Glancing down at her own legs—which merely stretched from her hips to the floor—Marissa hid her inward sigh.

They parted at the door and Marissa turned toward the gym, finally. She was suddenly restless and anxious. A workout would make her feel better.

The steady thud thud of her running shoes was only apparent when Marissa turned down her iPod. It made her booty move. Her booty wasn’t dead, oh no. The workout last night had felt great but she was even happier to finally get into a full sweat.

Swerving into the complex where she’d lived for the last twelve years and would be so happy to leave behind, she slackened her pace as she crossed the patch of oil-slicked asphalt that separated the buildings. The morning was cool but the brilliant sunrise promised more winter warmth.

At the common mailboxes she slowed to a halt, willing her breathing to return to normal.

“Damn!” she swore quietly as stinging sweat pooled into the corners of her eyes.

Straightening, hands pressing into the small of her back, she walked toward her front door, realizing as she got closer that there was someone waiting there. At this hour? A small alarm trilled inside but she discerned it was a woman, which allayed some of her fear.

It was a tall woman with dark hair down her back. And when she turned around her eyes were brown.

In her head Marissa heard, clearly as the night it had been said, “Is this what you want, Marissa?”

Now she also heard her breathless, adoring answer. “Yes. Please, yes.”

The smile Marissa had tried to forget. The charm she’d tried to deny. The memory of those hands, that body, everything she’d tried to erase from her consciousness, rushed back into vivid reality.

One year since the moonlight and kisses. It had taken months for her heart to finish breaking when each day brought silence and more silence. She didn’t want to go back in time. One year since the vacation of a lifetime had changed her life, for the worse and for the better.

Fighting for breath, but no longer due to exertion, Marissa willed herself to meet the sparkling brown eyes with a chilled stare of her own. “What do you want?”

“You,” Linda answered.

Chapter 2

(OneYear Earlier)

“Abandon ship! Proceed in an orderly fashion to your assigned lifeboat station. Abandon ship! This is not a drill!”

Jolted out of sleep, Marissa’s first thought was that she was trapped in a nightmare but when the message repeated in what sounded like Italian, logic asserted that she did not have nightmares in languages she didn’t speak.

The small cabin had no clock and she’d been so exhausted on arrival she’d not unpacked her own. Dull blue lighting had sprung up near the door and she pushed herself upright, trying to shake off the jittery fog of sudden awakening.

French, possibly, then once again, in commanding but modulated tones, “Abandon ship! Proceed in an orderly fashion to your assigned lifeboat station. Abandon ship! This is not a drill!”