Chapter Five
Isla
The breeze off the Mediterranean, warm for this time of year, lifted my hair and blew it into my face.
Fragrant citrus blooms danced around me as I stood on tiptoe and reached for a lush lemon that was almost out of my grasp. Stretching another inch, I gripped the bright yellow fruit and pulled.
Ripe and perfect, what would be the star of my dinner fell into my hand.
Taking in its simplistic beauty, I dragged a fingernail across the skin. The sweet tang of the zest’s oils drifted up, and I brought the lemon to my nose.
Inhaling, I smiled, and a deep voice spoke from behind me.
“Que faites-vous ici?”
Startled, I kept motionless while I quickly translated the French into English.
What was I doing here?
It was a good question. A great one, actually. But not one I was going to answer. Instead, I was focusing on the quietly threatening tenor of his voice, its proximity, and the unusual accent.
Whoever the man was, he wasn’t from here.
Before I could decide how to play this, he spoke again.
“Vous êtes en violation de propriété.”
Of course I was trespassing. I couldn’t afford an estate like this, not even in my wildest dreams. But that hadn’t stopped me from casing the place after I’d spied it from the bow trampoline of a lovely forty-eight-foot cruising catamaran.
The Nautitech 48 Open was great. The owners, not so much.
But I’d gotten to see Cap d’Antibes from the Mediterranean, feel the sea spray on my skin, and I’d found my next adventure.
That’d been almost two months ago. I think. I didn’t exactly pay attention to time.
After the first few days of squatting without incident on the lowest terrace of the cliffside estate where half the pool, the outdoor kitchen, and one of the cabanas were all out of range of the security cameras, I thought I’d lucked out.
No one had chased me off. No caretaker or hired security had come to check on the estate, and the lush gardens had been left untouched until the second week, when a crew came early one morning.
Quickly rushing through an efficient mow and trim of every terrace, the workers had been in and out in ninety minutes.
The best part?
No one spotted me hiding under the dock. My backpack in the cabana had been left alone, and all the missing lemons, tomatoes, olives, and herbs I’d helped myself to had gone unnoticed.
After the gardeners left, I’d dipped in the sea, then gone back to my perch on the soft lounger in the three-sided cabana, and let the late-spring warmth of the day dry me off.
All these weeks in, I had to admit, I’d become complacent.
I figured the estate was a seasonal summer residence, and I’d have at least another few weeks before I had to move on. But the man behind me speaking perfect French, albeit without that particular throaty or guttural quality as he accused me of trespassing, said otherwise.
His precise pronunciation and clipped words told me my Mediterranean Sea-view days from a plush cabana were over.
I mentally sighed.
Then I inhaled the lemon once more, dropped it into my netted produce bag, and picked a personality flavor.
Sweet, innocent… and selectively hearing-impaired.
Ignoring the deep voice’s accusation and the man behind it, I reached for another lemon.
I didn’t need it. Which made the lessons on wastefulness I’d been taught growing up strike a chord, but situational awareness and survival were also teachings that’d been drilled into me so resolutely that the latter outweighed all the rest.
I was a survivor.
I plucked another lemon.
“Arrêt.”
Ignoring his demand to stop, pretending I didn’t hear him, I dropped the second lemon in my bag and psyched myself up to feign surprise as I casually turned.
My gaze landed on him, and cosmic justice slapped me in the face.
Feigning nothing, I reared back.
Tree branches caught in my hair, my heart slammed against my ribs, and I gasped at the most lethally striking man I had ever seen.
Leaf-green eyes, dirty-blond hair, over six feet of hardened muscles, and a penetrating stare that was so deadly, yet expressionless, that it could only mean one thing.
Military.
But not just any military.
This man was Special Forces.
I knew it like I knew my own name. I’d grown up with it. I recognized it every time I saw my brother, and I knew this man’s calculated stance like I knew my own.
That right hand he was casually holding partway behind his back wasn’t casual at all.
He was palming a gun, and my next breath would determine my fate.
Go time.
Holding on to my very real wide-eyed shock, I ignored the tingling at the back of my neck that was threatening to coast down my arms and purposely lifted my hand. The produce net slid to the crook of my elbow, leaving my arm free as I placed my palm against my chest.
Then I played the flavor I’d picked and raised an eyebrow.
He asked again. “Que faites-vous ici?”
I raised the other eyebrow.
He switched to Italian. “Cosa ci fai qui?”
I stared.
He tried Spanish. “?Qué estás haciendo aqui?”
Judging by his accent, or lack thereof, he was fluent in all of the languages. But I was fluent in deception.
Holding my innocent expression, I blinked with perfect exaggeration. Then I signed, “Did you know your eyes are almost the exact shade of the leaves on the lemon tree?”
Maybe it was the sun shining down on him like he commanded it, but in that moment, I would have sworn his golden tan and the melanin in his irises had been painted on by God himself—if there was such a deity.
No judgment, I just banked my survival on more tangible odds.
Like how fast I could kick him in the balls, pivot, then run like hell if he brought that hand from behind his back, front and center.
Which I was waiting for.
In my experience, there were two types of men who casually concealed weapons. Those who didn’t have the confidence to use them, and those who didn’t need a show of force because they could fuck you up a hundred different ways before ever pulling the trigger.
I put this man squarely in the latter category.
Which was why I’d already mentally counted the number of steps to the dock.
If he drew on me, I was dead.
I couldn’t outrun a bullet, but I could always try to outsmart the shooter. Enough pain from a well-placed kick could buy me the few crucial seconds I’d need to sprint and dive into the sea.
After that, my odds of survival went up considerably.
I knew the water.
Drown-proofing by a Navy-SEAL-slash-survivalist father had taught me not to panic. I’d also learned exactly how long I could hold my breath. Not that I wanted to test my lungs today.
Faking a shy smile, figuring this man was hired security, I signed again. Except this time it was an outright lie. “Did the owner invite you for dinner, too?”
With his piercing gaze never leaving mine, he switched to a fourth language and made a mockery of my assumption. “I am the owner.” Then he delivered an order with deadly dominance. “Kneel.”