Mediterranean Men & Marriage: The Italian's Forgotten Baby / The Sicilian's Bride / Hired: The Italian's Bride

She gratefully kissed his cheek and promised to be in early for the breakfast crowd in the morning, then slipped off to cross the road and made her way to the Ranai Hotel. Climbing the wide steps to the entry, she hesitated at the double doors. Was she really ready to do this?

“Get a grip, Shayna,” her inner strength said firmly. “If you don’t guide your own destiny, someone else will do it for you.”

She nodded. Her inner strength had the answer, as usual.

“Okay,” she said aloud and she reached out to swing open the door. “Here I go.”

Chapter Four

MARCO SAT IN THE HOTEL BAR at a beautiful old mahogany table overlooking a wide veranda. He was nursing a whiskey and brooding over the stunning sunset that was spreading its orange and gold effects over the peaceful ocean. The place itself had strongly nostalgic vibes. It gave off the sense of a time fifty years past when men really could get lost and start their lives over in the South Seas.

He wasn’t having a lot of luck in igniting his own memories. He’d looked through the old-fashioned hotel register for past entries and, sure enough, there was the name Marco Smith, clear as day. What had he been thinking? The counter attendant didn’t know anything about it. When he’d asked him, all he’d gotten in return was a smile and a shrug.

He’d had a bit more luck with the waiter here in the bar. A young, rakish sort, he looked like a college kid making a little money with a summer job in the tropics.

“Do you remember me?” he’d asked him curiously.

“Sure. I remember you. You were here a few weeks ago. You asked me some stuff about sailing conditions around here.”

“Sounds about right,” Marco murmured softly. Then his gaze sharpened. “Did I hang around here a lot? In the bar, I mean.”

“You don’t remember?” He grinned. “Dude, why would you? You were mostly heading out for picnics with Shayna. That’s the way I remember it. And the rest of us were feeling a little envious, I must admit. She usually doesn’t fraternize, if you know what I mean.”

He knew exactly what the young man meant, but that wasn’t the point. It was more confirmation that he really had been here, and that he had been with Shayna a lot of the time. No matter how she tried to shade it now, he knew she could help him if she wanted to. But the waiter was treating it like a joke and he knew he wasn’t going to get anything else relevant out of him.

No one took anything very seriously here on the island, and everyone took everything very slowly. He supposed it had something to do with the humidity and the heat, but it was going to drive him mad in short order if he didn’t learn to ignore it.

He liked things to happen fast. He needed to find his plans and he needed to find them now. Looking down, he saw that his fingers had tightened on his glass until the knuckles were white. Carefully, deliberately, he made them relax.

And then he thought about Shayna. It had been a long time since he’d felt this sort of tug toward a woman. Over the past few years, he’d thrown all his passion into designing, into making racing yachts as beautiful and as fast as possible. And it had paid off for him. He was at the top of his game. Or at least he had been before the accident. And in his world, competition was everything. If you weren’t at the top, you were falling behind someone else. He was determined not to let that happen to him.

Women usually didn’t come into the picture. They only complicated things. As soon as they got your attention, they wanted to dominate it, and suddenly there was no room for anything but them. He’d been there. He wasn’t going there again. Life was too short.

But Shayna…

Not only was she a beautiful young woman, there was something strangely compelling about her. It was difficult to know how to treat her. He wasn’t sure what sort of relationship they’d had. He didn’t know what they’d done together, what sort of interplay they had worked out between them—what they’d decided, what they’d left for later, what they’d agreed to leave out completely. It was very odd having this chunk of his life missing. It was hard to go on without knowing where those two weeks had left him. The worst was knowing what to say to Shayna. He felt as if he were walking on quicksand there.

One thing was sure, as far as his relationship with her was concerned. He was going to have to find out what the fight on the last day of his stay had been about—just exactly what she thought he should apologize for. And she was probably the only one who could tell him.

A sense of movement made him glance up into the long mirror over the bottle-filled counter, and there she was, coming down the steps behind him into the bar area. He sat watching her with pleasure as she hesitated, looked around the room, caught sight of him and started his way. She had her hair swept up in an old-fashioned do from the World War II era. She looked stunning in a halter dress accented by a lacy throw balanced artfully at her shoulders and a wide skirt that danced around her knees as she walked. And those legs! There was no getting around it—the woman was a knockout. He could feel a slow grin starting as he met her gaze in the mirror and he had no intention of dousing it. She was playing right into his current sentimental fantasy.

She stopped right behind him, placed one hand on her hip and struck a pose as he kept watching in the mirror.

“Of all the wine spritzer bars in all the South Pacific,” she said while he turned slowly to face her, “why did you have to turn up in mine?”

He looked up and smiled, then swallowed quickly and tried to go into Humphrey Bogart mode to fit in with her scenario, putting on a world-weary attitude.

“I make it a habit to turn up in all the worst places.”

She shrugged one shoulder, looking down at him in what she obviously hoped was a sassy 1940s’ manner and flipped her hair back flirtatiously. “What’s a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”

He shrugged. “You could try a whistle.” A devilish light was gleaming from his dark eyes. “You know how to whistle, don’t you?”

Her own eyes flashed and he wasn’t sure at first if it was from annoyance or amusement.

“Spare me the mercy lessons,” she said, sinking into the chair across from him. Now he could see that her eyes were sparkling with laughter, but she was doing an admirable job of keeping a straight face. “And get me a Shirley Temple, will ya?”

“For a classy dame like you? Anything.” He signaled the waiter.

“Anything?” she responded with a quick smile. “Wow. If I’d known it would be this easy, I’d have tried this years ago.”

“It’s never too late,” he said smoothly.

Their gazes met and they both grinned, and suddenly there was a bond between them that hadn’t been there before. She glanced at his mouth, remembered how sweet and silky his kiss had been, and felt herself flushing. Just thinking of it made her ache with a dusky longing that she knew she had to suppress as quickly as possible.

“So you’ve decided to come clean, have you?” he said, not noticing her discomfort. “I have to admire your courage.”

“Admire away, big boy,” she said tartly. “I deserve it.”

“You most certainly do,” he agreed.

She laughed softly, abandoning the playacting at last. “Don’t you sometimes wish you’d lived in the first half of the last century?” she said. “They seemed to have so much more heart in those days.”

“It only looks that way from a distance,” he responded cynically. “They had the same problems then that we do now.”

The waiter appeared to take their order.

“Hey, Shayna,” he whispered, giving her the eye as he presented himself. “Lookin’ good, girl.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” she said casually.

Marco narrowly avoided rolling his eyes before ordering her a soft drink and himself another whiskey. His natural male flare for competition kicked in without delay.

“An admirer of yours?” he asked once Bobby had withdrawn.

Shayna looked up, surprised. “Not really. He’s just a kid.”

“Have you ever dated him?” he asked, watching her reaction.

She gave him a look he might have considered scathing under other circumstances. “I don’t date anyone,” she said coolly.

But Marco knew she’d time to spend with him when he was here before; at least, that was the picture he got from what others told him. A strong sense of possession rose in him. He fought it back. Where in hell had he got the idea that she was supposed to be his?

An image formed in his head. A memory? Soft skin that smelled of orange blossoms, a pristine sculptured hairline, a whisper that lingered, his lips on the long curve of a neck, a warm hand sliding inside his shirt. Just as quickly as it came to him, it faded again, but it left behind a tingle of excitement. He drew in a sharp breath and steadied himself. He had to avoid this sort of thing. He was here to find his plans, not to reignite what he assumed must have been a romance.

“I take it you’ve decided to help me after all?” he noted, looking at her.

“I’ve decided to try,” she said. “I figure two heads are better than one.”