Charlotte held out a blue-veined hand. Mike took it in a gentle grip and held it for a moment. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Duchess. And now I know why Zia’s last name seemed so familiar. Wasn’t there something in the papers a couple of years ago about your family recovering a long-lost painting by Caravaggio?”
“Canaletto,” the duchess corrected.
Her eyelids lowered and her expression turned intensely private, as it always did when talk drifted to the Venetian landscape her husband had given her when she’d become pregnant with their first and only child.
“Would you care for an aperitif?” she asked, emerging from her brief reverie. “We can offer you whatever you wish. Or,” she added blandly, “a taste of one of the finest brandies ever to come out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
“Say no and make a polite escape,” Gina warned. “Pálinka is not for the faint of heart.”
“I’ve been accused of a lot of things,” Brennan responded with a crooked grin. “Being faint of heart isn’t one of them.”
Sarah and Gina exchanged quick, amused glances. Downing a swig of the fruity, throat-searing brandy produced only in Hungary had become something of a rite of passage for men introduced into the St. Sebastian clan. Dev and Jack had passed the test but claimed they still bore the scorch marks on their vocal chords.
“Don’t say you weren’t warned,” Zia murmured after she’d splashed some of the amber liquid into a cut-crystal snifter.
Mike accepted the snifter with a smile. His dad and grandfather had both been hardworking, hard-living longshoremen who’d worked the Houston docks all their lives. Mike and his two brothers had skipped school more times than they could count to hang around the waterfront with them. They’d also worked holidays and summers as casuals, lashing cargo containers or spending long, backbreaking hours shoveling cargo into the holds of cavernous bulk carriers. All three Brennan sons had been offered a coveted slot in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union after they’d graduated from college. Colin and Sean had joined, but Mike had opted for a hitch in the navy instead, then used his savings and a hefty bank loan to buy his first ship—a rusty old tub that made milk runs to Central America. Twelve years and a fleet of oceangoing oil tankers and container vessels later, he could still swear and drink with the best of them.
So he tossed back a swallow of the brandy with absolute certainty that it couldn’t pack half the kick of the corrosive rotgut he’d downed in and out of the navy. He knew he was wrong the instant it hit the back of his throat. He managed not to choke, but his eyes leaked like an old bucket and he had to suck air big-time though his nostrils.
“Wow!” Blinking and breathing fire, he gave the brandy a look of profound respect. “What did you say this is?” he asked the duchess between quick gasps.
“Pálinka.”
“And it comes from Austria?”
“From Hungary, actually.”
“Anyone ever tried to convert it to fuel? One gallon of this stuff could propel a turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine.”
The smile that came into the duchess’s faded blue eyes told Mike he’d survived his initial trial by fire. He wasn’t ashamed to grab a ready-made excuse to dodge another test.
“I’ve made reservations at a restaurant just a couple of blocks from here,” he told her. “Would you like to join us for dinner?” He turned to include the rest of the family. “Any of you?”
Charlotte answered for them all. “Thank you, but I’m sure Zia would prefer not to have her family regale you with stories about her misspent youth. We’ll let her do that herself.”
* * *
Once in the elevator, Mike propped his shoulders against the rear of the cage dropping them twenty stories. “Misspent?” he echoed. “I’m intrigued.”
More than intrigued. He was as fascinated by this woman’s stunning beauty as by the dark circles under her eyes. She’d tried to conceal them with makeup but the shadows were still visible, like faint bruises marring the pearly luster of her skin.
“I guess misspent is as good a description as any,” she replied with a laugh. “But in my defense I only tried to operate on the family dog once. My brother, unfortunately, didn’t get off as easily. I subjected him to all kinds of torture in the name of medicine.”
“Looks like he survived okay.”
He also looked decidedly less than friendly. Mike didn’t blame the man. He and his brothers had threatened bodily harm to any male who let his glands get out of control while dating one of their sisters.
God knew Mike’s glands were certainly working overtime. Despite those faint shadows under her eyes, Anastazia St. Sebastian was every man’s secret fantasy come to life. Slender, graceful and so sexy she turned heads as they crossed the marble-tiled lobby and exited into the six acres of lush gardens at the center of the Camino del Rey complex.
The vacation complex was only one of several projects Mike’s ever-expanding corporation had invested in to help restore Galveston after Hurricane Ike roared ashore in September 2008. The costliest hurricane in Texas history, Ike claimed more than a hundred lives and did more than $37 billion in damage all along the Gulf. Parts of Galveston were still recovering, but major investments like this beautifully landscaped luxury resort were helping that process considerably.
A frisky ocean breeze teased Zia’s hair as she and Mike wound past the massive Neptune fountain the landscape architect had made the focal point of the gardens. Beyond the statue were two tall, elaborately designed wrought-iron gates that gave directly onto the beach. On the opposite side of the garden, a set of identical gates exited onto San Luis Pass Road, the main artery that ran the length of Galveston Island.
“I made reservations at Casa Mia,” Mike said as he took her elbow to steer her through the gates. “Hope that’s okay.”
“This is my first trip to Galveston. I’m more than happy to trust the judgment of a local.”
Temperatures in South Texas during the summer could give hell a run for its money. In the dead of winter, however, the balmy days and sixty-five-degree evenings were close to heaven...and perfect for strolling the wide sidewalk that bordered San Luis Pass Road. Smooth operator that he was, Mike casually shifted his hold from Zia’s elbow to her forearm. Her skin was warm under his palm, her muscles firm and well-toned. He used the short walk to fill in the essential blanks. Found out she was born in Hungary. Did her undergraduate work at the University of Budapest. Graduated from medical school in Vienna at the top of her class. Had offers from a half-dozen prestigious pediatric residency programs before opting for Mount Sinai in New York City.
She elicited the same basics from him. “Texas born and bred,” he admitted cheerfully. “I traveled quite a bit during my years in the navy, but this area kept pulling me back. It’s home to four generations of Brennans now. My parents, grandparents, one brother and two of my three sisters all live within a few blocks of each other.”
She eyed the ultraexpensive high-rises crowding the beachfront. “Here on the island?”
“No, they live in Houston. So do I, most of the time. I keep a place here on the island for the family to use, though. The kids all love the beach.”
“And you’re not married.”
It was a statement, not a question, which told Mike she wouldn’t be walking through the soft evening light with him if she had any doubts about the matter.
“I was. Didn’t work out.”
That masterful understatement came nowhere close to describing three months of mind-blowing sex followed by three years of growing restlessness, increasing dissatisfaction, angry complaints and, finally, corrosive bitterness. Hers, not his. By the time the marriage was finally over Mike felt as though he’d been