for a T-shirt. His head protested.
Alex may not have minded his headache so much if it was the price for an evening of fun, but the case was anything but. After arriving in Moretta from LA last night, tired and jet-lagged—naturally, Alex had refused his brother’s offer of a private jet to neighboring Barbados in favor of three leg-cramping commercial flights—his considerate rock-star brother had driven him straight to his place, where a raucous party was in full swing. No amount of sleeping pills or pillows over his head could block out the noise and music pounding through the walls of his brother’s home, which lasted until, by Alex’s estimation, about four hours ago.
He glanced at his phone again: 8:40. His scuba-diving lesson was due to start in twenty minutes. He’d taken all the preliminary lessons back in LA, and today was to be his first open-water dive. But right now he was exhausted and feeling anything but mentally prepared for it. It was probably dangerous to dive with so little sleep. He was staying on the island for a week; there was no rush. He should cancel…
Screw that. This was something he needed to do. He’d promised himself he would, and Alex Stone was a man who always kept his promises.
Alex opened his bedroom door. It had been dark when he arrived last night, so between the lack of light and the throngs of bodies crowding the space, he hadn’t gotten a good feel for its layout. Now Alex could see how breathtaking both the house and its setting were. Each of the eight bedroom doors opened onto an expansive piazza with the beach just beyond it. Between a stand of palms on his right and a rocky outcrop to his left, the turquoise ocean lapped gently. As he watched, a tortoise slowly made its way along the sand in his direction.
Alex turned and walked toward the main house, noting that there wasn’t an empty glass or a cushion out of place to be seen, thanks to his brother’s twenty-four-hour housekeeping staff. Passing through the enormous living room, he admired a trio of white sofas the size of queen beds and the tasteful, original artwork on the whitewashed walls. By the time he got to the stainless-steel-and-polished-concrete kitchen with coffee on his mind, his walk from one end of the house to the other felt more like a quest.
“Hey, little brother,” Dev said with a grin as Alex entered the room. Lounging against the counter with a cup of tea in his tanned hand, Dev was the picture of health. For the life of him, Alex would never understand how his brother could party as hard as he did and never look the worse for wear. “Sleep well?”
Alex glared at him as he hit the button on the Starbucks-size espresso machine. “Glad to hear you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“What happened to you, anyway? You missed your own party.”
Alex stared at him in disbelief. “My party?”
Dev shrugged. “Yeah, man. I haven’t seen you in what, four years? My brother comes to visit me—I pull out all the stops.”
“And I always thought the guest of honor was supposed to get a little attention at his own party. My mistake.”
Dev appeared oblivious to Alex’s barb. “Plenty of people there would have loved to give you a little attention,” he said with a wink, turning his head toward the window. Through the glass, Alex could see Dev’s entourage—including several silicone-breasted groupies—lounging by the infinity pool. Alex gave his head a hopeless shake. There was no denying that he and his brother looked alike—same tall build, dark hair and unusual aqua eyes. The eyes were courtesy of their mother, and, Alex thought, looked devastating on Dev’s somewhat prettier face but didn’t quite work with Alex’s more masculine features. But the similarities ended with their appearance; in every other way the brothers were about as different as guitars and boardrooms, much like their respective careers. “I have to get going,” Alex said, downing the last of his coffee.
“Going?”
“Scuba diving. I told you last night.”
“Oh. Right,” Dev replied, but Alex knew better than to think his brother had been paying attention. It had always been like this between the two of them, even when they were kids—Dev busy entertaining his adoring audiences while Alex hurried along behind in his shadow, just hoping for a shred of his attention. “So, scuba diving, huh? That’s kind of unlike you, considering…” Dev trailed off, leaving the thing they’d never talked about hanging in the air.
Alex placed his coffee cup down with a thud. He wouldn’t give his brother the satisfaction of seeing that he wasn’t quite over his fear yet. “Scuba’s been on my radar for a while. And what better time to tackle a water sport than when you’re surrounded by water?” He started to walk away, and then turned back and gave his brother a cool smile. “You should come with me.”
Dev busied himself with fishing his tea bag out of his mug. “Can’t risk the old ears, brother. Be the death of my career.”
“Of course.” Alex left the kitchen, his mood unimproved.
“Take a golf cart,” Dev shouted after him.
Nicola Metcalfe was going to be late for work—again. Turning the key in the ignition a second time, she made a frustrated noise in her throat when it gave a dry click…and then nothing. Running an agitated hand through her hair, she jumped off the golf cart and made a beeline back to the tiny staff bungalow she shared with her roommate.
“Kiki!” she shouted furiously as she flung the front door open and strode toward her roommate’s bedroom. “You forgot to fill up the cart again! How am I supposed to get to work?”
On her bed Kiki rolled onto her side, her strawberry blond hair spilling over her pillow, and opened one eye. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I finished work so late last night, and the station was already closed…”
“It’s called planning, Kiki.”
“Planning. Right,” she agreed but was already rolling away again and pulling her pillow over her head.
Nicola sighed, knowing it was hopeless. She loved Kiki—they’d been friends since Nicola had first moved to LA to finish her teaching degree nearly a decade ago, and Kiki was the whole reason she’d moved to Moretta four months earlier, acting as a soft landing for Nicola when she needed it most. After the messy end of Kiki’s marriage two years ago, she’d traded in her crazed career as an executive assistant for a bartending job on Moretta. It still amazed Nicola that her friend had had the organizational skills to orchestrate such a dramatic move—unlike Nicola, Kiki was hopelessly scattered.
Nicola left the house again, then she snatched her satchel off the seat of the golf cart and started a slow jog toward the beach along the island’s main road. In truth it was Moretta’s only road, a meandering loop around the entire island with a crisscross running through the center to allow access to its hillside homes, which traded beachfront property for breathtaking panoramic views of the Caribbean Sea. But on a three-square-mile chunk of land sprinkled with only one boutique hotel, one restaurant, ninety-two estates and a few staff cottages, the beach was only minutes away for each and every resident. Seventy years ago it had been a handful of Barbadian and American judges who first recognized the beauty of the tiny island, flocking in to build majestic homes on inexpensive land that soon skyrocketed in value. The influx had earned the island the temporary nickname of “Judgment Isle,” ironic considering that it had now grown into a destination known for its privacy and lack of judgment.
By the time Nicola was halfway to the scuba shack, she
