Paradise sucked.

Big time.

Olivia Lambert sat on her damp towel, her hands clasped around her knees, watching the sun sink into the Pacific in a blaze of color. Palm fronds whispered a soft song overhead, the warm, impossibly blue ocean gently kissed the sand at her feet and a soft breeze danced across her skin.

Behind her, the thick, lush rainforest teemed with color and noise and life -- bright birds, exotic butterflies, even a monkey or two.

As a honeymoon destination, this remote, wild corner of Costa Rica seemed perfect, especially staying in a guest villa on the estate of a reclusive billionaire. It was romantic, secluded, luxurious.

The only trouble was, she’d left her groom behind in Texas.

Olivia sighed, gazing out at the ripple of waves as she tried to drum up a little enthusiasm for the holiday that stretched ahead of her like the vast, undulating surface of the Pacific. She’d been here less than twenty-four hours and had nine more days to go, and at this point she was just about ready to pack up her suitcases and catch the next puddle-jumper she could find back to the States.

She was bored and lonely and just plain miserable.

Maybe she should have invited one of her girlfriends to come along for company. Or better yet, she should have just eaten the cost of the plane tickets and stayed back in Fort Worth.
But then she would have had to face the questions and the sympathetic -- and not-so-sympathetic -- looks and the resigned disappointment she was entirely too accustomed to seeing in her father’s eyes.

No, this way was better. If nothing else, ten days in another country would give her a little time and distance to handle the bitter betrayal of knowing that even in this, Wallace Lambert wouldn’t stand behind her. Her father sided with his golden boy, his groomed successor, and couldn’t seem to understand why she might possibly object to her fiancé cheating on her with another woman two weeks before their wedding.

It was apparently entirely unreasonable of her to expect a few basic courtesies -- minor little things like fidelity and trust -- from the man who claimed to adore her and worship the ground she walked on.

Who knew?

The sun slipped further into the water and she sighed again, angry at herself. So much for her promise that she wouldn’t brood about Bradley or her father.

This was her honeymoon and she planned to enjoy herself, damn them both. She could survive nine more days in paradise, in the company of macaws and howler monkeys, iguanas and even a sloth -- not to mention her host, whom she had yet to encounter.

James Rafferty, whom she was meeting later for dinner, had built his fortune through online gambling and he had created an exclusive paradise here completely off the grid -- no power except through generators, water from wells on the property. Her cell phone didn’t even work here.

Nine days without distractions ought to be long enough for her to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She was twenty-six years old and it was high time she shoved everybody else out of the driver’s seat so she could start picking her own direction.

Some kind of animal screamed suddenly, a high, disconcerting sound, and Olivia jumped, suddenly uneasy to realize she was alone down here on the beach.

There were jaguars in this part of the Osa Peninsula, she had read in the guidebook. Jaguars and pumas and who knew what else. A big cat could suddenly spring out of the jungle and drag her into the trees and no one in the world would ever know what happened to her.

That would certainly be a fitting end to what had to be the world’s worst honeymoon.

She shivered and quickly gathered up her things, shaking the sand out of her towel and tossing her sunglasses and paperback into her beach bag along with her cell phone that she couldn’t quite sever herself from, despite its uselessness here.

No worries, she told herself. She seemed to remember jaguars hunted at night and it was still a half-hour to full dark. Anyway, she had a hard time believing James Rafferty would wild predators like that roam free on his vast estate.

Still, she wasn’t at all sure she could find her way back to her bungalow in the dark and she needed to shower off the sand and sunscreen and change for dinner.

She had waited too long to return, she quickly discovered. She would have thought the dying rays of the sun would provide enough light for her to make her way back to her bungalow, fifty yards or so from the beach up a moderate incline. But the trail moved through heavy growth, feathery ferns and flowering shrubs and thick trees with vines roped throughout.

What had seemed lovely and exotic on her way down to the beach suddenly seemed darker, almost menacing, in the dusk.

Something rustled in the thick undergrowth to her left and she swallowed a gasp and picked up her pace, those jaguars prowling through her head again.

Next time she would watch the sunset from the comfort of her own little front porch, she decided nervously. Of course, from what she heard from the taciturn housekeeper who had brought her food earlier, this sunset was an anomaly this time of year, given the daily rains.

Wasn’t it just like Bradley to book their honeymoon destination without any thought that they were arriving in the worst month of the rainy season. She would probably be stuck in her bungalow the entire nine days.

Still grumbling under her breath, she made it only a few more feet before a dark shape suddenly lurched out of the gathering darkness. She uttered a small shriek of surprise and barely managed to keep her footing.

In the fading light, she could only make out a stranger looming over her, dark and menacing. Something long and lethal gleamed silver in the fading light and a strangled scream escaped her.

He held a machete, a wickedly sharp one, and she gazed at it, riveted like a bug watching a frog’s tongue flicking toward it. She couldn’t seem to look away as it gleamed in the last fading rays of the sun.

She was going to die alone on her honeymoon in a foreign country in a bikini that showed just how lousy she was at keeping up with her Pilates.

Her only consolation was that the stranger seemed just as surprised to see her. She supposed someone with rape on his mind probably wouldn’t waste time staring at her like she was some kind of freakish sea creature.

Come on. The bikini wasn’t that bad.