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friendship. And he didn't trust himself enough to take her to dinner and then take her home. He knew himself well enough to know he'd finagle an invitation inside and then he'd be facing either rejection or disaster.
    So he'd rescinded his invitation. He'd made some lame excuse about how he'd just remembered a previous engagement. He'd told her he'd see her in the morning at the house on Pelican Street, and he'd gotten the hell out of there.
    He'd gone home and showered and changed and headed for the resort. That was when he met Chloe. She'd been wearing a gauzy beach cover-up over a microscopic bikini that was a polar opposite to the bathing suit Frankie had been wearing earlier that day. Chloe had accepted hisdinner invitation immediately, boldly inviting him up to her suite while she showered and changed.
    He'd declined.
    What was wrong with him? He'd asked Chloe to dinner with the express intention of going back to her room with her tonight. It was an attempt to substitute a more experienced player into the game he'd started with Frankie. It was an attempt to curb this incredible sense of restlessness that was surely caused by sexual need.
    But it wasn't working—at least not the way he'd planned.
    Because despite her sexy dress and make-it-with-me shoes, Chloe left him cold.
    “Simon, isn't it?” Clay Quinn said with a smile, raising his voice to be heard over the dance band that had begun playing in the corner of the room. “Nice to see you again.”
    Frankie turned around to find Simon standing behind her.
    He was dressed in the island's version of semi-formal—lightweight ivory pants and a pastel-green polo shirt, sandals on his feet. The colorswent well with his thick blond hair and his tropical tan. He looked good.
Too
good. Frankie forced her eyes back to her plate.
    “I didn't expect to run into you here.” Simon's words were addressed to her.
    She braced herself before she glanced back up at him. “I called Clay to say that I'd remembered Jazz's last name—it's Chester—and he invited me to join him for a bite to eat.”
    “Have a seat.” Clay moved the small pad of hotel stationery he'd been jotting notes on, making room at the table for Simon. “Join us.”
    “Actually,” Simon said, “I was hoping to steal my boss for just a moment, if I may.”
    “Of course.”
    His boss? It took Frankie a moment to realize he was talking about
her.
    Simon took her hand and drew her out of her seat.
    “Simon, what are you doing?” He was leading her onto the wooden dance floor.
    “This is called dancing, Francine. Think you can manage to do it without standing in a line and wearing cowboy boots?”
    Frankie didn't want to be there. She didn'twant to be clasped in Simon Hunt's arms, his body dangerously close to hers, moving slowly in time to the strains of an old romantic song.
    “I don't want to dance.”
    “Humor me,” Simon said. “I'm messing with my sister's mind.”
    “By dancing with
me
?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Whatever this is about, I don't want to know, do I?”
    “Probably not,” Simon said.
    “But I definitely don't want to dance with you. Whatever trick you're playing on Leila, you can do it without my help.” Frankie tried to break out of his grasp.
    But he didn't let her go. “If you don't dance with me, I won't tell you the brilliant solution I've come up with to find Jazz Chester.”
    Simon was a graceful dancer, moving with a smooth confidence that told of years of experience. Frankie remembered how she and Leila had giggled when he had signed up for a ballroom-dancing class at the senior center one summer when he was home from college. He'd learned to dance
and
charmed his way into the hearts ofmany of the island's wealthy older residents, most of whom became the foundation of his antiques business's client list.
    On the rare occasions that Frankie had danced with Simon in the past, she'd closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. She'd let herself fantasize a perfect