On a tiny tropical island teeming with the rich and famous, Nicola Metcalfe is an unrecognizable nobody. Which is just about perfect. Her life in LA—including her teaching career and the sleazy tabloid scandal that capsized it—has been replaced by sun-kissed beaches, deep blue waters and a new job as a scuba instructor. Hell, Nicola could even forget about her nonexistent sex life…until she saves Alex Stone’s life.

Alex might be the worst scuba diver in the ocean, but every inch of him is beautiful, firm-bodied perfection. The kind that jolts about a zillion megawatts of pure, crackling sexual tension straight to Nicola’s naughty bits. Maybe it’s something. Maybe it’s just for tonight. But whatever it is, Nicola wants it. Badly.

After all, Alex isn’t staying long enough to discover who she really is—or what she did.

Not long enough to do anything other than give in to the intense, insatiable craving that threatens to drown them both.

And definitely not long enough for Nicola to discover that the guy she’s falling for might just be responsible for ruining her life…

Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

For Heather, whose laughter I still hear every day.

CHAPTER ONE

CRASHING WAVES. SUNLIGHT streaming onto his face. A light breeze blowing through the open floor-to-ceiling windows. And a pounding headache.

Alex Stone reached his hand out to the bedside table and groped for his phone, then brought it to life to read the time. 8:37. Shit.

He sat up in bed and swung his legs to the floor, cursing his brother as he grabbed a pair of swimming trunks from his suitcase. Ditching his boxer shorts, he slid the trunks over his bare hips and bent forward to dig around for a T-shirt. His head protested.

Alex may not have minded his headache so much if it was the price for an evening of fun, but the case was anything but. After arriving in Moretta from LA last night, tired and jet-lagged—naturally, Alex had refused his brother’s offer of a private jet to neighboring Barbados in favor of three leg-cramping commercial flights—his considerate rock-star brother had driven him straight to his place, where a raucous party was in full swing. No amount of sleeping pills or pillows over his head could block out the noise and music pounding through the walls of his brother’s home, which lasted until, by Alex’s estimation, about four hours ago.

He glanced at his phone again: 8:40. His scuba-diving lesson was due to start in twenty minutes. He’d taken all the preliminary lessons back in LA, and today was to be his first open-water dive. But right now he was exhausted and feeling anything but mentally prepared for it. It was probably dangerous to dive with so little sleep. He was staying on the island for a week; there was no rush. He should cancel…

Screw that. This was something he needed to do. He’d promised himself he would, and Alex Stone was a man who always kept his promises.

Alex opened his bedroom door. It had been dark when he arrived last night, so between the lack of light and the throngs of bodies crowding the space, he hadn’t gotten a good feel for its layout. Now Alex could see how breathtaking both the house and its setting were. Each of the eight bedroom doors opened onto an expansive piazza with the beach just beyond it. Between a stand of palms on his

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