Page 8 of Just My Luck

“Local enough. She’s not Hawaiian, but she was born and raised here. Maybe on a sailboat? Rings a bell. She left the island for a while but came back when her father was arrested.”

It sounded to him like Zara was the opposite of her mother.

“If you’re thinking about shooting your shot, don’t bother. Like I said, everyone’s tried.”

“I’m not,” Lincoln said curtly.

Something caught his eye, or rather, someone. A black sedan with tinted windows turned into the resort’s entrance, and the silhouette of the driver’s face, just visible over the low lava-rock walls, set off big alarm bells.

He knew that man; he was one of Tanaka’s security guards.

Tanaka…where to even start with Tanaka? Business competitor, rumored crime boss, and a fucking thorn in Lincoln’s side. As the sworn enemy of Lincoln’s father, KiYun Chun, he took their feud to a very personal extreme.

“Bathroom break,” he muttered to Benito. He needed to see what Tanaka’s muscle man was doing here. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. They must be looking for him.

Or maybe for the same thing he was looking for.

He tucked his straw hat over his face and followed after the sedan, keeping out of sight by hiding behind the hibiscus shrubs and bromeliads that lined the driveway. A week ago, he’d known nothing about these plants; now they felt like old friends. Hello, bright yellow hibiscus, are the aphids leaving you alone?

Idiot, he told himself. No time for whimsy when a Japanese thug might be after him. Tanaka had been after the CHUM for a while. Lincoln wasn’t sure why. It was valuable, of course, but Tanaka’s businesses involved arms dealing and other sketchy shit. Why would he care about some experimental energy source?

Lincoln’s theory—he just wanted to one-up Lincoln’s father.

KiYun Chun was a legend in the South Korean tech industry. At one point he’d been one of the wealthiest men in the world. During a business trip to Georgia to check out his new microchip factory, he’d met Violet Kerr, a debutante from one of the oldest families in Savannah. When the completely unauthorized and inappropriate fling between the married tech tycoon and the equally married Southern belle resulted in a pregnancy, Violet’s family nearly disowned her.

She’d ended the relationship but kept the baby. KiYun Chun had created a trust for Lincoln and gone back to Korea. Lincoln had grown up knowing there was something wrong with him, something different. He rarely saw his father, and when he did, the topic of conversation was always his grades or his performance in track and field.

All he’d wanted, since he could remember, was to win his father’s attention and respect. That was why, once he’d gained control of his trust at the age of twenty-one, he’d worked so hard to turn a few million into a few hundred million, and then a billion. Even so, his father kept his distance. He didn’t want Lincoln causing trouble for his real family in Korea.

The sedan jerked to a stop outside hale twelve.

Crap.

There were two kids inside, innocent bystanders who had no clue how dangerous someone who worked for Tanaka could be.

He pulled out his burner phone and called the front desk. “Can I speak to Zara?” he asked when a man answered.

A moment later, that familiar throaty voice came on the line. “This is Zara, how may I be of assistance this fine morning?”

Trust Zara to add flair to even the simplest phone call.

“This is Jim, we met this morning at hale twelve.”

“Man-butt. Yes, I remember. What’s up?”

“Send a security guard to that hale,” he ordered her. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure your secret is safe.”

“Wait…what? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

He hung up before he could explain further. The last thing he wanted was to come face to face with Tanaka’s security guy. No—that was the second-to-last thing. The most important was to make sure that man got nowhere near the kids.

He rubbed some mud left from the morning’s sprinkler session over his face. Tugging his straw hat down even farther, he hunched his shoulders and trudged across the lawn toward the hale. Just an ordinary gardener worn out by hard work and heat.

The man in the sedan hadn’t gotten out yet. He was talking on his phone and paying no attention to the tired-looking gardener passing behind the car. Lincoln skirted around the edge of the hale to the back terrace. He rapped on the glass sliding doors until he saw the girl’s—Mia’s—head pop up. He waved his arms to get her attention.

“What are you doing here?” she called through the door, once she’d gotten close enough.

He put his finger to his lips, then beckoned to her. The boy came running up beside his sister. He jumped up and down and waved with excitement. She edged the door open about two inches. Progress.