smiled. “I guess in your income bracket, you can’t afford to take chances.”
“I don’t. I have a security chief who makes the White House brigade look sloppy.” He glanced at her. “I’ll have to introduce you one day. He’s Sioux.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Indian?”
“Indigenous aborigine,” he corrected her with a grin. “Don’t ever call him an Indian. He speaks five languages fluently and has a degree in law.”
“Not your average security chief.”
“Not at all. There’s still plenty I don’t know about him, and he’s worked for me for three years.” He pulled up in front of the house and stopped. As he helped Brianne out, a middle-aged man with a Mediterranean look came out the door, smiled and replaced Pierce behind the wheel.
“Arthur,” Pierce said, waving the man away. “He usually drives me. He’ll put the car in the garage. And this is Mary,” he added, smiling at the pretty middle-aged black woman who opened the door. “She came with the villa. Nobody, but nobody cooks conch the way she does.”
“Nobody except my mama,” Mary agreed. “How you doing, miss?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Brianne said, and smiled.
“Any calls?” Pierce asked.
“Only one, from Mr. Winthrop, but he said it wasn’t urgent.”
“Okay. We’ll be at the pool.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mary closed the big wooden door behind them, and Pierce led Brianne down a cool arched stone walkway that led to a huge swimming pool with a commanding view of the ocean beyond it.
She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked toward a jutting promontory where casuarina pines waved in the breeze and two sailboats lay at anchor.
“It’s so peaceful here,” she commented.
“That’s why I like it.”
She turned back to him. He pulled out a cushioned chair at a white wrought-iron table with an umbrella covering it and indicated that she should sit down.
“Do you spend much time in the pool?” she asked curiously.
“Not a lot. I can swim, but I don’t care too much for it. I like to sunbathe out here. It helps me think things through.” He motioned to Mary, who brought a tray with two tall, milky-looking drinks on it and a plate of small cakes.
Mary put the tray on the table and smiled as she left them by the pool.
“Mary makes good tea cakes,” he said, reaching for his drink. “Help yourself.”
She reached for one and put it on the saucer Mary had provided. She tasted it with delight.
“How delicious!” she exclaimed.
“Mary says it’s the amount of flavoring she uses that gives them such a nice taste.”
She reached for her drink and sipped it, surprised to find that it didn’t contain any alcohol.
He noticed her expression and chuckled. “I’m not giving alcohol to a minor, even in Nassau,” he murmured.
“I’m not exactly a minor,” she informed him.
“You’re not twenty-one yet,” he replied. His dark eyes slid over her youthful figure and up to her pretty face with intense scrutiny as he sat with one big lean hand wrapped around his glass. “You’re young. Very young.”
“Blame it on a sheltered childhood,” she said. Her gaze slid over him like searching fingertips. “How old are you?” she asked abruptly.
One bushy eyebrow lifted. “Older than you.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Much older?”
He shrugged and sipped his drink. “Much older.” His dark eyes met hers levelly. “Almost twice your age.”
“You don’t look it,” she said, and meant it. He had the physique of a man ten years younger, and there were only traces of silver at his temples. She smiled at him wistfully. “I guess you haven’t given a lot of thought to seducing me?”
Both eyebrows went up. “I beg your pardon?”
His tone would have made a lesser woman falter, but Brianne was made of stouter stuff. “We talked about it in Paris,” she reminded him. “Of course, you were pretty drunk at the time, so I can’t really expect you to remember too much of our conversation. But I did admit that I was going to wait for you.” She grinned wickedly. “And I have, despite the temptation.”
He hated himself for asking. “What temptation?”
“There was a very handsome Portuguese nobleman in one of my classes. He was older than the rest of us, very cultured, very correct. All of us were wild about him, but there was a fiancée waiting back home.” She shook her head. “Poor Cara.”
“Who’s Cara?”
“My best friend. She’s from Texas. She went to Portugal this summer to stay with her sister, and guess whose brother her baby sister got involved with?”
“The nobleman’s.”
“Bingo. I understand it’s been open warfare since her ship docked.” She shook her head. “Cara never liked Raoul in the first place,” she recalled. “They couldn’t get along.”
“But you liked him.”
She nodded and smiled at him. “Very much. He was nice to me.”
He chuckled deep in his throat, and there was a look in his eyes that didn’t make much sense to her.
“Why are you laughing?” she asked.
He gave her a complicated look. “Do you think I’m nice?” he asked softly.
She looked stunned. “Nice? You? Good Lord, you’re a barracuda!”
The laughter grew, deep and rich. “Well, you’re honest.”
“I try to be.” She looked down into her glass with a sigh. “Philippe Sabon’s after me, you know,” she said with visible discomfort. “He wanted to throw a birthday party for me on his yacht, and my stepfather was all for it. I refused, and now he’s not speaking to me. But I heard the two of them talking, and it made me nervous.”
He didn’t have to ask why Sabon was interested in her. He already knew. He spun the ice around in his glass before he took another sip.
“According to what I’ve heard, Sabon has a yen for virgins,” he said curtly. “I won’t tell you what he’s said to do with them. But he isn’t doing it to you.”
His concern made her feel warm inside. She smiled. “Thanks. Could you loan me your security chief for a few days to make sure of it?” she added half-jokingly.
“I’ll take care of it myself,” he said, and he didn’t smile. His eyes narrowed on her young face. “You can hang out over here until he leaves. I understand that he’s facing the threat of a military coup by a poor neighboring country with no oil. They want his.”
“So does my stepfather,” she informed him. “He’s all but bankrupted himself putting money into developing the oil fields over there, and he’s attracted other investors to help him. If the military coup succeeds, he’ll be standing on the street corner selling pencils out of a cup.”
“Or diving for conch,” he added mockingly.
“That isn’t likely. He can’t swim.”
“He’s made a bad bargain there,” Pierce murmured thoughtfully. “A real deal with the devil.” His dark eyes narrowed as they slid over her. “What are you supposed to be, collateral?”
She