listened until he was sure she was gone. He lay on his bed, cursing his weakened condition and the twist of fate that had brought Carly O’Reilly into his life once more.
Only when he heard the rattle of the bicycle disappear into the distance did he allow his body to sag into the mattress and breathe deeply.
But still, he couldn’t believe it.
God, what could Des have been thinking of?
Well, there was no point in even asking that question.
When had Des ever thought at all? Smart, clever, witty Des somehow never saw what was right under his nose-which was how much Piran hated Carly O’Reilly. And how much he’d once desired her.
It had nothing to do with liking. Never had. Never would. No, that wasn’t true.
In the beginning, the first time he’d seen her, he’d liked her on sight. He’d left his father’s house after the first of several fights he and Arthur had had. He’d been fuming at the way his father seemed like a besotted teenager around his new wife, a wife that Piran thought was far beneath him. And nothing had taken his mind off it until he’d spied a lovely smiling water nymph with waist-length dark hair and long, coltish legs.
He’d watched her swim, then he’d watched her come back up the beach and stretch out on her towel in the sand. She’d lain on her stomach looking up at the cliff and the bench where he sat. She’d fidgeted, looked up, looked away, looked up again.
Piran had watched her, intrigued, running over various lines, trying to decide on the best one to use for meeting her, when she’d got up and started up the beach toward the steps that would bring her up to where he was.
And that was when she’d met the students at the bottom of the steps. He’d watched her smile at them. He’d heard them speak, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. She’d smiled again. Then, as they’d closed around her, he’d momentarily lost sight of her. He’d got to his feet quickly and started down.
He’d been furious to reach them and discover a shy, innocent girl being preyed upon by hooligans. He hadn’t hesitated to step in.
He remembered as if it were yesterday—the drunken shove, the satisfying smack when his fist had connected with the drunk’s jaw, the adoring gray eyes that had looked up into his.
His hands, clenching now, remembered too. They could still feel the petal-softness of her skin as he’d held her briefly in his arms. The same softness they’d felt when she’d reached out her hand to help him up less than an hour ago.
In scant moments he’d become her hero. And he’d wanted to be her hero.
Until he’d found out whose daughter she was.
Then he’d felt as if he too had been duped. Her innocence hadn’t seemed so innocent any longer. Her shyness had seemed calculated.
It had made him furious then because he’d seen it for what it was.
Pure animal magnetism. Sexual chemistry. Hormones. Exactly the same things that had drawn his poor foolish father to Carly’s gorgeous shallow mother.
Piran was damned if he was going to let it happen to him!
And so he’d stayed away as much as he could.
Probably he’d only seen her half a dozen times over the not quite two years of his father’s marriage to Sue. But every time he had Carly had changed. She’d grown more desirable than ever.
Her curves developed. Her eyes sparkled with tantalizing laughter and heady promise. Her lips grew full and tempting, just made to be kissed.
But Piran had refused to kiss them. He wasn’t weak like his father. He knew there was more to a woman than a pretty face.
Ever since he was a tiny child, he’d idolized Arthur St Just, had grown up wanting to be just like him. He’d even taken his father’s side in his parents’ divorce.
In his eyes, Arthur St Just could do no wrong—until he’d met and married, in the space of a few short weeks, the blowsy, beautiful dancer Sue O’Reilly Delgado Gower Tremaine.
God, Piran thought, his fist clenching at his side and pounding on the mattress, even now he could remember the litany of her names!
Carly had told them to him once—recited them, actually, her wide gray eyes watching for his reaction. He’d gritted his teeth then. He gritted them now.
He couldn’t believe his father had fallen for a tramp like Sue—a dancer, for heaven’s sake! A woman with no education, no background, nothing—except a daughter.
Carly.
Carly, whose laughter and smiles and serious silvery eyes had tempted him increasingly each time he’d seen her, until at last, on her eighteenth birthday, he hadn’t been able to resist what she was offering.
Or what he thought she’d been offering.
To his everlasting shame he could still remember how ready he’d been for her. God, yes, he’d been ready! More than ready, he recalled with chagrin even now.
In another few moments he would have fallen completely under her spell. But then she’d opened her mouth and he’d found out that she hadn’t really been offering at all. She’d been trading—just like her mother.
Sex for marriage.
Piran might be one kind of fool, but he was never going to be the fool that his father had been. Marriage to Carlota O’Reilly had never been on the cards.
‘Marry you? You must be kidding!’ he’d said, incredulous. And he’d turned away from her stricken look.
He’d never seen her again after that night. Not even at his father’s funeral. He’d missed it, made up an excuse, hating her because he felt he had to, because he knew she would be there.
After that he’d put her—and her mother—out of his mind. He hadn’t thought of her in years. And yet the moment he’d seen her this afternoon he’d recognized her at once.
And wanted her just as much as ever, God help him.
‘What do you mean, there’s no room at the inn?’ Piran glowered at her from the doorway. The passage of four hours hadn’t improved his mood any, that was certain.
‘I was speaking metaphorically,’ Carly said. She drooped on to one of the wicker chairs on the veranda, feeling as if she’d been dragged backwards through the mangrove swamp. ‘There are no rooms available in Conch Cay.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course there are.’ Piran shoved a hand through sleep-tousled hair.
To say that he’d been unhappy to see her come back would be something of an understatement.
He’d said, ‘You!’ in a horrid voice and fumbled to fasten the top button of his trousers.
Carly had watched with undisguised interest. ‘Perhaps you were expecting someone else?’ she’d
