“Tom Tom, I need you to do me a favor.”

Sprawled on one of the cream-colored chaise lounges artistically scattered throughout the airy, sun-drenched East Hampton beach house, Thomas Blake didn’t even bother to glance up from the book he was reading. “Yes, Aggie, I will cover for you while you haul ass to your flashy red Jaguar and drive off into the sunset, putting as much distance as possible between you and the biggest mistake of your life.”

The grim pronouncement startled a shout of deep laughter from the tall, dark-haired boy hovering in the threshold of the living room. “What is it with you and marriage? I love Elizabeth and I want to spend the rest of my life with her, thank you very much.”

“Hah. Love.” Thomas’s lips twisted into a condescending sneer as he turned the page. “You’re deluding yourself with that Harlequin romance novel bullshit.”

Augustus Blake IV heaved a genteel sigh. “Twenty-five is entirely too young to be so cynical, dearest cousin.”

“Since we’ve established that you will, in flagrant disregard of common sense, not be playing runaway groom—” Thomas coolly reverted to the original topic—“perhaps you’d care to elaborate on the favor you’re asking.”

“I need you to be nice to Annalise Dalton.”

“Who?”

“My best friend?” Aggie prompted. “The med student? She’s due to arrive in the Hamptons tonight. However, her family’s beach house is currently undergoing renovation, so she’ll be staying with us until the wedding on Saturday.”

Thomas’s expression soured as he dredged up the name from somewhere deep within the recesses of his memory. “That spoiled, hoity-toity little WASP you’re always yammering on about?”

“She is absolutely none of those things.”

Thomas quirked an eyebrow in mocking disbelief. “Aggie, you and your social circle have Upper East Side addresses and Ivy League diplomas. As far as I’m concerned, you’re all spoiled, hoity-toity little WASPs.”

Aggie chuckled, raising an elegant hand in lazy surrender. “You’ve got me there. But please don’t make any snap judgements about Annalise just yet. She’s a lovely, intelligent girl, and very important to me. I would like for the two of you to get along.”

Thomas had been exposed to enough Manhattan heiresses to know that lovely and intelligent were code for vain and pretentious, but the fanatically earnest gleam in his cousin’s steel-gray eyes made him relent. “I’ll stay out of her way if she stays out of mine.”

“I suppose that’s better than nothing,” Aggie conceded with a frown, but Thomas had already returned his attention to the thick, battered-looking tome in his hands. “What is that you’re so engrossed in, by the way?”

“It’s a biography of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia,” Thomas grunted.

“Ah, I see,” Aggie said politely, even though it was obvious that he didn’t see at all. Then a few pop-culture neurons must have flared to life, because he blinked and made the connection. “Hang on, you don’t mean, like, Count Dracula?”

“The fictional Count Dracula was inspired by the prince’s patronymic as a member of House Draculesti and by his reputation for excessive cruelty in dealing with his foes,” Thomas lectured. “After his death, they called him Vlad Tepes, which is Romanian for impaler.”

Aggie wrinkled his nose. “That’s some ghastly stuff, Tom Tom, I don’t mind telling you. You’ll freak Annalise out if she sees you reading books like that.”

“What a shame.” Thomas’s tone dripped with withering sarcasm as he turned another page. “Here I was, hoping that she and I would become bosom buddies.”

 

~*~

 

Annalise Dalton pressed her nose to the passenger’s side window as Cherry Station came into view. Normally closed during off-season, the sleek minimalist bar was now pulsing with neon lights and EDM loud enough to still be audible over the Guns N’ Roses playlist blaring inside James Van der Kleef’s Chevrolet Silverado.

“There he is.” Annalise couldn’t contain the note of excitement in her voice upon spotting Aggie Blake’s lean, shaggy-haired, six-foot-three silhouette on the sidewalk. His back was turned to her, one hand on his hip while the other pressed a phone to his ear. “He’s never going to see this coming,” she predicted with glee. “We’ll scare the living daylights out of him.”

James shot her an amused glance, slowing down the truck as it drew level with the sidewalk. “I can’t believe that the prospect of sending your best friend into conniptions is giving you so much joy.”

“Shut up, we’ve been planning this party for months,” Annalise replied with a wicked grin. “Once his blood pressure returns to normal, he’ll be thrilled that we went through all this trouble for him.”

“Either that, or he’ll sue the pants off of us,” James dryly remarked.

She waved a dismissive hand. “What’s a little litigation among friends?”

The original plan had been to kidnap Aggie inside the bar while the bouncers, all of whom were in the know, looked the other way, but Annalise realized that snatching him as he stood there on the sidewalk would be quicker, less of a hassle. She clambered over to the backseat, ignoring James’ cry of surprised concern.

“You could have waited until I stopped the truck,” he admonished once she was settled. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but people like us usually wait until we’re forty to get nose jobs.”

“I must’ve missed the memo,” she quipped, fishing out a plain black hood from her Dior silk clutch. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“You’re sure you can take him?”

Annalise snorted. “It’s Aggie. I beat him in every wrestling match when we were kids. You, too.”

James smiled at Annalise’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “That’s because we were too scared of you to put up much of a fight, princess.”

He hit the brakes. She threw open the door and nimbly slipped the hood over the unsuspecting bridegroom’s head.

 

~*~

 

“Annalise got in about an hour ago. I told her to meet us at Cherry Station after she dropped her luggage off at the house,” Aggie explained to Thomas, his voice muffled by a hint of static. “But I’m stuck here at the hotel because Mother insisted that we review the Harrison contract. Could you possibly keep Annalise entertained until I arrive? I’ll send you her details.”

Thomas scowled into the receiver. “You can’t be serious!” He had to yell in order to be heard over the obnoxious music exploding from the bar. “What the hell are she and I going to talk about?”

“Just be your usual charming self,” Aggie cheerfully advised. “I’ll catch you later.”

Thomas pocketed his phone, cursing the restless urge that had lured him to explore East Hampton and consequently get strong-armed into drinks at a snobby, overpriced bar with a couple of high-society brats. Not his idea of a fun evening. He glared at the glossy, well-dressed coeds queuing up outside Cherry Station as if they had personally offended him.

And then, all of a sudden, his world was plunged into darkness.

 

~*~

 

Hauling Aggie’s large frame into the backseat, it struck Annalise that there was something off about this picture. His clothes, for one thing. The illustrious scion of the Blake clan favored impeccable tailored blazers and crisp Oxford shirts, but, tonight, he was wearing black jeans, a faded army green T-shirt, and what seemed to be boots.

She slammed the door shut as the Silverado peeled away from the sidewalk. Giggling, she removed the victim’s hood and yelled, “Surprise!” at an irate face that was…

“You’re not Aggie,” she accused the stranger whom she’d just dragged into the truck, scooting as far away from him as possible.

“You think?” he snarled. He had Aggie’s hair and build, but he was even taller and broader, with gold-flecked brown eyes that were currently narrowed in annoyance. “I’m his goddamned cousin!”

James burst out laughing. “Annalise, you and I are definitely going to jail now.”

“Annalise?” The stranger’s lip curled. “So you’re Aggie’s friend.”

“Yes,” she said cautiously, not liking his mocking tone and derisive expression, but, in all fairness, she couldn’t blame him. No one would be in the mood to put on their best behavior after getting accidentally kidnapped. “James and I do apologize. We thought you were Aggie.”

“I already figured that part out for myself, thanks,” he snapped.

A dozen sharp retorts sprang to the tip of her tongue at such unparalleled brusqueness, forestalled only when she reminded herself that she was technically the one at fault in this equation. Determined to make amends, she pasted on the gracious smile that she’d learned from her mother and extended a hand across the backseat. “How do you do, Mr…?”

“Thomas Blake.” The way he sounded, he might as well have said, Fuck you. Instead of shaking her hand, he folded his arms across his broad chest. “Since we’ve established that you and Bigwig here are the world’s most incompetent kidnappers, why don’t you just let me out of this gimmicky contraption so we can proceed with our respective evenings?”

“A real charmer, this one,” James muttered, seeming like he didn’t know whether to be more offended by the contemptuous reference to his father being the mayor of New York City or the fact that Thomas had casually dismissed his beloved, state-of-the-art Silverado as a gimmicky contraption.

Annalise made one last effort to be polite. “We’re throwing a party for Aggie at our friend Sierra’s house,” she told Thomas. “I’m sure he’d want you to be there.”

“Unfortunately, I left my tie on my private yacht,” he drawled.

A furious blush rose to her cheeks as she fought the urge to self-consciously tug at the hem of her royal blue Chanel sheath. “Must you be so unpleasant? James and I made an honest mistake. The least you could do is… is…”

“Partake of the hors d’oeuvres?” he suggested snidely. “Sip a fine wine? Reminisce about Swiss boarding schools and polo matches and Mediterranean cruises?”

At that point, Annalise was all for kicking Thomas out of the truck, and she could tell from the way James was bristling that he felt the same. However, before she could inform Thomas exactly where he could shove his attitude, her phone rang.

It was Aggie.

 

~*~

 

So far, Annalise Dalton was precisely the way Thomas had imagined she would be: high-maintenance, prim, and exuding the doe-eyed impression that she’d never experienced any hardship in life more troubling than a broken nail. She and James Van der Kleef were a matching set; a white-gold Vacheron Constantin discreetly peeked out from the boy’s suit sleeve as he maneuvered the Silverado through the East Hampton streets with the same aura of relaxed, well-bred confidence in which Aggie drove his sports car. Thomas stifled a groan of dismay as it dawned on him that these were the people he’d have to mingle with for an entire week.

Annalise turned away from him to answer the call. A curtain of fair hair spilled over one pale shoulder, its shiny waves obscuring her face from view. To his disgust, Thomas felt a stab of regret because it was a rather breathtakingly gorgeous face, the kind you could stare at for hours, all porcelain features and delicate lips and striking blue-green eyes. If only she weren’t a privileged little debutante! He wasn’t immune to beautiful girls, but the mere notion of being attracted to the sort of twenty-something who called her father Daddy without the slightest trace of irony rankled the depths of his very soul.

Thomas listened with mounting impatience as Annalise explained the situation to Aggie, and then with a spark of reluctant interest as her end of the conversation devolved into “But he doesn’t…” and “I don’t think…” and, finally, “All right. See you there.”

She hung up and tossed the phone into her bag, looking put out. Then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and, when she opened them again, her expression was a mask of unruffled politeness. Thomas struggled not to gape; it was like watching a magnificent robot in action.

“It seems that Aggie has placed us under the strictest orders to bring his cousin to the party,” Annalise addressed James in a carefully lighthearted voice, refusing to look at the cousin in question.

“Wonderful!” James replied in kind, although he sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “We’re almost at Sierra’s house.”

“Look,” Thomas started to protest, “I don’t want to go, and I’m pretty sure neither of you want me there.” He paused, and, okay, maybe he was a little miffed that not even their exquisite country-club manners could overcome their shared distaste of him enough for them to declare that he would very much be welcome at the gathering. “So why don’t I just take my leave and spare us all the pain? You can tell Aggie I jumped out of the truck.”

Unexpectedly, Annalise’s mouth softened in a grudging half-smile. “As a matter of fact, he warned me that I might have to restrain you from doing that for real.”

 

~*~

 

Ten minutes later, Thomas found himself marveling at the level of disconnect that his cousin’s friends had from the real world. Sierra’s house, as they so innocently called it, was a sprawling beachfront estate that loomed over the pristine sands like an affront to the common man. In fact, he was almost certain he’d seen photographs of this place in one of those celebrity magazines that Melody kept stashed in their Brooklyn apartment.

“When you say Sierra, you aren’t, by any chance, referring to Sierra Reid, are you?” he asked Annalise as they made their way to the front porch.

James chuckled, nudging Annalise. “I always forget that Sierra’s a supermodel now. In my mind, she’s still the same unkempt heathen who tried to force-feed us mud pies in her backyard in Connecticut.”

“We were all neighbors growing up, along with Aggie,” Annalise explained to Thomas. “Mr. Reid used to complain that Sierra would send him to an early grave because she’d made it her life’s mission to climb every tree in New Haven. He’s the quintessential overprotective dad, it’s so cute.”

If Thomas remembered the magazine feature on Sierra correctly, then her father was an oil tycoon who had augmented his already considerable wealth by marrying the heiress to a diamond fortune. Yet he was just cute-overprotective-dad Mr. Reid to Aggie’s friends.

“Give me strength,” Thomas muttered to an absent God, earning a puzzled glance from Annalise.

~*~

 

“Darling, who is that?” Meredith Winters purred in Annalise’s ear.

“Aggie’s cousin, Thomas,” Annalise said without bothering to follow the brunette’s sly gaze. She’d been fielding similar questions all evening.

“I knew he had to be a relative. They look exceedingly alike,” Meredith declared, taking a hearty swig from her champagne flute. “Why, they could be brothers!”

Annalise privately disagreed. Now that she’d had the opportunity to observe Thomas Blake, she was at a loss as to how on earth she could have possibly mistaken him for her best friend. Aggie navigated the world with easygoing, boyish charm, his every gesture imbued with refinement and sophistication. Thomas, on the other hand, was far from refined; he moved with aggressive purpose, an expression of brooding defiance rarely absent from his face.

He made Annalise nervous. Not because she was scared of him, but because it was for some reason more difficult to keep a lid on her composure when he was around. It was very odd.

“How are you, Mer?” she asked, changing the subject because even just discussing Thomas made something wild and strange flutter in the pit of her stomach. “How’s your dad?”

“Still madly in love with your mom,” Meredith sighed.

Annalise rolled her eyes. “I wish you would give that a rest. That is so not true. Everyone else knows that.”

“Are we talking about how Doctor Winters is madly in love with Doctor Dalton?” Jordan Horowitz swooped down on the two girls, meticulously working his way through a tray of shrimp canapes. “They were arguing with each other at Grandmother’s ninetieth birthday last month. Pure, unbridled sexual tension.”

Meredith grimaced. “Jas, please never mention your grandmother anywhere near the same vicinity as the phrase sexual tension ever again.”

“Make it up to you with a canape?” Jordan offered one, which swung in Annalise’s direction when Meredith shook her head.

Annalise took the canape and popped it into her mouth because she hadn’t eaten since she left New York, but she had to force herself to swallow it through the wave of nausea elicited by the joking reference to her mother’s love life. Her parents’ divorce would only be made public once it was finalized; by then, Annalise would be safely back in Boston, shielded by distance from the worst of the speculation and the pity. All she had to do was keep up a facade of normalcy throughout the week and assure everyone that her parents couldn’t attend the Wedding of the Year because they were both swamped at work, not because they could no longer stand to be in the same room with each other.

Jordan suddenly snorted, his dark brown eyes dancing in merriment through the sloppy chestnut curls that fell across his forehead. “I do believe Whitney has just been on the receiving end of a crushing set down,” he mused, grinning at a scene over Annalise’s shoulder and prompting her to turn around.

Whitney Vanderbilt was stomping away from the marble pillar that Thomas was leaning against, her cheeks red with embarrassment. As Annalise, Meredith, and Jordan watched, the slim redhead collided with Richard Green, jostling the wine glass in his hand. Purplish Cabernet Sauvignon sloshed onto the bodice of Whitney’s form-fitting, sequined cocktail dress.

“Ouch.” Meredith flinched. “Unlike us mere mortals, Whitney doesn’t buy off-the-rack. She doesn’t even have a laundry woman because all her clothes need to be dry-cleaned.”

Whitney blinked in disbelief at the stain on her dress, and then shot Richard a look of helpless fury before disappearing into the back of the house. Richard stared after her with a forlorn expression.

“Dramaaa,” Jordan sang out, but he dutifully sauntered to Richard’s side, leaving Annalise alone with Meredith, whose attention had returned to Thomas as he slouched by the pillar with his hands in his pockets and sneered at the universe at large.

“I don’t blame Whitney for trying,” Meredith remarked. “He’s so hot. Too bad he’s a douchebag.”

Annalise raised an eyebrow. “When has that ever stopped you?”

Meredith laughed. “I may be a notorious flirt, but I’m not stupid. Thomas’s fended off advances from nearly half the girls at this party, and from some of the guys, too. Believe me, that is someone who does not want to get laid and has no qualms making it perfectly clear.”

“Maybe he should,” Annalise grumbled. “Get laid, I mean. That might dislodge the stick up his ass.”

“Such language.” Meredith darted her an admiring glance over the rim of her champagne flute. “Is Being A Potty Mouth 101 on Harvard Med’s curriculum?”

“No, but it’s on the undergraduate syllabus,” Annalise quipped. “Now, Mer, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to go over to Thomas and…”

“Dislodge the stick up his ass?” Meredith suggested, with a grin so evil and lecherous that it made Annalise sputter. “Heavens, I was joking. You haven’t changed one bit. Twenty-three is entirely too old to be so prudish.” She waved Annalise away. “Go and put the fear of God into him.”

 

~*~

 

“May I have a word with you in private.” It was an angry command, not a polite request, hurled through clenched teeth by Annalise Dalton, who would have resembled a Victorian china doll if her ocean-blue eyes hadn’t been throwing daggers at him.

A lazy, insolent smirk curled at the corner of Thomas’s mouth as he shoved away from the pillar and followed Annalise through the noisy, gyrating crowd. The party was admittedly more spirited than he’d expected it to be, but it didn’t change the facts that there wasn’t a bottle of beer in sight and that he had absolutely nothing in common with any of the people in attendance. As a consequence, he was so bored he wanted to scream, and whatever confrontation Annalise had in mind was shaping up to be the most exciting thing to happen to him all evening.

She led him to a deserted spot on the wraparound balcony that was practically half the width of his apartment. A cool wind blew in from the Atlantic, rustling through her golden hair as it skimmed past bare arms that gleamed like ivory against the black water.

“How could you do that?” she demanded. “Whitney was nearly in tears!”

“She’ll get over it as soon as Daddy buys her a new pony.”

“As a matter of fact, she’s been deathly afraid of horses ever since she got thrown off and broke her arm when she was thirteen!” Annalise snapped. “There! Does that humanize her enough for you to feel even the slightest modicum of remorse, you prick?”

“Actually, it doesn’t,” Thomas growled, “because I’m willing to bet that the accident happened on an exclusive family-owned thousand-hectare ranch and, afterwards, she received top-notch medical care from some state-of-the-art hospital where a lowly blue-collar worker wouldn’t be admitted even if they were on the brink of death.”

Annalise stared at him, rose-pink lips parted in shock. Just as he wondered if he’d gotten through to that pampered head of hers, she drew another one of those deep breaths, summoning the ladylike mask that he was not-so-cordially beginning to detest.

“That is beside the point,” she said in a much calmer voice. “You’ve been perfectly awful to everyone tonight. I must ask you to take into consideration that we are all Aggie’s friends and we love him, and that this party is in his honor.”

“I don’t have to take anything into consideration,” he bit out. “Are you conveniently forgetting the fact that I didn’t even want to be here?”

“You’re right,” she said coldly, after another thoughtful pause. “You don’t want to be here, and it was wrong of me to force you to come. You can leave. The Blakes’… your property is within walking distance from here, but it’s dark. I’ll ask James to drive you.”

Unfortunately, Aggie chose that exact moment to rear his big head.

“What on earth are the two of you doing out here?” he demanded, strolling onto the balcony in a charcoal-gray business suit. “The celebration is inside. Hello, Annalise, darling, I’ve missed you. Give us a kiss.”

Annalise… transformed. Her pale face lit up with a huge, joyful smile that made Thomas do a double take, and she flung herself into his cousin’s outstretched arms with childish exuberance. “You’re late!”

“Forgive me.” Aggie gave her a loud, affectionate peck on the cheek. “I hated to miss my own kidnapping, but Mother wouldn’t let me leave the hotel until we’d closed the loopholes in the Harrison contract to her satisfaction. You know how she is.”

“Aunt Dorothea is a brilliant and driven entrepreneur,” Annalise chided him.

“She’s also a compulsive workaholic and a ruthless corporate shark.” Aggie removed one hand from Annalise’s waist to punch Thomas on the shoulder. “How are you holding up, Tom Tom? Collins told me that someone told him you made Whitney Vanderbilt cry.”

“She didn’t cry,” Thomas protested, at the same time that Annalise tensed against Aggie’s chest and said, “Ryan’s here?”

“He arrived right before I did, apparently,” Aggie replied, a faint note of apology creeping into his tone. “You’ll be all right, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Annalise stepped back, her smile still in place, but some of the happiness had faded from her features. “Go inside and get spectacularly drunk, Aggie. I’ll follow.”

“Don’t take too long,” he warned. “Sierra’s just popped open the 1955 Glenfiddich. That won’t last in this crowd.” He aimed a rueful sigh in Thomas’s direction. “I keep insisting to my friends that good Scotch should be savored, not chugged, but they don’t listen.”

“You’re a martyr, Aggie,” Thomas drawled.

“Tell Sierra to put that bottle back where it belongs,” Annalise ordered, her lips tightening in disapproval. “Only fifteen of those have ever been made, and Mr. Reid will never forgive us for wasting it. No, on second thought, I’ll tell her myself, Aggie. Just give me a moment.”

Once his cousin had disappeared through the French doors, Thomas cocked his head at Annalise. “Is this Collins guy an old boyfriend of yours?”

He wasn’t prepared for the look she gave him. It was haunted, wounded. It almost made him apologize.

“I’m going back to the party now,” she mumbled.

“Before you go.” Sheer defensiveness made his voice harsh. She flinched, and he felt like he’d been punched in the gut, but he persevered because there were some things that had to be said. “You called the Blakes’ property mine earlier. That’s not true. My mother was estranged from her parents and siblings until the day she died. Aggie’s side of the family reached out to my sister and me only five years ago. I lay no claim to anything that is theirs.”

She nodded, avoiding his gaze. “So, will you act less rude if I tell everyone to act less rich?”

Her wry attempt at humor earned an undignified snort from him. She flashed a wan yet gratified smirk before she went back inside.

 

~*~

 

Annalise wandered downstairs at ten-thirty the next morning, a white terrycloth robe draped loosely over her pink satin pajamas. She yawned and stretched, luxuriating in the harmonious, elegant atmosphere of the Blakes’ Hamptons house. The entire first level was done up in soft cream and powder blue, with accents of pale gold. The row of French doors overlooking the ocean had been thrown open to let in the sunlight and the summer breeze, and the gauzy chenille-dotted curtains that adorned them streamed like delicate banners over the polished mahogany floors.

She poured herself a cup of freshly-brewed coffee from the pot on the dining table, and then reclined in a chair to focus her gaze on the undulating shimmer of the ocean in the distance, letting the hypnotic azure waves wash away all thoughts of Ryan, her parents’ impending divorce, and the ridiculous amount of studying she had to do for the incoming semester. She was on vacation. She deserved to relax…

Fifteen minutes later, after a trip to her room and back again, Annalise’s copy of High-Yield Neuroanatomy was spread out on the table as she alternated between highlighting important phrases and scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad.

She didn’t notice that Thomas had also made his way downstairs until he spoke up. “I get the feeling that you’re going to be the Dorothea Blake of the medical world.” His voice, low and scratchy from sleep, was mild. It sounded like a peace offering.

“More like the Katherine Dalton of my generation,” Annalise said, without really meaning to.

Thomas hesitated, as if picking up on the vague bitterness behind her words. “Yeah, Aggie mentioned your mom’s a surgeon.”

Her knuckles whitened around the ballpoint pen and she said nothing. He helped himself to coffee as well, and then came the scrape of chair legs across the floor as he took the seat opposite hers. He then proceeded to ignore her in favor of a dog-eared paperback.

“What’s that?” Annalise asked after a while.

Thomas glanced up from the page he was on. “A fictional account of a Yankee hemp farmer taken captive onboard a British prison ship during the American Revolutionary War.”

“Ah,” she quipped, “a bit of light summer reading, then.”

He remained unperturbed. “You’re the one going cross-eyed at diagrams of the human brain.”

Shots having been fired to the satisfaction of both parties, they returned their attention to their respective books. More than an hour had passed when she squinted at the title of his novel, partially obscured from view by his large hand. “Why is it called…?”

“Rebels, turn out your dead was the command issued each morning by British soldiers to the prisoners crammed into the holds of those ships, prompting them to hand up the bodies of their comrades who had died during the night.”

“Ghastly.” Annalise set her pen down beside the legal pad. “Tell me more.”

~*~

 

Still wearing last night’s suit, although it was appallingly wrinkled from having been slept in, Aggie trudged into the dining area pinching the bridge of his aquiline nose. “I am in the throes of the vilest hangover in the history of humankind,” he announced in a hoarse whisper. “Give me an aspirin. No, give me twelve. No, better yet, get Jordan’s sire on the phone so I can commission him to invent the ultimate post-debauchery cure and fly it in before the day ends.”

“I am neither your maid nor your secretary,” Annalise primly reminded him even as she extracted a pill from the pocket of her oversized robe and pressed it into his open palm, as if she had been prepared for the first request. “Jordan’s father is into pharmaceuticals,” she confided to Thomas in an aside.

“Right,” he said, immediately connecting the gangly, gregarious boy’s surname to one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the United States. “Just your humble everyday drug salesman, I suppose.”

Aggie snorted. Annalise rolled her eyes.

Despite his sarcasm, Thomas was in a tolerant mood due to the unexpectedly scintillating conversation he’d had with the rumpled blonde seated across the table. “Pull up a chair,” he invited his ill cousin. “Annalise was just telling me about various congenital defects of the central nervous system.”

“I would rather die from this hangover.” But Aggie sat down, anyway, knocking back the aspirin with a swig of coffee.

“Water,” Annalise insisted, pushing a pitcher swirling with ice cubes and lemon wedges towards him. “You need to hydrate.”

“Annalise’s the mom of the group,” Aggie told Thomas in a fond voice.

“And you’re the perpetual juvenile delinquent,” she retorted. “God, Aggie, I can’t believe you’re getting married in six days.”

“To be fair, he wasn’t the one who planned a party with unlimited amounts of alcohol,” Thomas pointed out.

Annalise rounded on him. “You’re just as bad! You didn’t even try to stop him from playing vodka pong.”

Thomas shrugged. “How can a kid learn from his mistakes if he doesn’t make them?”

“This is the same kid who, the moment he turned eighteen, jetted off to Ibiza and didn’t come home for a month,” she argued. “Trust me, he’s already made every mistake possible.”

“Then he was entirely the wrong sort of person to throw a party for, wasn’t he?” Thomas shot back. “Come on, Annalise, it’s his last week of freedom, we can’t just… Do you mind enlightening us as to what’s so funny?”

The abrupt question was directed to Aggie, whose shoulders were shaking even as every jolt of laughter made him wince and clutch his aching head. “You’re the dad, Tom Tom,” he choked out. “If Annalise’s the mom, then you are definitely the dad.”

Before the two other people at the table could react to this outlandish statement, a svelte, Guerlain-perfumed whirlwind in a jade green sundress burst through the front door. “Aggie, why is Sierra Reid answering your phone?” Elizabeth Stanhope demanded without preamble, narrowing petulant emerald eyes at her hapless fiancé. “Why didn’t you pick me up for our brunch with Daddy? Why do you look like you’ve been put through a blender? Why do you positively reek of alcohol? And, why is Sierra Reid answering your phone?”

“Oh, dear God in heaven,” Aggie moaned, burying his face in his hands.

 

~*~

 

After a freshly-showered, duly-chastened Aggie had been marched out of the house by an irritated Elizabeth to retrieve the phone that he had left at Sierra’s in his drunken stupor, Annalise’s spirits dropped at the familiar expression of sardonic amusement on Thomas’s face. Now that she had gotten to know him better, she could imagine her social circle as seen through his eyes, and it was admittedly not a flattering picture.

“I know Elizabeth can be a handful,” she said in a quiet tone, “but Aggie loves her very much. He cried when she said yes to his proposal.”

“If you ask me, it wasn’t tears of joy,” Thomas grunted. “In all seriousness, though, Aggie is also a handful. They’re both too young and too spoiled to get married. Hell, even if decent people can’t make it work…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “They’ll be at each other’s throats before the first anniversary.”

“You don’t know that,” Annalise grated out. The conversation was hitting too close to home.

“Bet?” he sneered, a shuttered look in the brown eyes that had been fiery and intense not so long ago, when he was spinning her stories of revolution. Without waiting for her answer, he grabbed his book from the table and stalked back upstairs, the thunder of his footsteps echoing the slow beat of her heart.

 

~*~

 

Why this? Thomas silently asked a twisted, uncaring universe. Why me?

Like last night, he was leaning against a pillar and watching the rising stars of the Manhattan society pages burn their parents’ money on expensive liquor. Unlike last night, he was doing this in a crowded, smoky bar that had grand delusions of someday lifting off into space. To top it all off, he was also being subjected to the horror of his cousin sticking his tongue down his fiancée’s throat. Thomas had assumed that Augustus Blake IV and Elizabeth Rothschild Stanhope would be above something as plebeian as making out in public, but tequila was the great equalizer.

He turned away so that the couple wouldn’t be in his immediate line of sight. Unfortunately, this action brought him face-to-face with James.

“Thomas.” The mayor’s son offered a brief, perfunctory nod. “How are you finding East End?”

“Fascinating,” Thomas succinctly replied. James nodded again, his enigmatic dark eyes scanning the glittering throng with a trace of urgency. “If you’re looking for Annalise, she’s over at the bar.”

“No, no, I know where she is,” James hastened to assure him. “I have, however, been charged to discreetly remove Ryan Collins from the vicinity, should he make an appearance.”

“Annalise doesn’t forgive and forget, huh?” Thomas hazarded.

James flashed the toothy, polished, all-American smile that ensured it wouldn’t be long before he followed in William Van der Kleef’s footsteps. “Jacqueline was the one who gave the order. She just flew in from Europe.”

Thomas cheered up considerably at the mention of the one friend of Aggie’s whom he could stomach. He spotted her a few minutes later, holding a beer. Granted, it was in a sophisticated black bottle labeled something German in curly gold font, but it was still a beer. Good old Jacqueline. He’d met her two years ago during the first and only cruise that Aggie had managed to rope him into, and she’d pushed Hammond Thatcher overboard after one obnoxious comment too many. Amazing, all-star Jacqueline. Her father was Eulalio Reyes, the international airline magnate, but she didn’t let that go to her head. Excellent, incomparable Jacqueline.

“What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” Thomas drawled, inserting himself into the brunette’s path.

“Wondering what the hell you did to Annalise, you asshole!” she snarled, all venom, her skinny frame vibrating with restless fury.

He blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jacqueline muttered something in Spanish under her breath. He couldn’t quite decipher it through the relentless wall of Cherry Station’s cloying, bass-driven music, but he got the gist, his sour mood returning as quickly as it had dissipated.

Her ire having been satisfactorily vented in her native language, Jacqueline switched back to English. “Princess Harvard Summa Cum Laude is drunk off her ass. At first, I thought it was because Ryan’s in town, but the culprit seems to be you.”

“I haven’t said a word to her all evening,” protested Thomas, feeling unjustly vilified. “I have no idea what her problem is.”

“Then why is she telling the shot-glasses that you are the worst, meanest, most coldhearted person to walk the face of the earth?”

Biting back a frustrated epithet, Thomas stormed off in the direction of the bar, determined to get to the root of the issue once and for all. It wasn’t long before he spotted Annalise’s mass of shining hair draped over the chrome countertop where she was, indeed, having an intense discussion with a row of empty shot-glasses. He wrapped one hand around the silken fabric encasing her upper arm just as a new tune started to play over the speakers.

“I love this song!” Annalise exclaimed, bringing her head up, baring the porcelain hollow of her throat to the pink-and-purple wash of Cherry Station’s flickering neon lights. She caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye and squealed in a childish, delighted way that reminded him uncannily of his younger sister, Melody. “Aggie, you unconscionable hedonist, I love you!”

Annalise spun around and, before Thomas could prepare himself, before he could do anything more than stare at the exquisite, heartbreaking beauty of her face and think, Oh, this girl, she launched herself at him, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Her arms looped at his neck as his hands automatically fell to her waist, and she brought her thighs around his hips and swayed into him, and they toppled to the floor.

Sprawled on his back on the cold tiles, Thomas’s pulse raced wildly as an inebriated Annalise Dalton buried her dazed smile in his neck, her soft lips tracing delicate patterns on his skin. The song glided into its soaring chorus, the music a distant roar in his ears while the lyrics sliced into his thoughts with startling clarity. I’ll run away with your footsteps, I’ll build a city that dreams for two. His whole world had narrowed down to the warm, curving body above his, molded to every inch of him as perfectly as a missing puzzle piece. Her golden hair splayed across his face, and it smelled like rain and roses.

“You’ve got the wrong Blake again, princess,” he whispered. Did he imagine it, the shudder that suddenly coursed through her body at the sound of his voice?

“What?” she cried, propping herself up on her elbows to look at him. And, just like that, her eyes were the ocean, her mouth was only inches away from his…

She scrambled off of him, her movements so unintentionally sensual that he had to grit his teeth. The song looped back to its chorus, Yeah, you always make me go, and she got to her feet and slurred, “Don’t call me that.”

Thomas stood up as well, ignoring the curious glances being leveled in their direction. “A lot of people call you that.”

“Yes, but.” Annalise squeezed her eyes shut. “It sounds different when you…” She abruptly cut herself off, frozen as still as a statue.

And then she passed out.

 

~*~

 

Waves. Darkness. A dream?

Splinters of neon. Circle of concerned faces. Hands all over her, rough palms, achingly gentle. Don’t let this be a dream.

Annalise woke up. Stars shone down from the black heavens in a rain of silver light. Saving grace, she thought, for no reason other than it seemed like the right combination of words for such a moment, as she floated through layers of fog, back to consciousness, back to the land of the living.

She was in her car, the top down, the doors open, the passenger seat reclined. A strong breeze fanned over her face, salty and ice-cold. She was at the beach, the white-capped Atlantic crashing against sands etched in moonlight. She was with Thomas, a brooding figure in the driver’s seat, his hands on the steering wheel as he gazed out the windshield and probably saw the ghostly lines of long-ago prison ships beckoning from somewhere on the horizon, sinking beneath the weight of departed souls. Rebels, turn out your dead.

“Where…” Her tongue was sluggish, her throat parched. She tried again. “Where are we?”

“Not far from the house,” he replied in clipped and measured tones. “Aggie told me to take you straight home, but I thought the fresh air might sober you up a bit.”

Annalise’s brow furrowed. “I drank.”

“Yeah, you did.” Thomas glanced at her over his shoulder, his teasing smirk stained silver by a wash of moonlight. “Like a trooper, too. May I ask why?”

Memory returned in snatches of music, wisps of scenes, gradually coalescing into a vague timeline of events. “I was afraid Ryan would show up. I was mad at you. I was talking to Jacqueline. I… hugged you… and knocked you to the floor.”

“You thought I was Aggie.”

“Well, stop looking so much like him!” she burst out, mortified beyond belief.

“I’ll try my best,” he gamely promised. “Now, why were you mad at me?”

“Because you’re mad at everything.” She was still a little drunk, and too tired to hide behind meaningless pleasantries. “Fair’s fair.”

He laughed, a mellow, raspy sound that echoed through her bones. “You drive a hard bargain, Annalise Dalton.”

“That was nothing compared to what I’m going to say next,” she jauntily warned him, starlight and alcohol and something in the way he moved making her throw all caution to the wind. “I’ve indulged your curiosity, so it’s only right that you do the same for mine. I want to ask you a question.”

He tensed. “What sort of question?”

“The best way to describe a question is to ask it,” she retorted.

“Smartass.” It was too dark to see his face, but she could practically feel him glowering at her. “All right, shoot.”

“I would like to understand how you came to be the way you are now,” Annalise said with gentle, solemn sincerity. “Your aversion to marriage, your contempt for people like me, I want to know where that comes from. I am interested in history, and why you like history, and…” And why you make me feel the way I do, her treacherous thoughts supplied. Why you get under my skin. She was desperate to figure him out, this silhouette of a boy caught in the glimmering nets of July constellations.

“That’s an awful lot of questions,” Thomas mused after an unbearably long pause.

“Why, have you got something better to do?” she snapped, all frayed nerves and tremulous, pounding heart.

When he didn’t reply, her cheeks colored in both embarrassment and fury. She sat up, and stumbled out of the car.

 

~*~

 

Thomas followed Annalise across the dunes after locking the Aston Martin and slipping its keys into the pocket of his bargain-bin jeans. In the span of twenty-four hours, he’d had to endure getting kidnapped, rebuffing the advances of heiresses at a billionaire supermodel’s house, carrying a drunk girl out of a bar, and driving a fucking convertible, and now he was stumbling through a deserted beach at night in a belligerent effort to prevent aforementioned drunk girl from either taking a nasty fall or drowning in the ocean. God, he couldn’t wait to go back to Brooklyn.

Annalise stopped at the edge of the water, her loose golden hair streaming in the wind. Clad in a floaty, long-sleeved white dress that billowed around her knees, she reminded Thomas of a sea nymph watching a lover sail away. He had to shake his head to dispel the illusion, but it was only further strengthened when she turned melancholy sapphire eyes to him as he, too, halted in his tracks. Her pale, pristine features glowed beneath the silver moon. He had never before seen anyone look so beautiful, or so ethereal, or so alone.

“My mother eloped with a construction worker when she was nineteen.” The words spilled from Thomas’s lips before he could stop them. “Her father, Aggie’s and my grandfather, I guess, was so enraged that he cut her out of the will and forbid his remaining children from seeing or even speaking to her. The construction worker wasn’t too happy about that, he’d been counting on the Blake fortune, you see, and he took off when I was four months old. Two years later, Mom fell in love with some sleazy accountant who was already married, and he dumped her when she got pregnant with my sister Melody.”

Annalise was listening to him quietly, her expression more intense than horrified, but he found that he couldn’t stand to see the pity that was surely clouding those amazing eyes, so he forced his gaze to the black Atlantic instead. “Mel and I grew up in the slums of Hartford,” he continued. “Mom waitressed, took in the washing, temped part-time, anything to make ends meet. To this day, I still can’t figure out how she managed to do it, raising two kids by herself, keeping us fed and clothed, sending us to school. Mel and I were working students, of course, but that could barely have helped.” It all came crashing back to him with every wave that collapsed against the sand, the freezing winters, the sleepless nights, the biting hunger of those early years. “I was a senior in college when Mom got mugged on her way home. Some crazy junkie wanted her wallet and her grocery bags. He pulled a knife on her.”

Thomas waited for a genteel gasp or some other daintily scandalized reaction from the affluent socialite beside him who probably thought street crime only happened in the movies, but Annalise remained silent. “The police identified her as Imogen Blake, and it made the news. I mean, why wouldn’t it? Daughter of hotel industry giant worth billions of dollars, stabbed to death in an alley over some lousy eggs and a carton of milk.” His tone was flat, but he was speaking more quickly now, skimming over the pain that would always be there. “Her father read about it in the paper while he was having breakfast in his Greenwich mansion, and he promptly had a fatal heart attack. After a month passed, some obnoxious Yalie with a Psi Upsilon pin on his lapel showed up at my doorstep and wouldn’t leave until Mel and I invited him in for lunch, and here I am, five years later, at the goddamned Hamptons for his wedding.” Thomas chuckled, but the sound was devoid of humor. “Funny how life works out.”

Smooth, cool fingers tentatively latched at the sleeve of his jacket. He didn’t move, continued watching the ocean instead, the breeze stinging his eyes.

“You can ask me another question now,” Annalise offered in a small voice.

This time, his rumble of laughter was genuine. Warm, even to his own ears. He turned to her at long last; there was no trace of pity in her expression, just something indecipherable and soft that, for some reason, made him think of the term saving grace. “How did Ryan Collins break your heart?”

Instead of answering immediately, she sank to the ground first, pulling at his sleeve as she went. He followed her down. The sand sparkled moonlit silver all around them, and she explained how Ryan had two-timed her and Jacqueline. The stars shone in the sky over their heads, and she revealed that her parents were getting a divorce. The Atlantic currents rolled in with the night breeze, and she told him everything.

 

~*~

 

Brunch the next day was a sumptuous affair hosted by Dorothea Blake in the garden of the hotel that her husband owned. A fleet of smartly-dressed waiters moved unobtrusively amidst the guests, serving Cobb salad and terrine to suave cuff-linked politicians and businessmen discussing Wall Street matters; refilling the mimosas and Bellinis of country-club wives who were gossiping beneath silk-ribboned straw hats; and, in the case of the tables occupied by the younger set, bringing copious amounts of water and Bloody Mary cocktails to those who had been at Cherry Station the previous night and were valiantly trying to hide the aftereffects from their parents.

Richard Green cast a dubious glance at the platter of deviled eggs in front of him. “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.”

A gray-faced Jordan Horowitz nodded assent. “I apologize in advance for my absence at your wedding, Liz, on account of the fact that I shall have succumbed to liver failure long before then.”

“I won’t be able to make it to my wedding, either,” whispered Elizabeth Stanhope, discreetly massaging her temple with a couple of gloved fingers. “What a shame. I’m certain I would have made a beautiful bride.”

“Look on the bright side,” drawled Sierra Reid, her bloodshot eyes hidden from view by a pair of Jackie O sunglasses. “You can rest in peace knowing that I’ll be there to console your devastated groom.”

It was a pointed reference to Elizabeth’s knee-jerk reaction to Sierra answering Aggie’s phone the other day. Several people chuckled as Elizabeth shuddered. “Sierra, no. With a face and a figure like yours, you are expressly forbidden from making jokes like that.”

Annalise was only half-listening to the desultory banter. Try as she might, she couldn’t resist sneaking glances at Thomas, who was talking quietly to Jacqueline at the other end of the long table.

Most of the boys present were lounging casually in their chairs, each one automatically adopting their preference from the various acceptable sitting positions that had been drilled into them since childhood. They conversed with almost-identical looks of slight boredom on their faces, although sometimes they would throw back their heads in courteously modulated laughter or flash just the proper amount of perfect teeth in a charming, sophisticated smile. Occasionally, they would beckon a waiter over by holding up a languid, imperious hand, not even bothering to look around because they took it for granted that someone would hurry to answer their summons. These were boys who had grown up with the assurance that the world belonged to them, that their futures had been secured long ago by virtue of their family names.

Thomas Blake stuck out like a sore thumb. In deference to his Aunt Dorothea’s sensibilities, he’d borrowed a white dress shirt and a navy blazer from Aggie, but he would periodically pull at the sleeves or tug the collar away from his neck with a resentful frown. He sat in his chair tightly coiled into himself, like a panther poised to leap, his dark eyes smoldering with banked fires. In stark contrast to the cool, graceful people that surrounded him, Thomas possessed the combative air of someone who’d fought the world all his life, someone for whom nothing had ever come easy.

And Annalise was… drawn to him. She realized that with a start. His raw forcefulness called out to her, touching off inner chords in the parts of her that wanted to scream at her parents and push Ryan into a volcano, appearances be damned.

“Speaking of the groom,” Lara Schoenberg was saying, her pale blue-gray eyes wandering around the garden, “where on earth has he got to?”

“He went to fetch his cousin Melody at the bus station,” Elizabeth replied. “They should be along any minute.”

“Bus station?” Meredith Winters echoed with a hint of puzzlement, at the same time that James asked, “Have we met Melody? I don’t recall the name.”

“You’re not likely to,” Annalise found herself saying, much to her chagrin. “She’s Thomas’s sister.”

At the mention of Thomas, several teasing pairs of eyes immediately swiveled to Whitney, who pouted and said, “I was having an off night, shut up.”

“What precisely did he say to make you storm off like that?” Sierra wanted to know.

“Nothing, actually,” Whitney replied. “He just sneered at me.”

“Thomas does have a rather impressive sneer,” Jordan mused. “He’s so angry all the time.”

“Immovable,” declared Meredith. “Perhaps you should try your luck, Sierra.”

The supermodel’s red lips curved into a smirk, all high cheekbones and sultry color beneath her dark sunglasses. “I doubt that even I could move him.”

“Annalise doesn’t seem to be having any problems in that area,” Richard hooted. “The way he swept her into his arms last night, like a knight in shining armor!”

Annalise bristled, but, before she could scold Richard for bringing up her appalling behavior at Cherry Station, Hammond Thatcher gave an elegant snort. “You mean like a vagrant in Sears jeans,” he cruelly corrected.

James frowned. “I’m hardly a Thomas Blake fan, but there’s no call for that, Ham.”

A look of irritation shaded the other boy’s azure eyes. “What?” he demanded with an uncaring shrug. “We all know he’s not like us. He lives in Brooklyn.”

Annalise stood up, removing the table napkin from her lap and, with a supreme amount of effort, setting it beside her plate instead of hurling it in Hammond’s face. “Excuse me,” she said icily.

As she walked away, she heard Hammond make a derogatory remark about her attitude and how it was no wonder that Ryan Collins cheated on her. That odious little… She took a fortifying deep breath, and let it go.

~*~

 

A reluctant grin found its way to Thomas’s face when he returned from the washroom and saw Annalise standing by the rose bushes, glaring at the salad bar. A solicitous waiter hovered nearby, but she dismissed him with a gentle shake of her head and a smile that, while not quite reaching her eyes, was gracious all the same. Then she resumed her stare-down with the buffet table.

Thomas had been surreptitiously glancing at her the whole morning, thanks in part to the sleeveless dress that clung snugly to her curves, its lemon-yellow color bringing out the ivory quality of her flawless skin and the deep blue-green hue of her eyes. Against a backdrop of dewy white rose petals and dark green leaves, the effect was elegantly picturesque; he almost couldn’t believe this was the same girl who had mischievously hauled him into the backseat of a pickup truck, who had tackled him to the floor of a smoky bar before passing out, whom he’d swapped secrets with on a moonlit beach while her hair tumbled all about her face in a windswept mess.

“There you are!” Jacqueline exclaimed, nudging him on her way back to their table with a platter of tea cakes. “Come on, let’s… Where are you going?”

“I have to talk to someone,” Thomas absentmindedly replied, already making his way to Annalise.

 

~*~

 

“Whatever it is you’re glowering at, I don’t think it has very long to live,” a raspy voice murmured in Annalise’s ear.

She whirled around, suppressing the nervous flutter in her stomach at the sight of Thomas grinning down at her, his hair an unruly mop of chestnut curls beneath the late morning sun. “About last night…” she started to say, torn between dismay at her drunken antics, embarrassment at forcing his life story out of him, and the fear that he would belittle her own. Divorcing parents and a cheating ex-boyfriend were minimal problems compared to the hardships that he’d suffered.

Thomas cut her off with a shrug. “Your secrets are safe with me, as I trust mine are with you,” he said firmly.

Annalise relaxed. “Thank you. I…”

She was interrupted again, this time by a shrill squeal as a flurry of slender limbs and long mahogany tresses descended on Thomas in a tight, boisterous embrace. “You jerk! Why didn’t you meet me at the bus station? Aggie said you were still asleep when he left, what did you do last night, probably with some snooty Upper East Side princess…”

“Hey, Mel.” Annalise was utterly transfixed by the tender expression that lit up Thomas’s stern features as he greeted his sister and returned her hug. “This is Annalise, the snooty Upper East Side princess, and we didn’t do anything. We just talked on the beach until late.”

Melody tore her face away from her brother’s chest. Bold, sweeping brows furrowed over sparkling aquamarine eyes that studied Annalise intently, before softening to mirror the irrepressible grin that worked its way onto sensually-molded lips. “Talking on the beach until late, huh? That’s a new one.”

“How do you do,” Annalise said politely, trying not to stare. This girl was gorgeous. She didn’t look like Thomas, but she possessed the same uncompromising magnetism that emanated from every inch of his frame.

Aggie sauntered up to them, kissing Annalise on the cheek and clapping Thomas on the shoulder before taking Melody’s arm. “Come along, Mel, allow me to introduce you to the gang.”

“The gang?” Melody repeated incredulously, her gaze snapping to the table that Aggie was leading her to. “Isn’t that Sierra Reid? And Mayor Van der Kleef’s son? And the Vanderbilt heiress? The gang?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Thomas promised her with a long-suffering sigh.

 

~*~

 

Sunset found Thomas and Annalise on the back porch of the Blakes’ summerhouse, sitting in companionable silence with their noses buried in their respective books. She was doing some more advanced reading for the incoming semester at Harvard Med, while he was getting started on a biography of Genghis Khan. They hadn’t changed out of their brunch attire, but the blazer that Aggie had loaned him was draped over the back of his deck chair, while her hair was slowly reverting to its natural state of frizz.

All of a sudden, Annalise giggled. Thomas looked up from the page he was on and inquired, “What’s so funny?”

“The look on your face earlier at the hotel,” she said, “when the boys were practically stumbling all over themselves to be the first one to shake Melody’s hand.”

Thomas grimaced. Annalise laughed again, warm dulcet tones that rang out in the sleepy, cooling air. “I’ve always wondered what it was like to have an overprotective older brother,” she admitted with a hint of ruefulness.

“Mel hates it.” He went back to his book, but glanced up at her again when she asked, “You’re finished with the prison-ship novel already?”

“I read fast. You, however, seem to be stuck on the finer points of neuroanatomy.”

Annalise wrinkled her nose. “This is why I hate summering in the Hamptons. I can never get any work done here… Why are you smirking?”

“Summering in the Hamptons,” he mocked. “God, you’re such a WASP.”

Affronted, she reached out across the space between them to smack his leg with her heavy textbook. He retaliated by tweaking a loose strand of her golden hair, feeling strangely lighthearted and carefree, with the ocean frothing in the distance, with her eyes gleaming in the red-gold light.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Melody was observing the scene with avid fascination from the bottom of the stairs leading up to the back porch, damp and tanned from her afternoon swim.

“How long have you been standing there?” Thomas demanded.

“Long enough,” his sister blithely shot back, tracking sand onto the porch as she sidled up to them.

Annalise glanced at the Patek Phillipe glimmering on her wrist. “I should start getting dressed for Elizabeth’s bachelorette.”

“You’re already dressed,” Thomas pointed out, not wanting her to leave just yet.

“There’s a theme,” she informed him haughtily, eliciting a chuckle from him as she disappeared into the house.

He stopped staring after her only when he sensed the weight of his sister’s penetrating gaze. “What?” he barked out, defensively.

“You looked up from your book,” Melody breathed in a tone of immense wonder. “Every time she talked to you, you actually stopped reading. Thomas, you never do that. Not even with me!”

His eyes narrowed. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that I was expecting you to be your usual grouchy self,” Melody said impatiently. “In fact, I was mad at my boss for granting me only a four-day leave, because I was dying to see you scare off all these Town & Country people. But, the minute I arrive, I see you grinning at Annalise like a lovesick idiot, and, I mean, really, Thomas, cavorting on a beach in the moonlight? That’s so not you.”

“I wasn’t cavorting,” he protested, but, whatever annoyance he was feeling at the moment, he directed it at himself instead of Melody. His sister knew him like the back of her hand; if she was noting irregularities in his behavior, there was no reason to deny it. He had foolishly allowed a pair of pretty blue eyes to breach his defenses, and he had to put a stop to it before it was too late. There was no place for someone like Annalise in his world, and he would rather die before he got swept up in hers.

 

~*~

 

In sheer defiance of the amount of alcohol that the human body could reasonably consume in a week, there was one last party the night before Aggie and Elizabeth’s wedding. This time, it was held onboard the enormous, ostentatious private yacht that Ryan Collins’ parents had given him for his twenty-second birthday.

Even as she stood on the breezy deck making idle chatter with Whitney and Lara, Annalise was in a foul mood. Not only had she been dragged to a party hosted by Ryan, but Thomas had been avoiding her like the plague ever since she got home from Elizabeth’s bachelorette the other night. Her attempts at small talk had been met with either curt one-liners or brooding silence. Every time she walked into a room, he excused himself from it as soon as possible. And, even now, he was huddled with Melody on the far end of the deck, steadfastly refusing to meet Annalise’s eyes.

She wanted to march over to him and shout, “What the hell did I do?” right into his stupid, handsome face. However, the rigorous etiquette that her world had demanded from her since childhood prevented her from doing so, and kept a pleasant smile fixed on her face.

She forced herself to listen to the conversation that she’d inadvertently lost track of. Whitney and Lara were discussing an international trade agreement that directly affected their family’s respective companies, and Annalise’s plastic smile softened with genuine fondness. The tabloids liked to depict these two as empty-headed, high-flying socialites, ignoring the fact that they both held business degrees from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

But they were still socialites, so it wasn’t long before Whitney picked up on Annalise’s lack of interest in the topic at hand. “I think we’re putting Dr. Dalton to sleep,” she teasingly commented.

“I’m not a doctor yet,” Annalise reminded her with a laugh.

“Have you decided on a specialty?” Lara inquired.

Annalise put herself through the motions. More chatting, more smiling. The evening stretched on, false and hollow and glittering over the still, dark waters of the Atlantic.

 

~*~

 

“Let’s blow this joint,” Thomas grumbled to Melody as the clock ticked midnight. “I’m bored.”

“You wouldn’t be if you just talked to Annalise, like you so obviously want to,” Melody shot back, indicating the blonde on the other end of the deck. “You’ve been staring at her all evening whenever you think no one’s looking.”

“Have not,” Thomas said crossly, because he certainly hadn’t been devouring the sight of Annalise in a sleek black dress and strappy heels that made her legs go on for miles. “It’s this suit that Aggie made me wear, it’s itchy…”

“I know what itch you want to scratch, all right,” Melody quipped with an evil little smirk.

Aggie’s voice floated up from the crowd. “It’s my wedding day!” he yelled, raising his wineglass to a chorus of cheers and applause. “Where is my bride? Lizzie, where are you?”

“She went home over an hour ago, old boy,” James called. “She told you that she needed her beauty sleep, remember?”

“I have to see her,” Aggie slurred happily, shoving his wineglass at the nearest waiter. “I have to tell her that I’ll love her for the rest of my life.”

“Which will be rather brief if you barge into her house and wake her up,” James wryly pointed out, but he was already reaching for his keys with good-natured resignation. “Come on, you good-for-nothing drunkard. I’ll drive you to the Stanhope place. You can retrieve your car in the morning.”

“Oh, Thomas can drive it,” Aggie replied, tossing his own car keys in the direction of his cousin.

After James and Aggie had left, Thomas scowled at the Jaguar logo in his palm. “Do you know that I also had to drive an Aston Martin a few nights ago? Do you have any idea how this makes me feel?”

“Like a class traitor,” Melody responded with a small laugh. “At least we don’t have to call for a cab anymore, if you really want to go home.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas noticed that Annalise was engaged in a heated discussion with Hammond Thatcher, who was clutching her arm and leaning in way too close. Annalise shook off Hammond’s grip and stormed off with icy dignity, and, smirking a little, Hammond staggered after her.

“You can drive,” Thomas said to Melody, pressing the keys into her hand. “But, before we leave, there’s something I have to take care of first.”

 

~*~

 

Annalise’s Louboutin’s clicked on the narrow wooden dock as she put as much distance as possible between her and the yacht, wanting nothing more than to get into her car and drive back to Aggie’s house. Hell, in the mood she was in, she felt like driving all the way back to the condo in New York! So what if her best friend was getting married in several hours?

“Aww, don’t be like that, Dalton,” Hammond whined as he chased her, his voice foggy with the rum he’d been inhaling all evening. “I can show you a good time…”

Since their parents were friends and she’d known him since childhood, Annalise could be very patient with Hammond and his smarmy, lecherous ways. But, tonight, combined with Thomas’s inexplicable coldness and the apologetic, wounded-puppy looks that Ryan had been shooting her ever since she set foot on his yacht, Hammond’s advances were the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. The second his fingers closed at her elbow, she whirled around and punched him.

Unfortunately, Thomas was directly behind Hammond, one hand clamped on the other boy’s shoulder, and Hammond had already turned to see who was touching him, inadvertently dodging Annalise’s wild swing. Her fist sailed right into the side of Thomas’s strong jaw.

“Oh!” She blinked, gaping at him. “I’m so sorry!”

“Goddamnit, fuck!” he replied.

“There’s no need to take that tone,” she snapped, offended.

His liquid dark eyes shot her a look of disbelief, before flickering to Hammond. “Get lost.”

Hammond drew himself up with the sulky disdain cultivated by several illustrious generations’ worth of careful breeding. “I will do no such thing.”

“If you don’t hightail your prissy little ass back to that ridiculous boat at the count of five,” Thomas hissed, “I will make you wish you drowned on that cruise two years ago.”

Hammond paled, and ran.

Once she and Thomas were alone on the dock, Annalise sought to cover up the silence with awkward small talk. “I remember hearing that Jacqueline pushed him overboard while on a cruise. I didn’t know you were there.”

“It was the most hellish six days of my life,” Thomas said, slowly and fiercely, still rubbing his aching jaw. “I was trapped in an enclosed space with a dozen spoiled rich kids, and, with the exception of Jacqueline, I wanted to throw all of them overboard. I was steeling myself to face a similar situation when I came here for Aggie’s wedding. I was prepared to meet scores of obnoxious people who were completely out of touch with reality. But then I met you.”

The last sentence dropped between them with the weight of an anchor. Something tentative yet hopeful rose in Annalise’s chest. “And I’m… better than them?”

“No, you’re much worse!” Thomas shouted. “You make me not want to throw you overboard!”

She kissed him. A wave of the most exquisite relief, sweet and sharp, made her close the distance between her and this wild, furious boy made of shadows and moonlight. It was nothing more than a soft, dry brush of lips, because the way he tensed brought her to her senses, and she quickly stepped back.

Silver-streaked ocean burbled all around them as he stared at her. His large fingers slid from his jaw to his mouth, from the spot where she’d punched him to the place where she’d kissed him. He looked like he was waging some inscrutable inner battle with himself.

Annalise started to apologize, but then Thomas flashed a self-deprecating smirk. “Funny,” he drawled, in a voice like smoke, “I thought you would kiss a hell lot harder than you punch.”

Then his hands were at her waist and he was drawing her close, and his lips were on hers, warm and searching and soft. They moved each other.

 

~*~

 

Augustus Blake IV, twenty-three-year-old scion of a vast hotel empire, whose reign as Greenwich and Manhattan’s Most Eligible Bachelor would soon be coming to a glorious end, stumbled into the foyer of his family’s opulent vacation home, whistling a jaunty tune. He was a bit inebriated still, and also giddy from the memory of the reluctantly affectionate smile that Elizabeth, in curlers and a dressing gown, had bestowed on him before she kicked him out of her house. His beautiful and cranky fiancée, who had coolly ripped the prenuptial agreement in half in front of her aghast father and a roomful of lawyers. He loved her so much.

Aggie’s spirits were considerably dampened when he flicked on the lights and saw his best friend curled up on the couch, weeping her little heart out. “Annalise, darling, whatever is the matter?” he cried, rushing to her side.

She sank into him, shoulders shaking with painful, heartbreaking sobs. He held her until the worst of it had subsided, when she shifted away and gazed at him with wet, red-rimmed eyes.

“My parents are getting a divorce,” she announced. “I’ve known for ages. I can’t take holding it in anymore.”

Aggie blanched. “You should have told me sooner.”

“I didn’t want to ruin your wedding.”

“You’re always thinking about other people,” he chided her, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “You’ve always been there for me and our other friends ever since we were kids. You keep forgetting that we’re here for you, too.”

Annalise’s pale face crumpled, like she was about to burst into a fresh round of tears. “I think Ryan Collins is a son-of-a-bitch who didn’t deserve either me or Jacqueline.”

“You’ll find no argument from me there,” Aggie murmured, while reflecting on the fact that he’d never heard Annalise Dalton call anyone such a crass term before.

“And I think I might be falling in love with your cousin.”

Aggie blinked, but soldiered on. “And that’s bad because…?”

After a long, thoughtful pause, she mumbled, “I don’t know. It just seems like the kind of thing that would be bad.”

“And is it?” Aggie pressed.

“No,” Annalise said, a little resentfully.

He laughed. “There you have it, then.”

From outside came a familiar screech of tires, and then angry, stomping footsteps, and then the front door was practically ripped off its hinges, revealing Thomas’s thunderous face. “You and I need to talk,” he told Annalise in an awful voice.

Melody peeked out from behind her brother and caught Aggie’s eye, tilting her head meaningfully in the direction of the staircase. Aggie nodded, giving Annalise one last pat on the shoulder before standing up.

As he passed by Thomas, Aggie couldn’t resist smirking at his enraged cousin. “I’ll just sign you right up for that Harlequin subscription, shall I?” he teased, before accompanying Melody up the stairs.

 

~*~

 

Thomas followed Annalise’s quiet, measured steps out of the house and onto the beach. She’d taken her heels off, and, as he finally drew level with her halfway to the waterline, he was suddenly conscious of how tiny she was. She’d always seemed taller somehow, carrying herself with regal aplomb, getting all up in his face. But now she was hunched down, warding off the blows of the cold Atlantic breeze.

He took off his suit jacket and silently draped it over her shoulders. He had absolutely no idea what to say. He couldn’t believe she’d scampered away from him after they’d shared the most earth-shattering kiss of his life. He hadn’t even known that kisses could feel like that. Until her.

Annalise took another one of those deep breaths. Before he could stop himself, Thomas snarled, “No. Don’t hide behind that high-society-robot mask of yours. Say what you’re really thinking, what you’re really feeling. Don’t be a coward, princess.”

She scowled, sparks of anger electrifying those huge eyes that were still wet with tears. “I told you not to call me that.”

“If you think I’m always going to do what you tell me to, you’re in for a bad time,” he retorted. “But you’re never going to do what I tell you to, anyway, so fair’s fair.”

“I study in Boston,” she warned him. “I’ll only be able to fly home for the holidays and stuff.”

His nonchalant shrug belied the way his heart was pounding crazily inside his chest. “There’s this little thing called the Internet.”

She moved on to the next point of contention. “You hate my friends.”

“In my defense, it’s very hard not to.”

She bit back a smile. “You’re a cynic,” she said, throwing it out like another line of defense.

“And I don’t understand how you’re not,” he countered. “But I think you can make me understand.” He swallowed, and then grudgingly admitted, “I mean, if anyone’s got a shot, it’s you.”

“In the span of six days, I’ve kidnapped you, knocked you to the ground, and punched you in the face.”

“Best six days of my life,” he averred, and was only a little surprised to realize that it was true. “So, come on.” He said it like a challenge. “What’s it going to be?”

 

~*~

 

Annalise was out of reasons, out of recriminations, and all out of fight. Thomas was frowning down at her, half-caught in the golden glow of the porch lights, half-plunged in the darkness of the shore. The wind tossed his messy hair into his brown eyes, and still he continued looking at her, refusing to let her or himself back down, waiting, so fierce and brave.

She took a step forward, grabbing hold of his wrists. His face softened and he leaned down, resting his forehead against hers.

“I really should stop cavorting on moonlit beaches,” Thomas Blake murmured, with a catch in his voice. “It’s bad for my reputation.”

Annalise Dalton laughed, and walked into the wilderness.