EAVINGMITCHELL TO deal with room service, Kate went into the suite’s luxurious bathroom/dressing room to clean up. Twisting around in front of the full-length mirrors that lined one wall, she brushed at the bits of grass and dirt stuck to the back of her pants, but there was a damp stain on one side that was very noticeable.

Conscious of the passage of time, she walked over to the closet and considered her choices. Holly had helped her pack because the night before Kate was to leave for Anguilla, she’d gotten one of the fierce headaches that had been plaguing her since her father’s death. Holly had chosen outfits that were suitable for a romantic holiday with Evan, and none of them seemed completely appropriate for this particular occasion.

Kate decided on a pair of cream silk lounging pants with a wide band of gold Moroccan embroidery at the hem and a delicate cream silk camisole with a straight neckline and narrow spaghetti straps that tied into bows on her shoulders. The outfit seemed a little too softly feminine to suit dining alone in a hotel room with a strange man, but it covered everything except her arms, and the neckline was perfectly modest, so it seemed like the best selection among the clothes she had with her.

She changed quickly and slipped on a pair of gold sandals. At the mirror above the hammered brass sink, she paused just long enough to run a brush through her hair and put on fresh lipstick. She was absolutely determined to atone for everything she’d put Mitchell through by making the rest of his evening as enjoyable as she possibly could, and that meant not keeping him waiting alone any longer than necessary.

The telephone began ringing while Kate was applying lipstick, and she reached automatically for the extension hanging on the wall beside the mirror; then she hesitated and let it continue ringing. Evan phoned every night at about this time, and this call was undoubtedly from him. If he was calling to explain that he couldn’t make it to Anguilla the next afternoon, then he’d probably be relieved to leave that message on the hotel’s voice mail for her. If he was calling to confirm that he was going to arrive as planned, she could listen to his message later. Right now, she had a rather urgent debt to repay to the man in the next room, and the only way she could repay it was by being the best hostess she could possibly be. That was one thing Kate knew how to do rather well, having grown up in the restaurant business.

She took a last glance at herself in the mirrored wall behind her; then she turned off the lights and left the room.

She expected to find Mitchell outside on the terrace enjoying the balmy, moonlit night, but instead he was standing beside the sleeping dog with his hands in his pockets and a bemused smile on his face. She stopped in the doorway, arrested by his expression, trying to guess what he was thinking, but then something else struck her: He looked as immaculately groomed as he had when he first arrived at the hotel that evening. His thick black hair was beautifully cut and styled—and completely un-mussed; his snowy white shirt was as unwrinkled as his tan trousers, and his brown loafers were gleaming. He’d draped the navy blazer he’d been wearing earlier over a chair, and he’d folded his shirtsleeves back onto his forearms, but other than those two alterations in his appearance, he certainly didn’t look as if he’d helped load and unload a large, unconscious dog on and off a stretcher.

Earlier that day, in the dim light of the restaurant, she’d been too mortified at having doused him with the Bloody Mary to do more than form an impression that he was handsome. Tonight, she’d been too busy with Max to actually study the man who’d gallantly responded to her appeal for help, but now she realized Mitchell Wyatt wasn’t merely handsome, he was absolutely gorgeous. He was about six feet three inches tall, with extremely broad shoulders, a muscular chest, and narrow hips. His face was tanned, his jaw square, his brows thick and straight above dark-lashed eyes that she already knew were a deep indigo blue.

Normally Kate was unimpressed with exceptionally handsome men, because they were usually either vain and shallow or subtly effeminate, but this man was thoughtful and kind, and he was thoroughly male. Standing perfectly still in the living room, with his hands in his pockets, he positively emanated masculine vitality and sex appeal.

All of those attributes, combined with his wry sense of humor and blasé sophistication, made Kate decide that he was, in every respect, the most attractive man she’d ever encountered. Glamorous, sophisticated women undoubtedly dropped into his arms when he crooked his finger at them, Kate thought with an inner smile. She, however, was neither glamorous nor very worldly, and for once she was rather glad of those shortcomings, because he wouldn’t be tempted to turn the full force of his charm and good looks on someone like her. The evening had already been nerve-racking enough without having to fend off halfhearted advances from a lethally attractive male. Belatedly realizing she’d been studying him for far too long, Kate stepped forward and announced her presence by saying the first thing that came to mind. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

He turned at the sound of her voice; but instead of replying, he looked her over slowly from head to toe with a smile of frank masculine appreciation that was so flattering and unnerving to Kate that she had to concentrate on walking without tripping over her own feet. As his gaze traveled back up to her head, she braced for a suggestive compliment.

“Your curls are all tamed down tonight,” he observed mildly. Kate’s nervous misgivings evaporated in a relieved laugh.

“I tortured them into submission with a flat iron and blow dryer,” she said, stopping beside him. “How’s the patient doing?” she asked, bending down to lightly scratch behind Max’s ears. Her fingertips encountered a light dusting of a powdery substance that hadn’t been on him before, and she noticed more of it on the white carpet around where he lay. Kate glanced uncertainly over her shoulder and held up her powdery fingertips. “Do you know what this is?”

“Flea powder. I had housekeeping bring some in while you were changing clothes.”

“Why do you think he has fleas?”

“Because they were dragging him toward the door while I watched,” he said drily, as he grasped her arm, urging her up. “I’d stand back until that stuff does the job or you’ll be awake all night scratching behind your own ears.”

Surprised and touched to discover he’d gallantly taken care of yet another problem for her, Kate straightened and looked searchingly at his handsome, tanned face. She’d been uneasy about him simply because he was outrageously good-looking, and she had an impossible impulse to tell him that, and then to apologize for it. Instead, she said with soft sincerity, “You’re very sweet.”

Mitchell’s reaction was sexual, not sweet; yet as he gazed into her luminous green eyes, he found himself wondering if there was actually some truth to the axiom that the eyes were a window into the soul. His attention shifted almost immediately to her full lips, but just as he started to act on his impulse to kiss them, the silence was shattered by musicians down at the beach launching into a rousing steel-drum rendition of “Jamaica Farewell.”

Kate stepped back immediately, smiled, and tipped her head in the direction of the music coming in through the open terrace doors. “I love calypso music. Did you arrange for that, too, when you arranged for the flea powder?”

Her recovery was so smooth that Mitchell would have actually believed she hadn’t realized what was about to happen between them a moment before, except that her skin was too fair to conceal the telltale pink tinge on her high cheekbones. Her pretense struck him as entertaining but humorously unnecessary. They were both adults, they were obviously attracted to each other; therefore, they were going to end up in that inviting king-size bed in the alcove later on. Mitchell saw no reason for either of them to pretend the situation was otherwise. “If I’d arranged for that music,” he assured her drolly, “I’d have told them I prefer a much slower tempo—at first.”

Kate’s eyes widened at the double meaning she read into that remark. Earlier, she’d accused him of being a “fast worker,” but even if he was, he surely couldn’t intend to make a flying leap from a discussion of fleas, to an aborted kiss, to a blatant sexual innuendo, without pausing in between.

Or could he?

Kate decided her imagination was running wild and reminded herself that her goal tonight was to be a good hostess. “Let me fix you something to drink,” she said with a quick smile as she turned toward the suite’s well-stocked bar. “What would you like?”

“Vodka and tonic if you have ice. Otherwise, plain vodka.”

“I’m sure we have ice,” she said, and confirmed it when she lifted the top off the ice bucket. “The staff here looks after everything. They even give you chilled towels while you’re at the beach.” From the refrigerator, she removed a miniature bottle of vodka, some tonic, and a fresh lime.

“You had a phone call while you were changing clothes,” he said.

Kate glanced at the red message light flashing accusingly on the desk phone and opened the bottle of vodka. “I know. I’ll listen to the message later.”

“When are you expecting him to arrive?”

His casual, conversational tone was as startling to Kate as his astute conclusion that she was expecting a man, but somehow she managed to glance over her shoulder, smile, and answer his question as casually as he’d asked it. “Tomorrow evening, probably.” As she added ice to his glass, she waited for Mitchell to comment, and when he didn’t, she felt compelled to fill the awkward silence with added information about a boyfriend she didn’t really want to discuss with him in the first place. “He’s trying an important case in court during the day and working to negotiate a settlement between the parties at night. He flew down here with me four days ago, but the judge decided not to continue the case again, and so he had to turn around and fly right back home. He thought the case would be over quickly, but it’s been dragging on and on.”

As Kate finished speaking, she realized the additional remarks about Evan were probably a good idea. She’d not only confirmed to Mitchell that she had a boyfriend, she’d provided enough additional facts about him to bring him into sharp focus right there in the room, where he would now be a barrier between Mitchell and her. If Mitchell’s earlier comment about the “tempo” he preferred had actually been a sexual reference, Kate knew there would be no more of those to deal with now. He wouldn’t try to kiss her again, either, and so she wouldn’t be foolishly tempted to let him. No matter how likeable he seemed or how attractive he was, the fact remained that Mitchell was a total stranger and they were alone together in a hotel room. “We’ve been going together for years,” she threw in for good measure, to further eliminate any lingering chances of overtures and temptations.

Kate poured the vodka over the ice in Mitchell’s glass, serenely certain that everything she’d said about Evan would ensure that the lovely evening ahead would be completely free of any more unnerving sensual undercurrents.

Mitchell watched her, completely satisfied that the lawyer-boyfriend was no obstacle whatsoever to their going to bed together tonight. It was apparent to him that Kate didn’t imagine she was in love with the lawyer; women who believed they were in love gave off unmistakable signals, particularly when they spoke of their lovers, and Kate Donovan wasn’t giving off any of those signals.

The boyfriend wasn’t even likely to be an annoying inconvenience if Kate and he also decided they wanted to enjoy each other for an additional day or two. In Mitchell’s experience, lawyers who predicted they could successfully conclude “an important case” in a few days were either deluding themselves or trying to delude someone else—in this instance, Kate.

In his mind, Mitchell envisioned a prosperous, middle-aged lawyer who’d managed to dazzle Kate years before, not long after she was out of college. He could have confirmed his suspicions with a few questions, but it was disadvantageous to the mood of the evening to further discuss another lover with her. Besides that, Mitchell felt it would be in bad taste for him to pry into the absent man’s personal life at a time like this. Under Mitchell’s personal code of European sexual ethics, sleeping with another man’s lover was perfectly allowable if the lady was willing. However, discussing the absent man with her was a needless and tasteless invasion of the man’s privacy. It was ungentlemanly. And Mitchell abhorred ungentlemanly behavior.

Unaware that her discussion of Evan had accomplished exactly the opposite of what she thought, Kate added a slice of fresh lime to the vodka and tonic, and took Mitchell the finished drink. When she held the glass out, he made a silent joke about the Bloody Mary she’d spilled on him earlier by stepping back and eyeing her warily before he cautiously took the glass from her outstretched hand. Of all his attractive qualities, Kate decided she liked his disarming sense of humor best—undoubtedly because it was easier to forget his good looks and relax when they were joking with each other. Smiling good-naturedly at his gibe about the Bloody Mary, she asked the first question that came to mind. “Where did you learn to speak Dutch?”

“In Holland,” he replied, and took a sip of his drink.

“When were you there?”

“When I was eleven or twelve.”

He seemed a little unforthcoming on the subject, but Kate stuck with it anyway, because it seemed like a good conversational starting place. “Why were you in Holland at that age?”

“I went to school with a boy whose family lived in Amsterdam, and he invited me to spend a couple of summers there with his family.”

“I’ve never been to Europe,” Kate said as she turned away and headed back toward the liquor cabinet, “but Amsterdam is one of the places I’d especially love to see. Do you know what I think of whenever someone mentions Amsterdam?”

“No,” Mitchell replied, studying the easy, unselfconscious grace of her walk and the way her dark red hair tumbled in a gleaming waterfall of waves and curls halfway down her back. “What do you think of when someone mentions Amsterdam?”

She shot him a rueful laughing look over her shoulder as she crouched down in front of the refrigerator. “The same two things you do, I’m sure.”

“Marijuana and prostitutes?” Mitchell speculated with certainty.

She stood up with a bottle of Perrier in her hand, but instead of saying he was correct, she fumbled with the top on the bottle for several seconds, trying to get it off. Intending to offer to help her, Mitchell started forward; then he realized her shoulders were shaking with laughter and he stopped in surprise. “Whenever anyone thinks of Amsterdam,” he stated with certainty, “the first two things that come to mind are restaurants with marijuana on the menus and prostitutes standing in storefront windows.”

She laughed harder and she shook her head vigorously from side to side, causing her hair to shift across her ivory shoulders like a wavy crimson curtain. “That is not what most people think of,” she managed unsteadily after she finally got the top off the Perrier and poured some of the sparkling liquid into her glass.

“What else is there to think of?” he asked.

She turned fully toward him then, her face alight with laughter. “Tulips!” she informed him, picking up her glass and crossing the room to him. “And canals. Everyone thinks of tulips and canals when they think of Amsterdam.”

“Not everyone, obviously,” Mitchell pointed out.

“Apparently not,” she agreed, but she refused to concede the issue based solely on his opinion. “However, I would like to point out that when you see pictures of Amsterdam on calendars, you see fields of bright tulips and beautiful canals. You do not see photographs of menus with marijuana as an appetizer, nor prostitutes standing in store windows.”

“The marijuana choices are listed on a separate menu,” Mitchell corrected, deriving the almost-forgotten, boyish pleasure of an innocent, lively debate over meaningless trivialities with an impertinent girl who attracted, amused, and opposed him. “They aren’t listed under Appetizers. ”

“They should be,” Kate informed him, automatically thinking like a restaurant owner. “Marijuana is an appetite stimulant.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?” Mitchell inquired with a knowing grin.

“I have a college degree,” she told him breezily, and informatively, he noted.

To stop him from pressing her further, Kate held up her hand and laughingly put an end to the subject. “Do not say another word about Amsterdam, or you’ll spoil my entire image of the place before I get a chance to see it. You’ve already replaced my blissful thoughts of red and yellow tulip fields with images of restaurants reeking of pot, and my visions of lovely canals are now visions of sleazy alleys with prostitutes for sale. Besides,” she added as someone knocked on the door, “our dinner is here.”

Mitchell heard the relief in her voice and realized she’d been genuinely uneasy about a discussion of illicit sex and drugs with him. That puzzled and surprised him, but then virtually everything she did either confused or intrigued him. In the ensuing minutes, he watched her usher in the waiters and supervise the process of transferring the elaborate meals onto a table on the terrace as if she’d been presiding over the process in fine houses and hotels her entire life. Less than two hours ago, she’d knelt beside an injured stray dog and looked at Mitchell with tears of pleading in her eyes, and a few minutes after that, he’d found her sitting on a curb next to a busy driveway, serenely unconcerned with her comfort, or her clothes, or the reactions of the other hotel guests. A few moments later, when he told her help was on the way, she’d lifted her face to his and smiled at him with melting gratitude.

She genuinely liked him, and she wasn’t trying to hide that... and yet, he had the feeling he made her nervous. She was vividly, almost exotically, lovely... but when he’d admired the way she looked in those flowing silk pants and a little white top held up by gossamer strings tied into bows at her shoulders, she’d seemed so self-conscious that he’d remarked on her hair, instead. A few minutes ago, they’d been on the verge of a kiss... but when the music interrupted, she backed away and tried to pretend nothing had happened.

In view of all that, Mitchell began to wonder if he’d been wrong about her feelings for the lawyer. Perhaps the reason she’d stayed with him for years was that she was emotionally committed to him—or at least determined not to stray. Mitchell fervently hoped neither was true, because she was attracted to him, and he was very attracted to her.

In fact, he was extremely attracted to her, he admitted to himself as he watched the waiters depart.

Behind him from the terrace, she said lightly, “Dinner is served.”

Mitchell turned and saw her standing in candlelight beside the table, the island breeze ruffling her fiery mantle of red hair around her shoulders.

Wildly attracted.

As he neared the table, she reached up and brushed a wayward strand of hair off her soft cheek. He watched the unconsciously feminine gesture as if he’d never seen hundreds of other women do it.

“Please sit down,” she said graciously when he started around the table to pull out her chair for her. “You’ve already had to wait too long for this meal.”

Kate’s earlier nervousness had vanished. She was on familiar territory now, standing beside an elegant, candlelit table and hovering near a special guest whom she wanted to make feel extremely important that evening. It was a role she could play to perfection. She’d studied under a master, and only he could do it better.

But she was never again going to see her father play this role.

Blinking back a sudden sheen of moisture in her eyes, Kate reached for the open wine bottle on a small table beside her. “May I pour you some wine?” she asked, smiling at his face through a blur of tears that blinded her to his sudden grin.

“That depends on where you’re planning to pour it, and how good your aim is.”

Kate’s emotions veered abruptly from anguish to laughter. “I have excellent aim,” she assured him, leaning toward his glass.

“All earlier evidence to the contrary,” Mitchell pointed out. To Mitchell’s dismay, she retaliated by smiling straight into his eyes while she poured just the right amount of red wine into his glass.

“Actually,” she informed him, “I hit exactly what I was aiming for that time, too.”

Before Mitchell could be sure whether she was serious, she turned away. He studied her closely as she slid into the chair across from his, her expression serenely blasé. “Are you implying you intended to douse me with that Bloody Mary?” he asked.

“You know what they say about temperamental redheads,” Kate replied as she unfolded her napkin; then she leaned forward and looked at him as if a horrifying, but amusing, possibility had just occurred to her. “Surely you don’t think I deliberately dye my hair this impossible color?”

Mitchell was dumbfounded to think she’d actually thrown a drink at him in a fit of childish, uncontrolled pique. He didn’t want to believe he was wrong about her, and he didn’t want to consider why it was becoming important to him that this one woman be all the things she seemed. With deceptive nonchalance, he said, “Did you really do it on purpose?”

“Do you promise not to be angry?”

He smiled good-naturedly. “No.”

A startled giggle nearly escaped Kate at the vast contrast between his agreeable expression and his negative reply. “Then, will you promise never to bring the subject up again if I tell you the truth?”

Another lazy smile accompanied his answer. “No.”

Kate bit her lip to keep from laughing. “At least you’re honest and direct—in a misleading sort of way.” Needing to avert her gaze from his, she picked up a basket of crusty rolls from the center of the table and offered it to him.

“Areyou being honest and direct?” he inquired with amusement, taking a roll from the basket. Despite his affable attitude, Kate had a sudden, inexplicable sensation of an undercurrent. He was playing cat and mouse with her, she knew, and he was obviously a world champion “cat,” but she sensed he wasn’t actually enjoying the game. Since her goal was to repay his wonderful kindnesses by making the rest of the evening as pleasant for him as she could, she put an end to the whole charade.

Meeting his gaze, she said with quiet sincerity, “I didn’t do it on purpose. I was only pretending I did in order to get even with you for teasing me twice about the Bloody Mary.”

Mitchell heard her words, but the softness in her eyes and the expression on her lovely face were interfering with the pathways to his brain, and he decided it didn’t matter if she’d done it on purpose. Then he realized she hadn’t, and that mattered much more than he thought it should. What sort of family, he wondered, in what city, on what planet, had yielded up this jaunty, prim, unpredictable woman with a wayward sense of humor, a heart-stopping smile, and a fierce passion for wounded mongrel dogs.

Mitchell reached for his butter knife. “Where in the hell are you from?”

“Chicago,” she said with a startled smile at his tone.

He looked up so sharply and with such narrowed disbelief that Kate felt compelled to reaffirm and amplify her answer. “Chicago,” she repeated. “I was born and raised there. What about you?”

Chicago. Mitchell managed to smooth his distaste for her answer from his expression, but his guard was up. “I’ve never lived anywhere long enough to be ‘from’ there,” he replied, giving her the same vague answer that had always satisfied anyone who asked. The question was perfunctory anyway, he knew. People asked because it was a convenient conversational item among strangers. People never really cared what the answer was. Unfortunately, Kate Donovan was not one of those people.

“What places did you live in when you were growing up—” she persevered, and teasingly added, “but not long enough to actually be ‘from’ any of them?”

“Various places in Europe,” Mitchell replied, intending to immediately change the subject.

“Where do you live now?” she asked, before he could.

“Wherever my work takes me. I have apartments in several cities in Europe and New York.” His work occasionally took him to Chicago too, but he didn’t want to mention that to Kate, because he wanted to avoid the inevitable discussion about whom they might know in common. There was little chance she actually knew anyone within the Wyatts’ lofty social circle, but the Wyatt name was known to any Chicagoan who read a newspaper. Since Mitchell’s last name was also Wyatt, there was a chance Kate would ask him if he was related to those Wyatts, and the last thing he wanted to do was admit to that relationship, let alone discuss what it actually was.

Kate waited for him to offer a clue as to what cities those apartments were in, or what his “work” was. When he didn’t, she assumed he wanted to skip those specific topics. That struck her as odd. In her experience, men loved to talk about their work and achievements. She didn’t want to pry into information Mitchell didn’t want to offer, but she couldn’t gracefully switch immediately to another topic, so she said instead, “No roots?”

“None at all.” When she looked at him strangely, Mitchell said, “From the expression on your face, I gather you find that a little odd?”

“Not odd, just difficult to imagine.” On the assumption that if she offered personal information freely, he might be inclined to follow suit, Kate said. “I grew up in the same Irish neighborhood I was born in. My father owned a little restaurant there, and for many years we lived in an apartment above it. At night, people in the neighborhood gathered there to eat and socialize. During the day, I went to St. Michael’s grade school with kids from the same neighborhood. Later on, I went to Loyola University in the city. After I graduated, I went to work near the old neighborhood, although it had changed a lot by then.”

With a feeling approaching amused disbelief, Mitchell realized that he was wildly attracted to a nice, redheaded, Irish Catholic girl from a solid, middle-class, American family. How totally atypical for him, and no wonder she seemed like such an enigma to him. “What sort of work did you go into after college?”

“I went to work for the Department of Children and Family Services as a social worker.”

Mitchell bit back a bark of laughter. Actually, he was wildly attracted to a redheaded, middle-class, Irish Catholic girl with a strong social conscience.

“Why did you decide on social work instead of the restaurant business? I suppose you probably had enough of that business when you were growing up,” he added, answering his own question.

“It wasn’t exactly a restaurant. It was more of a cozy Irish pub that served a limited menu of tasty Irish dishes and sandwiches, and I loved everything about that place—especially the nights when someone played the piano and people sang Irish songs. Karaoke,” she added with a smile, “has been a time-honored form of entertainment in Irish pubs for hundreds of years, only we never called it that.”

Mitchell was familiar with the term karaoke, and intimately familiar with several pubs in Ireland, so he knew exactly what she meant. “Go on,” he urged as he reached for his wineglass. “You loved the music...?”

He was an attentive listener, Kate realized. Still harboring the belief that he might become a little more forthcoming about his own life if she chatted freely about hers, she did exactly that. “I loved the music, but I couldn’t hear the music very well from my bedroom, and I wasn’t allowed downstairs after five PM, so I used to sneak into the living room after my babysitter fell asleep, and listen to the music from there. By the time I was seven years old, I knew all the songs by heart—sad songs, revolutionary songs, bawdy songs. I didn’t understand all the words, but I could pronounce them with the Irish brogue of a native. The truth is,” she confided after taking a bite of her salad, “I’d watched a lot of old musicals on television, and I wanted to become a nightclub singer and wear beautiful gowns like the women in those movies. I used to pretend our kitchen table was a grand piano, and I practiced draping myself across it while I sang into a pretend microphone—usually a broom handle.”

Mitchell chuckled at the image she’d painted of herself. “Did you ever get to sing in front of an audience downstairs?”

“Oh, yes. I made my official singing debut there at seven.”

“How did it go?”

The story was humorous, but it involved Kate’s father, and she shifted her gaze to the garden, trying to decide if she could tell it without feeling sad. “Let’s just say that—it didn’t quite go the way I’d imagined,” she said finally.

Mitchell was finding it difficult to pay any attention to his meal. She had been so candid before that now her winsome, hesitant expression when she thought back on her singing debut at the pub intrigued him and made him determined to pry out the details. Since courtesy demanded that he at least give her a chance to eat some of her meal, he stifled his curiosity, temporarily postponing his question.

The chef at the Island Club was world-renowned, and the prawn and avocado salad Mitchell had ordered for both of them was served with a wonderful parmesan caper dressing. The red snapper he’d ordered for himself was sautéed to perfection and served with pine nuts and fresh asparagus, but the redhead sitting across from him was more to his liking, and he barely tasted what he ate. He waited until she’d eaten some of her salad and her main course; then he reached for his wine and said half seriously, “I have no intention of letting you ignore my question about your singing debut at the pub.”

After the silence between them, the sudden sound of his rich baritone voice had an electrifying effect on Kate’s senses, and her head jerked up. Trying to cover her reaction, she regarded him with what she hoped was an expression of amused hauteur. “I refuse to tell you that story until you’ve told me a story that makes you look ridiculous.”

Instead of agreeing or giving up, he leaned back in his chair, toying with the stem of his wineglass, and eyed her in prolonged, thoughtful silence.

Kate tried to return his gaze unflinchingly, and ended up laughing and surrendering. “I give up—what on earth are you thinking?”

“I’m trying to decide whether to resort to bribery or coercion.”

“Go for bribery,” Kate advised him outrageously, because the stake was merely a story and she was positive he was going to offer a silly enticement.

“In that case, I will bring a collar and leash with me tomorrow—”

She rolled her eyes in mock horror. “Either you’re a very sick man, or else you have absolutely no talent for accessorizing. Stick with neckties—”

“—And I’ll help you get your Max to a vet over on St. Maarten,” he continued, ignoring her gibe.

Understanding dawned and Kate’s laughter faded. She looked at him, filled with gratitude and the strangest feeling that they were destined to become the best of friends—that it was somehow preordained. He returned her gaze, his blue eyes smiling warmly into hers... no, not warmly, Kate realized. Intimately! Hastily, she tried to divert him with humor. “That’s a clever bribe. What were you going to say to coerce me?”

He quirked a thoughtful brow, a smile tugging at his lips. “ ‘You owe me’?” he suggested.

Kate felt like covering her face and ears to block out the sight and sound of him. Even relaxing in his chair, he exuded potent sexual vitality. When he laughed, he looked sexy. When he smiled, he looked dangerously inviting. And when he was silent and thoughtful, as he’d been just a moment before, he looked intriguing... and wonderful. He was so physically attractive, so witty and urbane, and so infuriatingly likable that she kept wanting to trust him and befriend him, even though he was probably the last man in the Caribbean who could be trusted or befriended in a hotel room, especially by someone like her. He was like a powerful, two-hundred-pound magnet, and she felt like a little paper clip, struggling against his pull but being tugged inexorably, inch-by-inch, across the table to him.

It was actually easier on her nervous system to distract and amuse him than it was to spend three silent seconds trying to resist him, she realized, and so she gave in and decided to tell the story.

He knew the instant she made the decision. “What did it?” he inquired with amused satisfaction. “The bribery or the coercion?”

“I’m completely impervious to bribery,” Kate replied smugly, and was about to add that she was also impervious to coercion, but before she could do that, he said, “Good. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at ten. Now, let’s have the story of your singing debut at the pub.”

With a sigh, Kate began the tale. “It was Saint Patrick’s Day, so by seven PM the place was packed and the singing and drinking were in high gear. I knew my father was on an errand, because he’d come upstairs earlier to get his wallet, so I snuck downstairs even though the rule was that if my father wasn’t on the premises, I was not allowed down there at any hour of the day. Our bartender knew the rule, too, but the place was so crowded, and I was so little, that nobody noticed me. At first, I just hovered on the bottom step, singing quietly to the music; but I couldn’t see anything, so I moved a little farther into the room... and a little farther... and a little farther, until I ended up standing near the end of the bar. The piano was behind me and to my left, and on my right there was a middle-aged couple sitting at the bar. I didn’t realize they’d been watching me doing my little sing-along, until the man leaned over and smiled and asked me what my favorite song was. I told him my favorite song was ‘Danny Boy,’ because my daddy’s name was Daniel—” Kate reached for her wineglass to conceal her sharp, emotional reaction to the mention of the song she’d sung for her father for the last time, standing at his graveside with tears streaming down her face and mourners weeping into handkerchiefs.

“I’m not giving you much chance to eat,” Mitchell apologized.

Kate ate a scallop and some rice to give herself time to compose herself, but Mitchell barely touched his food. For a tall, muscular man who should have been starving by now, he wasn’t eating much, she realized.

“Any time you’re ready to go on—” he prompted after a couple of minutes.

His grin was so uplifting that Kate smiled back at him and continued her story without the choking grief she’d felt moments before. “The man at the bar got up and apparently gave whoever was playing the piano some money, because the very next song was ‘Danny Boy.’ As soon as it started, he whisked me off the floor onto his chair and shouted to everyone to quiet down becauseI wanted to sing ‘Danny Boy.’ ” Kate stopped again, but this time it was because she was trying not to giggle at the memory. “So there it was: my big moment. I was so nervous that I had to clasp my hands behind my back to keep my arms from shaking out of their sockets, and when I tried to sing, my voice came out a squeaky whisper.”

“And that was the end of it?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Unfortunately, no.”

Eager to know what happened, Mitchell tried to guess. “You finally managed to sing louder and you were bad at it?” His smile faded as he realized how cruel a room full of drunks might have been to a child in those circumstances, but Kate shook her head no, and said with mock affront, “I like my ending to the story better than yours.”

“Then what’s your ending?”

“Actually, once I finally found my voice, I was okay. Good enough, anyway, that everyone got quiet while I sang, and they stayed quiet for a few moments after I finished, and then the clapping started.”

“A lot of clapping?”

“Lotsof clapping. I naturally took that to be encouragement, so I sang another song for them—something more uplifting that I felt would also demonstrate my mastery of the Irish brogue. While I sang that one, someone gave me a green leprechaun’s hat and a fake shillelagh. And that,” she finished as she started to laugh helplessly, “is when my father walked in. Oh, my God...”

“He was upset,” Mitchell speculated, thinking her father shouldn’t have been all that upset, since she was obviously giving quite an excellent performance.

“He was a little upset,” she confirmed, laughing harder. “You see, by the time he arrived, I was no longer standing on a chair, I was standing on the bar—so everyone could see me. I was wearing my green hat, strutting with my fake shillelagh, and singing a rousing rendition of ‘Come All Ye Tramps and Hawkers’ at the top of my lungs. In case you haven’t guessed, a few of the lyrics are a little bawdy, and I was right in the middle of that part when my father’s face appeared in front of mine.”

“What happened?”

“My voice dried up in mid-word.”

“What did your father do?”

“He whisked me off the bar, and the next day he asked my uncle to use his influence to get me into St. Michael’s immediately so the nuns there could... um... have a hand in my upbringing. Until then I’d been going to the public school because it was much closer, and taking catechism classes at St. Mike’s on Saturdays.”

Lifting his wineglass to his lips, Mitchell said, “And that ended your singing career?”

“Pretty much. From then on, my singing was limited to the church choir.”

At the word choir, Mitchell choked on his wine. “Thank God the nuns didn’t lure you into their convent and turn you into one of them,” he said aloud, without actually meaning to express the thought.

She chuckled. “Lure me into their convent? They wouldn’t have let me in if I begged them to! There wasn’t a rule that I didn’t try to bend or twist, and I always, always got caught, just like I got caught singing on the bar by my father. I spent the next years staying after school for one offense or another, and I practically wore out the school’s chalkboards writing things like ‘I will obey the school rules’ and ‘I will not be disrespectful’ one hundred times each. The nuns would have despaired of me completely if I hadn’t sounded so ‘angelic’ when I sang in the choir.”

Mitchell was still struggling to associate the image of an angelic choir girl with the alluring redhead sitting across from him when she added lightly, “Actually, it was probably my uncle’s influence and not my singing ability that kept me from being expelled from the fourth grade.”

“Your uncle contributed a lot of money to the church?”

“No, he contributed a lot of his time. My uncle was the parish priest.”

Mitchell stared at her in comic horror.

Tipping her head to the side, Kate studied his expression. “You look dismayed about that.”

“I’m less dismayed than I’d be if you told me you’re a nun.”

“Why would you be dismayed if I were a nun?”

The answer should have been obvious. Since it wasn’t, Mitchell decided it needed to be. He let his gaze drift purposefully to her inviting full lips, her breasts, then back up to her eyes. “Why do you suppose, Kate?”

His meaning was inescapable, and Kate felt a sensual jolt that was centralized in the pit of her stomach, then streaked like hot lightning down her legs to the tips of her toes. Her body’s reaction was so strong and so unexpected that she choked back a nervous laugh and stood up. Trying to look composed and amused, she said sternly, “Are you always so blunt?”

“I want to be sure we’re on the same page.”

“I’m not sure we’re even in the same library, ” Kate said, nervously raking her hair back off her forehead. His gaze shifted from her face to her hand and then drifted admiringly over her hair in a way that was so flattering and so seductive that her hand stilled and she felt a flush heat her cheeks.

He noticed that, too, and smiled. “I think we are.”

Trying to dodge the issue entirely, Kate gave him a look of tolerant amusement. “You’re certainly sure of yourself.”

“Not necessarily,” he replied imperturbably. “I may simply have deluded myself into thinking you’re almost as attracted to me as I am to you. If so, I’m guilty of wishful thinking, not overconfidence.”

As if he hadn’t already wreaked enough havoc on her, he lifted his brows and said, “Those are the possibilities. Take your choice.”

You’re on the wrong page... we’re not even in the same library... you’re deluding yourself. That’s all she needed to say, Kate realized, but with his piercing blue eyes and his knowing smile leveled on her, she wasn’t certain she could be convincing, not when she wasn’t completely sure herself anymore. Trying to wriggle out of a perilous position, she ignored his instruction to make a choice and laughingly said, “I hate multiple-choice questions. They’re so... limiting.” Before he could say another word or lure her into another trap—or onto his lap—Kate said hastily, “I want to check on Max and get some more ice for us. Please go on with your meal.” With that, she turned and fled into the suite.

Instead of stopping at the ice bucket, Kate walked straight into the bathroom, flipped on the lights, and closed the door. Bracing her palms on the vanity’s intricate tiles, she let her head fall forward and drew a long, steadying breath, trying to recover her equilibrium. But what she thought about was how it would feel to be kissed by Mitchell and held in his arms.

Frustrated with the direction of her thoughts, Kate lifted her head and scowled at herself in the mirror. How could she even contemplate a brief, meaningless sexual liaison with a perfect stranger tonight when she’d never done anything like that before? The answer was obvious: The stranger waiting for her on the terrace was like a fantasy... he was witty, charming, urbane, thoughtful, kind, and—oh, yes—breathtakingly handsome and too sexy. Even the setting was idyllic—they were on a tropical island, dining in the moonlight, surrounded with the heady fragrance of frangipani blossoms and the stirring beat of steel drums playing calypso music on the beach. The timing was flawless, too, Kate realized, because she was about to end her long relationship with Evan.

All those things were nudging her straight into Mitchell Wyatt’s arms, tempting her to make what would probably be a bad decision she’d regret afterward. She’d never had a casual, one-night fling, not even in college with boys she knew. If she had one now, if she didn’t get a tight rein on herself, her pride and self-respect would be in tatters tomorrow.

Straightening, Kate reconsidered. She was a grown woman, and she might not feel that way tomorrow. She did know that if she decided not to go to bed with him, she’d probably end up wondering for months what it would have been like.

Helplessly, Kate decided not to decide. She reached for the light switch on the wall beside the telephone. The red message light flashed imperatively, insistently, and whether from guilt or caution, she suddenly felt as if she needed to find out what Evan had called to tell her. She lifted the receiver and pressed the Message button on the phone.

“You have one unheard voice mail message,”the recording said, and a moment later, she heard Evan’s familiar, cultured voice. “Kate, it’s me. You’re probably out to dinner.” He sounded frustrated and harassed, so Kate knew what was coming next before she heard him say, “I’m so sorry, but I’m not going to make it down there tomorrow. I’m doing my best to wrap this case up, but I know you know that. There’s no way this case can drag on beyond tomorrow, so I’ll be there the day after. Count on it.”

Kate had been “counting on it” for three days already.

She hung up the phone.