do was make sure that Leo didn’t totally mess the long-awaited honeymoon up by sending them to kite-surf in Bora-Bora or scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef—both of which they’d already done.
They needed something special. Something romantic. Something that reminded them that their relationship hadn’t always been about foreign travel, adventure and games.
She joined Leo at the door.
“Okay, Mr. Wedding Planner. Where exactly do you propose we send the couple who has been everywhere?”
Leo’s grin was so full of self-satisfaction, she almost slapped him. Or kissed him. With Leo, the line between the two was always taut and ready to snap.
“We’re going back to where it all started,” Leo told her, opening the door so that the humid Florida air clashed with the air-conditioned interior of the restaurant, plunging her into just the kind of heat that normally got her into a ton of trouble. Especially around Leo.
After a split second, her brain processed what he’d said and she stopped dead, her foot stumbling on the sidewalk so that Leo had to grab her by the elbow to keep her upright. The minute their skin made contact, Jessie lost her ability to breathe. His fingers were strong, his palms warm, his forearms tan and ripped with muscles.
She swallowed thickly. “You can’t mean Key West.”
“Oh, yes, I do mean Key West,” he promised, pulling her up so that their noses nearly touched. “In every way possible.”
2
THE START FLAG had raised and the horn had sounded. Leo had calculated and planned with precision, but the operation to win Jessie back—and marry off his best friends in the process—was a risk nonetheless.
Luckily for him, Leo’s gambles usually paid off. He hadn’t made his way in the highly competitive world of yacht design and racing by playing things safe. Throwing off the old designs and traditions had made him a popular guy in a very elite, exclusive club. He’d even managed to keep his business afloat during tough economic times by selling his custom-made watercraft to foreign competitors who hadn’t yet felt the crunch of the tight market. To attain success, he’d kept his eyes on the prize and thought outside the box.
If he wanted Jessie back, he was going to have to pull out all the stops—including those that were keeping her from admitting that she still loved him.
Okay, so he wasn’t entirely certain she was still love-struck. In all honesty, his research proved the complete opposite. For three years following the swamping of their relationship, she’d refused to be in the same room with him. Until Bianca and Coop started spending more time out of the country than in, Jessie had used every excuse in the book to make sure they never breathed the same air. But when their wayward friends only had a three-hour layover between trips to Bimini or Istanbul, she couldn’t be too choosy about which friend Coop preferred to see at the same time—and it was usually Leo.
From then on, they’d agreed—without ever speaking on the matter—to a cold but lasting truce. But every chilly “Hello, Leo” and equally icy “How are you doing?” reminded him of everything he’d lost by screwing up. He’d apologized, of course, but apparently, words weren’t enough. He’d assumed that time would undo the damage he’d wrought, but even after ten years, Jessie Martinez held a grudge like a stuck anchor.
Yet the last few times they’d seen each other, he’d sensed a momentary crack in her glacial veneer. The way her eyes dilated whenever he leaned close to her. The way she didn’t stiffen at his touch when he handed her a beer.
Even now, the subtle but noticeable tightening of her nipples beneath her snug blouse when he’d stopped her from taking a tumble on the sidewalk stoked him to act.
Of course, he might just be suffering from an incurable case of wishful thinking—but where was the fun in believing that?
“I’m fine,” she insisted, even though he knew that if he released her, she’d likely crack her head on the concrete.
“You sure?”
She scrambled to get her feet back under her, then tugged out of his hold. She stumbled slightly, but managed to stay upright. He couldn’t resist smiling. She was beautiful when she was flustered. Well, she was beautiful when she was confident, when she was shy (which wasn’t often) and especially when she was pissed off. Which meant that in a little less than an hour, she was going to rival Helen of Troy, Miss America and poor, plain Angelina Jolie.
She wiped her hands on her jeans. “How are we getting to Key West? It’s a long drive.”
“Let me worry about transportation,” he said. “The most important thing is that we get the house habitable by the weekend.”
Her chin quivered. “What house?”
“The house we rented that summer,” he replied. “The house on the private—”
“Island? You can’t have rented it. The owner sold it.”
That stopped him. How could she have possibly known?
The summer between their sophomore and junior years in college, Bianca and Coop, still in the early stages of their love affair with both each other and wanderlust, had found a spectacular five-bedroom, split-level house to rent for a month on a private key about ten nautical miles off Key West. Unfortunately, Bianca’s overprotective parents had objected to their daughter shacking up with her boyfriend all alone on an island. Though over eighteen, Bianca had used her parents’ concern (and threats to stop paying her tuition) to entice her best friend, Jessie, into coming along on the once-in-a-lifetime getaway.
Coop had done the same with Leo and it was on that island and in that house that Leo had fallen hopelessly and helplessly in love with the woman who now hated his guts.
Well, hate was a strong word. He was fairly certain that time had tempered her loathing to sheer dislike by now.
Time, however, had done absolutely nothing to alleviate his cravings for her. Yeah, he’d been the one to wreck their burgeoning relationship, but after a decade of concentrating on nothing but work and sailing, along with the occasional fling just to make sure his parts were still in working order, he was ready to reclaim the ultimate winner’s cup—Jessie. He wanted her back and he was going to use this wedding as an excuse to seduce her back into his life.
“Owner listed it again a couple of years ago,” he explained. “I used to sail a lot in the Keys, so a broker gave me a call.”
She swallowed visibly. “You own it now?”
He smiled. “Every palm tree and grain of sand, though no one has been on the property for years.”
“Why?”
Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and disgust, which on the surface wasn’t a very good sign.
“I’ve been busy. I don’t get down there much anymore and my caretaker quit last year.”
“No, I mean, why did you buy it, especially if you never use it?”
“Do you really want to know the answer or would you rather go home and pack? We leave in—” he consulted his watch “—two hours.”
She narrowed her eyes, searching for some clue to his motives, but finding none, she cursed and stalked toward her car. “I’m only doing this for Bianca and Coop.”
He slung his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Of course. Why else would you go with me to the remote, deserted island where we first made love?”
From the short distance between them, Leo couldn’t tell whether Jessie’s eyes watered on account of deep, residual hurt or blind fury. Still, his best bet was to take off now, before she could retaliate.
He slid into his convertible, rubbing his chin absently while he watched Jessie tear out of the parking lot, the backside of her car fishtailing in her haste. He hoped