had sounded vaguely familiar. ‘Oh, yes, of course. I remember,’ she said unevenly.
Lucas Tremaine had been an investigative journalist, a good one, working for a British newspaper when, in his early twenties, he’d been sent to cover an insurrection in San Rafael, a tiny Pacific nation. There he had met a young woman, married her and taken her to safety in England. But after his publication of several merciless articles on the abuse of power in her homeland, the house where he’d lived with his pregnant wife had been bombed. His wife had died in his arms.
After that he’d returned to San Rafael and disappeared into the jungle to join the freedom fighters in their bloody and merciless war. When at last they’d seized victory, he’d marched with them in triumph into the capital before disappearing into the solitudes of the Pacific Ocean on his yacht to write a book about the experience.
As though driven, he’d followed that one with others—books that dealt with dangerous and hidden facts. He had untangled the roots of piracy in the China Sea and had written about the sex trade in Thailand and the slavery that ensued from it.
Each book had caused a considerable scandal; each had been a bestseller. And each had made him powerful enemies.
Anet looked at the hard, inexorable face, and her blood ran cold.
‘It’s over,’ he said quietly.
But nothing like that was ever over. Oh, the grief faded, and eventually you learned to live with the memories, but they were always there. Eight years after her grandmother’s death, she still missed her.
‘So what are you doing on Fala’isi?’ she asked, aware that the change of subject was awkwardly abrupt but unable to think of another way of getting past the sticky patch. Jan, or their mother, would have known exactly how to deal with the situation her clumsiness had caused, without compounding the pain.
But then Jan would never have blundered like that.
‘I came to see you,’ he told her, measuring her reaction with a speculative gaze.
Anet’s eyes widened. The subtly mocking smile on his beautiful mouth was matched by a glimmer in the sea-blue eyes; both set warning bells ringing.
‘Why?’ she said briskly, curbing the unfounded excitement that tightened her nerves. Although he wasn’t intruding on her personal space, he seemed too close.
‘Olivia Arundell sent me,’ he said. ‘Apparently it’s your birthday today.’
Astonishment rippled through her voice. ‘Well—yes.’
‘Your twenty-fifth birthday.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Olivia told me. She also sent you a present.’
Years before, when Drake Arundell had married Olivia, Anet had thought her heart would break; only willpower and stubbornness had pulled her through. Yet it had been impossible to resist Olivia, who had become a close friend.
‘Did she?’ Anet said, thinking that it was just like Olivia to do something so unexpected. ‘Isn’t she a darling! Did you tell her you were coming here?’
‘No,’ he said calmly. ‘I was on my way to Hawaii when she asked me if I’d mind stopping off and giving it to you.’
Anet couldn’t help her incredulous laughter. Her eyes flew to his, found them cool and intent and alarmingly disturbing. Impossible to guess what he was thinking. ‘Olivia did?’
His mouth quirked. ‘Somehow it’s difficult to say no to Olivia Arundell,’ he drawled.
Well, yes, but still... A sideways glance convinced her that this man would say no to anyone if he felt like it. So why was he here? ‘You mean she asked you to break your journey just to deliver a gift?’
‘I gather it’s an important one.’
‘We only give each other tiny presents,’ she said.
‘This is no bigger than the palm of my hand.’
Intrigued, she responded, ‘It seems an odd thing for her to do, but I suppose she must have had a reason for it.’
‘I’m sure she did.’
A note in his voice drew her eyes swiftly upward. There was something intimidating about the gleam in his impenetrable eyes as they met hers, lingered for a moment, then drifted down her face to come to rest on her lips.
Instantly they felt hot, and twice as large as normal. With an acid distaste out of all proportion to the discovery, she realised that he was one of those men who flirted automatically with every woman, young or old, who came their way. She’d heard it referred to as ‘charm’, that intensity of interest—for as long as they talked to you they made you feel that you were the most fascinating person in the world.
Anet didn’t consider it charming, and had learned not to take anything such people said or did at face value. It was a trick—part of a cynical armoury.
So she forced a guarded smile and said, ‘Well, it was lovely of her, and thank you so much for bringing it to me.’
‘Your mother and sister—Jan, is it?—were there too,’ he said. ‘They sent messages to you.’
‘They fussed, you mean,’ she guessed, holding back a groan. Presents from her family had arrived a couple of days ago, complete with instructions from her mother on how to avoid sunstroke and food poisoning. It was a wonder Jan hadn’t added her bit—she usually found something to warn her about.
‘Somebody did say something about taking your vitamin pills,’ he agreed solemnly.
Although Anet was accustomed to her mother’s and her half-sister’s constant concern, it was embarrassing to be told of it by Lucas Tremaine. Hoping it didn’t sound artificial, she produced a laugh. ‘I’m twice the size of both of them,’ she said, ‘but they still don’t think I can be trusted to look after myself when I’m on holiday.’
He held her gaze for a few unsettling moments, but all he said was, ‘Holiday?’ Dark brows raised, he looked at the fifteen divers who were beginning to point and exclaim as they neared the coral gardens. ‘You call this a holiday?’
‘Compared to the last few months it is definitely a holiday. I hope this unscheduled stop-over isn’t making too much of a mess of your plans.’
‘Not at all,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I might even decide to stay here after all. I’ve always liked Fala’isi.’
So there was no one waiting for him in Hawaii.
Quelling an unruly anticipation deep inside her, she said repressively, ‘It’s a very small place. Wouldn’t you get bored?’
‘I don’t think so.’ His lashes hid everything but a narrow sliver of intense colour. ‘I could always settle down and grow cabbages.’
‘Taro, surely, here?’ The brittle note in her voice startled her.
‘Whatever.’
‘Wouldn’t that be difficult? Once a wanderer always a wanderer,’ she said, immediately irritated by the inane remark.
The chiselled line of his jaw hardened for a second, and the sculpted mouth thinned, but his eyes remained watchful and oddly enigmatic. ‘Sooner or later even the most inveterate wanderer decides to settle down,’ he said noncommittally.
‘Excuse me.’
The peremptory note in the feminine voice grated on Anet’s ear, but she turned instantly and smiled at Georgia Sanderson. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m thirsty,’ the other woman said, disguising. the sharp antagonism in her eyes with a flutter of lashes. ‘You do have drinks, as the brochure said?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Only a few steps away behind a small bar in the cabin was Sule, eager to dispense drinks and snacks—as