Heiress Behind the Headlines. Caitlin Crews
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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 people who had known her in her long and complicated former life.
Even by ghosts of weekends past, like Jack Sutton, who, she had the uncomfortable feeling, was not the sort of person who was easily fooled. Not even by someone like Larissa, who had been fooling everyone around her for years. Hadn’t she discovered that firsthand? Wasn’t that why the very fact that he was here, in this smaller-by-the-moment restaurant and bar, made her so tense, suddenly? So …wound up?
She ordered herself to breathe, just the way the doctors had taught her to do back in New York. Breathe. He wouldn’t even notice her, and if he did, he certainly wouldn’t realize that she was—
“Larissa Whitney.”
His voice was cool and low, just this side of amused. It moved over her skin like a caress, then moved inside, making her feel as though she was shaking to pieces when she knew she wasn’t moving at all.
Breathe.
But she suspected that was out of the question.
He didn’t wait for an invitation, he simply threw himself into the chair opposite hers, his dark brown eyes gleaming with something she was afraid to identify when she finally dared meet his gaze. His long legs stretched out before him, crowding her under the small table, and she couldn’t help but move hers out of the way. She hated herself for even so slight an indication of weakness, so small an acknowledgment that he got under her skin. Damn him.
Why did it have to be Jack Sutton, of all people? What was he even doing here? He was the one person she’d never quite managed to mislead, not even when he’d been as lost a cause as she was. Why did it have to be him? It had been months since anyone had even known her name, and now she was trapped on an inhospitable island with a man who knew too much. He always had. It was only one of the reasons he was so formidable. So dangerous to her health.
She had the sudden, insane urge to pretend she didn’t recognize him. To pretend she was someone else. I have no idea who Larissa Whitney is, she could say, and it wouldn’t even really be a lie, would it? She could simply deny her own existence, and maybe, just maybe, escape the great weight of it that way. Part of her wanted to, with a ferocity that should not have shocked her.
But he was looking at her with those too-knowing eyes of his, and she didn’t dare.
She smiled instead, the perfunctory sort of public smile she had perfected in the cradle. She’d been well into her teens before someone had pointed out to her that smiles were supposed to reach the eyes. She’d been skeptical.
“Guilty as charged,” she said, keeping her voice light, easy. Unbothered. Unaffected by this man, by the sizzling shock of his proximity, of her unexpected response to him—so strong and male and alive. She shifted in her seat, but kept her face smooth. Empty. Just as he’d expect it to be. Just as she worried she truly was.
“So I hear.” He smirked, his eyes never leaving hers, the challenge unmistakable. Or was that a cool dose of contempt? She could hardly tell the difference these days. “I didn’t see any paparazzi swarming over the village like ants. No yachts cluttering up the bay in the middle of a November storm. No clubs heaving with the rich and the terminally bored. Did you somehow mistake the coast of Maine for the south of France?”
“It’s wonderful to see you, too,” she murmured, as if that scathing, judgmental tone didn’t bother her. And why should it? She should have been well-used to it by now, having heard nothing but her whole life. Having, in fact, gone out of her way to court it from all and sundry. “How long has it been? Five years? Six?”
“What are you doing here, Larissa?” he asked, and his voice was not nice. Not polite. This from a man who could charm anyone he pleased—who had been doing so the whole of his privileged life. She knew. She’d seen him in action. She’d experienced exactly how powerfully charming he could be. She repressed a shiver.
“Can’t a girl take a little vacation?” she asked idly. Playfully. As if she felt either. But she knew better than to show him anything else.
“Not here.” His cool eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her, and she pretended she couldn’t feel her own reaction to him, unfolding inside of her. Wariness, she told herself—that’s all it was. But she knew better. “There’s nothing here for you. One general store. This inn. Less than fifty families. That’s it. There are only two ferries to the mainland a week—and that’s weather permitting.” His perfect mouth firmed into a grim line. “There’s absolutely no reason in the world someone like you should be here.”
“It’s the hospitality,” she said dryly, nodding at him as if he’d welcomed her with a song and open arms. “It’s addictive.”
She leaned back in her chair, not sure why her stomach knotted, why her limbs felt weak and traitorous. She’d known Jack all her life. They’d been raised in the same glittering, claustrophobic circles of New York City’s very, very wealthy. The same elite private schools, the same Ivy League expectations. The same attractive and well-maintained faces at all the same parties, in places like Aspen, the Hamptons, Miami and Martha’s Vineyard.
She remembered being a teenager and running into Jack, then in his resplendent twenties, at some desperately chic party one summer. She could still imagine him as he’d been then, golden and gleaming on a private beach in the Hamptons, seeming to outshine the very sun above him. He’d been loose-limbed and easygoing, with a killer smile and that devastating intellect beneath. Everyone she’d known had been desperately in love with him. When she thought of Jack Sutton, that was always how she remembered him. Bright. Inescapably beautiful. All summer in his smile.
But there was no sign of that young man here, now. And she had other memories she’d rather not excavate. The ones from that one weekend she preferred to block out. The ones that featured him a little bit older, and a whole lot more shattering than she cared to remember in any detail. The ones that made it clear that whatever else he was, he was distinctly dangerous to her, personally. All that heat. All that fire. And eyes like bittersweet, decadent chocolate that saw too much, too deep.
The truth was that this man had fascinated her and then terrified her. And all of that was before. Before. Before she’d had her own little resurrection, her own second chance. At what, she might not know. But she did know that the arrival of Jack Sutton was like throwing a bomb into the middle of it. He was uncontrollable. Impossible. And those were two of his better qualities.
She settled back in her chair, assuming the careless, languid sort of position that came to her so easily, like a second skin. The usual Larissa Whitney insouciance she could summon at will, automatically adjusting to his assumptions, to what he no doubt already saw when he looked at her. She was so good at living down to the world’s expectations. She sometimes wondered if it was her only true skill.
“Are you in disguise?” he continued, in that same lethally soft voice that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise. His cool brown gaze flicked over her, made her want to squirm. But she only lounged, making herself look like the very essence of boredom. “Or on the run? Do I even want to know what fantasy you’re playing at here?”
“Why are you so interested?” she asked, letting out a light sort of laugh. “Are you afraid it doesn’t include you?”
“Quite the opposite.” His tone