Pretty didn’t begin to describe the vision watching him from the beach. Her shoulder-length black hair hung in a loose ponytail over one shoulder. She stood watching him with her eyes shielded by her small hand. The pose was strikingly sexy with her arm lifted, accentuating her slender body and small waist. Wrap-around sandals snaked up her elegant brown calves, making her wide-legged stance damn near erotic. But the tilt of her head revealed a bone structure that was engrained on his memory.
So many nights after they’d made love he’d lain awake simply outlining her jawbone with his finger. He’d always been fascinated by how the shape of a woman’s small face could reveal both delicacy and strength. He’d thought Liz was that…delicacy and strength. In the end she turned out to be pure deceit.
He watched as the woman on the beach lowered her hand revealing her whole face and his mouth literally fell open. It had to be a trick of the lights. It had to be some tortured part of his psyche playing tricks on him. But as she smiled, he knew the truth for what it was. Only one woman in the universe had that smile.
She turned, exposing an expanse of flawless mocha skin, and started to walk toward the other end of the beach away from the luau and the hotel guests.
“Well, Alika, looks like you won’t have to recant after all.” He turned and headed down the brick steps leading to the beach, taking them two at a time, all the while keeping his eyes on the fast-moving coral-cloaked siren strolling away.
Liz concentrated on her breathing. Stay calm. Stay calm. But it was hard to stay calm when she was almost certain she was baiting a shark using herself as the chum.
With her head held high and her shoulders back she moved her hips seductively with every step, secretly wondering if maybe she was overdoing it a bit. She glanced back over her shoulder to where he’d gotten caught in the crowd of excited guests. It was working.
He was dressed in a loose-fitting, light-beige tunic that carried the hotel’s name and emblem, safari shorts and open-toed sandals, and it struck her again just how different this man was from the one she’d known years ago. There was no way the Darius she’d known would’ve ever worn shorts of any kind, let alone shoes that exposed his toes.
She looked back again to see him gently but persistently pushing his way through the throng of people, never taking his eyes off her. She watched as he licked his lips and his eyes narrowed on her in an almost menacing fashion. Okay, maybe it’s working too well.
She maneuvered her way around a grouping of inflatable balloon slides and bouncers where children played, oblivious to the darkening sky. She looked ahead at the empty beach that stretched before her. The sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon and the sky was quickly darkening. She stopped at the edge of the water, took off her sandals and waited for him to catch up.
Darius stopped a few feet away, still not convinced that what he was seeing was real. But it was her. Here, on his beach after all these years. How? Why? As he stepped closer, he realized she was more beautiful than he remembered, which seemed impossible considering he’d once thought of her as perfection in the flesh.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had to come. You wouldn’t take my calls.”
“Didn’t that tell you something?”
“Yes. That I would have to come here and talk to you face to face.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
She turned to face him and he felt his heart skip a beat. “Actually, we have a lot to say to each other.”
Looking into her warm brown eyes was like a homecoming. A sense of relief and satisfaction that he hadn’t felt in years flowed through his entire being. The unfairness of it was almost staggering. How could she still make him feel this way after all these years? After all she’d done?
Her betrayal had almost destroyed him, and yet all he wanted to do now was go to her and take her in his arms as though nothing had changed. But it had. Everything had changed.
He couldn’t do this. When he’d come down to the beach he’d thought he could have a reasonable conversation with her and find out what had brought her halfway around the world after all this time. He’d thought he could satisfy his curiosity and then send her packing.
Looking at the coral sundress clinging to her legs as the soft winds whipped around them he knew the evening was not going to play out like that. If he remained on this isolated portion of the beach, with her soft perfume wafting into his nose, looking at all that tempting bare skin, he would end up trying to satisfy more than his curiosity. And from the seductive way she was watching him he was almost sure his advances would be welcomed. What the hell is she up to?
“What do you want, Liz?”
“I need to ask a favor.”
“Of me? Surely you’re joking? Unless you’re looking for directions to hell I’m not the one.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She moved to close the distance between them and Darius instantly stepped back. “You’re the only one.”
“What are you talking about?”
She turned back to the water. “Wow, this is even harder than I thought it would be.” She chuckled. “And I thought it would be impossible.”
“You should’ve followed your first thought. Because this is a colossal waste of your time and mine.”
Outwardly agitated she swung back to face him. “You don’t even know what I want!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I understand I’m the last person you’d volunteer to help, but—”
“If you understood that, then why are you here?”
“Just listen. I understand you hate me, but what I’m asking is not for me. It’s for my son.”
In that moment Darius wondered if his heart could stand any more shocks this night. “What did you say?”
“What I have to ask—I ask not for myself but for my son, Marc.”
Darius felt as if his knees were going to buckle under the implication of that statement. Her son. Darren’s son. The child that should’ve been his. Following her was a mistake. He knew that now.
“He’s nine and—”
“Stop.”
“He has diabetes. He was diagnosed when he was five.”
“Stop!”
“The diabetes has eaten away at his kid—”
“I said shut up, damn you!” He turned and, taking long strides, headed back to the luau.
“He’s dying!”
Darius stopped in his tracks, feeling his whole body stiffen from the tips of his toes to the hairs of his head.
“He’s dying—he needs a kidney transplant. He has AB negative blood. I have O positive. I’m not a match. And he’s been on the waiting list forever and there is no one. There just isn’t anyone for him. The doctors say his very best chance is a blood relative. You would probably be a perfect match. Darius, you can save his life.”
Despite the hostility radiating off the man, Liz moved closer to him and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. He flinched but didn’t pull away and she took that as a good sign.
“I know I have no right to ask this of you, but here I am asking. Please, Darius, I’m begging you, please.”
“I should’ve had security kick you out the minute I spotted you instead of following you here.”
“But you didn’t. And now that you know why I’m here can you in good conscience turn me