In Too Deep. Taryn Belle

sorry. I finished work so late last night, and the station was already closed...”

      “It’s called planning, Kiki.”

      “Planning. Right,” she agreed but was already rolling away again and pulling her pillow over her head.

      Nicola sighed, knowing it was hopeless. She loved Kiki—they’d been friends since Nicola had first moved to LA to finish her teaching degree nearly a decade ago, and Kiki was the whole reason she’d moved to Moretta four months earlier, acting as a soft landing for Nicola when she needed it most. After the messy end of Kiki’s marriage two years ago, she’d traded in her crazed career as an executive assistant for a bartending job on Moretta. It still amazed Nicola that her friend had had the organizational skills to orchestrate such a dramatic move—unlike Nicola, Kiki was hopelessly scattered.

      Nicola left the house again, then she snatched her satchel off the seat of the golf cart and started a slow jog toward the beach along the island’s main road. In truth it was Moretta’s only road, a meandering loop around the entire island with a crisscross running through the center to allow access to its hillside homes, which traded beachfront property for breathtaking panoramic views of the Caribbean Sea. But on a three-square-mile chunk of land sprinkled with only one boutique hotel, one restaurant, ninety-two estates and a few staff cottages, the beach was only minutes away for each and every resident. Seventy years ago it had been a handful of Barbadian and American judges who first recognized the beauty of the tiny island, flocking in to build majestic homes on inexpensive land that soon skyrocketed in value. The influx had earned the island the temporary nickname of “Judgment Isle,” ironic considering that it had now grown into a destination known for its privacy and lack of judgment.

      By the time Nicola was halfway to the scuba shack, she was breathing heavily and the thin white tank covering her bikini top was soaked through between her breasts. In mid-August it was already ninety degrees before 9 a.m., but having grown up in Hawaii she was used to heat like this. She stopped to catch her breath, placing her hands on her knees as she leaned forward. All was quiet aside from her ragged breathing and the sound of a light breeze riffling through the palm leaves. Gathering her hair off her neck as she straightened again, she found herself wishing for one of the elastics she kept in a drawer at the scuba shack.

      In the distance she could hear the whine of an engine approaching. She recognized the sound as another golf cart, the chief mode of transportation around the island. Every home boasted at least two of them—except, of course, her home.

      Nicola started walking in the direction of the beach again as she heard the cart draw nearer to her. She cast a glance over her shoulder, hoping the driver might be someone she knew—Juan from the restaurant maybe, or Stella from the hotel—but one look told her this was not someone she was going to be bumming a ride from.

      The driver was a lone female. Her signature dark wavy hair was wrapped in a pink scarf, and large sunglasses covered half her face. Nicola recognized the woman immediately: Lauren Hayes, just one of the many celebrities who owned a home on the island.

      No, Nicola would not be asking Lauren Hayes for a lift to her lowly scuba instructor job.

      Nicola lifted a hand briefly in greeting, but the star cruised by with perfectly averted eyes. Nicola shook her head with a small grin. She had no right to complain—this was exactly why she had moved here. On an island overflowing with celebrities, Nicola was an unrecognizable nobody—and that was exactly who she wanted to be.

      * * *

      It was only after Alex had started driving that he realized he wasn’t entirely sure if he was going in the right direction. There were no signs, as Moretta wasn’t exactly welcoming to tourists—apparently, you either belonged here or you didn’t. Even the scuba shack’s website was obtuse—We’re located at the beach, of course!

      As Alex drove on, half hoping he was traveling in the wrong direction so he would miss the boat after all, he tried to calm his nerves by bringing his mind back to the whole reason he was here in the first place: John Brissoli. The self-made entrepreneur and ex-lawyer was known to be a recluse, especially since his most successful website had reached stratospheric heights two years ago. The site had spawned a spate of copycats, but Alex was only interested in acquiring the real deal. Never mind that a quick internet search revealed the true scope of Brissoli’s work—he had his fingers in many pies, including the porn industry. But Alex didn’t see that as his concern. He’d learned a long time ago to separate his own ethics from those he did business with, as there probably wasn’t a deal to be made under the sun that didn’t have a little dirt on it.

      The idea to acquire the website had come from Alex’s father, the cofounder of the family media empire along with Alex’s mother. Devin Sr. had made it clear to Alex that he was to pay whatever was necessary in order to add Brissoli’s site to their company’s roster. But of course, it was rarely that simple. Mr. Brissoli had ignored Alex’s many emails and calls until a week ago, when he’d sent Alex a one-line response: on moretta if you want to talk.

      Moretta. It figured. The same island his rock-star only sibling spent a third of his time on; the same island Alex had been avoiding for that very reason ever since his brother had bought a home here several years ago. Knowing the size of Moretta, Alex had had no choice but to tell his brother he was coming, which maddened him all the more because he didn’t actually have a clue what he was going to do once he reached the island. Alex’s follow-up messages to Brissoli had once more gone unanswered, so now here he was—four thousand miles away from home with no cell phone number for his contact, no meeting time or place, staying with a brother he’d stopped trying to forge a relationship with years ago. Even the stunning views of the island as he drove weren’t enough to cheer him up.

      Alex sighed deeply as he rounded a corner in the road, swerving slightly to avoid a crossing tortoise. Beautiful island or not, he couldn’t wait to track Brissoli down, get the meeting over with and hightail it out of here.

      That was what Alex was thinking when he saw her.

      * * *

      Behind her, Nicola heard another golf cart approaching. She broke her jog, slowing to a walk as the cart pulled up beside her.

      “Excuse me,” said a deep male voice. When she turned to face him, her breath, which was coming out fast from her run, literally caught in her throat. The man who had spoken the words to her was drop-dead gorgeous. Square jaw, dark mussed hair, and his eyes—they were the exact same color as her own. No one had the same shade of eyes as her. When she was little, her mother used to tell her they were proof that she was born with the ocean in her.

      “Yes?” Nicola managed to get out.

      “Am I going in the right direction? I’m looking for the beach.”

      The beach? Hot or not, it was an obvious pickup line, and a bad one at that. Nicola had heard plenty of those since she’d moved here. This guy was obviously some C-list celebrity staying with an A-list friend and thinking that moved him up two letters in the alphabet. What was it about celebrities that made them think you were supposed to fall at their feet if they deigned to talk to you?

      Nicola started walking again, looking straight ahead. In her peripheral vision, she saw the cart crawling along beside her. “Keep driving in any direction. You can’t really miss it.”

      “Of course. The, uh—the main beach, I guess I meant. In the town center.”

      “Not much of a town, but keep going straight and you’ll be there in about a minute.”

      “Thanks.” He paused, and then, “You looked like you were in a bit of a hurry. Can I offer you a lift?”

      Nicola turned to look at him again, setting her face in a firm expression of disinterest that belied the flutter she felt in her belly.

      God, he was beautiful.

      He was wearing swimming trunks and an old gray T-shirt with a rip in the neckline, a flaw in his clothing that only served to highlight the perfection of the body beneath it. She couldn’t help herself—she