A bachelor’s self-preservation perhaps. It was damned hard to acknowledge that a woman can strip your soul down to its base level, but she could rebuild it as well.

As the boat emptied of the chaotic Mackay clan and friends, John acknowledged the things he hadn’t wanted to face before the night Sierra had forced the breakup of his engagement to Marlena.

He almost grinned at the thought. She had no idea that she’d done him a great favor that night, and it had taken him a while to realize it, too, he admitted.

It hadn’t been the loss of Marlena that had affected him so severely, though. It had been the realization that Sierra would risk their friendship, risk everything basically, to save him from a marriage doomed to failure.

He had known that night. That unacknowledged part of himself he had hidden from for so long had known that not just his bachelor days were over, but his heart was caught. And it was caught by a tiny bit of a woman who had been a part of his life for as long as she had been alive.

Securing the houseboat, doors locked, drapes drawn closed, he made his way to the bedroom, where Sierra had already retired.

Stepping into the large, open room, he was caught by the quiet pain in her face as she sat in the recliner next to the wide, securely draped windows, and stared at the dark material.

“If I weren’t here, you’d have the curtains back and the windows open,” she said softly. “The breeze from the lake would drift inside and you’d be at peace.”

“I’m at peace now, Sierra. It’s not open windows or a breeze that brings that peace, baby. It’s what’s inside a man or a woman’s soul.”

And how the hell had he ever realized that?

“You’ll never move back to Boston, will you?” she whispered, her gray eyes lifting, her somber expression filled with a particular sadness. “When this is finished, you’ll stay here. This is your home now.”

“It’s my home now,” he agreed as he moved across the room and took a seat in the chair that sat facing her. “But I’ll visit.”

Her lips tightened as a small, almost hidden flinch crossed her expression.

“I never truly thought you’d stay away forever,” she said. “I thought you’d come back. That one day, someone would tell me you had moved back into your penthouse, that you were back in the office. That you were home.” She rubbed at the fingernails of one hand with the pads of the fingers of the other. “That’s not going to happen, is it?”

He shook his head slowly. “I’d never be happy there again, Sierra,” he told her. “I was never happy there before, I just didn’t know it. You were never happy there, either.”

She looked up at him in surprise. “It’s home, John. I was raised there.”

“Were you happy there, Sierra?” He leaned closer. “Do you have friends there?” He placed his fingers over her lips as she started to protest. “Who did you go to when I left? Who did you go to, Sierra, when I passed out on you just after penetrating you?”

She paled.

John had suspected, but he hadn’t wanted to admit he’d been such a complete fucking fool.

He cupped her face gently. “I was completely drunk.”

She swallowed tightly and the distress in her pretty eyes tore at his heart.

Pushing the wild blue-back ringlets back from her face, John saw the indecision, the fears.

“What did I do to you that night, Sierra?” he asked gently. “Did I hurt you?”

“Physically?” Her lips thinned. “No, John, you didn’t hurt me.”

But he didn’t remember, and she wondered if he would even believe she had been a virgin.

She didn’t want to talk to him right now. There was too much inside her, too many emotions she didn’t want to deal with tonight.

“Why are you keeping all the curtains closed?” She changed the subject, stared around the room then back at John as she fought the questions in his eyes.

“Perhaps I’d prefer no one sees or hears the pleasure I give you.” His lips curled in amusement.

Shaking her head, she stared around again. “We don’t have sex twenty-four-seven, John.”

She wanted the truth. She sensed it, she could feel it, just as she sensed the fact that he had disappeared with his friends that afternoon for a reason.

He watched her thoughtfully for several long moments as Sierra wondered if he would continue to try to lie to her.

“I think the boat is being watched. I want to keep you hidden for a few more days until we figure out exactly who is watching and why.”

The knowledge, though she expected it, was still a shock to her. She stared back at him, fighting the sense of impending panic trying to rise inside her.

Someone was watching the boat, and had been only since her arrival.

“It wasn’t just a random crime, was it?”

The attack had been planned. That meant someone specifically wanted to hurt her.

“This is my fault, Sierra,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Your fault.” She shook her head in confusion. “How can this be your fault?”

“I think you were targeted because of me. Someone wanted to get back at me.”

She blinked at him. Get back at him?

“Who would want to get back at you?” She shook her head in confusion. “And why use me? John, do you realize how little sense that makes?”

She couldn’t imagine any reason why anyone would think she could be used to strike back at John.

For a moment, she watched the banked fury in John’s gaze and realized he wasn’t joking. He meant what he was saying.

“John, that’s insane.” She shook her head at the thought of it. “There’s no reason anyone would believe I could be used against you.”

“Except Marlena.”

Marlena? “But a man attacked me.”

“A man I suspect she hired or was associated with,” he stated. “Your attack has been investigated by a former agent of the Department of Homeland Security as well as Father. What was learned is that Marlena is connected to an organized crime family, Sierra. A very distant relation, but one all the same. Her marriage to me would have allowed her the chance to move up in that family. A renowned attorney, the Walker money, the backing of a highly respectable law firm. She was banking on that marriage for more than one reason.”

There had always been rumors that the Genoa family was related to organized crime, but it had never been proven.

“Her father never seemed like a criminal,” she whispered.

John’s lips twisted with an edge of rueful amusement. “James Genoa is as honest as the day can be long, Sierra. That doesn’t mean the rest of the family is, and it doesn’t mean that Marlena isn’t determined to recover the status she had before her father’s losses several years before.”

What the hell was going on?

Rising to her feet, Sierra paced across the room, staring at the draped windows, feeling closed in, feeling that same anger rising inside her as she realized that, once again, Marlena was winning. She had won the first time when she managed to get John’s ring on her finger, the second time when John had taken Sierra and hadn’t even remembered it.

She was winning now. She was winning because Sierra wouldn’t have the chance to gain his heart. By the time this was over, he would be eager to rid himself of the trouble she brought to his life.

“Wonderful.” Mockery filled her, surprising even herself with the depth of it. “Just what the hell I needed—Marlena Genoa screwing up my damned summer.” She almost laughed. She would have laughed, but even mockery could fire enough amusement for that. “You know, John, for as long as I’ve known her, she’s been a pain in my ass!”

John stared back at Sierra in surprise. This wasn’t exactly the response he’d expected. And he’d be damned if he’d ever seen Sierra quite this angry. Or this strong.

There was no fear, there were no tears.

“I thought it was a random crime.” She threw her hands up as she turned back to him. “I couldn’t imagine what I had done, or why it was happening to me. I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t figure out how I had been careless enough to allow myself to be targeted, you know?”

He tilted his head and stared back at her curiously.

“Random crime doesn’t exactly happen that way, Sierra,” he pointed out, trying to hide his amusement.

Here was his Sierra. Angry, yes, but that fire, that flame of stubborn determination, was back in her eyes. And there was something more.

Her hands were propped on her shapely hips. “To me, it would,” she snapped back at him. “I’m careful. I rarely talk to strangers. I stick to what’s safe. Haven’t I always stuck to what was safe? Admit it.”

“Oh, I admit that.” He nodded. And it was the truth. Sierra was perhaps one of the most cautious people he knew, outside of her questionable choices in sex partners. As she said, she rarely took chances.

“She was cheating on you. She was marrying you for your money and whatever the hell she needed to get into some stupid crime family, and she was using your so-called best friend to screw you over, and she thinks I should pay for this?”

His brows lifted. “You always were one to catch on rather fast,” he pointed out, holding back a chuckle.

Her eyes narrowed on him.

“How many men do you think I’ve been with, John?” she asked then.

The question surprised him.

“What does it matter?” It wasn’t something he wanted to think about. He didn’t give a damn how many men she had been with, and he didn’t want to know.

“I deserve an answer to that question.”

“At least three,” he snapped back. “You weren’t exactly trying to hide it when you were with Bobby Worthington. Jack Marsden, Martin Kincade. And if there were more, I don’t want to know about it.”

Sierra glared back at him. “Wrong.”

“What the hell do you mean, wrong?” Damn her, she made him crazy. She could make him see red faster than any other woman in his life.

“Figure it out, dummy,” she snapped back at him. “Because I’m not explaining it.”

She wasn’t explaining anything to anyone anymore. Bobby had started out as a friend until he told everyone he had slept with her. The other two had been close, she admitted. There had been a chance of a relationship with them, until for one reason or another, seeing John again had interfered in it. Reminded her of what she wanted, who she wanted, and she had broken it off.

Now she was paying for what she hadn’t done.

Well, she wasn’t paying for it, except for the fact that John would never believe she had been a virgin that night.

Damn Marlena Genoa. She had managed to completely fuck Sierra’s life up and she hadn’t even really tried until now.

John’s arms crossed over his broad chest.

“You know, Sierra, I remember why you make me crazy,” he growled. “You have to be one of the most stubborn women I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not one of anything,” she informed him heatedly. “Trust me, John, I am the most stubborn woman you’ll ever meet, you’ve just never pissed me off enough to prove it until now.”

“Hell, Sierra.” He couldn’t blame her. His own decisions had slashed back on her with a vengeance. “I can’t even blame you for being pissed.”

“And of course, you think it’s because that cow Marlena might have hired someone to attack me.” The complete disgust in her voice surprised him. “John, sometimes you’re such a man that it’s completely infuriating.”

“What the fuck!” He couldn’t hold back an incredulous laugh at this point. “What the hell else could you be pissed over? Sierra, dammit, if I’d had any idea you’d be hurt . . .”