Chapter 1
Shannon Marr, the soon-to-be Mrs. Marco Gambini, had a lot to think about this morning as she did her routine run down the sugar-sand beach of Belleair Beach. Marco had left late the night before, taking a flight to D.C. to meet with some senators who could run interference for his Trident Towers project on the Florida Gulf Coast. They were having issues with local building officials concerning their redesign, and he needed powerful allies to help smooth the kinks.
Plans for their wedding in the new year were going well, although most of it was outside her control since they’d accepted the Sultan of Bonin’s invitation to host the entire event, including any guests they wished to invite, at his private island in the Indian Ocean. He would house most guests in his Pink Palace and others at various other hotel-like properties on the pink coral beaches. The sultan’s wives and servants were preparing everything, and all she had to do was pick out her dress, write her vows, and show up for the party.
Meanwhile, Marco designed a dream home for the two of them to live in on property he’d owned for several years, near his veterans’ housing project. She was learning to make decisions: figuring room sizes, placement of windows, overall layout of the house footprint and future gardens surrounding a large pool right on the beach. The house was so overwhelming in size and scope she was having a hard time sleeping. Colors, numbers, building materials, and decorating samples floated around in her brain.
But as complicated as all these decisions and plans were, that wasn’t what had her preoccupied. She hesitated to use the word “worried.” How could someone so incredibly lucky worry about a thing, she wondered. Yet something bothered her, and it made no sense.
Marco had asked Shannon to quit her job at TMBC, the TV station in Tampa where she had worked as a part-time weather girl before her recent promotion to reporter. She was rumored to be on the fast track for an anchor position. It was what she’d dreamt of being since she applied at the station—ever since she got her acting and deportment coach after her brief experience acting in a couple of Indie films and nearly being cast in a TV series.
And yet, he asked her to give all that up. It wasn’t a career like his years in the Navy as an elite SEAL or as CEO of several multi-billion-dollar companies. She was technically part-time, could be fired at any minute, made very little money, and had to get up incredibly early, which meant getting in a dark run on the beach and shower, driving into work just before sunrise when she’d rather be in bed snuggling with her fiancé—the strongest, most gentle and patient man on the planet with a body twice as hard and sculpted in the flesh as he looked in interviews.
She found herself dreamily longing for her days off when he could show her the passion he felt for her as he extracted that same ardor from her in return. Their all-consuming multi-hour lovemaking sessions made her weak at the knees whenever she thought of them.
But…
She’d acquiesced to moving into the big, beautiful home they were building, even considering letting go of her little beach bungalow when the time came. But quitting her job—that was going to take some special courage.
She wondered why.
And this morning, even though the crisp saltwater sprays, the calls of the sea birds, and the dark purple sky turning pink with dark grey clouds appearing out of nowhere reminded her of all that was good and perfect about her life, she was afraid to cut off the old ties to the sleepy little beach town that helped her heal after the death of her sister—the woman Marco Gambini had been engaged to until her fatal accident. Her sister should have been the one to enjoy this abundance and joy, even the excitement and danger that came with Marco and his lifestyle.
Shannon needed to hold something back, something private and all her own, something more precious than her little bungalow. Her work gave her a career to fall back on if the unthinkable were to happen—if suddenly Marco were taken from her or left for some reason.
Maybe it was an insurance policy. It wouldn’t support the life she was living now, but she could throw herself into it, if she needed to.
She asked herself repeatedly whether she was indeed happy living this life her older sister, Emily, had intended on having with Marco. Or was she playacting? Was it just something she told herself was a dream come true? Was this really a dream she ought to be head over heels about or did she want it because it was something Em would have loved? Again, was she living in Em’s place when it came right down to it?
Although she loved Marco more than anyone else in the whole world and knew she’d feel that way forever, the thought of cutting off her past and all her ties to the girl she used to be terrified her. It made her dream about running away, bolting from the idyllic life as a billionaire’s fiancée and exchanging it for something common, something she was used to, could trust. She would never be able to return. She didn’t want to give up what she’d worked so hard to attain at the station. She’d built it all by herself, too. And she liked her job.
Back and forth, she tossed these ideas as her feet turned down the beach access bridge to Beach Trail Drive, then across an alleyway to Gulf Boulevard, and into the small three-block subdivision of more modest homes. She headed toward the marshes of the dog park and the inlet of Tampa Bay beyond. The gentle tap, tap, tap of her running shoes on the sandy path at the park was in tandem with her breathing, also keeping track with the swishing of her ponytail under her Rays baseball cap. Using her earbuds connected to her trusty old wristband player, she listened as voices sang a sad dirge for a slow king’s coronation march. The instruments underneath enhanced the emotions of the singers.
She wound around the outside of the gated doggie play area and heard occasional traffic noises on the wet pavement of Gulf Boulevard and the distinctive rumble of a large diesel truck pulling into the parking lot. The motor stopped, which caused Shannon to stare at it. The windows were blackened, and she could see the glow of a cigarette being lit inside the cab but had no visibility of the driver’s face.
Instinct told her to slip on over to the marsh trail between mangos, sea grapes, and scrub oaks with moss dangling precariously in the light of the full moon like on a Disney ride. Cicadas and other insects chirped and formed their own chorus, creating an almost pulsing sound filled with thousands of tiny reedy voices. She was exploring a back way out she’d heard about but never seen before, so she kept her running pace.
The truck door slammed.
Shannon felt a spike in her awareness that she might be in some danger, and she silenced her earbuds. Her deep thoughts had made her blind to the possibility that perhaps this driver had followed her here to the park, intending on God knew what. She was struck with the ridiculous thought about how quickly her choices were now limited to living or perhaps not living or being harmed. Forget the regret at the TV station, everything—the good and the bad—might be taken away in a flash.
She felt vibration through the wooden planks as a heavy man’s footsteps shook the boards beneath her feet. She dared not to turn to look for fear he’d seen the terror now resident in her face.
As she rounded a slight curve to the left, she examined her choices. Both sides of the walkway were filled with thick greenery, oversized Elephant Ear plants, mangroves, and wild Bird of Paradise trees going up forty feet or more. But the water was of unknown depth. Between the right side and the left, she couldn’t tell which was deeper or which would be more hazardous if she leapt over the railing and attempted to escape through the jungle of foliage.