Chapter One
Damien watched from the bungalow’s back porch as his daughters chased the surf. The waves rolled in relentlessly, and the girls—giggling and happy—scampered forward and back with the joyful determination of children.
A few feet away, Nikki sat on a blanket sipping from a bottle of water, her eyes fixed on their kids. Her blond hair gleamed in the island sun, and her skin had turned a golden brown in the five days they’d been at the resort. She hugged her knees, and though he could only see her in profile, there was no missing the beatific smile on her lovely face.
The sight warmed him, and he felt his entire body relax. It had been almost three months since his family had been freed of the nightmare surrounding Anne’s kidnapping. Though, of course, they’d never be truly free. He saw that reality reflected back at him every day when he looked in Nikki’s eyes and glimpsed the shadows there. The remnants of pain, the residue of defeat. And, most of all, the lingering fear that clouded her face and poisoned her happiness.
In the days immediately following the ordeal, it had been Nikki who’d brought him back from his own grim descent into guilt and pain, and once he’d pulled himself together, he’d been so damn cocksure that the bond between them had once again beat back the horror that the world had thrust upon them.
And for a time, maybe it had.
But in
the last week, he’d watched as dark shadows returned to his wife’s eyes. He’d felt helpless, and that wasn’t a sensation he endured easily. He’d needed to act. To do. To help. And so he’d brought her here as an escape against a world that had turned dark and dangerous. An isolated island world that he had built.
Conceived by Damien’s sister-in-law, Sylvia, and designed by his brother, Jackson Steele, The Resort at Cortez was a high-end vacation property that had finally come to fruition via a route of scandal, vandalism, and even murder. It had shed that horrific past, though, and now it was a place of healing. A second home where, Damien hoped, Nikki could find both peace and escape.
Now he stood on the patio of their bungalow in the private owners’ section of the island. Other than his wife and daughters, the beach was empty as far as he could see in both directions, and on this side of the island, there was no view of the California coastline. They were alone, just the four of them in this sun-swept world.
And that, he thought, was what Nikki had needed.
But it wasn’t enough.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to hear the small voice in his head. The voice that knew that the calm and beauty of this island was only a Band-Aid against a much larger wound. A wound that, so far, Damien had been helpless to staunch.
Frustrated, he clutched the patio rail, wishing he had the strength to shatter the wood beneath his hands, because then maybe he could find the strength to help his wife. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—fail her. But, dammit, he still hadn’t found the key that could lock away her pain.
Frustration warred with need, and he took a step toward the stairs, intending to go to her, but the sharp chirp of his phone stopped him.
That ringtone was the one assigned to Ryan Hunter, his closest friend and the Chief of Security for Stark International. Technically, Ryan still held that title, but he’d recently delegated the day-to-day management of all Stark-related corporate security, thus freeing him up for his role as the head of the newly formed Stark Security Agency.