She stared around the room as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was. Sunlight splashed through the wide windows and lay in brilliant slices across the floor. The sheer drapes at the French doors fluttered in a wild breeze and the scent of the ocean wrapped itself around her.

Yet she hardly noticed any of it. Instead she was concentrating on breathing. Pushing air in and out of her lungs. A hard ball of ice settled in the pit of her stomach and Debbie was afraid she was going to have to learn to live with it.

Without Culp and Bergman, she wasn’t going to be able to keep her company running. Unless she could find another corporate client, she would lose everything.

“Gabe will probably get a charge out of that,” she muttered.

“Speaking of Gabe,” a woman’s voice said from right behind her. “Where exactly is he?”

Debbie spun around so fast, she caught her foot on the leg of a stupid chair, lost her balance and nearly fell face-first onto the floor before she caught herself. Staring at the gorgeous brunette watching her through curious eyes, Debbie put her at about thirty, with pale white skin, dark-brown eyes and a killer lemon-yellow silk suit. She looked like she’d just stepped off the cover of a magazine.

“Who’re you?” Debbie finally said as the woman dropped her purse onto a chair.

“I’m Grace Madison and now that you know my name, perhaps you’ll tell me who you are and what you’re doing in my fiancé’s suite.”

Gabe looked up when a short, blond tornado roared into his office. Her long hair was flying loose around her shoulders and the pale-blue tank top she wore bared an inch or so of her tanned belly just above her white shorts. But before he could enjoy the spurt of pure lust that shot through him, he shifted his gaze to hers.

Debbie’s eyes were shooting blue fire and he had no doubt at all that if looks could really kill, she’d have him six feet under in an unmarked grave.

Being a wise man, his first instinct was to take a wary step back from a woman that furious. Instead, though, deliberately casual, he kicked his legs out, crossed his feet at the ankle and folded his arms behind his head. “Deb, nice of you to drop in.”

“You jerk.”

One corner of his mouth quirked. Nothing quite as entertaining as Debbie in a fury. “If you’re going to call me names, you might want to close my office door.”

“Gaaaahhhh…” She growled an inarticulate sound, spun around and crossed back to the door. When she got there, she slammed it hard enough to have several of his framed paintings rattle on the wall.

Chest heaving, eyes bright with rage, she shook a finger at him. “You’re engaged.”

He’d forgotten all about Grace’s impending arrival. Still, it didn’t change anything. He and Grace had an arrangement. One that suited them both and had nothing at all to do with Debbie Harris.

“Ah. Grace must have arrived.”

“That’s it?” she practically howled. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“What would you like to hear?” he asked, straightening to lean his forearms on his desk. He watched her as she stalked back across the room and stopped just opposite him. Damn, she looked good when she was pissed. And what kind of twisted SOB was he that he wanted her right now?

“What I want to hear you say is that she’s not your fiancée.”

“She’s not.”

Debbie jerked upright, sucked in a gulp of air, blinked at him and said, “What?”

“Not officially, at any rate,” Gabe said. “I haven’t asked her yet, but unlike the last time I proposed to someone, I’m expecting a yes.”

“You…you…”

“Yes?”

“You can just sit there and tell me that you’re going to marry some other woman after we…we…”

“Having trouble stringing those sentences together, are you?”

“We had sex!”

“We surely did,” Gabe mused, and stood slowly, his gaze never leaving her. The flush of rage on her cheeks, the short, sharp breaths making her breasts heave, the fire in her eyes, and the furious twist of her mouth were all combining to make him hot and hard and so damn ready for her. He didn’t think he could wait another second without having her.

“You had sex with me and you’re going to marry her.”

“Eventually,” he agreed as he walked past her and continued to the door. There, he threw the lock and turned around to look at her again. “Did you think I didn’t have a life before you showed up on my island?”

She scowled at him, still furious, but riding a much colder rage than she had been. “No, but-”

“Did you seriously believe there’d been no other women for me since you?”

“No. Of course not.” She folded her arms over her chest and tapped the toe of one sandal against the floor.

He tipped his head to one side and studied her. Objectively, he tried to figure out just what it was about this one particular woman that got to him like no other since her. Then he dismissed that thought because it didn’t matter. “Did you ever think that I didn’t much care for the idea of you sleeping with your bigamist?”

“I didn’t do it when I was having sex with you.”

Gabe shrugged and started toward her. “And I haven’t had sex with Grace in months.”

“And that’s supposed to make it all right?” Debbie backed up as he advanced but he caught the spark in her eyes. The hitch in her breath. She was as ripe as he was.

“I didn’t owe you an explanation, Deb. Still don’t,” he reminded her, and came around the edge of the desk to grab her. “But the truth is, Grace and I made a business decision to get married.”

“Business?”

He shrugged and tightened his grip on her upper arms so she couldn’t slip away from him. “Neither one of us is interested in ‘love’ and we’d both like a family. Her family owns a cruise line…good business to have a merger.”

“Well, that’s cold,” Debbie muttered.

“No, that’s business.”

“And what’re we?”

“Good question.”

She tried, briefly, to pull free again, but after a moment or two, she simply looked up at him. “You could have warned me that she was coming. That she existed.”

“Yeah. I could have.”

“Wow.” She sighed and shook her head even as she lifted both hands to his chest to try to push him away. “That’s such a great apology. You should have that sewn on a pillow.”

He laughed. Damn it, nobody else had ever been able to make him laugh in the middle of a fight.

“I’m not apologizing for how I live my life.”

“What about to Grace?” she demanded. “You going to apologize to her?”

“No,” he said, and lifted one hand to stroke the side of her face. “She wouldn’t expect an apology.”

Debbie sucked in a breath at his touch and held it for a long moment before exhaling again. Then she batted his hand away. “She’s a damned sight more understanding than I am.”

He laughed and touched her again, dipping one finger beneath the edge of her top to stroke her bare skin. “Honey, Genghis Khan is more understanding than you.”

“Funny.” She glanced down at his hand, sliding down to cup her breast and even when she inhaled sharply, she blurted, “No way are we going to have sex again. Not with your fiancée right upstairs in your suite, so if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you might as well-”

“Shut up, Deb,” he whispered, and leaned down to kiss her. It started off slow, soft, and quickly became a kiss of hunger so raw, so basic, it stole his breath. This Gabe hadn’t counted on. This he would have avoided if he could have. But damn if she didn’t touch him in places he’d thought long since closed off.

And damn if Grace’s arrival was going to make him stop wanting Debbie. What he and Grace had was more of a business arrangement. There was no love and therefore no cheating. And besides, they weren’t engaged yet.

“We shouldn’t do this,” she said when she tore her mouth from his a moment later.

“But we are.”

She looked up at him, cupped his face between her palms and said, “Oh, yeah. We are.”

Then Gabe stopped thinking. He pulled her tank top off and tossed it to one side. She was yanking his shirt up and over his head and at the same time, running her palms over his chest, his abdomen. His body was hard and tight and he knew if he didn’t have her in the next few seconds, he would simply explode. He’d never known such a ferocious need like he did with Debbie.

Quickly, they tore off the rest of their clothes and then Gabe was lifting her, sliding everything off of his desk and sitting her on the edge of it before moving in to tear her shorts off her body.

The desktop was cold on her skin, but she was hot everywhere else. He entered her and Debbie felt her heart stop. Felt her brain click. Thoughts slide into place and she knew, bone-deep, that this was where she belonged. With this man.

And that knowledge bloomed and died with an unspoken sigh, because she also knew that she couldn’t have him. That he didn’t love her anymore. That he never would. That the woman he was planning to marry for all the wrong reasons was upstairs and just what did that make Debbie to be down here, making love with a man who belonged to someone else?

She shut down her mind because the answer to that question was just too painful. Instead, she concentrated on the feel of Gabe’s body sliding in and out of hers. On the hush of his breath, on the raging hunger ensnaring them both. Because she knew this would be the last time she would be with him. She couldn’t make love with him again, knowing that there was nothing more than lust fueling it. Couldn’t have him and know she would lose him.

“You’re thinking again,” he said, cupping one of her breasts in his palm. His thumb and forefinger tweaked her nipple and she sucked in air greedily.

“I’m stopping now,” she swore as his body plunged into hers, jolting her with a pleasure so rich, so deep, it nearly brought tears to her eyes.