She turned her head, looking for her shuttle. Her assistant had booked her a suite in a hotel called the Sea Urchin, and they in turn had promised to send a ride for her when she landed. But she’d been waiting twenty minutes, and there was no sign of a vehicle with a blue-and-silver logo.
As she waited, Dakota idly took in her surroundings. The airport was tiny, a long building with a driveway running right through it, arrival and departure facilities on one side, and a series of small shops and booths on the other. Shop windows were jam-packed with tanning oils, brightly printed T-shirts, bikinis and sundresses. Women at vendors’ tables, wearing bright floral aprons, yelled at passersby to sample their homemade peppermint sticks and coconut candies.
She fished out the notebook she’d jotted down the hotel’s particulars in and consulted it, then squinted at the signs and buildings nearby. She was in the correct spot, all right. There were other hotel cars around, and a press of taxi drivers in neat white shirts and black trousers, all clamoring for attention. Every now and then one would approach her, dark face split with a grin, and flash an ID badge. “Taxi?” She shook her head, and kept waiting.
Sea Urchin, Sea Urchin! Where are you?
Something rolled through her, tingly enough to be uncomfortable. She recognized it at once: a danger signal. She spun around, bringing her hand unconsciously to the back of her neck to smooth down the fine hairs that were at full attention. Trent Walker was strolling in her direction with that fine, easy walk of his, hips loose, long legs scissoring past each other. She had to consciously restart her heart.
They’d met five or six times, mainly at industry events. The last time she’d spoken with him, they’d been at a big album launch in Manhattan, he as a guest, she as a member of the media. It could have been seven months, easily, although the details of their encounter had the immediacy of a recent memory. His star artiste, the dark and glorious Shanique, had still been in rehab, recovering from a drug and alcohol habit, when she should have been on a Mediterranean tour that would have put millions into her pocket—and Walker’s. And as for him, while his name wasn’t exactly mud in an industry that had seen far worse sins than the one he’d committed, he wasn’t exactly untouched by the scandal that ensued when Dakota’s story hit the papers.
Walker acted like it was all Dakota’s fault. But Dakota had simply broken the story of Shanique’s drug abuse—and the lengths Walker had gone to cover it up. She’d been lucky, and had a connection who led her to the right source. She’d caught it and run with it. The story had doubled the number of papers in which her column appeared. Who could blame her?
Walker could, that’s who.
He’d had a few choice words for her that night, and said things he shouldn’t have about her character. She’d responded in a way that would have been funny in a cartoon, but wasn’t appropriate in the middle of a cocktail party with the movers and shakers of the music world—not to mention the press—looking on.
She’d been a naughty girl.
He was coming closer still. Disappear, she willed herself, scrunching her eyes shut. She wished she could change color, like a tree frog or a chameleon, and blend in seamlessly with the background. Mutant style.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have a mutant gene in her body. She opened her eyes and saw his head turn toward her…and then he was making his way through the crowd. Adrenaline surged. She had the urge to turn and run.
But she was glued to the ground, partly a victim of indecision, and partly mesmerized by the sight of him as he walked. Confident, easy, relaxed. He carried his bag with the laptop case strapped to it, not dragging them as she did, but dangling them effortlessly at the end of his arm. And triple dammit to hell, he looked fine.
Walker was as blessed with good looks as any one of his singers, and almost as sought after by the tabloids. Yet he seemed to have an uncanny knack for staying below their radar. Other than the occasional Page 5 photo of him on the red carpet with some arm candy, and the persistent rumors that he and the legendary Shanique had a thing going on, nobody had ever gotten close enough to him to publish much more. He liked to keep it that way; he’d refused to grant Dakota an interview more than once—and that was before she’d broken the story that had rocked his business.
“Miss Merrick.” His tone was casual. Obviously, despite his reaction on the plane, seeing her hadn’t rattled him half as much as his presence rattled her. Not that it should bother him. Music was her business, just as it was his. Surely he should have expected her to be there. Everybody who knew anything about music came to Jazz!
Two could play the cool game. “Mr. Walker,” she replied smoothly. She turned and glared into the oncoming traffic.
He seemed to notice that all was not well with her world. “Problems?”
“You mean, apart from the fact that I’ve been standing here for half an hour waiting on my driver, and I don’t see anyone with my hotel logo, or with my name on a sign?” The stress was evident in her voice.
He considered her for a while, his deep amber eyes examining her face until she became downright uncomfortable. Then he looked around. With a sweep of his arm, he indicated the airport fence and the road that lay beyond. “Maybe you should walk out to the curb. The crowd’s a little thick in here. If you stand out there you might get a better idea of what’s going on.”
She looked in the direction he’d pointed. From what she could see through the chain-link fence, things didn’t seem any less chaotic.
Next thing she knew, he had her suitcase in his other hand and had already begun to walk, crossing the drop-off zone and moving past the shops. She snatched up her carry-on and ran after him, protesting. “I can carry my own bags!”
She might as well have been whistling in the wind.
Outside the main gates, he set their bags down. The concrete was sprinkled with a fine dusting of sand, crunching under her feet. She smelled that fragrance again, full of promise and invitation. She was too hungry and tired to answer its call. And after the cold, wet misery of her hometown, Santa Amata, the island heat was getting to her. Please, she prayed, all I want is a shower, a meal and a good night’s sleep.
“I can take it from here,” she told Walker, as politely but as firmly as possible.
“Hmm,” he responded, but didn’t move.
Suit yourself. She rummaged through her carry-on, found her phone, and poked at the numbers. Nothing. She tilted it so she could see the screen. Not a single measly bar. “Oh, just great.” She glared at him as though the aura of magnetism surrounding him was responsible for the technical failure.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone and held it out to her. “Try mine.”
She gave it a suspicious look. Was it rigged to explode in her hand? “Why?”
He shrugged. “So you can get out of here, and I can go to my hotel with a clear conscience.”
“Am I on your conscience?”
He paused for a moment before he answered. “Only to the extent that we’re two American citizens landing on foreign soil, and one of us looks to be in trouble.” Then he added, “Am I on yours?”
To save herself from answering, she grabbed his phone. It was smooth and warm to the touch. Naturally, it was the kind of gadget that could pick up a signal from Mars.
She dialed. On about the 20th ring, someone at the Sea Urchin got around to picking up. The conversation didn’t last long.
“What do you mean, I’m not confirmed?” she blurted. “My assistant made that booking. Can you check again? Thank you. What? It’s Merrick. M-e-double-r…but it has to be there.” She realized she was squeezing the phone like a mamba with a rat. The voice on the other end was lilting and musical, but what it was saying was