He grinned as he watched her swim away, her arms and legs gliding through the water with the grace of a mermaid.
He knew she’d only suggested the race as a diversion tactic. She’d felt the powerful attraction between them and it terrified her. So she’d invented an excuse to flee, just as she’d been doing for the past several months.
But if Zandra thought she could keep running from him, she underestimated the depth of his feelings for her.
Underestimated his determination to have her.
Underestimated him, period.
He patiently waited until she’d put enough distance between them, and then he started after her.
Ready or not, here I come.
Chapter Two
Dinner that evening was held beneath a canopy erected on a private area of the beach. Candles flickered and glowed on the linen-covered table, which was long enough to accommodate the festive gathering of twenty-one. Fragrant platters of grilled fish, lobster, conch, curried chicken and plantain were passed around for sharing as a steel drum band serenaded the diners with calypso music.
Zandra swayed her shoulders to the melodic island beats as she enjoyed her meal and tried her damnedest to ignore Remy, who sat across the table from her. But no matter how hard she willed herself not to look his way, she found her eyes straying to him, unable to resist the magnetic pull of his presence.
He looked incredible in a black polo shirt and white linen trousers. She couldn’t help staring at the hard angles of his face, the breadth of his wide shoulders and the strength of his powerfully muscled arms. His potent masculinity was an assault on her senses, leaving her breathless and aching in places she’d nearly forgotten existed.
Every time she glanced across the table, she found him already watching her, his midnight eyes glittering with a fierce, possessive hunger that made her feel branded. Claimed.
It should have angered her. She didn’t belong to him, or any other man. But trapped in the smoldering beam of his gaze, with her heart thumping and her womb clenching, she felt no anger. Only lust. The kind of lust that could tempt her into doing something utterly stupid, reckless and dangerous.
Like having sex with Remy.
“I need to move that candle out of the way,” murmured an amused voice beside her.
Snapped out of her trance, Zandra tore her gaze from Remy to stare at his youngest sister, Racquel, who sat to her right. “Hmm? What’d you say, Rocky?” she asked, calling her by the childhood nickname she’d earned for the feisty temper that had frequently gotten her into fights at school.
“I said,” Racquel repeated, her dark eyes glinting with amusement, “I need to move that candle out of the way before you and my brother start a fire. You think I haven’t noticed the way you two have been staring at each other across the table?”
Zandra’s face flamed. Reaching for her rum cocktail, she mumbled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Racquel laughed. “Yeah, right. And I’m a world-famous supermodel.”
“You could be.”
Racquel snorted. An award-winning photographer, the tall, slender, exotic beauty could just as easily have made her living in front of the camera as behind it—a fact acknowledged by everyone but her.
As Zandra sipped her drink, Racquel eyed her speculatively. “Did something happen between you and Remy this afternoon while the rest of us were gone?”
Zandra shook her head quickly. “Of course not.”