Page 7 of Storm Warning
“No, thank you, Mario. This suite is beautiful.” The words didn’t convey the gratitude swelling in her chest, but they were all she could manage without embarrassing herself.
She reached for her purse to tip him, but Mario smiled and politely refused, his eyes twinkling in the light. “Thank you, Ms. Danvers; I appreciate the thought. However, tips are unnecessaryhere in Ivory Cay. We are paid living wages, not tipped rates.”
The simple statement made Kate’s heart clench. Of course they were. Of course Nicholas Ivory would run that kind of operation, would value his employees enough to pay them properly rather than expecting guests to supplement poverty wages.
She thought of Victoria Evans in her designer clothes, sabotaging reservations, creating fake IDs. What had driven someone working in a place like this—with fair wages and beautiful surroundings—to steal? Because that’s what it had to be. Theft. Embezzlement. Something.
And Nicholas would find out. Would deal with it. She’d seen the steel beneath his courtesy, the quiet authority that suggested he didn’t tolerate betrayal.
“Oh, you’ll find several golf carts in your garage, and the keys are in them,” Mario added, gesturing toward the entry. “You are free to use any of them.”
He smiled again, that grandfatherly warmth that made her feel safe and welcome, and with a final nod, withdrew. The door clicked shut, and Kate was alone.
She stood in the kitchen as the kettle finished heating with a subtle click, and for the first time in weeks—months maybe—the stress knot in her chest began to unravel.
The silence wrapped around her: not the suffocating quiet of her apartment where failure hovered like a physical presence. This was peaceful. Restorative. The kind of silence that invited rest instead of demanding productivity.
She couldn’t help but smile as she poured the hot water over her tea leaves, watching them unfurl in the clear glass cup like tiny flowers blooming. The delicate, slightly sweet scent rose with the steam, and she breathed it in deeply.
This place felt like a haven. The chaos of the evening—Victoria’s cruelty, Lena’s fear, the confrontation—faded into memory, losing its sharp edges.
Tomorrow she would explore: see the water in daylight, settle into the office, and maybe—finally—find the words that had been eluding her for weeks.
Tomorrow she would start fresh.
But tonight... tonight she would let herself rest.
Chapter 3
Unmasked
Nick stepped into the elevator,then turned to watch Kate smiling at Lena. Even exhausted and disheveled, there was something about her—a subtle strength in the set of her shoulders, old wounds in those tired eyes.
A delicate scent of jasmine drifted toward Nick—from the gardens outside, but it seemed to cling to her. The fragrance wrapped around him, unexpectedly intimate, and his pulse kicked up a notch.
She was striking—not beautiful in the conventional sense, but uniquely unforgettable. Something about her face would linger in memory: the sharp intelligence in her gaze, the vulnerability she tried so hard to hide, the way she’d defended Lena despite being ready to collapse from exhaustion.
And those legs. Christ. They seemed to go on for miles beneath that wrinkled skirt, toned and graceful. His imagination sparked, dropping him into a vivid flash of fantasy—those legs wrapped around his waist, her fatigue replaced by a very different kind of breathlessness?—
Heat coiled low and urgent in his gut, and he yanked his thoughts back.What the hell are you doing?What was the pointof indulging in fantasies when he had no intention of following through? When he couldn’t follow through, not with the complications that came with who and what he was.
The elevator doors started to close, and he noticed David watching the women with unmistakable appreciation.
Eyes on the ball, not the girl, Nick projected, allowing more irritation to slip into his mental tone than he should have.
David’s amusement rippled back through their link, warm and teasing.Says the man who was just picturing?—
Shut it.
Just saying, boss. Maybe you should do something about?—
I said, shut it.Nick cut the connection, heat crawling up the back of his neck.
Telepathy had a thousand tactical advantages, but sometimes he wished it didn’t give his brothers access to his surface thoughts.
The elevator doors shut, cutting off his view of Kate’s departure. He forced his attention back to the task at hand, to the edginess tightening in his chest as he thought about Victoria Evans.
Zach, where are you?