Next to Agnes, her friend Edna had on a pair of enormous red sunglasses and a similar outfit. “Not that I’d blame you for something like that,” Edna said with a titter. “There are lots of good-looking men here.”

“Don’t be silly,” Marjorie said, grabbing a shuffleboard stick. “I wouldn’t abandon you guys. You’re my friends. And I have a great time with you.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be with people your own age?”

“Not at all,” Marjorie said, and then leaned in. “Though I was late because I was kissing a man on the beach.”

Both women gave scandalized laughs. “You what?” Agnes said.

She knew they’d get a kick out of that. With a grin, she recapped the rescue on the beach, going into great detail about how handsome—and helpless—the man she’d saved was. Her friends laughed through the entire story, though they were disappointed at the lackluster ending. “You should have given that young man your phone number and hooked up with him,” said Edna, who was probably ninety-five years old if she was a day. “Tap that ass.”

Marjorie blushed and shook her head. “Trust me when I say I’m not his type.” A guy that good-looking? He’d probably have one of the busty beach bunnies in string bikinis that she saw wandering all over the place. “Now, should we play singles or do you guys want to be a team? You know I can kick your butts at this game with one hand tied behind my back.”

“You’re on,” said Agnes, with a crafty gleam in her eye.

***

“I told you, I’m fucking fine. Leave me alone.” Rob gave an irritated swat to the paramedic trying to take his blood pressure. “You want to know what my blood pressure is? It’s going to be through the goddamn roof if you keep trying to stick that cuff on me.”

“We have procedures we have to follow, sir,” the overachieving lifeguard told him. Their little party had moved away from the sandy beach and set up in a nearby first aid hut to give them a bit more privacy. Unfortunately, it seemed that that privacy didn’t extend to the lifeguards, who were now hovering worse than the onlookers on the beach. Damn lifeguards. Dudley Do-Right, who had taken charge of the flock of useless lifeguards, spoke again. “Once you’ve been declared well by the medical team, I’ll need you to come with me so we can file an incident report. We take things very seriously here at Seaturtle Cay Resort, and—”

Rob cut him off with an icy glare. He jerked his arm away from the man still trying to put that damn blood pressure cuff on him. “How much do I have to pay you people to go away? Seriously. I’m fine. I was drinking too much, I fell into the water, and that girl saved me. Now if you want to be fucking helpful, you’ll get me her name and phone number so I can thank her.”

“I don’t know who you’re referring to, sir,” Dudley Do-Right said with a frown.

“Of course you fucking don’t,” Rob said, gritting his teeth. “Because you fucking scared her off.”

This was not his favorite afternoon. First the dumb beach bunnies had tried to drown him. He’d lost his Bluetooth headset and his phone was probably buried in some kid’s sand castle on the beach. Then, he’d been rescued from the water by that gorgeous sea nymph with the freckles. And god, it was the first time he’d ever been aroused by the thought of freckles. But as soon as Dudley Do-Right had stepped in, she’d vanished without a trace.

And that was driving him bugfuck. He wanted to know more about her: her name, who she was, if she was single, if she’d laugh at his crass jokes without looking at him like he was a pig, if she’d give him that soft, sweet, adoring look when he kissed her, if she had freckles on her thighs . . .

But that opportunity was fucking gone thanks to the incompetent medical team here at the resort. He yanked his arm out of the medic’s grasp again. “Get the fuck away from me, all of you, before I sue.”

The magic word sue never failed to clear a room. Dudley Do-Right mumbled something about filing paperwork and sending it to him to approve later, and they left him alone.

Finally.

Rob flexed his arm and stood up. He felt achy all over, and his head throbbed. His throat felt like hell and he wanted a drink. But more than that, he wanted to find his rescuer. The polka-dot girl. Right now, she was his obsession. Because when Rob Cannon had an obsession, he clung to it like a dog with a bone, until things worked out in his favor.

And they always worked out in his favor.

***

By mid-afternoon, Rob had sent all three of his assistants away from working on ratings numbers and instead people-watching at various locations at the resort, looking for the girl he’d described. One was staked out on the beach, one at the bar, and one at the pool. No one spotted her, and it pissed him off. Either they were incompetent, or she’d disappeared. He refused to entertain that thought. She would be found. He always got what he wanted, and right now he wanted her.

But all afternoon, no sightings turned up, and in frustration, Rob decided to head to the hotel bar himself that night. She was bound to come down for a drink at some point, right? Most of the women at the resort treated the all-expenses-paid bar as an excuse to get plastered on a nightly basis. Surely she’d at least swing down for a mai tai or a piña colada. Then he could thank her for saving his life, find out what it took to get her in his bed, and get her out of his mind so he could go back to work with his head clear and his dick serviced.

So he sat at the bar in the perfect spot to watch the door, ran up a tab on good Scotch, and got progressively more annoyed. Where was this woman? He hadn’t imagined her. If he’d imagined her, she’d have been enormously endowed and not wearing polka-dots, that was for damn sure.

Rob was so lost in thoughts of his mystery girl that he did a double take when the tall man in the expensive suit walked into the bar, looked around, and then headed in his direction. Well, well, well. Rob tossed back his Scotch and stood up, extending his hand as he approached. “If it isn’t Logan Hawkings. Fancy meeting you here.”

Logan took one look at Rob’s extended hand, and then gave him a withering glance.

Well, if this wasn’t a fucking grand start, he didn’t know what was. Rob kept the smile on his face and put his hand down. He’d keep his cool, even if right now he wanted to punch someone. He needed Logan, whether he liked it or not. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

The cold man in the business suit eyed Rob’s Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, and the drink in his hand. “Security alerted me to the fact that you were here.”

“Gotta love security.” He raised his glass in a mock toast.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me why you’ve chosen to lurk at my resort this week?” He sounded pissy as fuck to Rob’s ears.

Lurking, eh? Fuck you too, buddy. “Little birdie in New York told me you’d be here, and I thought I’d come say hello, since you won’t return my calls.”

“I imagine there’s a reason for that.” His hands remained in his pockets, his expression unfriendly.

This didn’t deter Rob. He was used to people icing him out because of who he was and what he produced, but damn it, there was a market there and he’d be an idiot to let opportunity go by. So his “Man Channel” was full of ridiculous game shows and lots of tits? That was what men liked, and the ratings proved it. Before The Man Channel had even been on the air for five years, he had three additional spin-off channels, a few On-Demand channels, and a robust business online with interrelated sites. Business was booming. He’d made billions off of peddling the right product to the right people.

But now that he had money and success, he wanted credibility. And that was the one thing he couldn’t get on his own. Which was why he needed Logan Hawkings. People respected him. He’d been in Time, Forbes, Newsweek, and countless other magazines, as a businessman to watch.