“I hope you can let go of him at last, Tory. You can’t carry all that sadness around with you forever.”
She scrubbed her face with her hands, then shook her head at her own thoughts.
What she’d been thinking was impossible. Too crazy. Too convenient. An artifact of her inability to move on from the loss of her twin, nothing else. For eight years she’d missed him every single day. But it was time to move on. What had just happened showed her that beyond a doubt.
You’re here to say goodbye, not build castles in the air, she reminded herself.
Snatching up the newspaper, she tossed it in the bin. Moment of craziness gone, she assured herself. Never to be seen again.
Except that night she dreamed of Michael.
They were standing on a beach, the sand stretching away on either side of them, endless, limitless, the water in front of them a bright, crystal blue. Michael was crying, a lone tear sliding down his sun-tanned cheek, his arms held before him in bewilderment, as though something had just been taken from him and he couldn’t quite believe it.
She ran to his side, threw her arms around him, welcomed him back. But it was as though he couldn’t hear or see or feel her. He just kept staring at his outstretched, beseeching arms.
“Where is he? I’ve lost him,” he said, and her heart broke at how shattered he sounded.
“Who have you lost, Michael?” she asked, trying to make him acknowledge her. “Tell me.”
But he turned away from her and walked away.
“Where is he?” she heard him yell at the sea, his voice half angry, half fearful.
And then she woke up.
She was damp with perspiration, her face wet with tears. Kicking herself free of her tangled sheets, she staggered into her bathroom and flicked on the light. She looked terrible—puffy-eyed, shaken.
“It’s just a stupid dream,” she told her reflection.
But the memory of it stayed with her and kept her staring at the ceiling until her alarm went off at seven.
She sat up and saw the chef’s whites she’d laid out the night before. Today was the day Ben Cooper came aboard. So much for feeling cool and in control and elegant. She’d had next to no sleep, her hair was a disaster and she was feeling more vulnerable than she’d felt in years.
Great, she thought sourly. Way to go, Tory.
He was going to take one look at her with those cocky, all-seeing eyes of his and know he had her whipped before he even started.
BEN SET OUT HAPPILY enough for his one week sojourn aboard Alexandra’s Dream, flying out of the airport on the neighboring island of St. Maarten early in the morning. His good mood lasted until he spotted Monty Blackman as he disembarked into the airport terminal on St. Bart’s. The man stood out like a sore thumb with his garishly bright shirt in hot-pink and lime-green stripes and his baby-blue golf pants. Was the guy color-blind? And where did he find such ridiculous stuff, anyway? Ben figured he’d have to search every island in the Caribbean chain before he could come up with such a bad-taste ensemble.
The last thing he wanted was to talk to the smug, leathery-skinned bastard. Even though Danique was the one who had perpetuated the fraud that Ben was Eva’s father, it was Monty he resented the most—Monty with his oily smile and his string of cheap tourist motels and his bad taste in fashion. It seemed impossible that a child as sweet and beautiful as Eva could have been fathered by someone so unworthy. For the first few days after he’d found out Ben had toyed with the idea of demanding a DNA test just in case Eva was really his. But in his gut he’d known Danique was telling the truth.
Turning a shoulder, Ben took pains to keep a huddle of tourists between the two of them as he made his way to the exit.
“Cooper! Just the man I’ve been meaning to see!”
Ben closed his eyes in frustration as Monty’s voice echoed along twenty feet of concourse. Forcing a neutral expression onto his face, he turned.
“Monty,” he said, flicking his wrist over to check the time ostentatiously. “Can’t really talk right now, sorry—got a boat to catch.”
“This won’t take a minute. I wanted to talk about Danique and the little one.”
Ben ground his teeth together. Eva, he wanted to say. Her name is Eva. Danique and I named her because you were too busy covering your ass to be bothered.
“I really don’t think now’s the best time—” he tried again, but Monty just talked overtop him.
“I know you’ve been helping Danique out with making ends meet, paying for the little one’s odds and ends, medical bills, whatever. I just wanted to make things square with you now that things have been sorted out.”
Ben was gripped with an icy anger as he saw Monty pull out his checkbook. “Like I told Danique, I don’t care about the money,” he said, turning away.
“Stop being so bloody noble, Cooper. Everyone cares about money. It’s what makes the world go ’round.” Monty laughed loudly at his own joke, and Ben was hard put not to knock the other man’s too-white teeth down his throat.
“I’m not everyone. Forget about it. I did it for Eva and Danique.”
He started to walk off, but Monty stepped in front of him, his smile fading. Suddenly Ben could see the edge that had helped Monty become a multimillionaire by his mid forties.
“I don’t like being beholden to anyone,” Monty said. “You looked after my girls for me, and I appreciate it, but I want to put an end to it now.”
Ben reached for the last shreds of his patience as Monty signed a check with a flourish and tore it free from the book. The check hung in the air between them as Monty offered it and Ben refused to take it. Shaking his head and smiling to himself, Monty folded the check neatly and tucked it into the front pocket of Ben’s white linen shirt.
“You young guys crack me up,” he said.
Ben walked away without comment. It was either that or give in to the frustration coursing through him and land one on Monty’s overtanned face. Not caring if the other man was out of sight or not, he stopped at the nearest garbage can to tear the check into confetti. He didn’t want a cent of Monty’s money. He wanted his daughter back—and that was never going to happen.
The encounter left him raring for a fight. He didn’t consider himself a bad-tempered guy, but the whole situation had left him feeling cheated and angry, and now Monty had pushed all his buttons, offering him money as though that was all it would take to rectify the situation.
By the time he was crossing the gangway onto the Dream he was in a foul frame of mind. Suddenly the prospect of seeing Tory Fournier was a lot less amusing than it had seemed a few days ago. He was in no mood for her cool superiority. In fact, if she gave him one hint of attitude, there was every chance he’d let rip with a few home truths. He smiled grimly to himself as he navigated the corridors toward the cuisine arts center. Perhaps a damned good screaming match with his old school buddy was just what the doctor ordered.
Then
