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      For all the residents of Low Scatteree

      CHAPTER ONE

      LARISSA Whitney’s luck ran out with the loud thump of the heavy door that let in the howl and clamor of the wet November winds outside, shaking the rain-soaked windows in front of her.

      She looked away from the gray, brooding Atlantic waves that crashed against the rocky shore of the isolated Maine island, glancing without particular interest toward the door of the tiny restaurant that was also the only bar in the only inn on the only stretch of desolate road that could be called a village in this place, so far from the blue skies and sunny days of the summer high season. So far from anywhere—which was why she’d come. She’d expected nothing but the near-total isolation she’d been seeking, and for the past few days, that was exactly what she’d found.

      So, naturally, he walked in.

      Her stomach dropped with a thud as she took in the man at the door. She blinked, as if he was an apparition and she could banish him back into the depths of her memory that way, but no: Jack Endicott Sutton was still shouldering his way inside, shaking off the weather as he peeled the battered rain jacket from his long, lean frame and hung it on the coatrack.

      “Anyone but Jack Sutton …” Larissa whispered to herself, not meaning to speak aloud. Her fingers clenched hard around the mug of coffee she’d been nursing while she brooded about the mess of her life. “Please …” But there was no one listening, and it was no use anyway.

      It was him. It could hardly be anyone else.

      She recognized him instantly, as she imagined everybody on the planet in possession of two working eyes would. That surprisingly beautiful, richly masculine face was burned into her mind, as familiar to her as that of any major movie star in any glossy magazine, which he’d certainly spent enough time adorning in his day. More familiar to her, perhaps, because she knew him personally. That long, leanly muscled body was famous for the Yale rugby shirt he’d worn as an undergraduate, the Harvard Law gravitas that was said to infuse it later, and, of course, the many beautiful women, starlets and models and socialites without number, that usually clung to it.

      Tonight—or was it late afternoon? It was hard to tell the difference so far north—Jack wore a simple black, long-sleeved T-shirt that clung to his celebrated torso over a pair of weathered old jeans that made his lean hips and strong legs into a kind of powerful male poetry, and a pair of what looked to her like incongruous workman’s boots. He should have looked as if he was playing dress up, when she knew that he more commonly viewed Armani as casual wear when he was in his usual element, glittering brightly in the midst of the Manhattan high life. Barring that, he should have blended right in with the other locals who had wandered in while Larissa had nursed her hot coffee in the farthest corner, all of them dressed just as he was—but he didn’t.

      She doubted Jack Sutton had ever blended in his life. And it made her heart kick against the walls of her chest. Hard.

      Centuries of blood so blue it shone like sapphires coursed in his veins, making him far more than just a shockingly good-looking man with rich dark hair and dark chocolate eyes—though he was certainly that. He wore the whole of his family’s great and glorious history with complete nonchalance, like a mighty weapon he didn’t need to brandish. All those noble Boston Brahmins and lofty Knickerbocker families of Gilded Age Manhattan who peppered his ancestry were evident in the easy way he moved, the power and pure arrogance that emanated from him, as much a part of him as the long, strong lines of the body some regarded as a national treasure. Jack’s hallowed ancestors were all of them captains of industry, leaders and visionaries, kings of philanthropy and canny investors. And he was every inch their heir. Every last muscled, beautiful, proud and dangerous inch.

      She knew who he was, where he came from. She came from the same lofty heights, for all her sins. But Larissa knew what else he was: her absolute worst nightmare. And he was blocking her only escape route.

      Nice job, Larissa, she told herself, veering somewhere between despair and a kind of bitterness that felt too much like anticipation. You can’t even disappear to the ends of the earth properly.

      But there was no point getting hysterical. She slumped down in her seat, and pulled the hooded sweater tighter around her, as if the thick gray wool might camouflage her somehow. As if she could disappear into it the way she’d wanted to disappear from the face of the earth—or at least, from everything she knew. Her “life,” such as it was.

      She forced herself to look away from the compelling figure of Manhattan’s Most Eligible Bachelor, back out to the sea, where the merciless waves beat at the craggy coastline, inexorable and fierce. He probably wouldn’t even recognize her, she told herself. She had left New York months ago and had told no one where she was going. And anyway, she was hardly known for spending time in near-abandoned places like this godforsaken island, a million miles from the nearest five-star spa without so much as lip gloss on her face, wearing nothing but jeans and a sweater that could double as a cloak. Not to mention, she’d cut off all her trademark blond tresses before she’d left and dyed what remained of it black for exactly this reason—to avoid being recognized, even by the