The island was a paradise of golden sands and blue skies—of burning suns and burning desires...but not for Beth. Beth had come to marry Willard Petrie, a widower twice her age; a gentle man who would replace desire with respect. Or so she thought. The island had a strange effect on people, sapping their inhibitions and stripping away pretensions. It revealed Willard's motives as surely as it exposed his daughter's self-destructive jealousy. And it left Beth totally vulnerable—unable to control the primitive emotions that drew her inevitably to Raoul Valerian.