She needed to get out of here. It had taken her two days to pluck up the courage to come at all, but apparently she still couldn’t hack it.

“I guess you’re ready to give the cottage to another employee, so I’ll come back tomorrow to finish packing. I’m staying in town. I have to go.” She realized she still clutched the heart-shaped piece of pink paper with his home phone number.

She’d never called him on the phone. Their relationship had been more a catch-as-catch-can affair. Hey, wanna play some ball? No planned assignations or formal invitations. They’d been “buddies” but never really friends in the true sense.

She left the number on the counter, picked up her burger and threw it in the black plastic trash bag she hadn’t yet managed to bring herself to throw any of her mom’s things into, then sucked in a breath and stepped toward the door. “It is okay if I come back tomorrow?”

Naldo’s unmoving presence marked the fact that her mother’s little cottage was his property. “Of course. Take all the time you need.”

She waited for a moment longer, hoping for-what? A conversational foray? An invitation to join him for dinner?

Get over yourself, girl.

His impassive silence suggested he was waiting for her to leave, so she hurried out the door and climbed once more into the ancient battered van that had miraculously survived the drive down from Boston.

Hot tears blurred her view through the scarred windshield as she steered the van along the winding access road toward the estate’s grand entrance. How many more times would she make this journey? One? Maybe two? Now her mom was gone she had no home and no one was waiting for her. But she was tough and she’d get it together and live a life that would make her mom proud.

Two days later, Anna shivered in the air-conditioned chill of the De Leon’s grand living room as an inlaid walnut grandfather clock struck four. Strangers milled about, speaking in hushed tones, waiting for the reading to start. She’d received a phone call at the motel from a lawyer, asking her to attend the reading of Robert De Leon’s will. The De Leons followed the old-school custom of providing small legacies for the staff, including her mother.

She had not been invited to the small, private funeral held that morning at the estate.

There was a sharp divide between the household staff, gathered for the occasion in their ordinary clothes, and the elegantly dressed family members also in attendance. Naldo stood among the latter, breathtaking in a fine black suit, his thick, wavy, almost-black hair combed back to reveal his dramatic features. If he’d noticed her, he showed no sign of it. Anna stood alone, off to one side, staring out the French windows at thousands of acres of the finest citrus groves in the world.

Today she was carefully dressed in a good suit and high heels. With earrings, makeup and an upswept hairdo she hoped she looked like the woman her mom had lovingly boasted about to the other staff.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.” A suited young man ushered them toward four rows of Queen Anne chairs she recognized as being filched from the dining room. She knew the house pretty well, at least the public rooms, though she’d spent most of her time hanging out in the kitchen while her mom prepped and cooked the family meals.

The lawyer’s authoritative voice descended into a soft drone as he read the long list of bequests. All money, of course. The estate was legendary for never breaking off even the tiniest chunk of land, which was how it had remained intact for centuries. The eldest son-Naldo-got the land and the vast bulk of whatever monstrous holdings in gold and currency and other investments there were. His sister got some kind of stipend. Since she was at least ten years older than him and lived in Europe, Anna had never met her and couldn’t even pick her out in the small knot of relatives.

She shifted in her chair, her uncomfortable slingbacks pinching her toes. Two thousand dollars and ten thousand dollars seemed to be the going rate for staff bequests. She suspected her mom would get the latter, due to her long service. Boy would that money be welcome! Her kindhearted mother had left her savings to a shelter for unwed mothers. She had no way of knowing that Anna was almost literally down to her last dime, which was in fact owed to the fleabag motel she was staying in.

“To Leticia Marcus, valued employee and treasured friend-” Anna sat up “-I leave her place of residence and the ground on which it stands, as demarcated on the attached map, and the book of recipes we developed together.”

He’d moved on to the next bequest by the time it sank in.

No money at all?

Her heart plummeted.

A scraping sound drew her attention and everyone turned as Naldo rose to his feet. “What?” His deep voice trembled with barely controlled rage.

“Mr. De Leon, may I speak with you outside for a moment?” An older, grizzled member of the team of lawyers rose and indicated the door. Naldo strode to the door, fury pouring from him in a hot wave that rolled over the crowd and left excited whispering in its wake.

People turned and glanced surreptitiously at Anna. The daughter, she heard someone mutter. She swallowed and tried to hold her head high as a flush crept up her neck.

Why would Robert De Leon leave her mother a different legacy than he’d bequeathed to all the other staff members?

“You cannot be serious.” Naldo paced in the hall, anger simmering just below boiling point. “My father would never have approved this.”

“It was his expressed wish. I tried to talk him out of it myself. I tried to explain that the integrity of the estate-”

“The integrity of the estate? This bequest makes a mockery of the estate. The De Leon plantation has had no changes in its borders other than opportunistic expansion since my ancestors arrived here from Hispaniola in 1583. And now you mean to tell me that my father instructed you to carve a one-acre hole right in the middle of it? Why not give her one of my kidneys as well? It defies belief.” He underscored his disbelief with a loud smack of his hand on the doorframe. The bespectacled functionary in front of him flinched.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid it was your father’s expressed intention. I’m sure you understand the exigencies of client confidentiality, but perhaps you are aware of the circumstances-”

“I’m aware of the circumstances.”

My father’s affair with Letty Marcus. A ten-year-long fly in the ointment of his existence and an ongoing affront to the memory of his mother.

He raked a hand through his hair. “Can nothing be done? Surely our ancestors never intended for something like this to happen.”

“I imagine they are rotating in the family crypt as we speak, sir.” The lawyer’s smirk only stirred his irritation. “I would suggest that you talk to the daughter. I suspect that if you offer her the right amount of money-”

“She’ll sell.”

As the lawyers packed up their papers and the gathered audience rose to their feet, Naldo took in the chiseled elegance of Anna’s profile, set off by the high chignon that held her pale gold hair. Skillfully applied makeup enhanced the symmetrical beauty of her fine features, and darkened that deliciously prim mouth. The tough little girl with the wild red hair and freckled nose had morphed into a stunning woman.

A woman he wouldn’t mind spending some time with.

“Would you join me for dinner?”

Shock flickered through her beautiful eyes. “What?”

“The cook has some fine red snapper she’s promised to grill to the exact point where it cooks in its juices but retains its tender plumpness.” He couldn’t ignore the tender plumpness of her pretty lower lip as she bit it.

“You have a new cook already?”

“Yes. She’s not in your mother’s league, of course-” Perhaps mentioning the cook was a mistake. “But one must make do.”

“I can quite imagine.” Was that a flare of annoyance he read in her expression?

He picked up her hand. Pale and soft, the nails short and bare but carefully contoured. With her long, slender fingers encased in his, again he experienced the shimmer of sensation that had preceded recognition at the cottage.

He lifted her hand to his mouth, and pressed his lips against the smooth skin. The absence of the expensive scent he’d expected to encounter only stirred his arousal. “Dine with me, Anna. With my father gone, I-” He held her gaze.

He needed her to say yes, and not just because the prospect of dinner without his father made his soul ache. He had a problem to solve, and suddenly he envisioned a few very delicious ways to solve it.

Two

“Okay.” Anna regretted the word as soon as it left her lips, but she couldn’t help it. She saw the fresh pain that glittered in Naldo’s dark eyes. She knew how much he loved his father.

“Excellent.” Was that a look of triumph that flashed across his face? Fear crept up her spine.

He gestured to a young man in black pants and a white shirt. “Mojitos on the veranda please, Tom.”

With his hand still on hers-which was growing uncomfortably hot-he leaned into her and murmured, “I’ll get rid of these last stragglers and join you outside.”

Out on the veranda, with a drink she hadn’t asked for sweating in her hand, Anna paced back and forth over the smooth painted wood.

Now she’d have to keep up her successful businesswoman charade for the length of a fancy meal. She couldn’t let Naldo know what had happened. He’d no doubt pity her and laugh at her foolish pretensions to a lifestyle he took for granted.

She sipped her drink and the sharp lime and fresh mint stung her tongue-painful and delicious, their heady taste echoed the sharp mix of emotions still roiling inside her.