Escaping with the Billionaire: The Maverick Prince / Billionaire, M.D.. Catherine Mann

for so deep a breach where attorneys handled all communiqués between them. The lack of communication went beyond distant to estrangement. This wasn’t a family just fractured by location. Something far deeper was wrong.

      Tucking back into his line of sight, she pressed ahead. This man had already left such a deep imprint on her life, she knew she wouldn’t forget him. “What have your lawyers told your father about Kolby and me? What did they tell your dad about our relationship?”

      “Relationship?” He pinned her with his dark eyes, the intensity of his look—of him—reaching past the tulips as tangibly as if he’d taken that broad hand and caressed her. He was such a big man with the gentlest of touches.

      And he was thorough. God, how he was thorough.

      Her heart pounded in her ear like a tympani solo, hollow and so loud it drowned out the engines.

      “Tony?” she asked. She wanted.

      “I let him know that we’re a couple. And that you’re a widow with a son.”

      It was one thing to carry on a secret affair with him. Another to openly acknowledge to people—to family—that they were a couple.

      She pressed hard against her collarbone, her pulse pushing a syncopated beat against her fingertips. “Why not tell your father the truth? That we broke up but the press won’t believe it.”

      “Who says it’s not the truth? We slept together just a week ago. Seems like less than that to me, because I swear I can still catch a whiff of your scent on my skin.” He leaned closer and thumbed her wrist.

      Her fingers curled as the heat of his touch spread farther. “But about last weekend—”

      “Shanny.” He tapped her lips once, then traced her rounded sigh. “We may have argued, but when I’m in the room with you, my hand still gravitates to your back by instinct.”

      Her heart drummed faster until she couldn’t have responded even if she tried. But she wasn’t trying, too caught up in the sound of him, the desire in his every word.

      “The pull between us is that strong, Shannon, whether I’m deep inside you or just listening to you across a room.” A half smile kicked a dimple into one cheek. “Why do you think I call you late at night?”

      She glanced quickly at the video area checking to make sure her son and the steward where still engrossed in Disney, then she whispered, “Because you’d finished work?”

      “You know better. Just the sound of you on the other end of the line sends me rock—”

      “Stop, please.” She pressed her fingers to his mouth. “You’re only hurting us both.”

      Nipping her fingers lightly first, he linked his hand with hers. “We have problems, without a doubt, and you have reason to be mad. But the drive to be together hasn’t eased one bit. Can you deny it? Because if you can, then that is it. I’ll keep my distance.”

      Opening her mouth, she formed the words that would slice that last tie to the relationship they’d forged over the past few months. She fully intended to tell him they were through…. But nothing came out. Not one word.

      Slowly, he pulled back. “We’re almost there.”

      Almost where? Back together? Her mind scrambled to keep up with him, damn tough when he kept jumbling her brain. She was a flipping magna cum laude graduate. She resented feeling like a bimbo at the mercy of her libido. But how her libido sang arias around this man…

      He shoved to his feet and walked away. Just like that, he cut their conversation short as if they both hadn’t been sinking deep into a sensual awareness that had brought them both such intense pleasure in the past. She tracked the lines of his broad shoulders, down to his trim waist and taut butt showcased so perfectly in tailored pants.

      Her fingers dug deep into the sofa with restraint. He stopped by Kolby and slid up the window covering.

      “Take a look, kiddo, we’re almost there.” Tony pointed at the clear glass toward the pristine sky.

      Ah. There. As in they’d arrived there, at his father’s island. She’d been so caught up in the sensual draw of undiluted Tony that she’d temporarily forgotten about flying away to a mystery location.

      Scrambling down the sofa, she straightened her glasses and stared out the window, hungry for a peek at their future—temporary—home. And yes, curious as hell about the place where Tony had grown up. Sure enough, an island stretched in the distance, nestled in miles and miles of sparkling ocean. Palm trees spiked from the lush landscape. A dozen or so small outbuildings dotted a semicircle around a larger structure.

      The white mansion faced the ocean in a U shape, constructed around a large courtyard with a pool. She barely registered Kolby’s “oohs” and “aahs” since she was pretty much overwhelmed by the sight herself.

      Details were spotty but she would get an up-close view soon enough of the place Tony had called home for most of his youth. Even from a distance she couldn’t miss the grand scale of the sprawling estate, the unmistakable sort that housed royalty.

      The plane banked, lining up with a thin islet alongside the larger island. A single strip of concrete marked the private runway. As they neared, a ferryboat came into focus. To ride from the airport to the main island? They sure were serious about security.

      The intercom system crackled a second before the steward announced, “We’re about to begin our descent to our destination. Please return to your seats and secure your lap belts. Thank you, and we hope you had a pleasant flight.”

      Tony pulled away from the window and smiled at her again. Except now, the grin didn’t reach his eyes. Her stomach fluttered, but this time with apprehension rather than arousal.

      Would the island hold the answers she needed to put Tony in her past? Or would it only break her heart all over again?

      Chapter 5

      Daylight was fading fast and a silence fourteen years old between him and his father was about to be broken.

      Feet braced on the ferry deck, Tony stared out over the rail at the island where he’d spent the bulk of his childhood and teenage years. He hated not being in command of the boat almost as much as he hated returning to this place. Only concern for Shannon and her son could have drawn him back where the memories grew and spread as tenaciously as algae webbing around coral.

      Just ahead, a black skimmer glided across the water, dipping its bill into the surface. With each lap of the waves against the hull, Tony closed off insidious emotions before they could take root inside him and focused on the shore.

      An osprey circled over its nest. Palm trees lined the beach with only a small white stucco building and a two-lane road. Until you looked closer and saw the guard tower.

      When he’d come to this island off the coast of St. Augustine at five, there were times he’d believed they were home…that his father had moved them to another part of San Rinaldo. In the darkest nights, he’d woken in a cold sweat, certain the soldiers in camouflage were going to cut through the bars on his windows and take him. Other nights he imagined they’d already taken him and the bars locked him in prison.

      On the worst of nights, he’d thought his mother was still alive, only to see her die all over again.

      Shannon’s hand slid over his elbow, her touch tentative, her eyes wary. “How long did I sleep on the plane?”

      “A while.” He smiled to reassure her, but the feeling didn’t come from his gut. Damn, but he wished the past week had never happened. He would pull her soft body against him and forget about everything else.

      Wind streaked her hair across her face. “Oh, right. If you tell me, I might get a sense of how far away we are from Galveston. I might guess where we are. Being cut off from the world is still freaking me out just a little.”