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married twice. And I sucked at it.”
    â€œIt’s not a skill you develop,” he said. “I’m pretty sure it’s a matter of choosing the right person.”
    â€œSaid the man who’s never been married,” she said wryly.
    â€œTrue. But I know what marriage can be.” Joe said this with the quiet assurance of someone whose parents and grandparents had been together for over half a century each. “I know who and what I want.”
    Somehow he’d decided she was that person. A fact that both amazed and frightened her. FBI agents were trained not to take no for an answer.
    â€œReady for the main course?” he asked.
    â€œYes, but I can . . .”
    â€œNo, I’ve got it.”
    She took another long sip of Chianti as he disappeared into the house. This was their last night together for a while. This was not the time to hash out their differences or debate their feelings. This was a night to be enjoyed.
    When he returned she ate every bite of the meal he’d prepared, and turned the conversation with a deft and intentionally lighter hand. When they’d finished and he drew her up from the table and pulled her into his arms, she gave herself to him without reservation. Deirdre Morgan had been full of life one minute and dead the next. Nicole was determined to make the most of this moment. To create new memories that would never be forgotten when their relationship came to its inevitable end.
    She only hoped she’d have the strength to let him go when the time came.

Chapter Three

    â€œListen, Nigel, if you take the day off, I promise that the next time Daniel comes to see Dustin we’ll give you an exclusive.” Kyra Singer offered the lie with a straight face and crossed fingers as she wheeled the jogging stroller down Bella Flora’s bricked drive.
    â€œNice try, luv,” the lanky paparazzo replied from his position in the middle of Beach Road, exactly three feet from Bella Flora’s property line. “But I didn’t just fall off that turnip truck now, did I?” The Brit wore board shorts, flip-flops, and a Hawaiian-print shirt. Multiple cameras hung around his scrawny neck. The rest of his pack was missing, presumably off hunting more impressive celebrity game. Nigel Bracken was nothing if not single-minded, that single thought being to capture shots of Dustin with his movie star father, Daniel Deranian.
    Since Dustin’s birth two and a half years ago, Kyra had dressed the two of them in an array of disguises to avoid detection. Daniel, who had access to professional hair and makeup people, had passed himself off as an old man, a convincingly attractive woman, and a UPS deliveryman in order to visit his son.
    Nigel lifted a camera and aimed it at them, and she knew he was framing them against Bella Flora’s wedding cake façade; making the most of the pale pink walls, banks of windows framed in white icing trim, and the bell towers that topped a multi-angled barrel-tile roof and jutted up into the powder blue sky.
    She nodded and prepared to go, but the photographer turned his lens and aimed it directly at Dustin. When he began to zoom in for a close-up Kyra bent over, intentionally blocking Nigel’s shot, then took her time slathering sunscreen on Dustin’s sturdy arms and legs even though he’d inherited his famous father’s golden skin, which never burned, along with his brown heavily lashed eyes and silky dark curls.
    Nigel continued shooting. Which meant the photographer was now taking pictures of her ass.
    â€œOkay, little man.” She handed Dustin his favorite ball and whispered, “Hold on.”
    Jaw tight, Kyra pushed the jogging stroller down the driveway. As they left the drive, Nigel backed toward the beach, blocking the road so that she’d have to get close enough to give him his money shot of Dustin.
    Not today
, she thought, her hands tightening on the stroller. At the last