Heiress Behind the Headlines. CAITLIN CREWS

even if it didn’t, it was all she had.

      “Fine, then,” she said, smiling back at him, even letting out her own little laugh in reply. Letting herself seem complicit—in on the joke. The very idea of her changing was hilarious, wasn’t it? Impossible! She should know. She was the one trying to do it.

      “Come have dinner with me.” Jack’s voice was rich and dark, and made her yearn for things she couldn’t have, things she knew he’d never offer. Made her heart beat too fast, her blood pump too quickly through her limbs. He was seduction incarnate, and the worst part, she knew, was that he didn’t really want her. Not her. He wanted the projection. The act. He wanted who he thought she was. And still, even knowing that, she wanted him like this. Like she might die if she didn’t taste him again.

      “Said the spider to the fly,” she replied, smiling over the crack in her voice, pretending she was trying to sound husky, alluring.

      “I think we both know that the only one here weaving any webs is you,” Jack said. But he didn’t seem to care about that. There was a cool, assessing glint in his dark gaze, as if he was reading her too closely. He stood up then, pulling her to her feet in an easy, offhand demonstration of his effortless strength, his matter-of-fact physical prowess. It made her feel fluttery. “And who knows? Maybe you can convince me to be a part of your little plot after all. Why not try?”

      He was so arrogant. So sure that he saw right through her, that he knew everything. All her games. All her plans. The whole of her shallow little self. She didn’t know if she wanted to punch him—or burst into tears. She wisely decided to do neither. She doubted he would react well to either extreme. And she doubted she would recover.

      “Why should I?” she asked lightly, though it cost her to keep up the act. “You appear to already have your mind made up.”

      “Convince me,” he said, in that low, stirring voice. His dark eyes were molten hot, so hungry and yet so shrewd, and they made her ache. They made her feel vulnerable, foolish. Lost. And then he smiled, and made everything that much worse. “I dare you.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE Endicott house dominated the southern half of the small island, announcing its grandeur and former ownership of all it surveyed in stark, unmistakable terms. The private lane wound down along the rugged, rain-lashed coast, no doubt affording spellbinding views toward the mainland on clear summer days, and then etched a path through the thick and silent woods. Pine trees stretched like tall, silent sentries on all sides, blocking out the dark, starless sky far above. Only when the narrow road finally climbed the last, far hill did the house reveal itself in all its glory, straddling the summit as it squared off, genteel and well-mannered, against the sea beyond.

      Larissa was no stranger to beautiful, even iconic houses. She had lived in them all of her life. And yet she still felt her heart beat a little bit faster as she took that final turn in the battered, rocky dirt road. She let the car slow, and looked up at what Jack, with his typical upper-class New England understatement, had referred to as the Endicott “summer cottage.” Like most seasonal dwellings of the same type, all belonging to members of the same blue-blooded social strata as Jack, the house had a name. This one was called Scatteree Pines. It was an affectation of the very wealthy, Larissa well knew, with their multiple houses in various destinations, to distinguish them by the names bestowed upon the different polished plaques that hung near each front door.

      This was her world, too, Larissa reminded herself sharply. So why did she feel so much like an alien, set down into it but never quite of it? That was the milliondollar question, wasn’t it?

      The rain pounded down on the roof of the car, washing over the front window despite the energetic efforts of the windshield wipers, drumming into her head, her battered heart, her traitorous limbs. She didn’t know which storm was more dangerous—the one with all the rain and the wind outside the confines of the car, or the far more damaging one inside her.

      But she couldn’t let herself think about that. She glared through the window, staring at the blurry, watery house that stood so proud and pretty before her, plump and confident in the dark, wet night.

      She didn’t know why she’d let the car drift to a stop like this, gawking up at the place as if she’d never seen a grand old house before. As if she was some poor country mouse on her first trip somewhere special. As if she hadn’t, in fact, grown up in one of the most coveted remaining mansions in New York City, the toast of what was left of the Gilded Age Manhattan lifestyle. Perhaps it was because this particular house was so … private.

      Scatteree Pines sat up on the highest part of the hill, its unobstructed view of the whole of the Atlantic Ocean that spread out from the rocks below, its elegant back to the tiny village as if it held itself quietly apart, aloof. The house was a gabled, grand old affair that nodded toward the Victorian style, with a pitched central roof and two sprawling wings that spread away from the arresting front entrance. But it was located down a long and winding private drive in the farthest corner of one of the most remote islands in North America. It was not, like the Whitney summer “cottage” in self-consciously posh Newport, Rhode Island, located squarely on the tourist-ridden and world-famous Cliff Walk, the better to impress the passing unwashed masses with the storied Whitney legacy and its fifty-plus rooms of gilt-edged opulence.

      But that shouldn’t matter, Larissa told herself sharply. Scatteree Pines was no more a quiet little “cottage” than Jack himself was the everyday sort of man he’d been masquerading as today. Maybe she’d needed this reminder. Maybe his battered old jeans and casual T-shirt had confused her, making her forget that whatever else Jack was, whatever he seemed to do to her with his slightest glance, he was one of the wealthiest men in the world. He came from a very long line of equally wealthy men, dating back to the original Colonies and before that, to a very elite selection of powerful and well-connected men in England. He was the heir to centuries of power, and he wore it with the carelessness of perfect comfort, evident in every cell and sinew of his well-toned body. She needed to remember that he knew exactly how to wield that power, and would do so—did do so—with absolutely no compunction.