The Proposition. Cara Summers

her beneath him. Then he drove her, drove them both, until together they reached that peak and shattered.

      2

      Three months later…

      WITH ONE HAND, Chance Mitchell reached into the cooler at his side and pulled out a beer. He was being watched. It was nothing that he could see in his brief scan of the shoreline—not yet. Still, the moment the boat he was on had rounded that last curve of the coast, all of Chance’s senses had gone on alert.

      “The hair on the back of my neck tells me that I’m posing for pictures,” Tracker said from his position behind the wheel.

      “Yeah,” Chance replied. That cinched it. If there was one person whose instincts he trusted more than his own, it was Tracker’s. “I’m getting the same feeling.”

      Chance twisted off the cap on his beer and took a long swallow, all the while keeping a tight grip on his fishing pole. To any observer he looked like he was enjoying the fishing that the waters off the south Florida coast provided. That’s exactly what he wanted the security people he knew were watching him to believe.

      And if they checked into it—as he was sure they were doing right now—they would find that the boat was registered to Lucas Wainwright III, CEO of Wainwright Enterprises, and that the man himself had indeed flown in from D.C. to spend the weekend in Boca Raton and had had his boat brought in from his place on the Keys.

      Chance pulled his hat down hard. Luckily, he and his old friend Lucas were the same height and build, so all he’d had to do was use temporary black dye on his hair. But there was no telling how powerful those cameras were, and he didn’t want anyone on shore getting a good look at his facial features.

      Something hit the line hard. The pole bent nearly double, then twanged upward. Chance nearly laughed out loud. Sometimes, he really loved undercover work. Here he was, on a job staking out the isolated Florida estate of Carlo Brancotti—a millionaire who’d made his fortune stealing from others—and he was going to have the pleasure of battling and landing a big catch. He couldn’t have planned it better for the audience that he was sure was recording his every move.

      The only thing that might please him more was to land Carlo himself. Two years ago, a huge yellow diamond, the size of a baby’s fist, had disappeared from the Ferrante private collection in Rome, and Chance had been on Brancotti’s trail ever since. The theft had occurred while the jewel was in transport between the Ferrante palace and the museum where it was to be displayed. The real diamond had been taken and an amazingly accurate fake had been substituted.

      From the moment he’d been called in to investigate the heist, Chance had been sure that Brancotti was the mastermind behind it. He’d been tracking the man for a long time, and Brancotti’s trademark was to leave an almost undetectable fake in place of the real jewel. By the time the theft was discovered, Brancotti would have found a buyer, and there would be no evidence to connect the man with the crime.

      In this case, the substitution had been discovered within days because Count Ferrante had insisted on an appraisal of the diamond for insurance purposes just before the exhibition was opened to the public.

      Chance had sold the insurance company and the count on offering a reward for the diamond, one large enough to tempt Brancotti to give it back. And Brancotti had taken the bait. It had been a good idea. If it had worked, the count would have gotten his diamond back, and Chance would have settled an old score and put Brancotti behind bars.

      But the plan had gone terribly wrong, and Chance had lost his partner, Venetia Gaston.

      The fish pulled hard on his line, and Chance dragged his thoughts back to the present. Mindful of the telescopic lens he was sure was aimed at him, he began to play the fish, releasing the tension on the line and then gradually pulling it taut again.

      For two long years, he’d waited for news of a large yellow diamond to surface, and a week ago it had. Through one of his contacts, he’d received a tip that Carlo Brancotti was inviting a very select group of men and women to a weekend at his retreat in south Florida and that the Ferrante diamond would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

      The heightened security along the shoreline of Carlo’s estate cinched it. Carlo Brancotti was meticulously careful. That was why he’d never been caught. Tilting his head slightly, Chance kept one eye on his pole as he scanned the shoreline. The south Florida sun beat down, sending sparks skimming across the back-wash the boat was creating, but he didn’t miss the flash in the thick cypress trees that lined the shore, light reflecting off a lens. Someone was definitely watching them. He felt the quick kick of adrenaline that he always experienced when he knew the hunt was about to begin.

      “Showtime,” he said to Tracker. “I’m going to need your help with this fish. It’s big.”

      “Damn. You have all the luck.”

      A second later, his old buddy was at his side. He’d been pleased when Tracker had agreed to help him with the case—they made a good team. Together, they watched the fish leap out of the water in a huge, graceful arc. The pole bent nearly double again as the fish dove below the surface.

      “You spot anything?” Tracker asked as he grabbed Chance’s chair to steady it.

      “One of them is at two o’clock as you face the shore.”

      “Got it,” Tracker said. “There’s another one about a thousand yards to the left.”

      The fish cleared the water again.

      “A lot of security,” Chance remarked as he reeled in the line.

      “Must be something needs guarding,” Tracker said.

      “That’s the way I figure it, too. Keep a watch, will you? Landing this fish is going to require all of my attention. And if they’re watching me, maybe you can pick out a few more of them.”

      “Right,” Tracker said.

      For the next few minutes, they said nothing as Chance let out the line and then drew it in, over and over. By the time Tracker dipped the net over the side of the boat and they hauled the fish in, the boat had moved past the Brancotti estate.

      Chance waited until they’d turned and were headed back. Tracker kept the throttle open, and Chance stood at the wheel with him while the video camera on the stern side of the boat recorded every inch of the shoreline. This time there was no telltale flash of light. Evidently, their cover had held. The photos that would make their way to Brancotti would show a very happy fisherman, heading home after a satisfying catch.

      “Can you get in along the shore without being detected?” Chance asked.

      Tracker grinned. “Is the Pope Catholic?”

      “Carlo doesn’t leave anything to chance.”

      “Getting you off the estate will be the easy part. You’ve got the tough job. You’ve got to get on the estate by getting invited to the party. And you have to steal the diamond.”

      Chance smiled at his old friend. “I’ve got an invite already, thanks to a contact of mine. As for stealing the diamond—that will be the fun part.”

      Turning, Tracker studied his friend for a minute. “This is more than a job to you, isn’t it?”

      “Carlo and I go back a long way.” Longer than Chance would ever admit to anyone. He and Carlo had lived in the same orphanage for a year—one long year when he’d been a scrawny twelve-year-old and Carlo had been seventeen and his only friend and mentor. Of course, their names had been different then. Chance had hero-worshipped the older boy. But the friendship had died the night that Carlo had robbed the orphanage and made sure that Chance got the blame for the theft. That had been twenty years ago.

      Tracker shot his friend a look. “If it’s personal between you and Brancotti, that could get in your way.”

      “I won’t let it.”

      “Is there any chance he’ll