“You need to get yourself on the next flight out of here …”

Elisa had known Brett was going to kiss her before it happened, and still, it was a shock. The heat and possessiveness of his mouth and the way her hands reached for him against her better judgment.

His mouth was so soft, so demanding, so giving. It made her cells sing with pleasure.

She was aware of her body, like a chant. Want. More.

His tongue urged her lips to open, and she let him in. The stroke of his tongue against all the tender bits of her mouth made her sigh. He groaned in response. That sound undid all her resistance, and she pulled his head down to get more of him. He tasted so good, of whiskey and wine and Brett. She knew this kiss, knew it inside and out, knew that he was going to bite her lower lip before he did, knew that he wanted her to meet his thrusts and that when she did she’d feel it down to her toes, that slide and urgency.

Want. More.

She did. She wanted him to pick her up and carry her into the room where—

Reason rushed in like an unwanted rainstorm. This could not happen.

She let go of his head and gently shoved his shoulder.

He looked back at her with lust-glazed eyes.

“Are you crazy?” she demanded.

Of course what she meant was, Am I crazy? Which clearly she was …

Still So Hot!

Serena Bell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SERENA BELL writes stories about how sex messes with your head, why smart people do stupid things sometimes and how love can make it all better. She wrote her first steamy romance before she was old enough to understand what all the words meant and has been perfecting the art of hiding pages and screens from curious eyes ever since—a skill that’s particularly useful now that she’s a mother of two avid readers. When she’s not scribbling stories or getting her butt kicked at Scrabble by her kids, she’s practicing modern dance improv in the kitchen, swimming laps, needlepointing, hiking or reading on one of her large collection of electronic devices. Serena blogs regularly about writing and reading romance at www.serenabell.com and www.wonkomance.com. She also tweets like a madwoman as @serenabellbooks. You can reach her at serena@serenabell.com.

I’m thrilled to be working with awesome Agent Emily, aka Emily Sylvan Kim of Prospect Agent, and excellent Editor Dana, aka Harlequin’s Dana Hopkins, along with Copyeditor Ingrid Dolan and Cover Designer Tony Horvath.

And none of this would be possible without the unending support and love of Mr Bell and the two little Bells. *Hugs.*

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Excerpt

1

ELISA HENDERSON HAD imagined worst-case-scenario headlines even before her plane took off.

Dating Coach Misplaces Client.

Client Goes AWOL from Dating Boot Camp in Caribbean.

God, this was not comforting. She needed to get up. She needed to move. Most of all, she needed to find out whether Celine Carr had made the flight. But she couldn’t do that until the Fasten Seat Belt sign blinked off.

She’d gotten Celine’s text just as Elisa had arrived at the gate. Thru security. Gotta pee. Board without me. She’d taken her seat in coach—alone, since Celine had claimed the last available in first class. Elisa tried to catch a glimpse of Celine, but the aisles were filled with other passengers. By the time Elisa had realized they were about to take off, she still didn’t know if Celine was on the plane, and the flight attendants wouldn’t let Elisa up. She’d tried to call and text Celine a million times, until a redheaded flight attendant pleaded with Elisa to put the cell phone away before she got them both in trouble.

Now all she could do was cross her fingers and try not to fidget.

Think positive. She’s on the plane. She’s raring to go.

This is the weekend you teach her that she calls the shots. That she controls her dating destiny.

This is the weekend you make hiring a dating coach the new black.

She took a few deep breaths and focused on positive visualization, which always helped her beat stress: Celine, sitting in first class, smiling and signing autographs, ready to make the best promo video ever. Celine, strolling the white-sand beach at the edge of the aquamarine Caribbean, hair blowing in the breeze, beside a handsome, attentive man. Celine, confident and competent, beaming her appreciation as she said to Elisa, Thank you. You helped me see that I didn’t have to keep making the same dating mistakes. The right man was out there. Imaginary Celine tossed her hair, gave her guy a sidelong glance and linked her fingers through his. Thank you for this wonderful man.

Elisa loved the thrill of the match, the click of satisfaction she felt when she fit two people together like puzzle pieces. Plus, she loved running boot camps, intensive one-on-one weekends where she observed her clients in real-world dating situations and taught them new strategies. These weekends were a great chance to get to know a client well, learn her quirks and boost her self-esteem. And who could argue with a weekend in the Caribbean? Elisa was lucky that her sister’s friend knew Celine’s publicist, Haven, and had been willing to put them in touch. And maybe a little bit lucky, too, that Celine was already undergoing a major image revamp as Haven tried to halt her slide toward celebrity train wreck. It hadn’t been too hard to convince Haven that a high-profile boot camp could turn Celine into a dating role model instead of someone whose antics reporters mocked. And if Elisa could make that happen for a rising star like Celine Carr, she’d have the added bonus of building her business’s brand in a big way.

On the other hand, if Celine had missed the flight, Elisa would step off this plane into a barrage of firing flashbulbs and mocking voices calling out, “Where is she?”

Rendezvous Dating? Isn’t that the business run by Elisa Henderson? The one who lost Celine Carr on the way to St. Barts?

She knocked her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes.

The seat belt chime sounded. She unbuckled herself and hurried down the aisle.

“Whoa,” said a deep voice, very close. She drew up abruptly to avoid a collision, and, for a moment, her mind was overwhelmed by a confusion of hands steadying her, a broad chest blocking her view and the smell of soap.

Then the voice said, “Lise?”

No. No. It wasn’t possible. She knew that voice. Way too well. That voice represented a years-old friendship and B-grade movies and Chinese takeout and Scrabble games and that bar they’d gone to so often, the Aquarium...

The eerie light of that bar, a blue-tinged drunken haze, the stumbling walk home, her couch, his fingers in her hair, the taste of a mouth she’d longed for so badly she hadn’t admitted it to herself, his tongue stroking hers, waking up every nerve ending in her entire body...

What the hell was Brett Jordan doing on her flight to the Caribbean?

She lifted her gaze and, unwillingly, took him in.

Dark hair, just long enough to be tousled. Harder-edged and squarer-jawed than he’d been at twenty-five. But cute, too—a vague upturn at the end of his nose, a slight cleft in his chin and the suggestion of dimples. He was the very definition of masculinity—and he wasn’t much farther from her face than he’d been that night when he’d finally, finally lowered his lips to hers.

Two years hadn’t quenched one ounce of the thirst. She could feel it, a sharp want that lit up all the tender parts of her mouth. She could feel it in her teeth, too. She’d nipped his lower lip that night, and he’d made a sound that didn’t have a name.

She wanted to close her eyes and shut him out—and she wanted him to pick up where he’d left off.

Oh, of all the cosmic slaps across the face. No. Please no. Not him. Not now.

“Hi, Brett.” Her voice sounded tight and unfriendly, even to her. Damn it. She’d been shooting for nonchalant, but she’d never been able to keep any part of herself in line when it came to him.

“This is wild!” he said. “What are the chances?”

Way too high, apparently.

“Well, you know,” she said, with a shrug. There. That’ll show him. He was the one who’d put the brakes on before anyone lost their pants, then messed around with her sister less than two weeks later. She’d never wanted to see him again, especially not on an airplane with no escape route and passengers peering up at them curiously. All this while the fate of her universe hung in the balance.

His grin was casual and disturbingly cute. “Are you going to St. Maarten? Or St. Barts?”

“St. Barts.” She stepped to the side, nearly elbowing a seated passenger in the head. That was his cue to step to the other side, and they’d continue on their separate ways. He’d be grateful. No muss, no fuss, just the way he liked it.

But he didn’t move from the middle of the aisle. His shoulders filled the gap between the seats so there was nothing for her to look at but the broad expanse of his chest. “Me, too. Catch me up, hot stuff. What’s going on with you?”

He was talking to her as if it had been a few weeks since they’d seen one another, not two years. They hadn’t just waved goodbye at their last visit and promised to get together soon. Their friendship had actually ended. It was as if he’d never kissed her, as if he’d never gone out with her sister. God, it galled her that he could pretend nothing had happened.

No, what really galled her was that, for him, nothing had happened. She’d been nothing more to him than a best buddy and an error in judgment.

The passengers around them had gone from curious to irritated, shifting in their seats and occasionally glaring.

“Another time, maybe.” Like never? “I have to go talk to my client.” And once again she feinted to the side, a more aggressive lunge. He’d have to get out of her way.

Instead, he stopped her with a hard hand on her arm. “You can’t slip away that easy. What if you go into hiding for another two years? Are you still in New York? I am.”

The presence of more than eight million people in the city of New York, where they’d both moved after college, made avoiding just one person easy. But hop a flight to a Caribbean island and blammo! There he was. Now that they’d run into each other once, she bet the island of Manhattan wouldn’t be big enough to contain the two of them in isolation. She’d run into him in the grocery store every week now. That was how these things worked.

She was close, too close to him. She could smell him, old familiar scents that brought back half-forgotten longings. How could eau de Pert Plus shampoo and Old Spice cologne have such a profound effect on anyone? And that hand on her arm was like iron, a display of male strength on a scale she hadn’t experienced in way too long. He was near enough that she could feel his heat, and longing slipped through her defenses and washed over her in a rush of sensation. She only prayed he couldn’t see it on her face.

This was an act, she reminded herself—those pale green eyes so intent on her, the inviting grin, the banter—it was just habit, the way he was with women.

“There are no guarantees in life,” she said. Miraculously her words came out cool and light.

He grinned at her. “See, I always liked that stuff you used to say. ‘He who laughs last, thinks slowest.’ And ‘Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.’”

He’d had that one crooked tooth on the bottom straightened since she’d seen him last. She missed the quirk of it. No, she didn’t. She didn’t miss a thing about him or their friendship.

The plane lurched slightly, and she grabbed on to a headrest. She was rewarded with raised eyebrows and a glare from the seat’s occupant.

She tried to broadcast an apology, but the aggrieved passenger just turned away.

“We should get out of the aisle,” she said. “I have to get to first class.”

“You said your client’s up there. What kind of client? Are you still working for that matchmaking company?”

“I have my own business now. I’m a dating coach. This is a one-on-one weekend dating boot camp. I watch her in action, give advice and basically play wingman—wingwoman—to her.”

“So you’re still doing it, huh? Making a career out of teaching women not to date me.”

That ego! Unreal. Sure she’d harassed him about his wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am version of romance, threatening to tell the women of Carville College, and later the island of Manhattan, that Brett Jordan was not in their best interest. But that didn’t mean he’d influenced her job choices

“I’m making a career out of teaching women not to date jerks,” she corrected.

“Did you just call me a jerk?” He grinned.

Despite herself, she had to hide a smile. “You hear what you need to hear.”

There was a brutal edge to the banter, and yet it felt familiar, very close to the old flirtation. She could miss that, too, if she weren’t careful. This was exactly why she’d avoided all contact with him.

She shook her head. “Let’s not do this.”

“Do what?”

“Small talk, catch up—the whole friends thing. It’s not a good idea.”

The last trace of smile vanished. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t.”

Behind Brett, the curtain veiling first class shifted and a vision of adorableness stepped around it, with shiny blond hair, big blue eyes, dimpled cheeks and a clingy purple dress totally unsuitable for plane travel. Celine.

Instantly Elisa felt better. Screw Brett Jordan and his burning gaze. That was then. Celine and Rendezvous Dating were now. “There she is.” She made her voice light. “Hallelujah.”

He didn’t turn to look behind him. He kept his attention fixed on her. “The Facebook site. We’ll catch up online. I’ll friend you.”

She needed to end this conversation now. And she needed to avoid him for the rest of their overlapping time on St. Barts. She prayed he wasn’t also on his way to the island’s singles resort where she and Celine were headed. Wouldn’t that be the cruelest joke. She wanted him far away from her boot camp weekend. Far, far away.

Her heart pounded. It was not in her nature to be cruel, but this was self-preservation, pure and simple. She needed him gone, immediately. “No. No Facebook. No Twitter. No email. No nothing. I’m not interested in being your friend, virtual or otherwise.”

An unexpected expression crossed Celine’s face, where she stood behind Brett. Confusion. Concern. Celine touched Brett’s arm, and he turned toward her, a smile on his face.

Elisa’s internal warning system shifted into overdrive.

That wasn’t just any smile. That was Brett’s patented twenty-four-hour smile.

“Hey,” said Brett to Celine. Affectionately.

Oh, shit.

Celine’s face was tipped up toward Brett like a flower receiving the sun. “Wait a sec. You know Elisa?”

Elisa could only watch this terrible slowly unfurling mess. With an audience. People had stopped trying to pretend they weren’t listening. Elisa could see naked curiosity on a few faces.

Brett frowned. “How do you know Elisa?”

No one spoke for a moment, and Brett’s eyes moved from Elisa to Celine and back again.

And then he got it.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said to Celine. “If you were trying to date a guy who isn’t a jerk, you missed the mark by a mile.”

2

CELINE LOOKED LIKE she’d been punched. She had a sweet heart-shaped face that made her appear younger than her twenty-two years, and her bottom lip trembled. Elisa turned on Brett, years of self-righteous anger reasserting themselves. “Do you have to act like such a jerk?”

In the seat behind Brett an older woman hid a smile, but Elisa felt no sense of triumph.

“Apparently,” he said easily. He leaned back against the nearest seat, clearly enjoying himself. “I always was good at it.” The occupant of the seat gave Brett a dirty look, but Brett couldn’t have seemed more relaxed if he’d put both hands behind his head and kicked off his shoes. It pissed her off, not only because she was sweaty and stressed out, and he was the coolest customer on earth, but also because he looked so freaking good. Why were cocky asshole men so hot? It was just. Not. Fair.

She had to rein it in. Her attraction, her irritation, her temper. This was a disaster on so many levels, she didn’t know where to start figuring it out. And their audience was turning against them, passengers starting to gripe audibly to each other. Drama was one thing, open conflict another.

She’d wanted attention. That was the whole point of this outing. But now things were totally out of her control. There was this—this swerve. She didn’t want eyes on her as she untangled these knots. “We’ll talk about this after the flight lands,” she said, with as much authority as she could summon.

Brett shrugged. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Celine watched them, her gaze moving from one to the other, as if the volley of words was visible.

“I’d like to know what’s going on.” Elisa crossed her arms.

Brett raised his eyebrows. “Ask your client.”

“I thought there might be two sides to the story.”

“There’s no story.” His expression dared her to push him. “Tell you what. I just got up to stretch my legs, but I’m perfectly happy to hang out here in coach. I’ll take your seat, Elisa.”

Celine opened her mouth once, closed it again, then managed to speak one word. “Brett?” She looked up at him, borderline pleading. Even through the haze of her own anxiety, Elisa’s dating coach radar shot to high alert. Desperate! Take it down a notch! She tried to broadcast this with her gaze, but Celine wasn’t looking at her. “I’m sorry,” Celine whispered to Brett. Actually it was closer to a whimper. “I was going to tell you.”

Brett shrugged. “Okay. That’s great. I appreciate that. But you’ll pardon me if this is just a little too effed up for me. I’m a tagalong on a dating boot camp weekend. What role did you have in mind for me?” He addressed the question to both women. “Fluffer?” He chuckled.

Elisa closed her eyes. It was either that or laugh hysterically.

“Br—”

The red-haired flight attendant stepped out of first class and glared at them. “You can’t congregate here.”

Elisa squeezed Celine’s shoulder hard. “Hon, let’s go sit, okay?”

The flight attendant’s male counterpart—tall, dark and chiseled—appeared behind the redhead and put a hand on her arm. “Everything okay here?” he asked her.

He’d leaned close to ask it, closer than the situation required. Alert! Chemistry! Were the two flight attendants a couple? Or did he just wish they were?

“Please return to your seats.”

The sharp command from the redhead snapped Elisa out of her romantic reverie. “We’ll just—” Elisa began to say, tugging on Celine.

The passenger behind Elisa touched her sleeve. “Is that Celine Carr?”

“No.”

“It is! It’s Celine Carr. Guys, you were right!”

There was a flurry of activity as the passengers within earshot dug through their carry-ons, pulled out pens and notebooks, and shoved them toward Celine. Cell phones popped up above the seat tops and into the aisle, clicking with artificial shutter noises.

“Please,” said the redhead. “I can’t have you gathering in the front of the plane. You need to return to your seats.”

The passenger who’d touched Elisa’s arm turned to the flight attendant. “Can she sign autographs in the back?”

The female flight attendant cast an uncertain look at her colleague. He shrugged.

“It’s Celine Carr! From Broken.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t watch Broken?” That was another passenger.

“Ohmigod, it’s so good!”

Haven had warned Elisa that this would happen. Celine was a new star, not yet a household name, but she had a show that was rising in the ratings and people would recognize her, wherever she went. “As much of a pain as it is,” Haven had said, “you have to let her do it. They’re her fan base.”

“If we stay out of the way?” Elisa asked the uniformed woman.

The flight attendant sighed. “Okay. Until we get the beverage service going, she can sign in the back. But make sure people can get to the restrooms.”

A small shy smile had crept over Celine’s face as she surveyed the outstretched hands clutching paper and notebooks and business cards.

“Give me a minute. We need to talk about this weekend,” Elisa told Brett.

“I don’t see what there is to talk about.”

“You can’t just—”

“Folks,” the male flight attendant said in a stern voice.

“Come here a sec,” Elisa said, starting toward the back of the plane. It wouldn’t help her cause if she got them arrested for creating a disturbance on an airplane.

The fans followed, crowding into the back of the plane. Some startled bathroomgoers looked at them strangely, but others joined in, digging in pockets or squeezing through the throng to grab pens from their bags. Brett leaned against a galley wall, right behind Celine, frowning.

Elisa, heart still pounding, waited next to the red-haired flight attendant while Celine happily held court. Her loyal subjects produced napkins or their own arms for her to sign.

“Can you sign this for my daughter?”

“Can you write ‘Love to Suze’?”

“Do you watch Broken?” the flight attendant asked Elisa.

Elisa nodded. “Do you?”

“I record it on TiVo.” She was a pretty woman, with a smattering of freckles and a nice smile. “But we’re never home, so we don’t get to watch much TV.”

We. “You and—?” Elisa gestured to the male flight attendant who was chatting jovially with a passenger just out of their earshot.

“What? No!” She laughed. “He’s gay. ‘We’ is me and my roommate.”

“He’s not gay,” said Elisa. “Trust me.” Elisa pulled her business card from her pants pocket and handed it over. “It’s my job to notice these things.”

“Dating coach?”

“Yep. You want my suggestion?”

The flight attendant nodded, eyes eager.

God, Elisa loved her job. “Ask him if he wants to buy you a drink when you land. You’ll see. He’s not gay.”

The redhead looked doubtful.

“My cell number is on the card. Text me and tell me what happens.”

The flight attendant hesitated. “You sure?”

“Positive.” Elisa would be willing to bet a thousand dollars they’d be lovers within a week. If the woman took her advice.

That was a big if. People were shockingly bad at doing what was best for them.

Like Celine, who had apparently acquired a traveling companion somewhere between yesterday afternoon—when Elisa had helped Celine pack her suitcase—and this morning when she’d boarded a plane for the boot camp weekend. What had she been thinking?

Papers and pens still shuffled across the galley, voices ringing out with questions for the actress.

“Is it true they’re going to kill off Jonah?”

“Celine, will you have dinner with me?”

A voice rose from among the others. “Celine, who’s the new guy? Hey, new guy—can you move in a little closer to Celine for me?”

All motion stopped, and there was an instant of total silence. Everyone turned to look at the person who’d asked that, a man whose face was mostly veiled by a black hoodie. And then they turned to look at Brett, leaning against the wall behind Celine.

Elisa opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Brett pushed off the wall, took a threatening step forward and said, “Put that thing away.”

Hoodie guy’s mouth slowly tipped up into a smile, and he raised his hand. He had something clutched there, and for a brief, heart-stopping second, Elisa actually thought it might be a gun. Then she saw what it was and wished she’d been right in the first place.

Camera. Big camera. Real camera.

Paparazzo.

His smile got bigger as he began shooting, the shutter whirring as it squeezed off shot after shot of Brett and Celine.

* * *

THE LOOK ON Elisa’s face, pure panic, spurred Brett to action. He slid past her, jostling other passengers out of the way, and lunged at the photographer, yanking the camera out of the guy’s hands.

“That’s personal property!” The guy grabbed for it, but Brett turned his back and ran his hands over the camera’s casing, probing for the slot where the memory card lived. He found its catch, withdrew the card, dropped it to the floor and ground it into the carpet. The cheap plastic splintered. He closed the slot and handed the camera back to the photographer.

“Here’s your personal property.”

“What’s going on?”

It was the male flight attendant, followed by a well-built guy in a business suit. Sky marshal, Brett would wager. Most of the other passengers had dispersed at the sight of this new authority. The flight attendant glared at both Brett and the hooded paparazzo.

“Nothing’s going on.” Brett looked around at the remaining passengers, daring them to disagree.

No one spoke up. His good luck—paparazzi were so loathsome that fear of the crazy man in the aisle paled in comparison.

The guy in the hoodie hadn’t spoken.

“I’m going to need all of you to return to your seats, please,” the flight attendant said sternly.

Brett shot a glance Elisa’s way as she edged back toward her seat. The panic was gone, but she wasn’t making grateful Bambi eyes at him, either. She looked pissed. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. She was probably as bewildered by his intrusion into her boot camp weekend as he was to find that his old friend was a third wheel on his Caribbean getaway.

“Hey.” He touched her arm, trying to soften her. “I meant what I said. Why don’t you and Celine take the two seats in first class? I’ll take yours. I’m sure you guys have some talking to do.”

“There weren’t two in first class when I tried to book.”

“Last-minute cancellation. Or Celine’s persuasive power.” He shrugged. “Take the seats, okay?”

Elisa gave a tight nod. Man, she was pretty. He’d forgotten. Or made himself forget. She had hair the exact color of gingerbread and hazel eyes and the smoothest skin, like a porcelain doll. He still remembered the feel of that skin pressed against his cheek, under his lips. He craved it, nights when he was tired and weak. That and the weight of her breast in his hand, her nipple hard against his fingertips, her needy noises tracing a straight line to his cock.

He was getting hard thinking about it, and that meant less blood to the brain, which couldn’t be good in a screwed-up situation like this one. Concentrate, man, he commanded himself.

“Let me get my stuff,” Elisa said. “Celine, you head up front. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Celine went obediently, and Elisa practically shoved the guy in the hoodie out of her way. She bent down to retrieve something from her seat. Yeah, that was a good view of her, too.

“What the hell, man?”

For the briefest of instants, he thought it was the voice inside his head chiding him for ogling her ass, but then he realized it was the paparazzo snarling at him. Brett shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve got extras.”

“I’m trying to do my job! You might not like it, but it’s what I do, and those were my photos you smashed.”

Brett could see the guy was one heartbeat from planting a hand in the middle of Brett’s chest and shoving. Let him try. Brett had enough aimless anger at the moment to flatten him into next week.

“Gentlemen, I need you to return to your seats,” repeated the male flight attendant. “Unless you need a personal escort?” He nodded toward the sky marshal.

The paparazzo harrumphed like an angsty teenager and slunk away. The flight attendant and sky marshal eased against the seats to let him pass.

Brett headed toward the back of the plane. He met Elisa in the aisle, where she’d just finished hoisting out her carry-on. The top few buttons of her ruffled white blouse were undone revealing the delicate thrust of her collarbone and, below that, the swell of her phenomenal breasts. A wicked taunt—the ones that got away. Over the past two years, he’d managed to mostly block the memories of kissing her and touching her. Mostly, that is, except in his dreams. He dreamed about Elisa confoundingly often—languid, dirty, wet dreams. But this was real, because she wasn’t slowly peeling off her clothes and looking at him with heat in her eyes, and she wasn’t taking slow steps toward him, which was what always happened in the dreams.

“Sit for a minute.” Elisa’s words penetrated through his fog. He was lucky she couldn’t read minds.

Her seat and the one beside it were empty—the other occupant must have been in the restroom. She slid in, and he sat beside her, hyperaware of the thinness of her blouse. He could see the hint of her skin beneath the translucent fabric.

“So, what?” she demanded. “You picked her up somewhere? And—”

“The drugstore,” he admitted, before he could stop himself.

“You picked her up at a drugstore?”

She said it like he was dirt. She’d always been like this, judgmental about his conquests.

“She had one of those red baskets, and it was full of sample bottles. I said, ‘Going on a trip?’ and she looked up at me, smiled and said, ‘Yeah. Wanna come?’”

And all right, he’d panicked. He’d looked at her pretty round face and her soft blond hair and her big breasts and he’d thought, In two weeks, it’s all over for me. No more women, no more conquests. He’d promised the network where he’d just been hired on to be a news anchor that he’d be squeaky clean. Network anchors didn’t chase tail. He’d barely beaten out his competition for this job, and his new boss had informed him that the other guy’s advantage had lain squarely in the fact that he was older, more distinguished and well established as a husband, father and grandfather. The kind of guy you wanted to believe when he told you the news.

Brett, on the other hand—

Well, Elisa’s unspoken assessment of him had probably been accurate. Women were his drug of choice and his downfall.

The truth was, standing in the drugstore, contemplating the vaguely familiar goddess in front of him, he wasn’t sure he could do it. He wasn’t sure he could be Mr. Squeaky-Clean Guy. Mr. Face of the News. Mr. Trust Me.

Pretty boy. Big man. Handsome, groomed, in control. That was who he’d been among his brothers—Zach had been the smart one, Pete the athletic one, and Brett was the good-looking one. It was what he’d traded on, with women, in his work, his whole life. Now he was here, on the brink of the anchor job, and if he couldn’t do it...

Where did that leave him? If he couldn’t be “the face of NYCN News”...

Screw that. Failure wasn’t an option. He’d been prepping for an opportunity like this one his whole life, and he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way.

Standing there in the drugstore, he had told himself that he’d accept this one invitation. Have a last hurrah, a crazy weekend with this very willing blonde bombshell. Then, he knew—he knew—he could do what the network needed him to do. He’d be ready to take on the world.

Elisa hadn’t expected to hear that Celine had been the pickup artist. She shook her head. “And you said yes?”

“I said, ‘I know you, don’t I?’”

“Smooth.”

He couldn’t tell if she was admiring or mocking, but good sense dictated the latter. “It wasn’t a pickup line. I didn’t need a pickup line. She’d already invited me to the Caribbean. Although I didn’t know yet that it was the Caribbean.”

“God!” she burst out. “You’re—”

But whatever she’d been about to say about him, she stopped.

He swallowed the urge to defend himself. He owed her nothing. He’d accepted a pretty woman’s invitation to fly on the spur of the moment to the Caribbean for a good time. It wasn’t his fault that the woman had neglected to mention she was in the middle of a dating workshop.

He’d had it all backward in the drugstore, of course. The window for a last fling, for getting women out of his system, had long since passed. He was already in the hot seat, already under scrutiny. Celine hadn’t been an opportunity; she’d been a test. He’d had the chance to start his new life as Mr. Trust Me, and he’d screwed it up.

But maybe it wasn’t too late. He’d made a mistake, but he could still right the ship and chart a new course. “Look. I’m outta here. I’ll take the next flight back.”

Elisa scowled. “You can’t do that.”

God, she was as bossy as ever. “I sure can.”

She glanced around, lowered her voice. “Who saw you together?”

“What?”

“Who saw you guys together? In the airport. I’ve had a videographer following her around, but were there also paparazzi there? Are there photos?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“So you know what that means, right? Every entertainment magazine and show in the city’ll have a piece on Celine and her new man—”

He couldn’t help himself. He winced.

“Yes, that’s you.” She quirked her fingertips into quotation marks. “Celine Carr’s ‘New Man.’ That’s what you get for messing around with a celebrity. Finally found a woman you couldn’t just slip into and out of unnoticed, huh?”

“Hey.”

“Truth hurts?”

She was vicious. And he liked it. He liked her, eyes flashing, his old friend. He’d rather have her bitching at him than not talking to him any day. He’d missed her.

A thought came to him, unbidden. She’d be amazing in bed. The type who’d bite his shoulder and rake his back and yell when she came.

Not that it was an option. With that look on her face, it would be a cold day in hell before she’d have a civil conversation with him, let alone tangle with him in the naughty, uncensored way he envisioned.

And, really, could he blame her? He’d screwed things up royally back when he’d had his chance at her. He’d signed away his rights for all eternity.

Not to mention that, less than five minutes ago, he’d sworn off serial seduction. Hell, he’d sworn off women.

“If you leave now, they’ll have a field day. They’ll make mincemeat out of you, and Celine will come across as pathetic. You don’t want that.”

“So what’s your point? I should stick around?”

“I’m saying that, if I were you, I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to run off. There are more decorous ways to do it.”

Decorous. Such an Elisa word.

“Let us get there, take some footage and photos of Celine doing her thing, make it clear that she’s shopping around, not committed to you—then you split. Much less humiliating for both of you.”

He could detect the hope and desperation behind her attempt at convincing him. She meant, Much less humiliating for me.

Her seatmate had returned from the bathroom and hovered expectantly over them. Time to go.

Well, okay, then. He could make this less humiliating for her. It would be a kind of penance, a chance to get back in her good graces. Not, he chastised his cock and all the other body parts clamoring for a piece of the situation, those good graces. But—

There was a chance, a small chance, he could make this better for her. Or at least less worse. And if he did, maybe they could be friends again. Because seeing her had reminded him of how much fun it had been to be friends with her in college and for the three years afterwards when they’d buddied around New York. How sometimes it had felt like the two of them against the world. Blowing off studying to eat pizza on the roof of the library, verbally dismembering their common enemies behind closed doors, stealing the Buddha statue from the religion department and installing it as guardian over the condom jar in the health center. She’d been funny, sharp, energetic, but kind, too, jollying him out of bad moods and dragging him on hikes in the New England mountains as an antidote to sophomore slumps and senior stress.

She was not the kind of friend who came along every day. There were eight million other people living in New York City, but no one played Scrabble with the focus or intensity that Elisa applied to the game. And of the other 7,999,999 New Yorkers, he had yet to find one who liked to deliberately pick bad DVDs and do her own Mystery Science Theater 3000, dissecting and mocking the films with glee. And no one had ever laughed at him with the utter abandon that Elisa had employed the day she’d taught him to Rollerblade, hoisting him up off the ground and then falling down beside him, breathless with hysteria.

You didn’t get second chances too many times in life.

“Okay,” he said. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

3

ELISA COLLAPSED INTO the cushy first-class seat. “Okay. I think I talked Brett into not taking the next flight back.”

There was silence from beside her, and she turned to discover that Celine was not awed and grateful, but confused. “He wanted to take the next flight back?”

Oh, man. She’d blown that. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that Celine might still think a romance could develop between her and Brett? Brett always did manage to inspire unreasonable expectations in women. She of all people should know that. “He said the situation was too weird for him. You didn’t mean to mislead him. It’s just that he thought he was getting a special weekend with you.”

“But you said now he’s staying?” There was a sweet, hopeful note in Celine’s voice. No wonder this woman got her heart publicly broken a minimum of five times a year. She had no hard-candy shell, only the melty center.

“Well, no—not staying. Just, I—” There was no diplomatic way to say this. “I thought it would be embarrassing for you if he left now, whereas if he stayed, we could make it look like you sent him away on your own terms. You guys can put on a nice show of having a destination date, and then you can decide you’re not interested and move on. Everyone looks good.”

Celine narrowed her eyes. “Everyone, meaning you?”

Elisa kept her irritation under tight wraps. “Everyone meaning everyone. Me, you, Brett. A more graceful exit for all of us.”

“What if that’s not what I want? A graceful exit?” Celine’s voice rose.

“What do you want?”

“He said the situation was too weird, right? Because of the boot camp weekend?”

“Yeah.”

“So let’s do the boot camp weekend another time!” Celine was excited now. She pulled out her iPhone and tapped open her calendar. “I can’t do the next three weekends, because I’m filming straight through, but I could do—no—I’m sure we could figure something out, though, right?”

“Hon—no. We’ve got a videographer here, I did a huge push in the media, and I can’t get those people to take me seriously again if I bail now.” The thought made her cringe. There were no do overs in PR. No, for realz this time! Celine Carr’s dating boot camp weekend!

“Yeah. That would kinda suck. For you.”

Ouch. Elisa didn’t have to dig down far to read the subtext there. But I’m paying you for this weekend, and you can sit down and shut up, if that’s what I need you to do. And Celine’s unspoken chastisement was dead right. It wasn’t Celine’s job to win friends and followers for Rendezvous.

“You wouldn’t have to go home. You could stick around and just be on vacation.”

Elisa had to smile at Celine’s stab at generosity. “Sure. I could.”

“I’m just saying, Brett’s only upset because you’re still trying to match me up. He’d come around if you were out of the picture. And like I said, not totally out of the picture, just not so visible.”

“If that’s what you want,” said Elisa, with effort. “We’ll have to check in with Haven.”

“Can we call her as soon as we land?”

“Yes.”

Haven was supposed to be on this trip, too, but, at the last minute, her mother had been hospitalized with appendicitis. Haven had wanted to cancel the trip—“Keeping Celine Carr in line is a job for a paid PR professional”—but Elisa had promised that she could handle Celine. Elisa had assured Haven that she’d manage the media according to the publicist’s directions, carefully watch out for Celine’s well-being and call “the instant she sets a toenail out of line.”

Haven was going to have rabbits when she heard that Celine had showed up for her flight with Brett in tow.

Elisa would worry about that later. She had bigger fish to fry right now, like making sure that her client didn’t get her heart broken instead of having her self-confidence built up.

“Celine—” Oh, this was stupid and awkward. Whatever she said next would sound like sour grapes, but if she didn’t say it, she’d be a really crappy dating coach. So, screw it, she’d rather be sour grapes than drop the ball. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but Brett Jordan is—”

Well, who was or wasn’t Brett, exactly? And what gave her the right to make that call? She’d had her own share of miscalculations about the kind of man he was. She was hardly an expert.

“What’s the deal between you guys?” Celine’s voice was sharp.

“There’s no deal.” She could see that Celine didn’t believe her. Smart girl. “We were friends. There was a time, briefly, when I hoped—but there was never anything.”

God, she was full of shit. Never anything. Nothing except kisses that had made her limp and golden and floaty, nothing except for his hands on her in a way that had made her willing to beg for more. And what exactly did she mean by telling Celine she’d been hopeful “briefly”? Briefly, if briefly meant all through college and for years after that. Even now she wasn’t sure what she had wanted from him. Not anything he could give, that was for sure.

“So you were in love with him,” Celine said.

“Not in love with him, no, I wouldn’t— It was a long time ago. We were friends. He was—he dated a ton of women, just not me.”

“But you’re not objective.”

The night Elisa had met Brett, he’d come wandering through the dorm looking for someone to play Scrabble with. She’d leaped at the opportunity. He was cute, with pale green eyes, an intense gaze and symmetrically hewn features, but she’d mostly been grateful to find someone who was as much of a word nerd as she was. He had known all the two-letter words in existence, had produced seven-letter words multiple times per game and had constantly manufactured crazy plays, laying one word alongside another to spawn five new words for thirtysomething points.

“I have an embarrassment of Os,” he had said midway through that first night, turning his tile holder to face her. There they were, four Os in a row, lined up. “They’re like four eyes, staring at me.”

Back then, he had longish hair that fell over his face, and he shook it away periodically in a gesture that was too self-conscious for her taste but had made her palms a little sweaty anyway. “Only—they’re Os, not eyes.”

His own eyes had sparkled and a dimple had appeared in his cheek.

She’d started to laugh helplessly and he’d joined in. They’d stopped, gasping, and then started again until they rolled on the floor, and he’d said, “You’re the best Scrabble partner I’ve found since I’ve been here. Will you play again? Will you play whenever I want?”

She’d shrugged, and because she had pride, she’d said, “When I feel like it,” but in her heart, she’d known she’d always play with him.

That night she’d been pretty sure he felt about her the same way she felt about him. There were moments of prolonged eye contact and real flirtation, and when he had boxed up his game and gotten up to go, there was a long, awkward silence that afterward she thought of as a kiss that hadn’t happened. Over the next few weeks, they had become friends, playing Scrabble almost every night, roller-skating, seeing movies, frequenting the same drunken parties, studying together. Nothing had happened between them, and soon she had begun to understand Brett’s pattern. He liked to date beautiful women. Not cute or pretty or striking in an unusual way, but model-beautiful, the handful of women at their college who were truly glamorous. Or maybe “date” wasn’t the right word. He had collected them. He had wooed them and had worn them on his arm briefly and let them pass out of his life again, as though they were bits of flotsam floating by on a river. She had watched, and she had alternated between ferocious envy and gratitude that she wasn’t the one being used and discarded.

From the first moment Brett Jordan had strolled down the dorm hallway with his Scrabble game in hand and poked his scruffy, beautiful head into her room, she hadn’t been objective.

She wouldn’t lie about that, not to herself and not to her client.

She looked up and saw with a jolt of relief that the flight attendant was headed toward them with a tray of champagne flutes. That would improve things. Not that they could really get much worse.

She collected two flutes from the tray and handed one to Celine. “No,” Elisa finally answered.

And when Celine tilted her head quizzically, she shook her own and said, “You could safely say I’m not objective about Brett.”

4

“CELINE! CELINE!” PAPARAZZI and reporters shouted.

Elisa was still reeling from the bumpy and terrifying descent onto the St. Barts’s airstrip. It would be way too generous to call this an airport. Runway ten—the pilot had referred to it with affection, for reasons she couldn’t fathom—ended in a shock of white beach and aquamarine water.

He’d warned them that the plane’s safety system would protest the landing, but that didn’t stop Elisa’s heart from practically fleeing her chest when he dived over a hill and the warning system blared “Pull up!” She’d held her breath for the entire length of the runway while brakes squealed and flaps flapped, convinced that they’d miss the runway and land either on the highway or in the water. She’d been sure they’d have to climb out of the sea to start their trip.

“Celine!”

Elisa counted maybe ten yammering entertainment buzzards. Pretty good for a minor celebrity, and she felt a twinge of pride. They were here because of the buzz she’d made.

And then the pride deflated like a leaky balloon.

What a waste now, thanks to Brett.

They’d disembarked the plane into a brilliantly sunny, warm paradise, with white sailboats in the harbor, red-roofed houses dotting green hills and palm fronds waving in a light breeze. It had taken them just a few minutes to clear customs and collect their baggage, and now they stepped out of the protective atmosphere of the single-gate airport and into Celine’s world. Media and clamor.

“Celine! Tell us why you’re doing this! What’s a weekend dating boot camp?”

No—Elisa wouldn’t let her work be a waste. She would find a way to make the most of this moment. She’d come this far, and she was not going to back quietly away. Until the weekend was over, this was her show, her chance.

She and Brett and Celine pushed through the minimob. She kept a hand on Celine’s back, moving her forward. Haven Hoyt had carefully coached Elisa on managing this moment.

“Don’t stop walking or they’ll pin you,” Haven had said. “And for God’s sake, smile. Every single second is a photo op, and the last thing you want is a photo of you with a grimace on your face plastered all over the internet.”

They were almost to the cab, a soft-top Jeep Wrangler, a tough-looking jungle car in a sea of cutesy Smart cars. The cab would ferry them straight to the hotel, and then hotel security would take over the work of holding the media off Celine. Elisa’s smile was starting to hurt, but she remembered Haven’s words and kept it in place.

A microphone crowded her face. “Where’d they meet?” It was a blond woman Elisa vaguely recognized from the evening entertainment shows.

“On the town.” Ooh, she was pleased with her answer. So much better than “in a drugstore.”

“Were you with her?”

“She did it herself, using techniques I taught her. Teach a woman to fish...”

Laughter from the peanut gallery. That was good, right? Her smile was real now. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted her videographer, Morrow, hanging back from the pack, and he gave her a thumbs-up. She liked him a lot, and his previous clients, including some heavy hitters, had raved about his work.

The blond woman was a bulldog. “Is it serious?”

What had Haven said? Every question is an opportunity. “They’ve only known each other a few days. But who knows? If things go well, maybe she won’t need me after this weekend.”

More laughter. She looked over at Celine who was smiling brilliantly. Brett’s expression didn’t match. But he was a guy, so instead of looking grim, he looked serious and thoughtful. Authoritative.

That jaw. The fact that he hadn’t shaved this morning made her want to test the texture of his stubble with her tongue.

Her smile had slipped slightly, and she tugged it back on.

“If she’s only known him a few days, why’d she bring him to the Caribbean?”

Excellent question. I wish I knew. “Destination dates are becoming very popular. Rendezvous encourages its clients to pick exciting locations even for first dates. And of course Celine will meet many men and have a whole variety of dates this weekend.”

She’d even gotten her business’s name in without sounding like a total tool. They were at the Jeep, sliding across the backseat, Celine, then Brett, then Elisa, and the relief was as profound as if they’d entered a decontamination chamber. She slammed the door behind them, and the cab pulled away to a chorus of flashes.

“You were great!” Celine said.

“Very smooth.” Brett’s tone was so dry that once again she couldn’t tell if he was mocking her.

She snuck a look at him. In the center seat, he’d leaned toward the windshield and was staring out at the green, brown and blue world. The road was narrow, and people kept squeezing past them in the opposite direction at ungodly speeds. She could blame the rapid trip of her pulse on that, not on the hard length of his thigh pressed against hers.

If he leaned back, his shoulder would trap hers against the backrest. When she’d ridden in cabs with him years ago in New York, the middle seat had kept a safe foot of distance between them.

She was breathless from triumph and hurrying across the tarmac, not to mention the scary driving. The amount of space Brett took up in the cab had nothing to do with it. Neither did the heat pouring off him or the scent of fresh male sweat and that still familiar Old Spice.

She certainly wasn’t breathless from imagining what that hard thigh would feel like, eased between hers, or because she could remember the exact silken slip of his tongue against hers.

He’s your client’s date.

She inched toward the window until there was a narrow strip of space between their bodies. And began to work on slowing her breathing.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out. The text was from an unknown number.

He said yes! (This is Sherry fr plane. Flight attndt.)

A big grin spread over Elisa’s face.

Of course he did. Have fun!

Her phone buzzed right away.

THK U.

Keep me updated.

IOU

Give my card to a friend who lives in NYC.

Will do.

“You text fast,” Brett observed.

Elisa laughed. “Sometimes people desperately need advice in the middle of their dates. I have, like, three seconds to tell them how to keep the date going or end it ASAP. Texting fast is a career skill.”

“What kinds of things do they ask?”

I wore granny panties! What do I do if he wants to come in? “Oh, like, ‘Should I let him pick up the check?’”

“And what do you say?”

Go to the restroom and take them off! “‘There are no rules. Go with your gut.’ Or ‘If he offered, yes.’”

“Not, ‘For God’s sake, woman, don’t do it! He’s probably a jerk, and if you let him pay, he’ll expect sex’?”

She glared at him and resumed paging through her texts.

The next one was from Haven. How’s it going?

Great so far. Didn’t have to wait for cab. On way to hotel.

The phone vibrated in her hand. Glad to hear it.

Can I call you when I get to the resort? Slight complication. Pretty sure I’ve got it under control, just wanted a second opinion.

I’ll be here.

The Jeep zoomed by a small cluster of shops on the right. She was surprised to find the island dustier and less jungle-verdant than she’d been expecting. Not Hawaii—spikier, more arid and windier—but beautiful nonetheless, even with vines and strange succulent plants that looked like they might eat people.

“So what’s the plan, Queen of Hearts? How long do I stick around?”

“Elisa’s going to take off. So you and I can hang out.” Celine smiled her glossiest television smile.

She felt Brett’s surprise. For a moment she let herself enjoy his discomfort. Served him right for picking up celebrities in drugstores and agreeing to fly to Caribbean islands with them. Served him right for—

She had to stop hating him. It was such an impediment to getting over him. She needed to feel nothing. Blank, neutral, maybe a mild irritation, like you’d feel at a housefly that had gotten into your kitchen.

“Celine said she’d like to postpone the boot camp weekend.”

He frowned at Elisa, then turned his head to speak to Celine. “Look.”

Oh, God, this was exactly what she’d been trying to prevent.

“Celine. You’re a sweet girl. And this is an awkward situation.”

He sounded so warm. So smooth. She’d never actually heard him dump a woman before, but it didn’t surprise her that he was as skilled at it as he was at making conquests. Why not? He had abundant experience with both.

“If the circumstances were different, I’d love to get to know you better. Take our time. But this is just—” His gesture encompassed the three of them, the cab, the whole island. The paved road gave way to something bumpier, narrower and altogether less civilized. “This is bad juju. You’re better off letting Elisa show you the ropes. There’s a whole island waiting for you out there, and loads of men who are nicer than I am. Take my word for it.”

Had every woman he’d slept with and dumped gotten this speech? Elisa should be thankful she’d been spared. Maybe walking away from their friendship had been the smartest move she could make. It certainly seemed like genius now.

Celine shifted uncomfortably. Elisa had never realized exactly how small a Jeep could feel. Though—as another car sped by and nearly took off the side of their vehicle—not small enough.

He hadn’t left Celine any wiggle room. It was kind of brilliant, if you admired it coldly from the outside. What could Celine say, really?

Huh.

Then Elisa knew. Ha! Perfect answer. Not that she could convey it to Celine in the confines of the cab—no way to do that discreetly.

What Celine should say was Actually? Nice isn’t my thing.

Of course, if she did say that—and in a tone of voice pitched somewhere between matter-of-fact and mildly suggestive—Elisa would have to throw herself out of the moving cab, because at that point she wouldn’t be the ref in a boxing match, she’d be a dry log caught in the middle of a conflagration. Because that comeback would definitely catch Brett on fire. She couldn’t have said how she knew it, but she knew dirty talk was one of his buttons.

Sometimes, during their friendship, she’d heard come-ons and rejoinders in her head—naughty, flirty words, a hard pressure behind her tongue. Sometimes she’d wished she were a little drunker so she could let them slip out and pretend they were a mistake. She’d wanted to watch the heat rise, see the flare of lust in his eyes. Then she could have let her gaze drop to measure how much her words had affected him.

But always the next morning she’d been glad she hadn’t. And by evening she’d been gloriously thankful, as she watched him make yet another conquest, the starting gun for one more twenty-four-hour relationship.

For all those years, she’d been so careful, knowing that if she ever said the words that popped into her head, if she’d pushed the buttons, if she’d unleashed the heat she sensed in him, she’d only have become another twenty-four-hour girl.

And then that night, the night he’d kissed her, she’d let down her guard. She’d felt the precipice, and she’d hurled herself off it. And she’d gotten exactly what she’d known she would. He’d made her into yet another conquest. Only she hadn’t even lasted twenty-four hours. More like twenty-four minutes, if that.

Beside her, Celine sighed. She lowered her head, stared out the window and said, “Yeah. Okay.”

Elisa risked a glance at Brett. There was a small smile, something like triumph, on his face. And behind Elisa’s tongue, desire that she bit back and swallowed.

5

BRETT SHADED HIS eyes with his hand. Nice scenery. Lush foliage and big tropical flowers and a horizon pool, built to look as if the water went straight on forever. The pool was the same blue as the cloudless sky.

The air was warm but not oppressively hot, and a light breeze blew now and again. He was glad there were some wispy clouds in the sky—otherwise, he wouldn’t believe the scene was real. The resort was unbelievable—gorgeous rooms with white linens, flowers on the credenza and an orchid on the pillow. Thick plush towels in stacks in the bathroom and a white bathrobe behind the door. Flowers and palms and secluded little alcoves with marble benches. And an army of people employed to keep him happy. He’d just have to keep his mind off the tab and enjoy it as long as he could. Until Elisa ousted him from paradise.

Oh, yeah, and then there was the other scenery—a veritable army of bikini-clad women lying on chaises, sipping drinks, lounging on the steps in the shallow water. His mouth was dry, and he wasn’t sure if it was the visuals or the fact that a G&T would be perfect right about now. All he’d have to do to get a drink was to flag down one of the many poolside waiters with trays on their hands and towels over their arms.

Because Elisa had said they should continue this half-assed charade, Celine had come down to the pool with him and was asleep face down on the chaise beside him, her cheek probably imprinted by now with the texture of the chair. He cast a wary glance in her direction. He’d promised to wake her if she slept too long so she could put on more sunscreen. “Celine.”

She didn’t move.

“Celine?”

He sighed. He didn’t want to be responsible for burning America’s newest sweetheart to a crisp. But he didn’t want to wake a sleeping lionness, either. She’d been angry since his rejection in the cab.

Now she looked like a little kid, her mouth slightly open, her smooth, unlined face even more youthful in repose. She was definitely a wakeup call to him. Even though she was just five years younger than he and Elisa, she came across as far more naive.

He’d discovered there was a limit to how far even he would go, and picking up a twenty-two-year-old newbie TV star in a drugstore and following her to the Caribbean had showed him a set of lines he no longer wanted to cross. He’d had to ignore warning sirens in his brain to get himself here, and he wouldn’t do that again. So the scenery might be lovely at this swimming pool, but until further notice, his policy was look but don’t touch.

He was staring at one of the sunbathers when he discovered that she was Elisa. He hadn’t done it with any kind of conscious thought; he’d just let his eyes drift until his attention had been snagged by a woman’s golden limbs and reddish hair. It was always long legs and auburn hair that felled him. He would daydream, notice a woman and then realize he’d been half hoping it was Elisa. Only in this case it was, and instead of his heart sinking with disappointment, he felt a small hopeful glow in the center of his chest. She looked up just then, caught his eye and waved.

Damn it, he didn’t like to be found staring. Men should avoid that at all costs. There was a fine art to scoping. You never let a woman see the top of your head or wonder where your eyes had been. A close outside observer might be able to read your mind, but the recipient of the gaze should never discover that it was directed at her unless you wanted her to. And he didn’t want Elisa to know. Not by a long shot.

She’d gotten up from the lounger and was headed in his direction. Her long strides ate up the pebbled surface of the pool deck.

“Hey,” she said.

She wore what should have probably been the dullest, drabbest bathing suit on earth. It was chocolate brown, with wide straps and a high heart-shaped neckline that curved over the tops of her breasts, and it was almost straight across the bottom, like high-cut shorts instead of a bathing suit triangle. But it wasn’t drab on Elisa. The brown set off her eyes, and made the strands of red and gold in her hair stand out, and the cut of the suit—whatever the girly fashion name for it would be— reminded him of a ’40s movie star and was somehow sexier for not trying to be flashy.

It looked like it would be a bitch to get her out of, but the finest pleasure, too. Like peeling fruit, exposing bare, round, luscious bits of her.

Now his mouth was really dry. “Hey.”

She looked uncomfortable, her eyes not meeting his. “Is she—?”

“She’s asleep.”

Elisa knelt at the side of Celine’s chaise, then nodded to confirm Brett’s diagnosis. He made a superhuman effort not to stare at the neckline of Elisa’s suit and the mouthwatering body it outlined. He tried to forget he knew the exact curve and weight of her, the way her lips parted when he touched her just right. Those sounds she made.

Instead he asked, “How long do we perpetuate this pretend romance?”

She stood up. “I just got off the phone with Celine’s publicist. I needed another opinion.”

“And did you get one?”

“She’s good with the plan.”

“Which is?”

“A couple of hours lounging at the pool together and a few drinks in the bar afterward. And then Celine moves on, and you’re free to go.” She surveyed the landscape of human flesh. “If you can drag yourself away.” She chuckled.

He ignored that last line. “Will she cooperate?” He gestured at Celine. Awake, she’d been sullen and hostile, snapping at his attempts to make conversation and refusing his help to drag an empty chaise out of the shade.

“I’ll tell her she has to. And Haven will tell her she has to. And it’s just a few drinks. How much trouble can she cause?”

He shrugged. It made him uncomfortable to have Elisa towering over him, so he got to his feet. He’d forgotten how tall she was, only a couple of inches shorter than him. He liked tall women because he didn’t have to stoop to kiss them.

He had to stop fantasizing about kissing her, about stripping her out of her clothes, about laying her on a chaise and sliding his body up the length of hers. He’d made the decision on the plane that, if he wanted to be her friend, he couldn’t afford to remind her of what she hated about him. He couldn’t be the man she’d built her whole career around outwitting. He’d shut that part of himself down.

Shut it down. Just like that.

Except he was still thinking about kissing Elisa. With a slight incline of his head, he could have those soft lips against his. And coax her tongue—

He knew exactly how it would feel against his. Like that night, when he’d wanted it to extinguish the craving, and instead it had fed the fire.

What was wrong with him, that he couldn’t put sex out of his head for ten minutes?

She shifted from one foot to the other, hands on hips, which only made her waist look narrower. “So do you have a return flight?”

She’d lowered her voice, and, as if by agreement, they took a few steps away from where Celine lay.

“Haven’t booked one yet. Have you tried to do anything online? Someone said it was insanely expensive to call out if you don’t have an international plan, so I was trying to book through the website, but I couldn’t get my laptop to connect to the hotel wireless—”

Elisa frowned and scraped a toe over the glossy surface of the pool deck. “You should get on that. I can do it on my phone if you can’t get online.”

“First you tell me I can’t leave, and now you’re trying to boot me off the island.”

“I’m just—”

“You want me when you want me, and then you’re done, and you kick me to the curb like I’m garbage—”

“I’m—” But then she got that he was messing with her and smiled. It made him miss the good old days with a vengeance. When they’d smiled at each other all the time, joked and laughed and flirted and—

For a long moment her eyes stayed on his face, as if she were thinking it, too, but just when he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold her gaze, it flickered to something behind him. He turned to look. All he saw was the spiky greenery at the side of the pool. Then his vision resolved a blur of floral color into a Hawaiian shirt on someone holding a long-lensed camera.

“Is that your guy?”

“No. Crap. It’s the guy from the plane.”

“Great. How long has he been standing there?”

“I don’t know. He might have just showed up.”

From where they were standing, they couldn’t hear the whir of the digital shutter, but Brett knew he had to be shooting. It was too good an opportunity. The two of them, conspiring over the prone body of the sleeping TV star. “Do you think he heard any of our conversation?”

She eyed the distance between them and the burst of color in the foliage. “Probably not.”

“So it’s all visual. Stick out your hand. Like you’re shaking mine. Look businesslike.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?”

“Probably. But we can at least not give him any more raw material for scandal, right?”

She stuck her hand out, and he took it. Her hand was small, slim and surprisingly soft. She was angular and regal, but she still had that ultrafeminine, satiny feel to her skin. He wanted to rub his thumb over the back of her hand, over her wrist and up the inside of her arm. He wanted to see if the rest of her was as ridiculously soft and sweet. As her cheek. As her mouth.

Man, he was despicable. She was right about him. She’d always been right about him. And she’d been altogether right to get herself out of his life, because if she’d stuck around, he would have found a way to get in her pants. And there was no reason to think he’d have treated her any differently than the other women he’d discarded.

He’d proved it by running out on her that night and again two weeks later with her sister. God, he didn’t like to think about that.

He was still holding her hand. She took it back and said, all business, “Good luck with drinks.”

“Thanks.”

“If you’re lucky, you won’t see me again, except maybe the back of my royal blue bathing cap as I do lengths of the pool.” She waved, then turned.

“Okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. Not at all. She pivoted to walk away in earnest, and he checked out the bathing suit from the rear angle, that admirable contrast between the curve of her ass and the narrowest point of her waist, and hoped his bathing trunks weren’t obviously broadcasting his admiration.

He hadn’t actually said he’d leave after he ended his “relationship” with Celine. He hadn’t looked up earlier flights home, and he didn’t want to. It would be the gallant thing to do, of course. He should walk away and let Celine turn the weekend into a triumph. And it would be the prudent thing to do. The network was already going to be ticked at him for getting himself in the spotlight and not in a “family man” way.

But as he cursed that stupid, old-fashioned bathing suit, and its unexpected effect on his brain and cock, he knew one thing for sure. He wasn’t ready to have Elisa Henderson walk away from him for good, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to walk away from her.

6

SHE LAY ON the bed in her room. Decompressing. She had slipped into her nightgown to get out of her travel-worn clothing, and because the cool breeziness of the fabric felt good against her hot skin.

There was still a little light in the sky, and she could see the ocean through her open sliding glass doors. She’d consumed most of the room’s gift basket, passion fruits and kiwis, in a frenzy of stress-eating that she’d had to follow up by drinking the orange juice from the minibar.

She’d tucked herself under the bed’s lightweight white quilt and plumped herself up on a stack of feather pillows. So this was how the other half lived. She’d grown up in a small ranch house and shared a bedroom with her sister, their mother running her accounting business out of the other bedroom. Her mom had worn sweats 80 percent of the time, changing only when clients came to the house and did business at the kitchen table. Elisa had never learned to tell a salad fork from a shrimp fork, much less slept under Egyptian cotton sheets. She was hardly the poster child for someone who should be trafficking in image, celebrity or luxury.

But she kind of liked it—the horizon pool, the overeager staff, the flowers and tropical fruit, and white-tiled hotel room floor. She could get used to this, provided Brett behaved and the rest of the weekend went as planned.

She used her smartphone to clean out her email in-box and listen to her voice mail. There was a message from one of her clients, a third-grade teacher. Elisa grinned as she heard Savannah’s giddy voice. “Oh, my God, it was such a good date. I really, really like him, and he kissed me, and seriously you are my fairy godmother. I can’t wait to see you on Tuesday and tell you the whole story. I’m totally not telling it now, because I will clog up your voice mail, but we had such a good time and you were totally right. A jazz club was a way better choice than a movie. We could talk, and he kept leaning close to tell me funny things! Thank you, thank you! See you Tuesday!”

That was what she loved. The joy in Savannah’s voice. The rib-crushing hug Savannah would undoubtedly give her at her next appointment. The details Savannah would dish over tea and shortbread cookies. And good first dates often led to good second dates and on down the line. Elisa couldn’t start writing Savannah’s wedding toast yet, but she’d been to nearly thirty client weddings now, and almost all of those couples had had great first dates. Elisa liked to save the voice mails to replay for her clients when they came in to display their engagement rings. She saved the message, then switched over to read an email that popped up.

It was another Facebook friend request from Brett. She’d refused at least five of his in the past two years. Each one had been an unpleasant tweaking reminder that he still existed. Somehow, despite her refusals, he remained stubbornly optimistic that she’d want to be “friends.”

She deleted the request. She was softening toward him despite herself, and the last thing she needed was to see his face and his news every day.

She texted her sister, Julie. You won’t believe this. Guess who Celine picked up en route and brought to the Caribbean?

george clooney?

Hint: The one topic we never discuss.

Long pause, then, brett???????????

Elisa’s phone rang.

“How does that even happen?” Julie demanded. Her sister’s voice, warm and familiar, was a welcome comfort. It was a miracle that what had happened with Brett and Julie had not poisoned the sisters’ relationship. Elisa thanked God for it all the time. And she thanked God she’d told her sister, that night before Julie had gone out with Brett, “Whatever happens, I don’t want to hear about it. Not a word.” Because she knew there was no way in hell she could stand it. It was only the not-knowing that had made it possible for her and Julie to go on as if nothing had happened.

“I think I’m being punished,” Elisa told Julie.

She explained the whole situation, from the long moments of worrying that Celine hadn’t made the flight, to the drinks date going on in the resort bar at this very moment.

“Does he know how important this is to you?”

“I think so.”

“Tell him if he screws this up for you or Celine, I will kill him.”

Elisa loved her sister’s ferocious protectiveness and wished for the ten-millionth time that Julie lived in New York with her and not on the other side of the country in Seattle. “I’m not worried. Brett’s on board. He’ll finish up with her, and then I’m going to take over, and we’re going to have so much fun she’s going to be too busy to get into trouble.” She knew she sounded like she was trying to convince herself—she was trying to convince herself—but she had to stay positive.

“If anyone can do this, you can. I wish you’d been a dating coach when I was a teenager.”

Julie had spent most of her high school years throwing herself recklessly into relationships with popular older boys and then weeping and sulking through dinner when, inevitably, things didn’t work out for her. Elisa had rarely been able to use the home phone because Julie always tied it up crying to her friends. It was beyond Elisa how Julie could make the same mistake over and over again, but the pattern had continued to the present day.

It was possible, Elisa sometimes thought, that she’d become a dating coach partially to alleviate the frustration of watching helplessly as Julie flung herself against a brick wall, but of course she’d never told her sister.

“You just say the word, Jules. I’ll drop everything and work with you.”

“You’ve got bigger and better things going on.” If there was any hint of sadness in her voice, it was overshadowed by her clear pride in Elisa’s work. “Next week, your phone’ll be ringing off the hook.”

“Your mouth, God’s ear.” She was tempted to knock on wood.

Julie sighed. “I should let you go. You’ve got a long evening ahead of you, huh?”

“Yeah. Glad you called, Jules.”

“Good to hear your voice, Lise.”

“Love you.”

“You, too.”

She set the phone on the night table and collapsed back on her throne of pillows. For the first time today, she was alone and not desperately trying to fix this star-crossed weekend. The lack of imminent disaster felt glorious. Across the resort, Celine and Brett had met for their fake destination date, and that would close the door on all this silliness. Brett would fly home, and she and Celine would do their boot camp weekend, and maybe, just maybe, everything wouldn’t fall apart. This could still become a victory for Rendezvous.

Her business was so new. She had a great start, but her ambitions were even grander. Eighteen months ago, things had been different. She’d been a cog in a wheel, a senior “relationship guru” at a matchmaking franchise. She got a salary, and in exchange, she followed rules. This many matches per week. This many dates per month for each client. This many new clients. Numbers were the point, regardless of whether the matches made sense or the dates were meaningful or the clients were admirable human beings.

She’d followed the rules at first, but after a year, she’d started to see how those regulations made things worse for women who’d been through dating hell. Meaningless dates translated to more rejections. Bad matches led to more breakups. Elisa did better—meaning she made more women happier—when she followed her own guidelines, setting up dates only between people she genuinely believed would like each other and pushing for ongoing contact only for couples she truly thought had a future. The number of solid-looking marriages that came from her work—the only measure that mattered to her—was better than anyone else’s in the company.

Maybe the franchise owner was jealous of Elisa’s success, or maybe she’d just drunk way too much Kool-Aid, but for whatever reason, she cracked down on Elisa with full force, putting her on notice. The owner told her that she had to make her quota in the last ten days of the month. There was no way Elisa could do that without sacrificing her clients’ happiness, and she told her boss so.

Her boss fired her without notice. Elisa left the office with only her contact list—partly because no one had told her that she couldn’t take it with her, but mostly because she would have died before she’d leave her clients hanging. She planned to call every one of them to let them know she’d left and to apologize for having to abandon them while they were still single.

Only it hadn’t worked out that way. Every client she’d called had begged her to take them with her.

At first she’d laughed. It had seemed like a crazy joke. Of course she couldn’t take them with her. She didn’t have a job, and there was no way she was going to start making matches out of her living room.

But that’s what they wanted. They pleaded with her. They told her that they’d meet with her in a coffee shop, the park, their own living rooms, if that was what it took. They said she made them feel good about themselves. She boosted their confidence, offered them control of their destinies.

She convinced them they didn’t have to date jerks.

The outpouring of support made her cry, and then it bolstered her. Why couldn’t she do it? All she needed were clients, a telephone, an office and maybe—down the line—an assistant. That wasn’t so much, really. She’d taken out a loan to get the office space, set up a business and gradually transitioned her title from “matchmaker” to “dating coach,” bringing in new clients and adding services. Evening and weekend workshops and classes. Boot camp outings. Boot camp weekends.

Things were looking good, but she dreamed of offering her services to a wider audience, of evangelizing the notion of hiring a dating coach. If she could grow demand, if she could increase her own reach....

Six months ago she’d been grateful to still have clients. Now she wanted more.

She’d confessed her ambitions to Julie, who’d been incredibly supportive. “Not more, bigger. Celebrities. Because if you do that, the idea of hiring a dating coach enters the popular consciousness. And if you’re the dating coach that all the big names have, you’re the person everyone wants. They know, if you’re good enough for Mila Kunis, you’re good enough for them.”

“But how do you get into that market? You have to have a celebrity to get the celebrities, right?”

Julie had puzzled over that for a minute, then said, “I know someone who knows Celine Carr’s publicist.”

And two days later, Haven had returned her call.

“Celine’s not easy,” Haven had said. “And she’s made more of a mess of dating than just about any other aspect of her life.”

Elisa doubted that, because she knew Celine’s brief stint in rehab had been followed not a year later by a term in an eating disorder clinic, or so the tabloids and entertainment magazines had said. But maybe that wasn’t true. Look at how news was born—by crazed, aggressive paparazzi. It was a wonder anything factual ever got printed.

“We’ve got image consultants, we have all that stuff going on,” Haven said. “You can focus completely on the dating stuff. I’ve heard great things about you. But I’d like to meet you before I make a decision.”

Haven had arranged a meeting, and Elisa and Celine had immediately hit it off. Or at least Elisa had been charmed by Celine, and Haven had told Elisa, “You’re amazing with her. She listens to you. If anyone can get her to shape up, you’re my gal.”

Since then, Elisa and Celine had met almost weekly, working on Celine’s self-image, talking about what the star wanted from a relationship and discussing strategies for a healthy approach to dating.

Which was why it was a bit of a mystery to Elisa why Celine was still picking up strange men in drugstores. Elisa would have to address that one with Celine later tonight.

Elisa had aimed for nonchalance when she’d told Brett about her phone conversation with Haven this afternoon, but it had been a little tenser than Elisa had let on. Haven had been pretty riled up when she’d heard about the paparazzo on the plane. She’d been torn between staying with her mom in the hospital and flying to St. Barts to check out the situation for herself. Elisa had reassured Haven a million times that the situation was under control, but Haven kept saying, “You don’t know Celine.” Finally Haven had said she’d take a look at what, if any, photos or other material had made it online and would decide based on that whether she thought Elisa needed reinforcements.

Elisa would have to make sure that everything else went smoothly from this point on. When Brett and Celine were done, Celine’s evening with Elisa would start. If Elisa and Celine wanted to make the most of the setting, and generate useful promo footage, they probably wouldn’t go to bed ’til 2:00 a.m. or later.

What an exhausting thought. Julie had been right when she’d said Elisa had a long evening ahead of her.

She let her eyes fall closed. She’d have a cat nap. Just enough to take the edge off.

But she was restless, and she knew why. Brett. He’d had on a T-shirt at the pool, but it had cleaved to his shoulders and chest. And under his board shorts, his hips had been narrow, his legs gorgeously muscled.

Thou shalt not covet thy client’s date.

Oh, but she did. She coveted. When he’d stood over her on the plane, at the pool, she’d been reminded of his size and strength. Of the way he’d overwhelmed her that night on her couch. Stolen her breath out of her body.

You can’t have him. Even if he weren’t Celine’s date, even if this wasn’t a gigantic mess, you can’t have him. He doesn’t want to be had.

Her libido didn’t care. It just remembered the rush of pleasure she’d felt when Brett had kissed her. The surge of liquid heat, the slickness between her legs, the way the craving expressed itself in her fingers and toes and eyelashes and freckles.

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