He didn’t bother to react. Anything he might have said would gain him nothing but scorn from her and he knew it. Still, he had to chuckle, deep inside. He had her, did he? Funny, it didn’t feel that way. It seemed more likely that she had him—over a barrel.
Fifteen minutes later, they were cruising down a winding road that threaded a trail between two junglelike thickets of tall, slender trees and opened out onto an endless white sand beach, rimmed with multiple coconut palms. The trees looked as though they would be reaching for the sky if it weren’t for those darned old trade winds bending them toward the ground.
“This is Tanachi Beach,” she told him as he dismounted from the scooter. “What do you think?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Slowly, he turned, taking it all in—the gleaming sand, the black rock formations, the crystal blue sea, the white foam of the waves pounding out on the reef.
“Wow,” he said softly, shaking his head.
She came up beside him, pleased with his reaction.
“We came here, you know. The second day you were on the island. We set a blanket down right over there and had a picnic lunch we’d brought from home.”
“Really.” He turned to look at her, bemused. “Why didn’t we bring along a picnic lunch this time?”
She met his gaze with a touch of defiance and decided to tell him the truth. “Because we’re not playing around with the idea of beginning a romance today,” she said firmly.
That set him back on his heels for a second, but he didn’t waver. “We aren’t?” he countered with a gleam of humor in his eyes. “Speak for yourself.”
She managed a simple glare before starting off toward the rocks. He followed her through the sand, and then they stood side by side and watched the water lap against the shore.
“So you’re telling me we did play around with that very idea when I was here before, aren’t you?”
“More or less,” she allowed.
He searched her brilliant blue eyes. “So what happened, Shayna? What came between us? What ruined everything?”
She stared at him for a long moment, then looked away. “It was a short-term thing,” she said. “We both knew it was just for fun, just for the moment. Neither one of us expected anything long-term from it.”
It was easy to say those words and it didn’t even hurt too much to say them. But once they were out there, they wouldn’t fade. They hung in the air, mocking her, and she couldn’t get them to move on out of the way. Mainly because they were lies. She’d expected a lot more than a bit of fun. She’d thought she’d found a man like no other, the sort of man she’d been waiting for all her life. Knowing Marco, seeing the sort of man he was—at any rate, the sort of man she’d thought he was—had thrilled her at the time.
Her eyes stung for a moment and she had to turn away from him. She’d had dreams. Oh, yes, how did the song go? Clouds in her coffee. That was the way it felt now. No one much liked dreams gone bad, did they?
“When people talk about tropical beaches, this is what they have in mind, isn’t it?” he was saying, still reacting to the scenery.
She nodded, swallowing her regrets and forcing herself to get back to normal. “I think so. It is so beautiful here.”
“Yes.” He looked around again. “Inspirational, even.” He raked fingers through his thick dark hair. “And you’re telling me I didn’t do any sketches while I was here with you?”
“No. Not a one.”
“Strange.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you had other things on your mind.”
He felt a smile forming and gave in to it. “You mean, like that romance thing you were talking about?” he teased her.
She gave him a look and didn’t answer that. Instead, she tried to get back to business.
“Okay, take a good look. Doesn’t anything ring a bell? Tickle your memory? Bring on a feeling of déjà vu?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “No. Not a thing.”
She shaded her eyes and looked at the ocean. It seemed to go on forever. Sometimes being on an island could feel lonely. Everything she’d grown up with was so far away. She didn’t often get that feeling, but right now, she had a little hint of it. And it chilled her a bit. There was reality to face here.
She was going to have a baby. Marco’s baby. Just the thought made her catch her breath and feel ill, so she pushed it away. She would think about that and all its implications once they found his plans and got him safely off the island. Then she would decide what she was going to do. Until then, she had to pretend everything was normal.
Looking up and down the beach, she felt a quiver of nostalgia.
“You really don’t remember this?” She waved her arm in an arc as though indicating the whole panorama before them. “Not even a little tiny bit?”
He shoved his hands down into the pockets of his slacks and hunched over, looking uncomfortable. “That’s right. I don’t get any memory vibes at all.”
She shook her head, looking at him as though she had a hard time believing what he’d said.
“How could you have forgotten?”
She said it softly, more to herself than to him. She remembered. She bit her lower lip and let recollection flow. Their first kiss had happened right there by the jagged outcropping of volcanic rocks. She’d been showing him how the waves had broken through that part of the reef and came rushing in to the shore, depleting as they came but still carrying enough force to make a great display of sea foam against the rocks. As she turned to see if he was impressed, she’d found he was studying her instead of the ocean.
“I love when you get so excited about something,” he had said softly, reaching out to push back a strand of hair that had come loose and was falling across her face. “Your eyes sparkle and your face lights up with a glow, like rose petals.”
She’d blushed, right there on the beach. There was something so sweet and simple about his words and yet they conveyed a warmth she wasn’t used to in men she’d dated. Maybe it was the slight Italian accent, maybe it was the honesty in his tone, the earnest pleasure in his face, but something had struck a spark in her and she’d lifted her face and reached for him.
His arms had come around her and his mouth had found hers, warm and hungry in the coolness of the ocean spray. She’d loved his kiss from the first, and his hard body excited her in ways she didn’t expect. Despite the reputation she’d had over the years, she didn’t usually feel passion with the men she knew. What she did feel was a sort of desperation, a need to blot out loneliness, a hunger for something she never did find. So the sense of sweet desire he conjured up surprised her and took her breath away.
Embarrassed, unsure of how to deal with the new feelings, she’d had to pull away quickly, laughing. Then she ran away and he’d followed her, chasing across the beach until he’d caught her, tackled her from behind and they both went down into the sand.
She treasured that day. She was pretty sure she’d never feel another like it. But that was then. This was now. She glanced at him sideways. How could he be that same person and yet not have that experience in his memory? It was like dating a twin or something.
Suddenly, she wanted him to kiss her again. The feeling swept over her like a wave and she could hardly breathe. She knew how dangerous this was, and that she had to fight it. She was being tossed around by a current of emotion, and she had to remember to keep her head above water.
This isn’t really the man you thought he was, she