Without warning, Hunter yanked the sweater over Gillian’s head.

“I never would have taken you for a white cotton girl,” he murmured with a faint note of amusement as he eyed her utilitarian bra.

“Cotton’s comfortable,” she protested breathlessly.

“It’s also not the least bit erotic.” Imprisoning both her wrists in one hand, he released the front catch with a deft flick of his wrist.

“I would think I should be allowed to wear whatever I please,” she whispered as her heart started to beat faster. Harder. “The days are my own.”

“I lied.” The long hard fingers of his right hand cupped her breast. “Feel how your body warms to my touch,” he said. He lifted her breast and kissed the pale crevice beneath it, causing heat to pool in her lower body.

“I could take you right now. I could make you come…again and again. I could give you the best sex of your life, Gillian. And leave you begging for more…”

His words both shocked and aroused her. And somehow bound her to him as inexorably as a pair of velvet handcuffs might bind her to his bed.

Thirty Nights
JoAnn Ross

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR…

I’d like to share a secret with you: Thirty Nights was not originally written for publication. It began as a story I made up to amuse myself—and my husband—while snowed in at our mountain cabin. My personal fantasies have always revolved around the dark and dangerous. Even as a child I preferred Beauty’s Beast to Cinderella’s Prince, Batman to Superman, and my favorite movie was The Phantom of the Opera.

I adore reluctant heroes with tragic pasts, men who’ve put themselves in harm’s way and have been wounded, physically, emotionally, or both in the process. Hunter St. John is such a man: the quintessential “beast” hiding away on his remote island, he’s built an impenetrable wall around his emotions. But Gillian Cassidy is determined to tear down that hateful wall, unlock those chains around his heart and expose Hunter to the healing powers of love.

Thirty Nights is a very special book to me. Writing it allowed me to follow my characters on their edgy, erotic journey. Hunter is not an easy man to love, but by the time I wrote The End, Gillian and I had both fallen madly, passionately in love with him. I hope you will, too.

I love to hear from readers. You can write to me or sign up for an electronic newsletter at www.joannross.com.

Warmest,

Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Prologue

Cambridge, Massachusetts

TO A CASUAL VISITOR, the leafy campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located on the banks of the Charles River, would appear to be a peaceful glade. In this case, appearances were definitely deceiving. Inside a sixty-year-old ivy covered red brick building a battle royal was raging.

Hunter St. John was furious enough to kill the man he’d mistakenly considered a mentor. If this had been the Stone Age, he would have picked up the nearest club and bashed George Cassidy’s head in. Civilization being what it was, he was forced to fight with mere words.

“You stole my research and used it as your own.”

“There you go again, being overly dramatic.” The older man dismissed the complaint with a brief wave of his hand. “Sometimes I worry about you, St. John.”

“The gene-splicing project was mine,” Hunter insisted.

“You’re my research assistant, everything you do while a student here rightfully belongs to me. Including that little gene-splicing experiment.”

“That little gene-splicing experiment just won you a research grant from the National Institutes of Health, dammit.”

Cassidy’s features took on an expression of smug satisfaction. “It was well deserved.”

“It was my project.” Hunter’s growl was that of a wolf who’d just come across an interloper approaching his den. “I came up with it, I pushed it, I babied it along, going without sleep to work on it during hours I wasn’t working on your research. You had no right to it.”

To Hunter’s amazement, Cassidy actually had the nerve to smile. “You’re a bright young man, St. John. However, I fear that you lack the emotional restraint necessary to succeed in the research field. Along with a keen intellect and a deep-seated curiosity, a scientist must possess a clear and cool head. Which you lack. Which is why I regrettably had to notify the administration you were no longer suited to work here.”

Hunter had always known George Cassidy to be an egotistical, coldhearted son of a bitch. Since that seemed to be the norm in the world of scientific research, he hadn’t been particularly bothered by his behavior. But this treachery was beyond anything even he could have imagined.

“You had me taken off the project? I’m canned?”

“That’s not exactly the word I would have chosen, but yes.”

A fury like nothing he’d ever before experienced surged through Hunter. He curled his hands into fists at his sides to keep from pounding them into the supercilious bastard’s handsome face. “I could kill you.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to do that,” Cassidy countered. “Believe me, Hunter, my boy, the laboratory facilities in prison are definitely not up to your standards.”

When Hunter didn’t even bother to respond, the older man shook his head in mock remorse. “You’re making too much of this,” he repeated. “You’re a young man, only twenty years old—”

“I’m twenty-one.” Following in his brilliant late father’s footsteps, he’d already garnered a medical degree from Harvard and a master’s in biochemistry from MIT. The gene-splicing project Cassidy had so blithely pirated had been Hunter’s doctoral work.

“You’re still a wet-behind-the-ears pup. There will be more projects for you to work on.”

“I had a project, dammit. Until it was stolen from me.”

“Really, my boy, your choice of words is not only inaccurate, it’s redundant.” Appearing bored with this conversation, Cassidy opened a cage, pulled out a white research rabbit and prepared to draw a blood sample.

It was not in Hunter’s nature to surrender without a fight. “I could go to the administration and tell them what you’ve done.”

“And whom do you think they’d believe? A student who’s already been thrown out of two undergraduate schools due to his hot temper? Or a respected, world-renowned, award-winning scientist who’s on the shortlist to be nominated for the Nobel Prize?”

Both men knew the answer to that rhetorical question. Just as they both knew that Hunter’s time here had come to an abrupt, inglorious end.

“If you ever manage to control your unruly emotions,” Cassidy said into the silence that had settled over the laboratory, “you could well prove to be one of the greatest scientific minds of our time. But there’s one thing you need to learn.”

Hunter felt as if he were suffocating. “What’s that?”

The older man absently stroked the rabbit’s soft white fur. “It’s a bunny-eat-bunny world out there. Survival goes to the fittest.”

And the most treacherous, Hunter thought. And although he knew that it would only confirm Cassidy’s belief that he was too emotional to be a ground-breaking scientist, what was proving more irritating to Hunter than the theft of his research project was the realization that such betrayal had come from a man he trusted. A man he’d foolishly come to think of as a surrogate father.

“I’ll make you pay for this.”

“Perhaps.” Cassidy remained seemingly unperturbed by the gritty threat. “In the meantime, please shut the door on your way out. I wouldn’t want the rabbits to get ill from a draft.”

A crimson curtain, born of his boiling fury, drifted over Hunter’s eyes. Wanting to escape before he beat his former mentor to a bloody pulp with his bare fists, he stormed from the laboratory. Blinded by rage as he was, he didn’t even notice that he’d almost run into Cassidy’s young daughter.

Clad in the Catholic school uniform of a prim white blouse and green plaid skirt, Gillian Cassidy clutched her schoolbooks to her still-flat chest and watched Hunter St. John stride down the hall.

He was leaving. He and her father had fought before. Yet she knew, with every fiber of her young being, that this time Hunter would not be back.

Biting her bottom lip to block the involuntary whimper that rose in her throat, she closed her eyes, leaned back against the muddy-green wall and considered miserably that although her famed father supposedly knew everything there was to know about the human body, she suddenly possessed a unique medical knowledge of her own.

Although she was only twelve years old, Gillian now knew exactly how excruciatingly painful it was for a human heart to break.

1

Rio de Janeiro

Thirteen years later

RIO HAD AN INFECTIOUS BEAT and a beauty all its own. The pace was fast, the Cariocas’ celebrated zest for living readily evident, particularly after midnight when stunningly attractive people crowded the pink tile sidewalks and packed the clubs.

Gillian Cassidy’s dressing room boasted a breathtaking view of Guanabara Bay, but her attention was not on the dancing lights surrounding the world-famous gumdrop-shaped peak of Sugarloaf Mountain. Instead, she was conducting a postmortem of the midnight show she’d just completed with her road manager. It was her first piano concert in the Brazilian city; she had four more performances over the next two nights before moving on to Australia.

The room was filled to overflowing with flowers. One elaborate arrangement of gladiolus and calla lilies was from the theater management. A dazzling display of lacy orange bird-of-paradise blooms and giant scarlet poppies was a gift from the American ambassador, who’d flown in from La Paz. The rest were from fans and admirers from all over the country.

“What did you think of the lighting?” she asked as she sat down at the dressing table. She’d changed from the long black evening gown into a white terry-cloth robe.

“I thought it was perfect. As always,” Deke Feller assured her. He opened the minibar and took out a bottle of Brazilian beer for himself and mineral water for Gillian.

“You didn’t think the blue light during the ‘Dreams’ number was a little too cool?” She dipped her finger into a small porcelain pot and began to smooth the fragrant cold cream over her face.

“I told you, I thought it was perfect.”

“I still think it could have been warmer.” The perfume from the blooms was overwhelming; she was beginning to get a headache. Gillian made a mental note to send the bouquets to local hospitals. “What would you say to adding a touch of pink?”

“Pink,” he repeated on a deliberately bland tone as he jotted the change down in the notebook he was never without.

She looked at him in the mirror. “You don’t agree?”

“I told you,” he said with a shrug, his accent revealing Tennessee roots that predated the Confederacy, “I thought it looked great. But you’re the star.”

And if the star wanted pink, then the lighting crew would damn well oblige, Gillian knew. She’d heard rumors that the macho Brazilian crew, unaccustomed to such unrelenting attention to detail from a mere female, was accusing her of being a bitch. Dealing with critics had taught her to shrug off negative remarks. Even so, the accusation stung.

Gillian frowned. “Do you think I’m a prima donna?”

She’d been working with Deke for three years. During that time he’d become the closest thing Gillian had to a best friend, and unlike so many other of her employees, who tended to tell her what she wanted to hear, she could trust him to be honest with her. Even when it hurt.

“Of course not.” Deke appeared surprised by that idea. “You may be a perfectionist, Gilly. But that’s what makes you sell out all your performances everywhere we go.”

Gillian had realized in her first days of the music business, when she’d been just another struggling pianist trying to carve out a niche in a field dominated by country and pop artists, that the business was every bit as important as the music.

The challenge, of course, was to try to balance the magic and bliss of the music with insisting on using her own microphones for the auditorium PA systems and having her accountant keep a close eye on her record company royalty statements.

She also understood that too often people made the mistake of thinking that just because she looked soft, she did business that way, too. Over the years she’d acquired an agent, manager, producer and more people than she could easily count working with her and for her. Still, she insisted on making the final decision on even seemingly unimportant details, from what color lipstick she’d wear on stage to the typeface used for the programs.

Was it so wrong to want fans to feel as if they’d gotten their money’s worth? she wondered, even as she reluctantly admitted that her almost obsessive need to govern all aspects of her life had been born that long-ago day when her father had phoned her at her Swiss boarding school to unemotionally inform her that he was divorcing her slut of a mother.

“Besides,” Deke drawled, his deep voice breaking into her introspection, “my Aunt Fayrene had a saying.”

“Was she the one who sang in the Grand Ole Opry?”

Shaking off her uncharacteristic gloomy self-doubts, Gillian wiped the cold cream and heavy stage makeup off with a tissue. She’d given up trying to keep Deke’s countless relatives straight.

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head, took a long swallow of beer, sighed his pleasure, then wiped the foam off his mouth with the back of his hand. “That was Aunt Patsy. Aunt Fayrene’s the one who ran the Rebel’s Roost outside Turkey Gulch.”

“Of course,” Gillian murmured. “However could I forget the infamous madam of Turkey Gulch, Tennessee’s most popular house of ill repute?”

“Laugh all you want, but Fayrene was one smart cookie. She realized that since so many women were more than willing to give sex away, she had to think of herself as bein’ in the entertainment business.”

“Now you’re comparing me to a prostitute?” Amused, Gillian sipped her mineral water and felt her exhaustion begin to slip away.

“Hell, no. But what Aunt Fayrene always said about the hooker who realized she was sitting on the gold mine fits your situation.” He flashed her the grin that she suspected had charmed a great many Southern belles.

“You’ve got a lot of pretty glittery gold to sell, Gilly. The trick is not to let anyone go prospectin’ without first paying for the mineral rights.”

Gillian laughed as she was meant to. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Castle Mountain, Maine

HUNTER ST. JOHN LAY in bed, enjoying the aftermath of passion. The woman snuggled up against him was a biochemist working at the nearby think tank colloquially referred to by the locals as the “brain factory.” Toni Maggione was intelligent, driven, seductive, and what was most appealing to Hunter, she possessed an unrelentingly hedonistic attitude toward sex.

They’d first met three years ago, when, following his release from a Bosnian hospital, he’d arrived on the remote island off the rocky coast of Maine to work on his latest project. After a brief verbal exchange of personal résumés, and even briefer explanations of their works in progress, she’d leaned against a stainless steel table in her laboratory and chewed on a short scarlet fingernail while studying him, as if he were one of the lab animals she was considering using for her cancer research. He’d watched her gaze flick over his scarred and disfigured face, waiting for the expected response of horror, but all he’d read in those coffee-dark eyes had been vague curiosity.

“Three of my rats died this morning,” she’d told him.

“Should I say I’m sorry?”

“That’s not necessary. Since it wouldn’t change the fact that they died. And I was so hoping for a remission.” Her full lips had pouted. “It’s been a horrid morning.”

“Perhaps it’ll get better.”

Her smile had been slow and openly provocative. “You must be a mind reader. Because that’s precisely what I was thinking.” Her hips had swayed enticingly as she’d crossed the white tile laboratory floor in a way that had reminded him of a lioness on the hunt and locked the door. Then, still smiling, she’d turned back toward him and had begun taking off her clothes. Not waiting for a verbal invitation, Hunter had quickly shed his, as well.

They’d continued to get together three or four times a month. Constantly underfunded, suffering frustrating setbacks that were part and parcel of medical research, Dr. Antoinette Maggione used sex to relieve the unrelenting pressure of her work. Possessing a strong sex drive himself, Hunter was more than willing to help her out.

“I almost forgot. I brought you a present,” she said, slipping from his arms.

“A present?”

She laughed at the unmistakable alarm in his voice. “Don’t panic, darling.” Reaching up, she patted his scarred cheek. “You’ve already insisted that I’m not allowed to get you a Christmas present again this year,” she reminded him. “This is just a little something I saw in the video store the other day.” She left the bed, went into the living room and returned with the boxed tape. “I thought at the time that it might add to the mood.”

Hunter pushed himself up into a sitting position. “If you need a porno tape to get in the mood, I must not being doing my job.”

She laughed again. “Darling, if you weren’t a magnificent lover, I wouldn’t have forgotten about the tape two minutes after you opened the door. It isn’t pornography. It’s a music video.”

She turned on the bedroom television and stuck the tape into the VCR, then slipped back into bed.

Piano music filled the room. Hunter had never considered himself even a remotely fanciful man, yet the way it flowed, clean and clear, vaguely reminded him of a sunlit river tumbling over mossy rocks on the way to the sea.

On the screen, a slender woman was seated in a circle of towering stones. Her back was to the camera, her long hair—a blend of red, copper and gold that brought to mind a dazzling sunset—fell in rippling waves to her waist.

“I wonder how the producer got permission to film at Stonehenge,” he wondered out loud.

Toni shrugged her bare shoulders. “Gillian Cassidy’s sales figures probably speak pretty loudly. Factor in her incredible looks and I doubt if there’s a male government bureaucrat anywhere in the world who’d be able to say no to the woman. There are also some incredible scenes set on the Irish coast.”

“Cassidy?”

His nemesis’s surname rang an instant and unpleasant bell. It was, Hunter reminded himself, a not uncommon name. Especially along the eastern seaboard where so many immigrants of Irish extraction had settled.

But didn’t George Cassidy have a daughter? He vaguely remembered a skinny little thing with wild carrot-hued hair that was always escaping her braids, and a mouthful of metal braces.

“If you’d ever get your head out of the laboratory, you’d know that Gillian Cassidy just happens to be the hottest New Age performer in the country,” Toni informed him. “Last year her Machu Picchu CD outsold John Tesh’s and Yanni’s albums combined. This one went platinum in the first week.”

As the slender hands flowed over the keyboard, the music grew richer, more complicated, soothing his mind even as it stirred his blood. It couldn’t be the same girl, Hunter assured himself. George Cassidy had always seemed more android than man; from what Hunter had witnessed, the scientist hadn’t possessed a single iota of human emotion.

The idea that such an unfeeling bastard could have fathered a child capable of tapping into such deep-seated primal passions merely by skimming her fingertips over eighty-eight ebony and ivory keys was inconceivable.

The view shifted as the camera lens went in for a close-up of the pianist’s face. Unaware of doing so, Hunter leaned closer toward the screen.

She was looking down at the keys, but as he watched, seemingly in response to his unspoken command, she slowly lifted her gaze.

Pow! Hunter experienced what felt like a body blow as he found himself staring straight into a pair of thickly lashed green eyes that were simultaneously both foreign and familiar. Unbelievably, it was her. Damned if Cassidy’s little girl hadn’t grown up. Which, Hunter allowed, only made sense, since the planet certainly hadn’t stopped spinning since that long-ago day when his mentor had betrayed him.

Her velvety soft eyes, which he recalled having been once hidden by thick, tortoise-shell-framed glasses that had seemed oversize on her small face, tilted up, catlike, at the corners. Her complexion was the pale alabaster of a true redhead, and either she’d neglected to paint her lips or the makeup person for the video shoot had selected a pale pink the color of the inside of a seashell.

When a faint breeze picked up a few strands of hair and blew them across those slightly parted pink lips, hunger stirred, deep and unbidden.

She looked as fragile as blown glass. But the music flowing from those unlacquered fingertips was as potent as Irish whiskey. And every bit as intoxicating.

She appeared to have inherited her mother’s passion. Hunter recalled George Cassidy’s third wife, Irene, being a great deal younger than her husband and a great deal less restrained.

Yet the one trait both Cassidys had shared had been their unrelenting, unapologetic aggressiveness in going after what they wanted. At the time, Irene Cassidy had certainly wanted him.

“Well, I’d thought the tape might set a sexy mood.” Toni’s husky voice was a blend of amusement and feminine pique. “But I didn’t expect competition.”

Music from the stereo speakers swelled around him, in him, like a fever in the blood.

“Don’t talk nonsense. You’re in a league of your own, sweetheart.” He pulled her close and kissed her with more affection than lust.

It was times like this, when his body was sated and his mind pleasantly fogged, free from the burden of romantic entanglements, when Hunter understood that George Cassidy had been right about one thing. Emotions were unnecessary complications. They weakened a man, made him vulnerable.

During the thirteen years since he’d left MIT, Hunter had survived—indeed prospered—by burying his feelings so deeply inside him he could no longer remember the idealistic young man he’d once been. Hunter supposed he should be grateful to Cassidy for that.

As Toni snuggled against him again, his mind continued to drift to thoughts of Cassidy and his daughter, whose appearance reminded him of one of those ethereal angels painted on the domed ceilings of Renaissance cathedrals.

He wondered idly if she were actually as virginal as she seemed, then remembering the depths of passion that had flowed from those fingertips, decided she couldn’t possibly be.

But the contrast of passion and innocence was undeniably appealing. What would it take, he mused, to make that serene, delicate woman scream with wild, wanton pleasure?

Suddenly, Hunter, who had not celebrated any holiday since that fateful afternoon he’d packed his bags and left MIT, knew exactly what he wanted for Christmas.

He wanted Gillian Cassidy. And thanks to what he knew about her formerly celebrated father, he intended to have her.

2

“GOOD GOD, MAN!” The scientist stared at his former protégé. “You can’t be serious.”

“On the contrary, I’ve never been more serious in my life,” Hunter responded mildly.

The fact that George Cassidy had not been able to resist accepting the summons to Castle Mountain from his former student was proof that the power between them had shifted. It was an acknowledgment, of sorts, Hunter thought with satisfaction, that the student had now become the master.

Oh, Cassidy was still a respected researcher and teacher.

His articles still routinely appeared in scientific journals and he was a frequent speaker at conferences. But it had escaped no one’s notice that he hadn’t come up with a truly important breakthrough in a decade.

His star was on the decline. While Hunter’s, which had taken off like a comet after he’d been forced from MIT, was now fixed as the brightest in the scientific firmament. Hunter couldn’t count the number of requests for speeches he turned down in any given month.

And unlike Cassidy, whose lectures were usually scheduled for the Sunday morning on the last day of a conference, when attendees were more likely to be worried about packing and making planes than listening to a rehash of old data, Hunter was routinely invited to be the keynote speaker at the most prestigious gatherings in the world.

Not that he appeared in person any longer, of course, but his recorded speeches—audio only, never video—were enough to draw standing-room-only crowds.

Hunter had been an intensely private man even before the assassination attempt that had disfigured him, and his reclusive behavior fueled various rumors. Two of the more recurring ones were that he’d become scarred beyond recognition and/or that he’d become the quintessential mad scientist creating Lord knows what sort of genetic mutations in his island laboratory. Hunter didn’t really give a damn what people said about him, as long as they left him alone.

The older man shook his head. Although at first glance George Cassidy had the look of a lion in winter, his thick mane of snowy hair had thinned, Hunter noticed irrelevantly. His once patrician nose was red and bulbous, indicating that his fondness for alcohol had intensified.

“This has to be some sort of sick joke.”

“I never joke.” Hunter leaned back in his leather chair, braced his elbows on the arms and eyed Cassidy over the tent of his fingers. “As you once so succinctly told me, emotions get in the way of logic. Which means, I suppose,” he allowed, “I owe a great deal of my success to your advice.”

“You would have succeeded on your own.”

“True. But if you hadn’t gotten me taken off the project, you would have continued to take credit for my work.” Work that had taken off in an entirely new direction, partly due to this man’s treachery. If Cassidy hadn’t stolen his research, he might never have developed such an interest in the age-old nature versus nurture argument.

“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You told me someday I’d pay. And now you’re out for revenge.”

“Revenge is such an unpleasant word, don’t you think?” Hunter countered pleasantly. “And actually, you’re wrong, Cassidy. I gave up on that idea a very long time ago. After I realized that you were no longer a very formidable adversary.”

He flashed a smile Toni had once described as being as merciless as a rattler’s. “Victory against a paper tiger isn’t much of a victory.”

The words obviously struck home, causing the older man to flinch. Better watch those emotions, George, Hunter thought. Or they’ll be your downfall yet.

“Then why—”

“It’s simple. As I said, your daughter has matured into a talented, lovely woman. And I want her.”

“You make her sound like a possession, like a car. Gillian isn’t some inanimate bauble to be bought and sold. She’s a woman—”

“I’m well aware of that. It’s precisely why I want her,” Hunter interjected patiently.

“My point is, she isn’t mine to give. The girl hasn’t lived under my roof since her mother and I divorced when she was barely in her teens.”

“But you kept in touch.”

Remembering those intimate little faculty dinners where Irene Cassidy had inevitably managed to corner him in some private corner of the professor’s Cape Cod house and attempt, unsuccessfully, to seduce him, Hunter suspected the woman wasn’t the type who’d willingly go to work to support herself and a young daughter.

“To some extent.” Cassidy’s next words confirmed Hunter’s thoughts. “Although my attorney fought her every step of the way, Irene managed to get the judge to award her a hefty alimony settlement. She also demanded—and won—hefty boarding school and college tuition payments. Naturally, I demanded equally generous holiday visitation rights.”

“Naturally,” Hunter said dryly.

He had the impression that neither parent had cared all that much for the teenage girl whose life must have been turned upside down by an acrimonious divorce. Gillian Cassidy had been merely a useful pawn in a war between two self-absorbed egoists.

Not so different from his own upbringing, he considered. However, in his case, neither of his illustrious, selfish parents could be bothered with the son they’d created more to ensure their immortality than out of any sense of lasting love. For each other or their child.

“But even if Gilly didn’t have a mind of her own, which believe me, despite that cotton-candy exterior, she does have,” Cassidy continued, “the days of fathers marrying off their daughters—”

“Who said anything about marriage?” Hunter cut him off again. “Marriage is for fools who believe in love and all its accompanying complications. Your own experience in the marital sweepstakes should have taught you that it doesn’t work.

“I want Gillian for one thing. And one thing only. For sex.”

“That’s obscene!”

Hunter lifted a brow. “Since when were you elected arbiter of society’s morals, Cassidy?”

Gillian’s father didn’t answer. Instead, he continued to stare at Hunter, as if he were some sort of monster. Which, Hunter allowed, he just might be.

“What the hell happened to you?” Cassidy asked quietly. Carefully.

Hunter’s ironic smile was grim and twisted and revealed not an iota of humor. “As you once warned me, it’s bunny-eat-bunny out there. And even in our business, research can get a little risky.”

The memory of the letter bomb exploding in his hand flashed like lightning in his mind. A memory of burning flesh seared his nostrils; inhuman screams, torn from his own throat, reverberated in his head. Utilizing the steely control that had kept him alive during those long and painful months of recuperation and rehabilitation, Hunter closed the door on the unbidden flashback.

“Now, since the forecast calls for an evening storm and I don’t believe either of us cares to be stuck here in close proximity while we wait for it to blow over, I’m going to cut right to the chase and save us both time so you can return to Cambridge….

“The fact is that I fancy your daughter. I’ve been thinking about her too much lately, and those thoughts are disturbing my work. So, I’ve come to the conclusion that the logical thing to do is to get the woman out of my system.

“I could take the time to go through some lengthy, ridiculous courtship routine, and, since I’ve been assured that despite certain obvious physical disadvantages, I’m a fairly good catch, I have no doubt that I could seduce her without a great deal of difficulty.

“However, since I possess neither the time nor the patience for such social game playing, I’ve decided to put the problem into your hands.”

“My hands?”

“It’s quite simple. I expect you to convince your daughter to come here to Maine, where I assure you, she will be treated with consideration and respect. I will not physically harm her. Nor will I play with her emotions the way so many lovers might.

“I’ve read that she’s just coming off a grueling tour and needs a rest. I’m offering leisurely days spent in a remote, idyllic location.

“As for her nights—” he enjoyed watching the older man flinch as he flashed a wicked, sexually suggestive grin “—I won’t bore you with the details.”

“You’re a devil, St. John.” Cassidy’s nervous eyes drifted to the twisted red-and-white flesh that ran from temple to jaw on the left side of Hunter’s face.

“Perhaps. I’m also a man, Cassidy.” Hunter’s tone remained as detached as his unblinking gaze. “A man with needs. Which is where the lovely Gillian comes in. And when those needs have been sufficiently satisfied, I’ll send her back to you. Safe and sound.”

“What makes you think I’d lift a finger to help you sleep with my daughter?”

Cassidy was shaking with rage; his face was so red Hunter wondered idly if he were on the verge of having a stroke. He also wondered if somehow he’d stumbled upon the old man’s soft spot. Perhaps he did care for his only daughter, after all.

“The stories I’ve heard about your diminishing capacity must be true.” Hunter shook his head with mock regret. “You are losing it, George, old man. The reason you’ll convince your daughter to join me here is because if you don’t, I’ll go public with what happened thirteen years ago.”

The older man blanched, the color fading from his too bright cheeks. “You couldn’t prove a thing!”

“That’s where you’re wrong. But it’s a moot point. Because the tables have turned. Whom do you think people would believe? A man recently voted the most brilliant scientist of his time? Or a broken-down has-been, clinging desperately to tenure with both hands, while trying to drown his failures in a bottle?”

“You wouldn’t.”

Hunter looked him straight in the eye. “In a heartbeat.”

He stood up and looked dispassionately down at Cassidy. “Since I have no desire to interrupt her tour, I’ll give Gillian seven days to show up.”

“If it were up to me, I’d send her to you,” George said. “But she’s always been ridiculously stubborn. Even those ruler-wielding Swiss nuns at the convent school in Lucerne couldn’t make the girl do anything she didn’t want to.”

He shook his leonine head again and looked balefully up at Hunter. “I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything.”

His former mentor’s response proved that there were no depths to which he’d sink to save his miserable career and overblown reputation. Despite his victory, Hunter found himself vaguely sickened by Cassidy’s willingness to act as pimp for his own daughter.

“Now, that’s where we’re different again. Because I can promise something. I promise to ruin you if Gillian isn’t here by the end of the week.”

With a defeated slump of his shoulders—though for himself or for his daughter, Hunter wasn’t quite sure— Cassidy silently left the room.

As Hunter stood at the window, watching the car that was taking Cassidy back down the cliff, he allowed himself, just this once, to enjoy the feeling of long-overdue satisfaction.

Then, as he remembered Gillian Cassidy’s soft green eyes and lush pale mouth, satisfaction gave way to anticipation.

Cambridge

GILLIAN COULDN’T BELIEVE what she was hearing.

“Let me get this straight.” She dragged her hand through her hair and faced her father across the lush Persian carpet covering the mahogany-plank study floor. “After thirteen years, Hunter St. John suddenly invites you to his home, then threatens to blackmail you?”

“The man’s a devil,” Cassidy grumbled, pouring another two fingers of whiskey into the Waterford old-fashioned glass.

“So you’ve said.”

Gillian was having trouble with that idea. Although she admittedly may have once gazed at Hunter St. John through foolishly romantic, rose-colored glasses, she didn’t believe her father’s harshly derogatory description fit.

There was something more to all this. Something her father wasn’t telling her.

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” she argued, every instinct she possessed on alert. She couldn’t remember once, in all her twenty-five years, her father ever revealing this much emotion. “You’re a respected scientist. How could Hunter possibly ruin your reputation?”

A log shifted on the fire, creating a shower of sparks. Appearing openly grateful for the diversion, George leaped from his bark brown leather chair and began jabbing at the fragrant applewood with the poker.

Gillian was not to be distracted. “I asked you a question, Father. Does Hunter know something you’ve neglected to mention? Was there something about the project you two were working on—”

“We weren’t working on any project together!” George’s ruddy cheeks were made even brighter by his anger. “Hunter St. John was a graduate lab assistant. No different from hundreds of others who have worked for me over the years.”

“He was obviously more intelligent than most,” she pointed out. “While flying back from New Zealand, I read in Newsweek that many in the scientific community consider him a genius.”

Wondering how old a woman had to get before she outgrew schoolgirl crushes, Gillian had been disgusted by whatever knee-jerk impulse had made her read the entire cover article. Twice.

The bombing that had nearly killed him had made the news, and although details had been sketchy, reports at the time had suggested that the assassination attempt was due to some top secret government project he’d been working on. The Newsweek journalist had reported that while Hunter had recovered well enough to resume his work—which had relieved Gillian greatly—he’d subsequently become more reclusive than ever. The fact that he’d refused to be interviewed for the article had not surprised Gillian, who remembered Hunter being very private.

“The man’s bright enough,” Cassidy allowed, his grudging tone jerking her wandering mind back into the murky conversational waters. “In that respect, he obviously inherited his parents’ genes. But Isabel Montgomery and David St. John were logical, scientific thinkers. Neither could have ever been described as given to emotional tantrums as St. John unfortunately is. Even during his student days, the boy was far too headstrong for his own good….

“He refused to follow my instructions, always thinking he knew best. And he wasn’t dependable.” The still-firm jaw jutted out defiantly. “Which is why I had no choice but to let him go.”

“So you said at the time.”

That afternoon, like everything else about Hunter, was emblazoned on Gillian’s memory. Even now, thirteen years later, she could recall with vivid clarity how livid he’d been when he’d stormed out of the laboratory.

“So.” She sat down with a flurry of flowered gauze skirt that was too thin for the frosty December Massachusetts morning, but had been just right when she’d boarded the plane in Auckland fifteen hours earlier. “Since there’s no basis for his threat, why are you so concerned?”

“Because he can make waves.” George tossed back the whiskey, then refilled the glass, this time nearly to the rim. “St. John always was a loose cannon. A damn troublemaker. If he costs me my tenure—”

“That’s ridiculous.” While her music was emotional, Gillian had always prided herself on being a woman of unwavering logic. “You achieved tenure years ago, before I was born. The only conceivable way you could possibly lose it would be to…”

Her voice trailed off as a flicker of comprehension began to tease at the back of her mind.

No, she assured herself. It couldn’t be true. Nothing had ever been as important to her father as his work. Not his colleagues, his students, his wives, nor his daughter. Gillian had long ago given up trying to win a love he was incapable of giving. But she’d always considered him to be a man of honor.

Unfortunately, as she watched him gulping down the Irish whiskey like a drowning man going under for the third time, she had to wonder.

It made sense, she considered grimly. She’d never believed her father’s unpersuasive explanations regarding Hunter leaving the project. And, even more surprisingly, MIT. Students were taken off research projects all the time, for all sorts of reasons. She’d witnessed varying levels of disappointment and frustration. Yet never had she seen the murderous depth of rage she’d witnessed in Hunter that day.

“Father.” She leaned forward and put her hand on his knee. “Look at me.”

When he reluctantly dragged his gaze to hers, Gillian saw something that looked horrendously like guilt flash across his red-veined eyes.

“Hunter was working toward his doctorate that year,” she said slowly. Carefully. “He had his own project—”

“It was a radical, unproved idea.”

“Knowing Hunter, that could well be. You always said that he thought outside the box. But if he’s as intelligent as everyone says he is—”

“He was on the wrong track,” George said, cutting her off with an impatient wave of an unsteady hand. “It wouldn’t have worked. It didn’t work, until…” This time he was the one to stop in midsentence.

Gillian closed her eyes and rubbed at her temple as the truth struck home.

Dear heavens, she didn’t need this. She’d just come off a grueling nine-month tour; she’d caught a cold in London that had stayed with her for weeks; she’d been traveling for hours; and exhaustion was beginning to catch up with her, along with the jet lag she’d been struggling to outrun as she’d raced around the world performing to standing-room-only crowds, talking to the press, trying to remember what she’d said one day in Sydney so as not to repeat herself exactly in Melbourne….

“You stole his project.” Her flat tone revealed a deep disappointment she felt all the way to the bone.

“He can’t prove a thing,” George insisted, dodging the question.

Gillian sighed and allowed herself a moment of profound sadness as her last illusion regarding her father shattered. Then, with a strength of spirit that had gotten her through far worse than this, she began to think the problem through.

“Given Hunter’s fame and reputation these days, he wouldn’t need to prove his accusation,” she mused out loud. “It would be his word against yours. And I’m afraid that just may be a battle you couldn’t win.” It had, after all, been a very long time since her father had been featured in Newsweek.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, dammit,” he said grumpily. “The devil’s going to cost me everything I’ve spent my life working for, Gilly.”

The headache that had been threatening hit with jackhammer force, pounding at her temple, behind her eyes. As she looked out at the sleet that was being driven against the window, Gillian desperately wished she was back in New Zealand. Or Rio. Anywhere but here.

“I wonder why he waited all these years?”

“That’s simple.” The alcohol had him slurring his words. “I didn’t have anything the black-hearted devil wanted until now.”

“I see,” Gillian said, not really seeing anything at all. Bone weary, she’d intended to fly straight from Kennedy airport to her beach house in Monterey, where she could spend a restful few weeks recovering from both her cold and the rigors of her tour by sitting out on her deck, watching the whales migrate. She’d been sitting in the first-class lounge, drinking a cup of honey-laced tea that she’d hoped would clear her sinuses but hadn’t, waiting to board the flight home, when her father had tracked her down, claiming a life-or-death emergency.

He’d stubbornly refused to be more specific, but concerned enough by the uncharacteristic tremor in his voice, Gillian had immediately changed her plans, taking the plane to Boston instead. Only to discover that the problem wasn’t honestly life-threatening at all, merely career-threatening.

Then again, Gillian reminded herself wearily, her father’s work had always been his life.

“What does Hunter want, Father?”

He stared at her through blurry, glazed eyes. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“No.”

“He wants you, Gilly. The heartless, amoral bastard says that if I don’t send you to Maine to sleep with him for thirty nights, he’ll ruin me. He gave me seven days to get you there. That was three days ago. I’ve only got four days left before I’m ruined.”

He shook his head. Then, muttering something about devils and the lowest circles of hell, George Cassidy passed out.

3

Castle Mountain

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS PAST the deadline, Gillian still hadn’t shown up on the island. Frustrated and disgusted with himself for the way he’d been watching the clock, Hunter had driven to the think tank located a few miles from his house, where he’d tried, with scant success, to concentrate on work.

“I figured you’d be working at home today,” a familiar voice said.

Hunter glanced back over his shoulder and saw Dylan Prescott standing in the doorway. Dylan, the founder of the think tank, was extraordinarily brilliant and unrelentingly good-natured. His sister was police chief and he was married to a science fiction writer whose stunningly cool beauty defied every nerdy stereotype regarding the mostly male genre.

More important, Dylan was also one of the few individuals Hunter trusted without hesitation. They weren’t working in the same fields—Dylan’s area of interest and expertise was space and time travel—yet Hunter enjoyed running hypotheses by his friend. Invariably, the imaginative scientist would come up with a new twist that Hunter hadn’t considered.

“Why would you think that?”

Dylan shrugged. “I dropped into the Gray Gull for coffee this morning before coming here. Ben Adams mentioned something about having to pick up a guest of yours from the mainland on his mail packet.”

He was too polite to ask, and too good a friend to probe into personal matters, but Hunter knew Dylan was curious. Especially since Hunter wasn’t known to entertain all that many guests at his remote, well-guarded home.

It was his turn to shrug. “That’s up in the air,” he said vaguely.

Dylan gave him a probing look, then, knowing his friend well, apparently decided that there was no point in digging. “It’s just as well you’re here,” he said. “Since you’ve got a visitor.”

“Oh?” He wondered if Ben had actually brought Gillian here, instead of to the house as he’d instructed.

“It’s that GQ guy from State,” Dylan revealed. “He’s currently cooling his heels in the reception area.”

Hunter shook his head. A government bureaucrat was just what he needed to top off a less-than-perfect day. He cursed. Then, remembering that the government was paying the bills for his research, sighed with resignation.

“I suppose, since he’s come all this way, I’m going to have to see him.”

“I’ll go tell Janet to send him in, then,” Dylan said.

As the receptionist ushered the man into his outer office, it crossed Hunter’s mind that if Hollywood ever went looking for someone to cast in the role of a rising player in the high-stakes world of international diplomacy, James Van Horn would be perfect for the part. His hundred-dollar haircut and cashmere coat suggested the family wealth Hunter knew had made him a legendary undergrad at Princeton. The British accent he tended to affect was a reminder of his days at Oxford, and his shoes—wing tips, for God’s sake—were far more appropriate for walking the marbled halls of the State Department than wading through Castle Mountain’s snowdrifts.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” Annoyed by the intrusion, and even more irritated that the man wasn’t the woman he’d been expecting for the past twenty-four hours, Hunter didn’t bother with pleasantries.

“I suppose you wouldn’t believe that I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop in and see how the work was progressing.”

“Not on a bet.”

Without waiting for an invitation, he took off his coat, which he hung with precision on the coatrack, hitched up the legs of his wool suit slacks, sat down in a leather chair, crossed his legs, then ran his manicured fingers down a knife-sharp crease.

“I had business in New England.” Shoulders clad in a subdued gray pinstripe shrugged. “You weren’t that far out of my way.”

It was a lie and both men knew it. Hunter waited him out.

“So, are the rumors true?” Van Horn eventually asked.

“Which rumors are you referring to?”

“The ones circulating around Washington that you’re on the verge of finalizing the project.”

The project in question was an offshoot of the gene studies Hunter had been doing when George Cassidy had gotten him kicked off the MIT project. Simply put, he’d created a program in which he detailed the political and economic history of a region, plugged in sociological factors past and present, along with a genetic profile of the inhabitants obtained from DNA studies, then ran them through the computer. With the collected data, the program, in theory, was then able to predict how any given population would respond under various circumstances.

There was another, darker side to his research that Hunter fully intended to keep under wraps. If the detailed DNA model he’d created fell into the wrong hands, it could theoretically be used to clone a genetically perfected warrior lacking in any social or moral conscience. An assassin class.

While he disliked working with bureaucrats, Hunter wasn’t in any position to turn down much-needed funds. He’d always eschewed the money-raising circuit, but after that incident in Bosnia that had cost him half his face and a hand, he figured hostesses wouldn’t exactly consider him a plus at their fund-raising dinners or cocktail parties.

His current work was being funded by both the State and Defense Departments, Defense wanting the data in order to predict wars and to discover how to map winning battle strategies, while State was seeking to defuse international skirmishes before they blew up into full-scale wars.

“I still have some work to do,” he said obliquely. “The Middle East, for example, is still problematic.”

They also didn’t like him in that part of the world. He’d been shot at more times than he cared to think about during his stay in the region. And although he liked most of the population personally, he’d been warned on more than one occasion that he was considered a traitor for including various warring factions into his model. The trouble with that was that in too many parts of the world, people viewed as traitors tended to disappear. Or get blown up.

Hunter hoped like hell that he wouldn’t have to return to Lebanon anytime soon. Beirut might have once been the Paris of the region, but there were still neighborhoods that could only be described as shooting galleries.

Then there was Kosovo. Hunter sighed. Good luck keeping any negotiated peace in that place. And Bosnia. And Afghanistan. The list went on and on, and while he had uncharacteristically high hopes for the project, Hunter was also pragmatic enough to know that trying to halt any outbreaks of violence around the world was akin to attempting to plug a hole in Hoover Dam with a finger.

“The powers that be are getting impatient,” Van Horn warned.

“Tough. The work will be done when it’s done. And not a minute before.”

“They have to justify the expenditures to the budget committee. I doubt you’d enjoy being the target of a congressional investigation.”

Hunter lifted a brow. “Is that a threat?”

“Merely an observation.”

“My budget is chicken feed compared to the bucks you guys spend. Hell, the price of your expense account lunches at all those high-priced trendy Washington restaurants alone could fund me for another six months.

“And if there do happen to be any mumblings about expenditures up on the Hill, then it’s your job to quiet them. You guys aren’t the only game in town, you know.”

A scowl darkened Van Horn’s classically handsome WASP face. “Then the other rumor about you meeting with the Russians is also true?”

“I haven’t met with them.” And wouldn’t. But Hunter had perversely enjoyed the momentary panic he’d viewed in Van Horn’s eyes. “But I have received some inquiries regarding certain aspects of the project.”

“You realize that sharing information with them—especially information that’s been classified—could get you arrested for treason.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Van Horn gave him another hard look, as if trying to determine whether or not Hunter was jerking his chain. Which, of course, he was. It was one of the few side benefits of working with bureaucrats. They were so marvelously predictable. And competitive.

“There’s something else.” Van Horn had begun working that crease again, Hunter noted.

“I rather suspected there might be.” After all, a blizzard had been predicted and Hunter didn’t figure the guy had come all the way to Castle Mountain to sip hot toddies beside a roaring fire at the Gray Gull inn and watch the winter wonderland occurring outside the lace-curtained windows.

“I heard from one of my sources at the CIA that you’re on a terrorist hit list.”

“Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know?”

“I just wanted to pass the warning along.”

“Consider it passed.” Hunter stood up, effectively ending what had turned out to be little more than a fishing expedition. “And now that I’ve been properly warned about Congress and terrorists, I’m sure you won’t mind if I return to work. After all,” he said as he plucked the soft cashmere coat from the rack and held it out to James Van Horn, “as you’ve pointed out on so many other visits, time is money.”

With that he ushered the dapper diplomat out the door. Then, giving up on getting any work done when he couldn’t keep his mind off the damn clock, he locked the door to his inner office, set the secret code on the security system, then headed home to wait for Gillian’s arrival.

FIVE DAYS AFTER her father’s incredible revelation, Gillian was sitting in the back of a car crawling its way up the cliff leading out of the quaint village that could be used as a movie set of a late-nineteenth century New England fishing village. The narrow gravel road, which was currently packed with crunchy snow, would soon become impassable for days during winter storms. Which was, Gillian thought, probably just the way Hunter liked it.

All the articles she’d read about him, including the recent one in Newsweek, invariably mentioned his obsessively reclusive lifestyle these past years. Which wasn’t that surprising. She remembered how reluctantly he’d always seemed to attend the parties at her parents’ home. Even back then no one could have called Hunter a social animal.

Of course, that hadn’t stopped her mother from inviting him. And on those rare occasions when Hunter would accept one of her invitations, Irene Cassidy would pull out all the stops. She’d fluff her frosted hair, and her skirts would be shorter, her necklines lower.

Her eyes would become visibly brighter, glittering with a dangerous light, her silvery laugh would edge a few notes higher and several decimals louder, and the way her hips swayed as she walked in those high, spindly heels and tight skirts was guaranteed to draw the eye of every male in the room.

At the time Gillian had resented her mother’s blatant sexuality. How in the world was Hunter ever going to notice her, a skinny adolescent with a mouthful of braces, when her mother was always flitting around him, like some exotic, gilded butterfly?

Unfortunately, the sad, miserable truth was that even without the competition from her mother, she could have been invisible where Hunter was concerned.

But apparently that had recently changed. According to her father, after viewing her recent video, Hunter had decided that he wanted to go to bed with her. Even knowing that as a modern, liberated woman of the twenty-first century, she should be appalled and infuriated by such a hideously outdated, chauvinistic attitude, there was just enough of that lovesick twelve-year-old still living inside Gillian to have her experience a warm flush of feminine satisfaction.

Not that she intended to actually sleep with Hunter, of course. The idea was as impossible as it was outrageous.

They came to a pair of tall wrought-iron gates topped with what appeared to be deadly iron spears. The driver paused beside a stone pillar. A moment later his window rolled down and he was touching a keypad. A camera hidden inside the gate whirred and there was a series of clicks. The gate slid smoothly open, allowing them access.

When they repeated that process three more times, Gillian decided that reclusive wasn’t a strong-enough word to describe Hunter St. John. Paranoid might be a better fit, she thought as she realized that the camera was actually measuring and reading the driver’s eye. She’d heard of such technology, but had never seen it firsthand.

The numerous security checks they passed through had Gillian expecting Hunter to live in a huge, hulking stone stronghold reminiscent of a medieval fortress. When they turned a final corner and the house came into view, she drew in a sharp, appreciative breath.

Constructed of cedar logs that had been aged to a pale, grayish blue, the house was perched like a seabird on the very edge of a cliff, offering spectacular views in every direction.

“Oh, it’s absolutely stunning,” she murmured to the driver, who, in the taciturn way of New Englanders, hadn’t uttered more than five words during their choppy ride from the mainland.

“Ayuh,” the man who’d introduced himself as Ben Adams agreed. “That’s what most people say, first time they see it.”

“I can imagine.”

Actually, stunning didn’t even begin to describe this architectural wonder. The focal point of the home was a two story glass wall that boldly thrust out from beneath the wooden-shake roof like the prow of a ship. Gillian imagined that standing next to that window must give the viewer a bird’s-eye view of the stormy Atlantic. Two single-story wings jutted out from each side. Behind the house, pine trees rose like shaggy arrows shawled in white velvet.

“’Course, one of these days this cliff’s gonna erode,” the driver pointed out with Yankee practicality. “Then all St. John’s gonna have left will be a pile of logs on the beach.”

“In the meantime, he has a magnificent view,” she said.

He shrugged. “Can’t argue with that.”

He pulled up into the curving driveway, stopping just in front of the double doors. “My missus works here during the week,” he revealed, stringing together more words than he’d managed thus far. “She’ll be inside, getting things ready for you. Dr. St. John said to expect you earlier,” he volunteered. “By yesterday, at the latest.”

“I was held up.”

“That’s what my missus told him probably happened.” He parked the car. By the time he came around to open her door, she was already standing on the flagstone drive. “But Dr. St. John t’weren’t too happy when last night came and you t’weren’t here.”

“I take it Dr. St. John is accustomed to having things his way?”

“Ayuh. That he is,” Ben agreed. “But he’s still a fair man to work for. When my Mildred came down with flu last winter, he paid her for days she couldn’t even work.”

Gillian was unimpressed by that little newsflash. “Gracious,” she drawled, her voice thick with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “I’m surprised he wasn’t voted the humanitarian of the year award for such an outstanding act of generosity.”

He squinted down at her, obviously curious as to her reason for being here on the island in early December. From the icy wind blowing off the water, Gillian suspected this wasn’t exactly tourist season on Castle Mountain.

“He’s a fair man,” he repeated. “You’ll find that out when you’re working with him.”

Gillian wondered what the elderly man would say if she told him the truth: that she wasn’t here to work with Hunter, but had instead been ordered to Maine as part of his blackmail threat against her father.

He wouldn’t believe her. Gillian didn’t believe it herself. If she had, she never would have agreed to such a bizarre situation. Deep down inside, she continued to believe that Hunter’s sole motivation was to shake her father’s comfortable world to its foundations. Which he’d clearly done.

Now, having succeeded in watching his former mentor squirm, Gillian expected Hunter to laugh at her foolish naiveté and send her home. And that would be that.

The man she remembered might be unorthodox. But he wasn’t cruel or dangerous. Surely human nature couldn’t change that much?

Ben Adams’s wife was tall and thin, with salt-and-pepper hair pulled back into a utilitarian knot at the nape of her long neck.

“Dr. St. John expected you earlier,” she said as her husband carried Gillian’s bags into the house.

“As a scientist, Dr. St. John should be accustomed to practicing patience.”

Mildred Adams gave Gillian a long, hard look. “You’re different from the other.”

“The other?”

The husband and wife exchanged a brief glance. From the silent conversation that passed between them, Gillian guessed that Ben was cautioning discretion, while Mildred was determinedly outspoken.

Mildred’s pale blue eyes took a long, judicious study, but she didn’t directly answer Gillian’s question. “Hope you’re tougher than you look.”

Gillian met the probing look with a level gaze of her own. “I’ve had to be.”

That earned another hard look. “So has Dr. St. John. This could be interesting.”

“Sorta like nitroglycerin and a flamethrower are interesting,” her husband muttered. “Where do you want me to put these bags?”

“Dr. St. John said to put Ms. Cassidy in his room.” She turned to Gillian, seemingly oblivious to the burn of embarrassment Gillian felt rise in her cheeks at the idea of this elderly couple believing she’d be sharing a bed with their employer. “I’ll show you where it is. Then you can wash up for supper. I always serve at six o’clock, on the dot. Right before I leave for the day.

“Dr. St. John always eats in his laboratory. But he’s instructed me to set a place for you in the dining room.”

“He won’t be eating with me?” Gillian asked as she followed the woman down the hallway.

“Oh, no. Dr. St. John is working at home this afternoon, but I doubt if you’ll be seein’ him until along about midnight, at the very earliest. When he gets busy with his experiments, it’s like pulling teeth to drag him out of his lab.” She handed Gillian an envelope. “I was instructed to give you this soon as you arrived. I expect it’ll explain everything.”

That said, the housekeeper opened one of two doors leading into what was obviously the master bedroom suite. The walls were constructed of the same logs as the rest of the house, but in here they’d been stained a lustrous golden brown. They were also, Gillian noted, the only warm thing about the room.

Decorated in shades of black and gray, with lots of jet lacquer and glass, the bedroom had an edgy, avant-garde look. More suitable for a modern art museum or a Fifth Avenue penthouse, it was decidedly too cold and remote for this gloriously wild place.

A huge bed, covered in a slick ebony spread, took up the center of the room. Gillian glanced up, cringing as she viewed the mirror over the bed.

Both Ben and Mildred studiously ignored both the mirror and Gillian’s involuntary reaction to it.

“The bath’s in there,” Mildred said, pointing toward an arched doorway where an oversize Jacuzzi tub sat invitingly on a black-lacquered pedestal in front of a window. The wide expanse of triple-paned glass looked out over the darkening waters of the sea. “Dr. St. John had me clean out that bureau for your clothes.” She waved her hand in the direction of a tall chest of drawers that matched the pedestal.

“I’ve got to serve and get on my way,” Mildred continued briskly. “So, if you’ll just get your washing-up done, I’ll show you the way to the dining room.”

“If I’m going to be eating alone, the kitchen will be fine,” Gillian assured her.

“Dr. St. John said the dining room.”

“And Dr. St. John always gets what Dr. St. John wants,” Gillian muttered, beginning to get a handle on how things worked around here.

“Best you remember that,” Mildred said with a brief, decisive nod. “The man’s a good employer. He’s demanding. But fair,” she said, echoing what her husband had told Gillian earlier. “Even so, I wouldn’t want to cross him.”

And that, Gillian told herself ten minutes later, was why she was sitting all alone at a table designed to comfortably seat twelve. On some distant level she realized that the hearty corn chowder, green salad and brown bread was delicious, but although she hadn’t eaten since boarding the plane in San Francisco, she couldn’t work up any appetite for Mildred Adams’s dinner. Not after reading Hunter’s letter.

No, she considered, taking another sip of the red wine she’d found waiting at her place, it wasn’t really a letter. It was more an instruction manual.

Written in a bold scrawl, it had begun without preamble.

Gillian,

Welcome to Castle Mountain. I trust you will enjoy your time here on the island and that when you leave you will take fond memories with you.

Her mistake had been, of course, allowing those words to soften her, to make her able to believe that this trip to Maine was nothing more than a well-deserved vacation after her grueling tour.

The next paragraph proved otherwise, bringing home with a vengeance the true reason for her being here on this remote island. In this even more remote house.

You’ll find a gown on the bed. After you bathe, put it on. Wear your hair down, and if you’re wearing makeup, take it off. The image I want you to project is the one from your concert at Stonehenge—pure and innocent, yet with that aura of untapped sensuality surrounding you.

I’ll be working late, but I expect you to remain awake until I join you in the bedroom. I trust the next month will be enjoyable for both of us.

However, if you find my demands not quite to your taste, just remember, if you leave before the thirty days are up, I will, without a moment’s hesitation, ruin your father.

The choice is yours, lovely Gillian. I trust your arrival here, albeit a day late, reveals your willingness to accede to my wishes. Whatever they may be.

It was signed merely with a dark H.

“Damn.”

Gillian cursed yet again as she stared out into the well of darkness. It was a new moon; the sky and water were both pitch black, extending for what seemed forever.

For the first time since her arrival on the remote island, her isolation, along with what she’d foolishly agreed to, came crashing down on her.

Hunter had promised he would not hurt her. But what if he was lying? What if he was as cold and unfeeling as his hateful letter?

After all, she reminded herself, what kind of man could even think up such a scenario in the first place? What if he planned to literally hold her captive, using her in ways too horrific even to imagine?

The scenario—the virgin sent to some remote lair to pay off her father’s debt—could have come straight from the pages of some lurid melodrama.

“Damn you, Father.”

Her flare of anger was immediately followed by a heavy sense of despair. And impending doom.

“Oh, God,” she murmured. “What have I done?”

SO, HUNTER THOUGHT as he watched her on the monitor in his book-lined office. It’s finally sunk in. Good.

He’d watched her enter the house as if she were merely arriving at some ritzy seaside spa where she expected to be pampered and perfumed, wrapped in mud and dine on pretty little salads made from flowers. He hadn’t missed the derision on her fragile, porcelain-pale face as she’d looked up at his mirror.

The brief flashes of self-assurance she’d displayed to Mildred and Ben Adams suggested that Cassidy had been telling the truth about one thing. The woman did have a mind of her own. Which, he considered, made her even more of a challenge.

He’d promised Cassidy that he wouldn’t harm her. Which was true. But Hunter did have every intention of spending the next thirty nights bending Gillian to his will, teaching her things about herself, revealing the dark, forbidden secret corners of her sexual psyche he suspected she’d never known existed.

Her display of self-pity turned out to be short-lived. Hunter watched as she cursed—a rich, earthy word that drew a faint smile from him. She threw her napkin onto the table, stood up and left the room.

The hall camera caught her flashing eyes and firmly set lips as she strode purposefully back toward the master suite.

Oh, yes, Hunter told himself, his body humming with savage anticipation, the ethereal-appearing pianist’s surprisingly independent spirit would only make their little game more intriguing.

And it would definitely make his victory all the sweeter once George Cassidy’s daughter had been properly, thoroughly tamed.

THE STAGE IN THE MASTER suite had been set for seduction. The flames coming from the fire in the black-tiled fireplace warming the bedroom were in stark contrast to the icy sleet the ocean wind was driving against the windowpanes.

The flickering orange light danced on the ceiling like a shimmering display of aurora borealis. On the table beside the bed, a fat ivory beeswax candle sat on a hammered-tin holder.

The nightgown—a pale sea-foam green rather than the blatant black she’d been expecting—was draped across the bed, just as Hunter’s insulting letter had promised. Since it hadn’t been there earlier, and Mr. and Mrs. Adams had left right after Mildred had served dinner, Hunter had obviously left his precious laboratory long enough to lay it out for her.

The idea of his prowling unseen through the sprawling house, entering her room, perhaps even going through her personal belongings, gave Gillian goose bumps.

It also made her madder than hell.

The gown was empire style, the top created from hand-tatted lace so gossamer it could have been spun by fairies from cobwebs. In spite of her pique and determination not to fall into the sensual trap he’d set, Gillian was unwillingly drawn to the delicate fabric.

She lifted it off the bed and ran her fingertips over the lacy rosettes designed to cover her breasts. The center of the flowers had been left open, obviously designed to bare a woman’s nipples.

“Yet more proof that subtlety isn’t the man’s strong suit,” she muttered. The material might be exquisite, but the style was Frederick’s of Hollywood. There was no way she was going to wear this, Gillian decided firmly. She glared up at the mirror over her head.

“Not until we set a few ground rules, first.”

HUNTER LAUGHED at her declaration. A rough, humorous bark that echoed in the cavernous confines of his laboratory. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint icy sparkle of stars outside the wall of glass and the glow coming from the computer monitor and bank of television screens.

“Brave talk, little one,” he murmured, lifting the balloon glass of cognac in a silent salute. “But words won’t help you. Not now.”

He watched her scowl soften as her fingertips absently traced the lacy flowers. Women were so marvelously predictable, he thought with masculine satisfaction. He’d often wondered why men claimed to be mystified by the female mind.

All you had to do was to experience enough of them to create a workable model, program in the data, and they’d behave exactly as expected, at least ninety-two percent of the time. The eight percent of their behavior that could admittedly prove unpredictable had never disturbed him. It was, Hunter had determined long ago, what kept them from becoming boring.

“You’re tempted, Gillian,” he said to the screen. “Try the gown on. You know you want to.”

He watched as she closed her eyes and smoothed her hand over the sensuous silk.

“That’s it. Feel how smooth it is. Imagine it against your bare skin, sliding down your body like a cool waterfall.”

As if in response to his crooned command, Gillian opened her eyes and slipped her hand between the layers of silk. Then, in a seemingly hypnotic gesture, she lifted the gown against her body and slowly turned toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room.

She was still clad in the somber charcoal-gray sweater and tweed slacks she’d worn on the flight to Maine. Yet it took no imagination for Hunter to imagine her nude. She was holding the gown with her right hand; her left began slowly trailing over the shimmering sea-foam silk.

Hunter pressed the remote to zoom in on a closeup and watched as a breath slipped from between Gillian’s parted pink lips. It was little more than a whisper, but the microphone in the bedroom had no trouble picking it up. Hunger suddenly had claws.

Needing to touch something—someone—Hunter thrust his hand beneath his sweater, splayed his right palm across his hot, burning chest and felt the increased beat of his heart beneath his fingertips.

As he watched Gillian’s exploring hand move slowly downward, his body came fully to life, pressing painfully against the hard barrier of denim that was a poor substitute for a woman’s hand. Struck with an almost overwhelming urge to yank open his jeans and satisfy the woman hunger that was ripping away at him—as it had for too many nights lately—Hunter decided the time had come to personally welcome his alluring houseguest to Castle Mountain.

THE NIGHTGOWN WAS COOL and seductively sensual to the touch. It was also nearly transparent. A woman wearing this gown would be revealing far more than merely her body, Gillian feared. She’d be putting her inner self on display, as well.

Even as she fought against it, some compulsion she was unable to resist made her hold the gown against her body. She drew in a sharp breath at her reflection. Even though she was fully dressed beneath the silk, the transformation proved riveting.

Her eyes seemed strangely wider and burned with the same edgy brilliance Gillian remembered seeing in her mother’s gaze whenever Irene Cassidy had been preparing to welcome Hunter to her husband’s house. There was an unfamiliar, almost painful tightening in her breasts. And between her legs.

“It suits you.”

Not having heard him approach, the deep voice made Gillian jump. She dropped the gown and pressed a palm against her pounding heart as she whirled around and viewed Hunter standing in the open doorway.

4

HUNTER WAS IN THE SHADOWS, which precluded her from getting a good look at him. But he seemed even larger than Gillian remembered. And far more menacing. In his black sweater and black jeans, he reminded her of a creature of the night.

She pressed a hand against her breast where her runaway heart was beating like a terrified rabbit’s.

“You scared me to death!”

“I don’t know why. You knew I was in the house. I informed you in my note that I’d be joining you in my room after supper. You should have been expecting me.”

“Mrs. Adams said you didn’t usually leave your lab until after midnight.”

“Since Mrs. Adams has never stayed a minute past six in the three years she’s been employed here, I have no idea how she’d be cognizant of my work habits.”

He crossed the room, moving with a dangerous, stealthy grace, bent down and plucked the gown from the floor. “You aren’t dressed.”

Wary, but refusing to admit it, Gillian lifted her chin and met his gaze. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to gasp at the sight of the twisted scars marring the left side of the face she’d never quite been able to get out of her mind. Or the glint of the firelight flickering on what could only be described as a hook that had taken the place of his left hand.

She swallowed and kept her expression cool when what she longed to do was weep for whatever tragedy had befallen him. “Actually, I am dressed.”

His firmly cut lips twisted into a mockery of a smile that revealed not the faintest glimmer of humor. If the eyes were indeed windows to the soul, Hunter’s reminded her of storm shutters painted black.

It had been too long since he’d had a haircut; his shaggy jet hair, curling around his collar, was as unruly as his reputation. He also hadn’t shaved; the dark shadow on the still-unscarred side of his face added to his dangerously uncivilized appearance.

Gillian was a little afraid of him. She was even more afraid of herself. And the reckless, crazy way he was making her feel. Even as she felt a sharp tingle of misgiving, her fingers practically itched with the need to touch that roughened red flesh.

The desire to soothe warred with the old childhood taboo against revealing impolite fascination with any sort of disfigurement or handicap. And both those emotions battled with the unbidden feminine awareness that was humming through her veins.

“You’re still in your traveling clothes,” he said mildly. “I instructed you to wear this.” He held the nightgown toward her.

The contrast between the delicate pastel silk and the cold steel caused a distinct twinge somewhere deep in her feminine core. With the exception of her music, Gillian had always been a woman who’d ruled her emotions—rather than letting them rule her. That being the case, she reminded herself about her determination to set some ground rules to this strange game Hunter had brought her here to play.

“I thought it might be a nice idea if we could have a chance to talk, first.”

“You don’t seem to understand.”

Apparently deciding not to push the issue of the gown for now, he sat down in a black suede tub chair. He was no longer towering over her, but when he stretched his long legs out in front of him, spreading them open to reveal his blatant arousal, Gillian felt no less threatened. And even more emotionally rattled.

“There’s nothing for us to talk about,” he said.

“We could begin with hello.”

He sighed heavily. Wearily. “Hello.” The word was offered without a hint of welcome. His hooded eyes flicked over her—appraising, assessing. “You’ve grown up.”

“I suppose that’s inevitable. Since I was twelve years old the last time you saw me.”

“That’s why I barely remembered you.”

He had no way of knowing exactly how badly those words stung. A distinctly feminine part of her bridled at the unflattering remark.

“Well, no one could accuse you of trying to get a woman into bed by boosting her ego.”

“Would you rather I lie and tell you that I’d found you incredibly desirable back then? That thinking about you made me hot? That I laid awake nights, getting hard as I fantasized what it would feel like to strip that ugly schoolgirl uniform off your body and touch your soft, white, virginal, adolescent flesh all over?”

“Of course I wouldn’t have wanted you to notice me in that way,” she said, surprising herself by her ability to speak so calmly after his sarcastic words had slapped her as badly as if he’d struck her. Her fantasies, which may have admittedly been heightened by a bit of sexual desire she hadn’t understood at the time had always been of a gilded romantic nature, as if filmed with a soft-focus lens. “The very idea is disgusting.”

“On that we can agree. Believe me, sweetheart, the only females who have ever turned me on are well past the age of consent.”

“Like my mother.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Horrified, Gillian would have done anything to be able to call them back.

Hunter didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he treated her to another examination, this one longer, more intimate, starting at the top of her head, moving with tantalizing slowness over her body, down to her boots, then back up again to her face.

He was measuring her, in a flagrantly masculine way that made her vividly aware of every inch of skin his gaze touched.

“Irene was a very appealing woman, in her way. But you, Gillian, have surpassed her.”

The compliment, offered without an iota of warmth from a man capable of making her feel hot and icy all at the same time, should not have given her any pleasure, Gillian told herself. It shouldn’t. But, dammit, it did.

“Men have always found my mother sexually appealing.”

Which was why, Gillian knew, she’d been sent away to boarding school before her fourteenth birthday. It was, after all, difficult to appear endlessly young with a teenager in the house.

“To tell the truth,” Hunter said with a thoughtful frown, “Irene was always too obvious for my taste. She reminded me a lot of the moonshine we used to make in the lab in my undergraduate days—cheap, potent and capable of leaving a man with one helluva hangover afterward….

“Over the years I’ve come to prefer a smooth, complex cognac. The type that lingers on the tongue.”

When his gaze drifted wickedly back down to her breasts, the butterflies that had been flapping their wings in Gillian’s stomach turned to giant condors.

She decided the time had come to change the subject. To bring it back to her reason for having come to Castle Mountain island in the first place.

“My father told me about your threat to destroy him.”

“I assumed as much. Since you’re here.”

He pulled the silk through the delicate prongs of the hook, absently stroking it with his good hand in a way that suggested he was already envisioning her wearing it. And taking it off her.

“What a loyal daughter you are, Gillian. And what a shame that George Cassidy doesn’t deserve such a sacrifice.”

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