Rich, Rugged And Royal. Catherine Mann

thought much of it—until he met her.

      When Tony asked about her, the old guy said he didn’t know much about Shannon other than her crook of a husband had committed suicide rather than face a jury. Shannon and her boy had been left behind, flat broke. She’d worked at a small diner for a year and a half before that and Vernon had hired her on a hunch. Vernon and his softie heart.

      Tony stared at her now every bit as intently as he had that first time she’d brought him his order. Something about her blue-gray eyes reminded him of the ocean sky just before a storm. Tumultuous. Interesting.

      A challenge. He’d been without a challenge for too long. Building a business from nothing had kept him charged up for years. What next?

      Then he’d seen her.

      He’d spent his life smiling his way through problems and deals, and for the first time he’d found someone who saw past his bull. Was it the puzzle that tugged him? If so, he wasn’t any closer to solving the mystery of Shannon. Every day she confused him more, which made him want her more.

      Pushing away from the door, she strode toward him, efficiently, no hip swish, just even, efficient steps. Then she walked out of her shoes, swiping one foot behind her to kick them to rest against the wall. No shoes in the house. She’d told him that the two times he’d been allowed over her threshold for no more than fifteen minutes. Any liaisons between them had been at his bayside mansion or a suite near the restaurant. He didn’t really expect anything to happen here with her son around, even asleep.

      And given the look on her face, she was more likely to pitch him out. Better to circumvent the boot.

      “I’ll stay with your son while you pack.” He removed his shoes and stepped deeper into her place, not fancy, the sparse generic sort of a furnished space in browns and tan—except for the expensive burgundy leather sofa with a duct-taped X on the armrest.

      Her lips thinned. “About packing, we need to discuss that further.”

      “What’s to talk about?” He accepted their relationship was still on hold, but the current problems with his identity needed to be addressed. “Your porch will be full by morning.”

      “I’ll check into a hotel.”

      With the twenty dollars and fifty-two cents she had left in her wallet? He prayed she wasn’t foolish enough to use a credit card. Might as well phone in her location to the news stations.

      “We can talk about where you’ll stay after you pack.”

      “You sound like a broken record, Tony.”

      “You’re calling me stubborn?”

      Their standoff continued, neither of them touching, but he was all too aware of her scrubbed fresh scent. Shannon, the whole place, carried an air of some kind of floral cleaner. The aroma somehow calmed and stirred at the same time, calling to mind holding her after a mind-bending night of sex. She never stayed over until morning, but for an hour or so after, she would doze against his chest. He would breathe in the scent of her and him and them blended together.

      His nose flared.

      Her pupils widened.

      She stumbled back, her chest rising faster. “I do need to change my clothes. Are you sure you’ll be all right with Kolby?”

      It was no secret the couple of times he’d met the boy, Kolby hadn’t warmed up to him. Nothing seemed to work, not ice cream or magic coin tricks. Tony figured maybe the boy was still missing his father.

      That jerk had left Shannon bankrupt and vulnerable. “I can handle it. Take all the time you need.”

      “Thank you. I’m only going to change clothes though. No packing yet. We’ll have to talk more first, Tony—um, Antonio.”

      “I prefer to be called Tony.” He liked the sound of it on her tongue.

      “Okay … Tony.” She spun on her heel and headed toward her bedroom.

      Her steps still efficient, albeit faster, were just speedy enough to bring a slight swing to her slim hips in the pencil-straight skirt. Thoughts of peeling it down and off her beautiful body would have to wait until she had the whole Antonio/Tony issue sorted out.

      If only she could accept that he’d called himself Tony Castillo almost longer than he’d remembered being Antonio Medina.

      He even had the paperwork to back up the Castillo name. Creating another persona hadn’t been that difficult, especially once he’d saved enough to start his first business. From then on, all transactions were shuttled through the company. Umbrella corporations. Living in plain sight. His plan had worked fine until someone, somehow had pierced the new identities he and his brothers had built. In fact, he needed to call his brothers, who he spoke to at most a couple of times a year. But they might have insights.

      They needed a plan.

      He reached inside his jacket for his iPhone and ducked into the dining area where he could see the child but wouldn’t wake him. He thumbed the seven key on his speed dial … and Carlos’s voice mail picked up. Tony disconnected without leaving a message and pressed the eight key.

      “Speak to me, my brother.” Duarte Medina’s voice came through the phone. They didn’t talk often, but these weren’t normal circumstances.

      “I assume you know.” He toyed with one of Shannon’s hair bands on the table.

      “Impossible to miss.”

      “Where’s Carlos? He’s not picking up.” Tony fell back into their clipped shorthand. They’d only had each other growing up and now circumstances insisted they stay apart. Did his brothers have that same feeling, like they’d lost a limb?

      “His secretary said he got paged for an emergency surgery. He’ll be at least another couple of hours. Apparently Carlos found out as he was scrubbing in, but you know our brother.” Duarte, the middle son, tended to play messenger with their father. The three brothers spoke and met when they could, but there were so many crap memories from their childhood, those reunions became further apart.

      Tony scooped up the brown band, a lone long strand of her blond hair catching the light. “When a patient calls …”

      “Right.”

      It could well be hours before they heard from Carlos, given the sort of painstaking reconstructive surgeries he performed on children. “Any idea how this exploded?”

      His brother hissed a long angry curse. “The Global Intruder got a side-view picture of me while I was visiting our sister.”

      Their half sister Eloisa, their father’s daughter from an affair shortly after they had escaped to the States. Enrique had still been torn up with grief from losing his wife … not to mention the guilt. But apparently not so torn up and remorseful he couldn’t hop into bed with someone else. The woman had gone on to marry another man who’d raised her daughter as his own.

      Tony had only met his half sister once as a teen, a few years before he’d left the island compound. She’d only been seven at the time. Now she’d married into a high-profile family jam-packed with political influence and a fat portfolio. Could she be at fault for bringing the media down on their heads for some free PR for her new in-laws? Duarte seemed to think she wanted anonymity as much as the rest of them. But could he have misjudged her?

      “Why were you visiting Eloisa?” Tony tucked the band into his pocket.

      “Family business. It doesn’t matter now. Her in-laws were there. Eloisa’s sister-in-law—a senator’s wife—slipped on the dock. I kept her from falling into the water. Some damn female reporter in a tree with a telephoto lens caught the mishap. Which shouldn’t have mattered, since Senator Landis and his wife were the focus of the picture. I still don’t know how the photographer pegged me from a side view, but there it is. And I’m sorry for bringing this crap down on you.”

      Duarte