Under The Millionaire's Influence. Catherine Mann

dear.” Alice patted her son’s arm. “Thank you for worrying about me. I’ll be having breakfast on the veranda with my feet up. It would be lovely if you could join me.”

      He nodded. “I’ll be in shortly.”

      The woman who’d once never passed up an opportunity to tell Starr she shouldn’t hold David back from pursuing his dreams pinched a smile as she started her pivot away. “I’m glad we could work this out, dear.”

      Starr scrunched her eyes closed with a sigh. Still the tequila sunrise bled through her lids to sparkle through her brain. Or was that all the emotion bubbling through her?

      David. Her parents. Alice Hamilton-Reis. All at once. Too much.

      She’d forgotten how the woman would speak nicely to her whenever David was actually around. Not that she’d ever been outright mean to Starr, just coolly disapproving until icicles formed in the spiral curls of Starr’s hair.

      She shook free the insecurities of her youth and opened her eyes. Yep, David was still here and dear old mom was gone. Time to deal. Fast. Before the RV crew woke up and she had her hands more than full of frustration…and pain, a little voice whispered.

      No. She was an adult, a businesswoman who currently had a hunky, tempting piece of her past standing on her porch. “So, you’re back from…wherever it is you traveled this time.”

      Even though his inheritance enabled him to sit back and never work if he chose, David still served as a civilian employee for the air force’s OSI—Office of Special Investigations. He traveled the globe, slipping in and out of countries often undetected, just as he’d always planned during their teenage years, dreaming on a beach blanket under the stars. Even back then he’d wanted her to come along when the mission permitted and even then her root-seeking heart had quaked.

      Taking the rest of the steps to join her, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and hitched one shoulder against her porch post, close. So close. “I was in Greece working on a NATO counterterrorism task force.”

      “Wow, you can actually share what you’re doing. That’s rare.” How many times had she wondered? Too many for her comfort level. “It sounds really awesome.”

      He stayed modestly—or covertly—quiet. The distant sound of waves and the breakfast crowd heading into the restaurant next door faded away as she couldn’t help but focus on him.

      Her babbling mouth ran away from her. “I imagine this is one of those missions you always talked about me coming along with you.”

      David cocked a brow, his head tipping to the side even if he still stayed quiet. Embarrassment heated through her with a need to fill the silence. God, he could still undo her thoughts as easily as he’d once undone her bikini top.

      “But we both know that’s old ground. Like I really could have picked up and gone to Greece now anyhow. I have a business to run, obligations to my business partners, my sisters. Still it sounds really exotic.”

      Her foster sister Claire would have relished experiencing the exotic foods. They served mostly down-home Southern cuisine at Beachcombers, but Claire still enjoyed adding something a little different every now and again.

      Once upon a dream, Starr had contemplated taking a trip or two to study the great artists of the world. Except, bottom line, she didn’t want to spend her entire life on the road. She’d done enough of that for the first ten years of her life with her gypsy family.

      Now, she thrived on the security of waking up to the same gorgeous ocean sunrise every morning. Her little carriage house behind Beachcombers might not be much, but it was hers. A home.

      “Exotic?” he quipped. “Time was you thought that sounded too far from home.”

      Suddenly she couldn’t hold onto the fantasy any longer. No princess clothes or armor. Nothing but old pain and a worn out T-shirt. “Do we really want to walk down that road again today, David?”

      He plucked at the shoulder of her shirt and pulled off a crumpled bit of a tissue-paper flower. Great. The fates must be plotting against her. Not only did she look like crap, but she also had arts-and-crafts bits and pieces stuck to her like a third grader.

      David held up the silvery flower she’d been using to make personalized wrapping bags for wedding-shower party favor gifts for her restaurant. One corner of his mouth kicked into that confident smile that never failed to flip her stomach into somersaults to rival her circus gypsy cousins’ talents. David tucked the crackly bloom behind her ear.

      His knuckles skimmed her cheek in a touch so soft but undoubtedly deliberate. She knew him. Knew his touch well from their high-school romance.

      And yes, from their brief time together a year ago when she’d been unable to resist him. Heaven help her, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life jumping into bed—or against a wall—with David Reis every time he breezed through the United States.

      Starr stepped back. “I’ll keep my eyes open for your mother. Leave your cell-phone number and I’ll call if I see her wearing herself out.”

      “Thank you.”

      She thought about asking for more details about his mother’s health, even sympathizing since it was his mother after all, but then realized that would keep him on her porch longer. And when they spent any lengthy amount of time together, they ended up arguing and he ended up kissing her silent. She mentally kicked herself and mumbled, “God, we’re both such idiots.”

      He cocked an arrogant brow. “What was that?”

      “We both need to get to work.” She backed up to grip her door. “I really need to get dressed, so…”

      “Drag my sorry ass off your porch.”

      A laugh bubbled before she could squelch it. She so enjoyed his dry sense of humor. She couldn’t resist it, either. “You said it, not me.”

      Starr slid away and sagged against the door inside her carriage house filled to the brim with her arts-and-crafts supplies. Victorian eclectic. Hers.

      She exhaled long and hard.

      She’d held strong, gotten her way. She was alone in her little house. She’d kept her distance from David. And she’d managed to shoo him away before her folks made their morning showing.

      Thank you, Aunt Libby, for putting in a good word with the Man upstairs on that one.

      But she couldn’t count on Aunt Libby holding back the tide forever. With her luck, her family would set up Porta Pottis and charge folks for using them. Her ma and da never missed a chance to make a buck, and if they could land a dollar without working, all the better.

      Ma and Da. Why she couldn’t distance herself enough to call them Gita and Frederick instead, she didn’t know. She wanted Aunt Libby, her foster mother, Mom.

      All a moot point and waste of time to consider at the moment. Gather up those scattered thoughts before David had a chance to slip past her defenses.

      But she couldn’t understand why the fates had been so vengeful as to send those campers full of ex-family, who’d rejected her, used her, stolen from her, at the very same moment that David had chosen to make one of his rare appearances in Charleston.

      Two

      “The way you wield that hot glue gun, it’s no wonder you sleep alone. Men must be hitting the floor in terror.”

      Claire’s words rattled around in Starr’s head with a little too much accuracy. Nothing like a sister—even the foster sort—to put you in your place. Starr spread her gift bags, glitter and shells along the kitchen butcher block as she put together the tissue paper. At least the RV crew had decided to sleep in today and give her a couple extra hours to gather her thoughts after seeing David had rocked her balance.

      She simply wanted a half hour of peace to pull herself together. Tough to find with such a perfect contrasting view of the three