A Dangerous Taste Of Passion. Anne Mather

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CHAPTER ONE

      HE WAS STANDING on the cliff that rose steeply at the end of the cove.

      Was he watching her? Lily didn’t know. But she didn’t need her intuition to realise who he was. Dee-Dee had told her; had warned her actually. And Dee-Dee seemed to know everything.

      But then, Dee-Dee also claimed she had the sight, and no one on the small Caribbean island of Orchid Cay would argue with her. And it was true, the old woman had foretold Lily’s mother’s illness, and last season’s hurricane that had almost destroyed the marina in town.

      Lily’s father didn’t agree that Dee-Dee knew everything. He regarded their housekeeper’s visions as just mumbo-jumbo. But Lily supposed that as an Anglican priest he couldn’t be seen to have anything to do with the ‘black magic’ he declared Dee-Dee’s claims to be.

      Still, right now, Lily was less concerned with Dee-Dee’s abilities than with her desire for the man to go away. She didn’t like thinking he was watching her and she wondered again what he was doing on the island.

      According to Dee-Dee, his name was Raphael Oliveira and he was from New York. The old housekeeper had speculated that he’d got in trouble in the city and had bought one of the most expensive properties on the island to escape from justice.

      But even Dee-Dee’s speculations couldn’t always be relied upon and no one had even known that the house at Orchid Point was for sale.

      Whatever, Lily wished he would just turn around and go away. This was the time she usually took her evening swim, but she had no intention of taking her clothes off in front of him—even if he was more than a hundred feet away.

      Folding her towel over her arm, she started back towards the rectory. She only permitted herself a surreptitious glance in his direction when she was almost home.

      And discovered, to her chagrin, that he was gone.

      * * *

      A week later, Lily was sitting at her desk, entering the details of the previous season’s charters into the computer, when someone came into the agency.

      She’d worked for Cartagena Charters ever since she’d left the university she’d attended in Florida. It wasn’t a particularly demanding job, but Orchid Cay was a small town and there weren’t that many jobs that her father would approve of.

      Her working area, such as it was, was behind a screen that separated the counter from the office. Usually her boss, Ray Myers, attended to all enquiries himself. But today Ray was away in Miami, taking delivery of a new two-masted schooner. He’d told Lily there probably wouldn’t be any new customers until the weekend, but she was nominally in charge.

      Sighing, as much at being interrupted as at the prospect of having to deal with an enquiry herself, Lily slid out of her seat and rounded the Perspex screen into the business area.

      A man was there, standing with his back to her, staring out of the plate glass windows at the masts of yachts bobbing in the marina beyond.

      He was tall and very tanned, with overly long dark hair, broad shoulders encased in a leather jacket. His thumbs were pushed into the back pockets of tight-fitting jeans, accentuating the fact that they clung to narrow hips and long powerful legs.

      Lily swallowed. She knew who he was instantly; had sensed it, she realised, before she’d actually walked round the screen and seen him. It was the same man who’d watched her from the cliff a week ago, the man Dee-Dee had warned her might be dangerous to know.

      He’d heard her footsteps and turned almost before she’d had a chance to school her expression. She saw dark brown eyes, long-lashed, above hollow cheekbones, a prominent nose and a thin, yet sensual mouth. Not handsome, she thought, but endlessly fascinating. For the first time she allowed the thought that Dee-Dee might just be right.

      ‘Hi,’ he said, his voice as rich and dark as black coffee. If he recognised her, he gave no sign of it. ‘Is Myers about?’

      Lily hesitated. So he knew Ray, she thought. She hadn’t sensed that. Although he spoke in English, he had a faint but distinct accent, as if it wasn’t his first language.

      ‘Um… Mr Myers isn’t here,’ she said, realising he was waiting for an answer. ‘Are you a friend of his?’

      Oliveira looked as if he doubted the innocence of that question, but he didn’t take her up on it. ‘Not a friend,’ he said. ‘But we are acquainted. My name is Rafe Oliveira. He would remember me, I think.’

      Lily thought that as far as she was concerned he was virtually unforgettable, but of course she didn’t say that. Did he know of his notoriety amongst the island’s inhabitants?

      And he called himself Rafe, she mused, liking it better than Raphael.

      Shaking her head at her thoughts, she said, ‘Well, I’m afraid Mr Myers is in Miami at present.’ Then, subconsciously checking the fact that the hem of her vest had pulled free of her shorts as she got up, she added quickly, ‘Can I help you?’

      The man regarded her and Lily was instantly aware that the precarious knot she’d made of her tawny hair that morning was beginning to tumble about her ears. Add to that the fact that she was wearing little make-up, and she probably looked hot and bothered.

      What an image!

      ‘I think not,’ Oliveira said now, lifting his shoulders in a gesture of dismissal, and once again Lily was struck by his harsh attraction.

      Though it was not something she wished to dwell on. Her father would have kittens if he thought she was entertaining such thoughts about a man who had created such a stir amongst the island’s population.

      ‘When will Myers be back?’

      His words interrupted her musings, and Lily arched brows that were several shades darker than her hair. He’d called Ray ‘Myers’ again, she thought. Which was hardly friendly. Maybe even assuming Ray was an acquaintance was pushing it.

      His eyes had drifted towards the marina again and, taking the opportunity to tug her vest down over the wedge of tanned skin she’d exposed, Lily said, ‘He should be back the day after tomorrow. Can I give him a message?’

      The night-dark eyes turned back in her direction and she was suddenly sure he’d noticed her efforts to cover herself. Not because she could read his mind, however, but because of the faintly mocking expression that had taken the place of his earlier detachment.

      ‘No importa,’ he said and, although the words were anything but sensual, she felt an unfamiliar quiver in her stomach. ‘It does not matter,’ he continued. ‘I will speak to him myself when he returns.’

      ‘Okay.’

      Lily expected he would go then, but instead he wandered over to the display of leaflets and brochures advertising the many activities—sailing, fishing, scuba-diving—available to visitors.

      Flicking through the leaflets with a careless finger, he glanced back at her out of the corners of his eyes. ‘Did you enjoy your swim the other evening?’ he asked, bringing a surge of bright colour into her face.

      From his attitude earlier, she’d begun to believe he couldn’t have recognised her from that distance away. She’d never dreamt that he might refer to the fact that he’d seen her, or that he’d guessed what she’d planned to do before he’d appeared.

      Had he seen her on the beach before?

      Licking her dry lips, she said stiffly, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, señor.’ And if her tone was tight and unfriendly, so what? ‘It’s some time since I took a swim in the evening.’

      Abandoning any pretence of looking at the brochures, he strolled back