The Balfour Legacy. Кэрол Мортимер

‘Very.’

      ‘Oh.’ She opened her eyes very wide. Maybe if she annoyed him enough he might drive her to the nearest shore himself. ‘And did you mind?’

      Mind? What he minded more than anything was her careless attitude and the way those bright blue eyes sparked at him so defiantly. She wanted him to mind, he realised, and would have liked to have shown his displeasure in a very primitive way indeed. By upending her on his lap and slapping the palm of his hand against her delectable bottom. ‘You have very good taste in wine, querida,’ he observed.

      Kat stared at him suspiciously. This was not the reaction she was expecting. ‘I…I have?’

      ‘Sí. Absolutamente. There will, of course, have to be some adjustment to your wages as a consequence.’ He shrugged as he saw her perfect lips part in a disbelieving circle. ‘Though naturally, it will simply be a token gesture, since no galley-hand could ever afford to pay the full price for such a bottle of wine.’

      Suspicion turned to frustration. ‘You’re not still maintaining this fiction about me working on your boat, are you?’ she demanded.

      Carlos pushed his laptop into a shady corner beneath the lounger and rose effortlessly to his feet. ‘I can assure you that it is not a fiction, Kat. It is a done deal and I have given my word to your father that I will employ you—despite the fact that you do not seem to have a single useful qualification to your name.’

      ‘That’s none of your business—’

      ‘I’m afraid it is. I have agreed to take you on—and one of the first things you’d better learn is that as a member of my crew you will be expected to be punctual at all times.’

      ‘But I’m not—’

      ‘I am not interested in your objections.’ Once again, his clipped words sliced through her stumbled responses. ‘All I know is that you’ve made an appalling start.’ His gaze flicked over the mutinous tremble of her lips and he felt an undeniable beat of pleasure. ‘However, in view of the exceptional circumstances, I’ll let you off this time—just don’t try it again. In future I want you on deck by seven. The crew can fix themselves breakfast, but I expect you to attend to what I like. Good coffee, a little fruit and some bread. My needs are very simple.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘You’ll make a light lunch for everyone and a rather more elaborate meal for the evening. And you’ll be expected to keep the decks and cabins clean, though obviously not the crew’s. Understand?’

      There was a moment of disbelieving silence while Kat looked at him with shock and dislike as he shot out his list of outrageous demands. ‘No, I don’t think you understand,’ she answered furiously. ‘You’ve had your little joke, Carlos, but it’s gone on for long enough. I don’t want to stay here and I don’t want to work for you. I…I want to go back to shore.’ There was a pause while he looked at her expectantly and she forced herself to say it, even though the word felt as if it might choke her. ‘Please.’

      Carlos clapped his hands in mock applause. ‘¡Bravo!’ he said silkily. ‘We make progress! The spoiled Englishwoman—she learns what it is to be polite!’

      Kat looked at him hopefully. ‘So you’ll take me?’

      ‘I cannot,’ he snapped. ‘Surely your attention span isn’t so short that you’ve already forgotten the letter from your father which you read last night?’

      She thought back to that ridiculous set of rules her father had set out—the one Carlos had presented her with when he’d arrived on board. ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten, but my father has clearly taken leave of his senses!’

      ‘Wrong again.’ Carlos’s lips flattened into an uncompromising line. ‘In fact, I think his intervention is long overdue and it’s time you stopped acting like a spoilt little princess. One who snaps her fingers and thinks the world owes her a living. An overindulged rich girl who sees just what she wants and then takes it. I cannot believe that nobody has ever accused you of it before. Princesa.’

      Kat stood as he taunted her with the word, but now her heart had begun to thunder erratically as ice-cold tentacles of fear began to tiptoe down her spine, in spite of the warmth of the morning sun. Fear that she usually kept battened down, hidden away like a dark secret. Didn’t he realise that she, of all people, couldn’t cope with the idea of being trapped? That she had witnessed enough violence and horror to last a lifetime—and that sometimes she needed to run from those memories. Quite literally, to run.

      Like a dark and acrid poison, reminders of that time rose up in her mind, but she blocked them. The way she’d been blocking them ever since her world had been turned upside down by the death of her stepfather and nothing had ever been the same again. She never talked about it with anyone. Anyone. Not all the counsellors or psychologists they’d paid for over the years. Not her mother or her father. Nobody. And she certainly wasn’t going to start with this arrogant beast of a man who seemed to bring out the very worst in her.

      ‘I am not going to stay here slaving away for an arrogant man who insults me,’ she blurted out. ‘And what is more, you can’t force me to!’

      ‘Oh, but I can. And I will,’ he returned implacably as he rose from the table. ‘One day you may even thank me for it.’

      ‘The hell I will!’

      He gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, but I can see that you are in urgent need of subduing, Princesa. And if you’re planning any more theatrical displays like diving in and swimming to shore, then forget it. I might not be so inclined to jump in and save you next time.’

      He saw her bright blue gaze moving distractedly round the deck, as if searching there for some other kind of getaway. ‘What’s more, if you’re thinking you might spirit yourself away on one of my motor-boats, I’d better warn you that I’ll be keeping all the ignition keys close to me. And the rest of the crew have instructions not to take you ashore, no matter how beguilingly you decide to ask them.’ His black eyes glittered a stark warning. ‘So don’t bother wasting your time trying to escape.’

      Kat stared at him. If being trapped with him wasn’t bad enough, his cavalier and patronising attitude made it a hundred times worse.

      And suddenly, all her feelings of hurt and rage and frustration welled up into an urgent need to make him realise that she meant what she said.

      ‘Let me off this boat at once, you…you…overbearing…beast!’ she half sobbed, launching herself towards him before she stopped to think about the wisdom of her actions, drumming her fists furiously against the rock-solid wall of his chest. ‘Just let me go!’

      For a moment, Carlos didn’t react to the warm intoxication of her proximity and the realisation that the soft curve of her hips was only a thrust away. He was known for his restraint, for a steely self-control which had seen him turn down more women than most men would dream of.

      And yet now he could feel the first stealthy silken tug of sexual awakening as the coldly analytical side of his brain fought against the escalating clamour of his senses.

      His mouth hardened. He didn’t even like Kat Balfour. So why was his body hardening with unbearable tension, its demands beginning to wash over him in hot, sweet waves?

      ‘Let me go!’ she repeated, as the drumming of her fists increased.

      ‘No,’ he grated, staring down into her bright blue eyes with dislike. ‘What a little hypocrite you are, Kat. Women who want men to let them go don’t start pressing themselves against them and flaunting their bodies in such a way that shows they’re just begging to be kissed. Do they?’

      She opened her mouth to deny it but as she stared up into his face she could see that his eyes were no longer like stone. In fact, they blazed like ebony fire as they raked over her. And despite the condemnation in his tone, Kat’s words died on her lips as, with a growl of desire and fury, Carlos lowered his head towards hers and began