“Lazaro, my old friend, it’s been too long. Good to see you,” he greeted briefly, then extended his hand to the evening’s host. “Signor Turati, buona sera.”

“Paolo,” Turati offered as the two men shook hands.

“Thank you for agreeing to this meeting,” Walsh continued in English. “And please forgive the cloak-and-dagger aspect of our introduction tonight. Unfortunately, there are those who might prefer to keep our people at odds, rather than embrace the peace that you and I both hope to achieve.”

Lazaro murmured a quick translation, to which Turati smiled and replied in kind. “Paolo says he is honored to have the opportunity to talk and share ideas with you, Byron. He would like you and your men to be comfortable as his guests inside now.”

Walsh held up his hand, gesturing to wait. “A moment, if you will. We’re not all present just yet.” He pivoted to look at his pair of Breed bodyguards behind him. “Where’s Mel?”

“Right behind me a second ago,” one of his men answered.

Lazaro scowled, confused, and not a little concerned that Walsh had apparently brought a third member of his entourage when the agreement had explicitly called for balance on both sides of this informal summit. He shot a questioning glower at his friend—just as a head emerged from the cabin below.

A head covered in long, luscious waves of fiery red hair.

“I’m sorry,” the woman offered hastily as she made her way out. “I had to sit down for a second. I’m afraid I’m still trying to find my sea legs.”

She came out of the cabin completely then, and every pair of eyes on deck rooted onto her like the tide pulled toward the moon. Not even Lazaro was immune.

Christ, not even close.

“Ah. There you are, darling.” Walsh pivoted to assist her off the smaller vessel.

Darling? Lazaro vaguely recalled hearing that Byron Walsh had lost his mate in a car accident three or four years ago. Had he taken another lover so soon? Whether she was a Breedmate or human female, Lazaro couldn’t be sure.

More to the point, what the hell was Walsh thinking, showing up with her unexpectedly to a meeting of this importance? Lazaro had worked on Paolo Turati for months before the man finally agreed to open the door to talks with a member of the GNC. Walsh himself had been reluctant to trust the kin of a government leader who made no secret of his suspicion and distaste for the entire population of the Breed. Lazaro could not imagine what had possessed Walsh to treat this unofficial summit as a goddamned pleasure cruise.

If grabbing the Breed male by the throat and demanding an answer to that very question wouldn’t turn an already awkward situation into a potential disaster, Lazaro might have uncurled his fists at his sides and done just that. Instead, he stared, silent and fuming. He’d deal with his friend’s apparent lapse in judgment later.

“Careful now,” Walsh cautioned his uninvited companion. “Watch your step, sweetheart.”

Hell, every male present was watching her step. She was tall, elegant, with bountiful curves that filled out every body-skimming line of a conservative—yet damned sexy—charcoal gray skirt that skimmed her knees and showcased her long, shapely legs. She wore a garnet-colored silk blouse unbuttoned midway down her sternum, just low enough to tease at the generous swell of her bosom.

At the base of her throat was a small scarlet birthmark in the shape of a teardrop falling into the cradle of a crescent moon. So, the voluptuous beauty was a Breedmate, Lazaro noted with displeasure. Had she been simply human arm candy for the councilman, Lazaro would have no qualms at all about turning her sinfully formed behind right back around and sending the motorboat away with her inside.

But a female born with the Breedmate mark commanded deeper respect than that from one of Lazaro’s kind. And although he was more warrior now than gentleman, there was still a part of him that held rare females like this one in high regard. And if she was in fact mated to Byron Walsh, then Lazaro had no bloody right to stare at her with a smoldering crackle of interest heating his veins.

As her slender-heeled pumps settled gracefully on the deck, she lifted her head and glanced up to look at him and the other men. Her mane of lustrous, flame-bright hair framed a delicate oval face dominated by large green eyes and soft, sensual lips.

She was, in a word, stunning.

The face of an angel and the kind of body to tempt a saint.

And based on the sudden hush of focused male interest on the deck of Turati’s yacht, there was hardly a saint among them.

Lazaro shut down his own awareness of her with abrupt, violent force.

Walsh took the woman’s hand and led her forward. “Lazaro, you’ll remember my daughter, Mel.”

In a flash of memory, Lazaro envisioned a gangly tomboy about seven years old who’d come with her adopted parents to the Archer Darkhaven one winter. Freckle-faced, scrawny, and possessed of more courage than good sense, the way he recalled it now.

Nothing like the curvaceous, poised woman he saw before him here.

“Melena,” she corrected her father gently, her lush mouth bowing in a polite smile as she offered her hand in greeting first to Turati, then to Lazaro. “I’m my father’s personal assistant. Tonight I’ll also be translating for him.” She turned the full strength of her smile on Turati, speaking now in flawless Italian. “I hope you don’t mind. Between you and me, Daddy’s Italian is only slightly better than his French, which isn’t saying much.”