than a month ago. But then, in the last month, he hadn’t thought about much more than Debbie Harris. Hardly surprising he’d forget about other plans when he was so wrapped up in his scheme for revenge.
Muttering dark threats just under his breath, Gabe shoved one hand through his hair, then kicked the edge of his desk. “I forgot all about her.”
Victor chuckled and put his PalmPilot away.
“This amuses you?” Gabe asked, his voice a thin, cold ribbon.
Victor wasn’t cowed, though. They’d been friends too long. He simply smiled and said, “You’ve got Debbie Harris staying in your suite…and in three days, your fiancée shows up. What’s not amusing about that?”
Gabe scowled at him. Grace wasn’t his fiancée. Not officially. He hadn’t proposed, though he and Grace had reached an agreement the last time she’d visited. Debbie. Without even trying, she was messing with his life. “We’re not engaged. Yet.”
“Oh, well, then. No problem.”
Gabe slumped back into his desk chair. Disgusted, he glanced at his friend. “You’re fired.”
“Hell, boss, you can’t fire me. I’m the only friend you’ve got left.”
Five
Gabe had come a long way from Long Beach, CA. Mingling with the rich, the powerful, the famous, he was completely at home. He wore a tuxedo as though he’d been born to it and used a smooth, practiced charm on the “beautiful” people surrounding him. And while he looked relaxed, Debbie could see, even at a distance, that his gaze was sharp as he swept the room, making sure everything was as it should be.
Then a glamorous brunette in a fire-engine-red dress that dipped low over her huge, had-to-be-man-made breasts and ended high on her thighs, leaned into Gabe and whispered something in his ear. He gave her a slow smile that set off a bubble of something hot and ugly in the pit of Debbie’s stomach. She didn’t have the right, of course, to care that he was smiling at a woman who clearly didn’t know the meaning of the word “subtle.”
But that didn’t seem to matter. When the brunette dipped her head and looked up at him through her lashes, Debbie muttered, “Oh, for God’s sake. What is this, Seduction 101?”
