Free Deep Blue by Kat Martin Page A

right about Brad. He was a spoiled playboy, easily bored. The Conquest had already been searching for more than two months. They needed to find some evidence of the Rosa, and soon.
    Even then, unless that evidence glittered, Brad might pull his support.
     
    Darkness continued to fall, and a waitress came around and lit the candle in the red glass jar in the middle of the table. Conn hadn’t planned to eat at the hotel. He knew a couple of local joints where the food was particularly good, and he had meant to take Hope there. But that was before they got settled and the view and the sunset had begun to weave their spell.
    For the first time since he’d met her, Hope seemed to relax, and he didn’t want to spoil the mood. He shouldn’t have brought her with him tonight, he knew. He was completely opposed to the article she was writing. He still didn’t trust her, and on top of that, he didn’t like the hot jolts of lust he felt whenever he looked in her direction.
    Still, he could hardly leave her in the room with nothing to eat.
    The waitress reappeared and they ordered their dinners, Jamaican oxtail for him, curried chicken for her. They ate at a leisurely pace, then ordered a fruit mélange that included mangoes, sweetsop, bananas, and coconut for dessert, and a cup of Blue Mountain coffee.
    As she sat across from him in the flickering candlelight, he could feel the heavy pull of his growing attraction. Tonight her smile seemed less strained, softer, more open. She had even laughed at something he said, the sound deep for a woman and richly erotic.
    She had beautiful sea-green eyes and long, slightly burnished lashes. Her red hair gleamed whenever she moved, slipping softly along her jaw, and he wanted to run his fingers through it. The long purple sundress revealed the fullness of her breasts, the soft mounds and deep cleavage.
    He thought what it might be like to take the heavy weight into his mouth, wondered if it would melt the coolness that surrounded her, and his body stirred to life. His pulse began to hammer and he went hard beneath the table. Inwardly, he cursed.
    He didn’t want to get involved with Hope Sinclair. He had just recovered from his last disastrous relationship with a woman.
    And yet he wanted her. Damn, he wished he didn’t.
    He worked to manage a smile, to pull his thoughts back to safer territory.
    “So what about you?” He reached out and caught her left hand, turned it over to note the lack of a ring. “Doesn’t look like you’re married.”
    “No.” She looked down at his own ringless left hand. “I don’t imagine you are, either.”
    He arched an eyebrow. “You don’t think I’m marriage material?”
    “I don’t think the kind of work you do would be conducive to a happy home life.”
    “Actually, I was married once.”
    “What happened?”
    “It didn’t work out.” He picked up his cup of coffee and took a drink, anxious to avoid the unpleasant subject. “So you’re a writer. No apparent plans for marriage. Are you planning a serious career in journalism?”
    Hope looked away and he wondered what that look meant.
    “I love what I do and I’m pretty good at it. Mostly, I write human interest stories. Articles that revolve around families, communities, or children. The story I was working before I came down here dealt with the condemnation of a retirement home in Manhattan.”
    She told him that the owner of the building thought the condemnation was false, an excuse to force him to sell, and during the time she had been working on the story, she had started to believe it might be true. She said her apartment had been vandalized, perhaps as a warning to let the matter rest, and that was one of the reasons she had been pulled off the story.
    “I was hoping I might be able to help them. I hate to see those nice old people lose their homes.”
    Conn looked at her and saw that the coolness was gone. Her eyes were flashing, her breath coming faster, her cheeks pink and