Sunshine Beach Read Free Page A

kitchen she began a mental to-do list. She continued that list as she showered, stuffing her mind with concrete tasks to be completed. After dressing quickly, she fled the house. Her memories of the mother so recently regained, then lost, came with her.
    Nicole Grant knew it was pointless to be pissed off at
The Millionaire Matchmaker
. She also knew she should not be watching it. And yet here she was doing exactly that. Again.
    Stifling a curse, she raised the television remote and snapped off the program, incensed that the woman had so successfully commercialized and sensationalized what Nicole had once considered a delicate and highly personal service.
    Grumbling, she retrieved a handful of nuts from the bowl on the coffee table and popped them in her mouth. As the founder of Heart Inc., Nicole had found spouses with specific pedigrees, personalities, and even genetic traits for a long and notable list of clients to whom discretion was key and a million dollars didn’t even qualify as pocket change. And shehad done it without exposing them to public humiliation, using the f-bomb as an adjective, or scolding/coaching them on their pickup lines and appearance in front of a television audience.
    The Millionaire Matchmaker
didn’t even belong on the same planet as Nicole’s Heart Inc. once had.
    Once.
She downed another handful of nuts.
    Once, Nikki had been famous for the wealth and status of her clientele, the charm with which she handled them, the plush offices that she’d maintained on both coasts, the famous and wealthy elbows she’d quietly rubbed. She’d been considered
the
A-list matchmaker and dating guru, had written a bestselling book of advice, had been
the
expert in her field—quoted in national publications and on network programs.
    That had been before she, and a troubling number of her clients, had lost everything in Malcolm Dyer’s three-hundred-million-dollar Ponzi scheme. Before the world discovered that Malcolm Dyer was not just her financial advisor but also her younger brother. Whom she’d practically raised and foolishly loved and trusted.
    Not even helping the FBI put him in jail had cleansed her of the taint of that relationship.
    â€œYou really need to stop binge watching that show.” Joe Giraldi handed her a glass of Chianti and raised his own in salute.
    â€œI know.” She’d been knocked down often in her life but never had this much trouble getting back up. Somehow her willpower and resolve, which had seen her through the loss of her business, her savings, and her reputation, had now deserted her. “I just can’t seem to help myself,” she admitted as he sat down beside her. “I don’t suppose you have any family connections that might like to put out a hit on her?”
    A dark eyebrow quirked upward in amusement. “Well, my Nonna Sofia has been willing to fling a curse now and then. But a hit? How many seasons of
The Sopranos
did youwatch while I was out of town?” As a special agent in the FBI’s financial crimes unit, Joe traveled often. It was his hunt for her brother that had brought him into her life.
    She sighed. For someone who’d worked her way out of poverty to the top of her field, she now spent an embarrassing amount of time on Joe’s couch with a television remote in her hand.
    She took a sip of the wine. In her experience alcohol could smooth out the occasional bump, but it was pretty much never the answer. Still she hoped it would calm the bubble of anxiety that now seemed to perpetually simmer inside her.
    â€œDinner’s ready. It’s gorgeous outside. Are you up for eating on the patio?”
    â€œI’d go a lot farther than the patio for your manicotti,” she said as her stomach, which was clearly unsatisfied with the junk she’d been filling it with, rumbled with hunger.
    She followed him out the open slider to the table that overlooked the pool, Biscayne Bay, and a