Drake Sisters 03 - Oceans of Fire

of danger surrounded him and twice he shifted subtly to keep Sylvia from clinging to him. Sarah looked from his hard-edged features to Sylvia.
    Sylvia craved attention, any man’s attention. She needed it to feel good about herself. If she could take Abigail’s man she would be ecstatic.
    Power clung to Aleksandr. It was in the set of his wide shoulders and defined muscles of his arms, the thickness of his chest, and the fluid way he moved. Sarah had spent a great deal of her life as both an athlete and a bodyguard, and she recognized a dangerous man even without her heightened abilities.
    Sylvia only saw his rough good looks. His strong sexual appeal. She would never see past that to anything else.
    “Be careful, Sylvia,” she advised. “Know your real friends.” She turned away to follow Kate out of the gallery.
    “What does that mean?” Sylvia wailed. “I don’t understand. Sarah. You have to tell me what that means.” She trailed after Kate and Sarah, outside in time to see Abigail’s pale face flash by as Joley pulled their car onto the highway. Aleksandr swore as the car went past them.
    “TELL us,” Hannah said. “What happened, Abbey?”
    Abbey rocked back and forth, curled away from her sisters in the backseat, her face staring out toward the sea with its rolling waves. The roaring in her ears seemed louder. How could she explain? What could she say? That she was so weak she loved a man she knew she could never be with? It sounded so pathetic. When had she become pathetic? And why were her emotions so amplified, so out of control?
    She felt pain a thousand times worse than she’d ever remembered.
    “Abbey?” Hannah was as gentle as possible.

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    “Stop the car. Hurry. I’m going to be sick,” Abbey said in desperation.
    Joley slammed on the brakes, guiding the car toward the narrow ribbon of shoulder along the cliff.
    Before the car had completely stopped, Abbey leapt out, bending over as her stomach protested. She hated being sick, had always fought it, but nothing could stop her body’s reaction to the acute pain she felt on recognizing that familiar ruthless streak in Aleksandr. There was no room for someone like her in his life. He needed a woman who would take second place, a back seat to his job and his tremendous drive and need to succeed at whatever he was doing. Someone who would never question him too closely about his methods of investigation.
    Hannah handed her a small cloth and Abbey wiped her mouth as she stared down below her to the waves crashing against the rocks. Her heart ached so severely she pressed her hand hard against her chest to ease the pain. Out in the surf, several dolphins leapt into the air, spinning before diving back into the sea. A whale poked his head above the water, spy-hopping as if looking for her. She heard the music of the sea creatures carried to her on the wind. Calling to her. Easing the ache in her heart.
    “Abbey!” Joley caught her around the waist and jerked her away from the edge of the cliff. “What are you doing?” There was alarm in her voice.
    Abbey blinked to bring her into focus. “They’re calling to me.”
    “I don’t care what they’re doing. I’m taking you home. You can’t possibly think Aleksandr had the least bit of interest in Sylvia Fredrickson, do you?” Joley was horrified at that thought. “He could barely stand her touching him. You had to have felt that.”
    “Of course I did.” Abigail rubbed at her pounding temples.
    “Did Sylvia touch you? Could she have gotten a hair or anything at all personal of yours?” Joley guided Abbey back to the car.
    Hannah yanked the door open. “Have you gotten anything strange in the mail?”
    Abbey slid into the warmth of the backseat. “You both think Sylvia put some kind of spell on me?”
    “You just nearly walked off a cliff, Abbey,” Joley said, wrenching at the wheel to get the car back on the highway. “That’s not normal.”
    Abbey stared down at her hands. They were shaking. “Sylvia doesn’t have the power to disrupt my life at all. She has nothing to do with this.”
    “She’d better not,” Hannah said. “She tried to make our lives miserable in school. It would be just like her to try to seduce a man she thought one of us was interested in. I swear, I thought she was trying to get back with her husband.”
    “I was hoping she’d try to get back with him,” Abigail