The Isle of Vanishing Suitors

The champagne flute was cold against your fingers, a small mercy in the stifling heat of the room. You'd been standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows for twenty minutes, watching the Pacific gnaw at the cliffs below, when Julian Kane's voice cut through the murmur of conversation.

"Dr. Whitmore." He said your name like he was testing its weight. "You've been studying that horizon as if it owes you money."

You turned. He was closer than you'd expected—close enough to catch the salt on his skin, the faint cedar of his cologne. The other four women had clustered near the fireplace, laughing at something Elise had said, but Julian's attention was a laser, and it was fixed entirely on you.

"Old habit," you said. "I like to know my exits."

His smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "There are no exits here. That's rather the point."

The words landed like a stone in still water. Behind him, the head housekeeper—Mara, you'd been told—moved through the room with the silent precision of a predator, extinguishing candles one by one.