Byron watched her approach. Then he gestured to a lounge chair. Devin accepted his offer, stretching out her legs, draping the ends of the big towel across her bare stomach and thighs.

The sun was warm on her wet limbs and her rapidly drying hair.

As Byron sat down in the lounger on the other side of a small square table, his glance flicked critically to Lexi. Devin didn’t offer to ask Lexi to leave. Whatever the man had to say, he could say in front of her friend.

Byron seemed to accept the situation. “I hear tell you’ve met Steve Foster.”

“I have.” She focused her attention on adjusting the towel, making sure Amelia’s pale, delicate skin was protected from the sun.

After a moment, she looked back up into the silence to see Byron regarding her with penetrating hazel eyes and a grim line of a mouth.

“You know there’s been some trouble between those boys.”

Devin gave a small shrug. “Steve’s helping me out. Lucas is fighting against me. Is that the trouble you’re talking about?”

Water sloshed in the pool as Lexi came off the air mattress.

“More to it than that,” Byron corrected.

Devin steadfastly met his gaze. “Anything else is none of my business.”

“I’d be willin’ to bet that it is.”

She shook her head in denial as Lexi made her way through the shallow end and out of the pool.

“You’re the latest pawn in a feud that goes back a considerable long time.”

“I’m not going to be anybody’s pawn.” Devin couldn’t care less about the emotional and financial entanglements of the Demarco family. She was fighting for Amelia, and that was the end of it.

“What is it you’ve got in mind for an endgame?”

Devin didn’t understand.

Lexi wrapped a towel, sarong-style, around her dripping wet body and slicked back her blond hair as she moved toward them.