the smile that twitched on her lips.
“I came by helicopter and no one held a gun to my head, but this does have the flavor of being in exile.”
“Then why come?”
“I had other things going on and it made sense.”
She didn’t push for further details; she wasn’t here to learn about his personal or even his business life. She wanted to know about only one thing. “You’re the CEO of your company?”
“CEO, COB and any other combination of initials you want to come up with. A real alphabet man.”
“Basically you own it.”
“The investors and I do.”
“But what you say goes?”
“To a point.”
“Who do you answer to?”
“The board.”
“I mean, do you have an actual boss?”
He frowned at her. “Boss? No, I guess not.”
“Then you have the final say on everything your company does?”
He took a drink, then sighed. “In some sense, I guess that’s right.”
This was it! The opportunity she’d been waiting for. But just as she was about to ask him about the lease, James was back, yelling, “Room service” and crossing the room with another huge tray in his hands. A young woman Morgan thought she’d seen before brought up the rear and headed toward a table by the windows. She cast a sideways glance at Morgan, smiled and kept going. While James came to where they sat, the woman got busy setting the table with linen and crystal. “Just as you asked, boss,” James said as he went to the table.
In a matter of minutes everything was laid out. “Dinner is served and the shrimp is exquisitely fresh,” James announced.
He didn’t have a napkin over his arm, and he didn’t bow, but he was as close to being a manservant at that point as anyone could be, except for the obvious sarcasm in his voice. “Thanks,” Ethan said and pushed to get up.
James moved quickly, taking Ethan by the arm and helping him off the couch. He let him go when Ethan drew back, clearly wanting to cross to the table himself. Morgan took the chair James held out for her and settled in front of a plate filled with meat and vegetables and a side dish of shrimp all on a pewter charger. The woman poured wine into fine-stemmed goblets, then laid a basket of bread in the middle of the table.
Ethan settled with James hovering over him. “Anything else, sir?”
Ethan looked up and shook his head. “You’ve done more than enough,” he said with a touch of sarcasm, too.
James barked out a laugh, then nodded to Morgan. “Enjoy,” he said, then left with the woman and other tray in tow.
Ethan looked at Morgan. “Sorry about that.”
“Who is he?” she asked.
He exhaled in a rush. “That’s a good question. An assistant, a friend, a thorn in my side and someone I rely on completely and have for the past ten years.” He reached for his wine goblet and lifted it in her direction. “Here’s to a nice dinner and good conversation….” He glanced over at the closed door before looking back at Morgan. “And to James forgetting his way to the guest house.”
She laughed, picked up her own wine and took a small sip of the rich red liquid. As she put her glass down, she met Ethan’s dark eyes and he spoke again. “Now, tell me why you came all this way on the beach.”
“To see you,” she said simply.
His gaze never wavered. “Why?”
She resisted the urge to take another drink of wine and said, “I have a problem and you’re the only one who can fix it for me.”
The goblet stopped partway to Ethan’s lips, and he stared at her over the rim. “Me?”
“You.”
Chapter Four
Ethan forgot about the wine and looked at the woman across the table from him. “What are you talking about?” he asked, entirely certain that her mind was not going down the same road as his. He might have wanted her to visit him again, but not to fix a “problem,” at least that’s not what he would have called it. Feeling lust for someone wasn’t a problem, unless the other person didn’t reciprocate.
She drank more wine before her eyes lifted to meet his. He heard her take a breath before she said, “I have something to show you,” but she didn’t move to show him anything. Instead, she kept speaking in a rush. “You know I was brought up here and lived with my folks in the house behind his office before I left to go to college, then medical school?”
He hadn’t thought about that chronology of events, but they made sense. She grew up, left, became a doctor. He nodded and she continued.
“I usually work at a clinic in Seattle, the Wayfarer Medical Care Center.” He’d never heard of it. “A month ago, my father called and asked if I’d come home to cover his practice for him while he took a long-needed vacation.”
She was a good daughter obviously, and probably a good doctor, but what did that matter to him? “And?” he asked as he fingered the stem of his wineglass.
“Okay,” she said, releasing a breath as if she’d reached a marker that was totally invisible to him. “My father has this idea to expand his facilities on the island to a small four-bed clinic for emergencies and light surgery, so he could give the islanders more than general medical aid. Right now he doesn’t have the space or the equipment and has to pack them off to the mainland, or order a helicopter for emergencies. But if he had the extra room, it would be terrific.” She paused, staring at him as if he could follow what she was talking about. He didn’t.
“And?” he repeated.
She frowned, and he had the oddest feeling that he hadn’t understood the way she’d hoped he would. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and extracted a folded envelope. “And this.” Honestly, he was more interested in the way high color touched her cheeks as she spoke and the brush of freckles across her nose than anything she had said or had in her hand.
He reached for her offering, looked down at it and was taken aback to see an envelope with his company logo on it. The address was on the island, her father’s medical offices.
“Go ahead and read it,” she said.
He opened the envelope and took out a letter written on his corporate stationery. He skimmed the contents and recognized a formal “quit” notice for the property on the main street. Whatever lease agreement there had been with his company for use of the land and property was being terminated.
“Why are you showing me this?” he asked as he looked at her.
“It’s your company,” she said, leaning toward him, her dinner totally untouched. “You’re taking
