dollar signs printed all over him. He held a glass of whitish liquid with ice and a cherry in it, quite obviously a piña colada, but the favorite island drink hadn’t seemed to relax even one of the hard, uncompromising muscles in his leonine face.
While she studied him, he was studying her, his dark, cold eyes analyzing every inch of her body in the wet bathing suit. She boldly gave him back the faintly insulting appraisal, running her eyes over his powerful physique, from massive chest down over narrow hips and powerful legs. He was a giant of a man with a broad face, an imposing nose, a square jaw and eyes that cut like sharp ice.
Without a change of expression he let his eyes roam back to the turquoise waters for an instant before he turned and walked away, panther-like, toward the patio bar, without having glanced Nikki’s way again. She reached for her cover-up and drew it on, feeling chilled despite the heat. Whoever that man was, he had an imposing demeanor and she wouldn’t have liked him for an enemy. But there was something vaguely familiar about him, as if she’d met him before. How ridiculous that was, when except for college and the occasional shopping trip to Atlanta, she’d never been anywhere.
She closed her eyes and lay back on the chair, dismissing the disturbing man from her mind. The whispering surf and the murmur of nearby voices, overlaid by a faraway radio playing favorite tunes, lulled her into a pleasant limbo.
The patio bar was beginning to fill up when she started back into the hotel, but the stranger wasn’t anywhere around. She glanced longingly at the bar, where the white-coated bartender was busily mixing drinks. She’d have liked to try a piña colada, but she had no head for alcohol, and especially not on an empty stomach. Supper was going to be the first order of business.
She went back to her room and threw on a sleeveless white dress that flattered her dark hair and golden tan, her brunette hair contrasting beautifully with her unexpectedly pale emerald eyes and thick black lashes. She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t really pretty. But she had perfect facial bone structure and a soft bow of a mouth. Her posture was a carryover from ballet lessons, and she had a natural grace that caught the eye when she moved around a room. Her enthusiasm for life and her inborn friendliness attracted people more than her looks. She was as natural as the soft colors of sunset against the stark white sand. But Nikki didn’t think of herself as anything more than a competent reporter. When she glanced in the mirror, she saw only a slender brunette with a big mouth and oversize eyes that turned up slightly at the corners, like a cat’s, and cheekbones that were all too obvious. She made a face at her reflection before she left the room, looking quickly around for a fringed white shawl to throw over her bare arms before she went out the door.
She was almost to the elevator when she noticed a tall, dark man in a blue blazer, open-throated white shirt, and white slacks coming toward her down the opposite end of the hall. A man with cold brown eyes.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE FELT A surge of panic at just the sight of him, and her hand pressed the DOWN button impatiently while she murmured a silent plea that the delinquent conveyance would lumber on down from its third-floor layover before the big man reached her.
But it was still hanging up there when the stranger joined her. He lit a cigarette with a lighter that might have been pure gold from the way his fingers caressed it before he slid it back into his pocket. It might have been gold for all she knew, but obviously money, if he had it, hadn’t made him happy. She wondered if he’d ever smiled.
She noticed his eyes on the lacy shawl, and remembering his earlier remarks about the towel, she tugged it closer over the very modest rounded neckline of her dress.
“The curtains,” she explained, deadpan. “I had a few spare minutes, so I ripped them up and made this simply darling little outfit. I’m sure there was a sign, but I read only Japanese,” she added flippantly.
He took a draw from his cigarette, looking infuriatingly indifferent. “All the door signs have Japanese translations,” he replied coolly. “Japan is rapidly becoming one of the islands’ best