“I can’t book a room here,” she confessed. “It’s too expensive. The only way I can stay is if you’ll let me work for you.”

He raised one eyebrow. “No.”

“Fine,” she said defiantly, and jumped up from the couch. “I’ll sleep on the beach, but I’m not leaving.”

“Wait just a damn minute,” he said, standing. “Nobody sleeps on my beach.”

She turned. “Your beach?”

“That’s right. I own most of this island and I say who comes and goes. And I don’t want vagrants setting up camp on my beach.”

“I’m not a vagrant,” she muttered as she folded her arms tightly across her chest. Her lower lip stuck out in a pout and as much as he hated the manipulation game, he had to admit he wanted to run his tongue over those pouty lips of hers. He had to give her points for that.

She swallowed nervously and took another deep breath and it seemed to help her regain some inner resolve. Her lips tightened and she faced him head-on. “I’m not leaving, Mr. Sutherland. I need to find those spores. I won’t go home without them.”

He observed her quietly for a long moment. “You don’t look like a research scientist.”

She rolled her eyes. “What do my looks have to do with anything?”

He almost laughed. Her looks had almost everything to do with why he’d allowed her to make her case in the first place. If she didn’t understand that, then maybe she had been hiding out in a stuffy laboratory for the past ten years.

Wait. Ten years? He knew she couldn’t be much older than twenty-five, which meant she’d been doing her so-called research since she was fifteen. If she was telling the truth, that is. Obviously, she wasn’t.

She was a liar, plain and simple.

Before he could comment aloud, she waved her arms and forged ahead. “Fine. I may not look like your notion of a research scientist, but that’s exactly what I am. And I have every intention of staying here until I’ve got everything I need to finish my work.”