Georgina

I wait in the parlor, a sunken space surrounded by open windows. Salted wind blows in freely, smelling wild and precious. Music plays somewhere, or maybe a wind chime. A figure tends a natural pool down below on the hillside. I can't make out his face.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Georgina Felton."

I whirl gracelessly, only to stop dead even more gracelessly.

Before me stands the most impossibly beautiful man I have ever seen. Tall, golden, sleekly muscular-his thick chestnut curls are dragged back, his sculpted jaw dusted with the chic beginnings of a beard. He wears all linen clothing, showing off golden calves and powerful arms.

His eyes, set in a chiseled face, are thick-lashed and the exact color of the wild jungle.

"Flight was OK, I take it?" He doesn't seem to register my blank awe. Maybe he's used to it. He crosses the room, brushing past me to a bamboo drink cabinet by the windows. He smells of pine and sandalwood and man.

"What's your poison?"

"Oh. I. Um."

Get it together!