The Balfour Legacy. Кэрол Мортимер

you don’t? Then, Princesa, I will quickly lose patience with you, and I don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ he answered. ‘You might do well to remember that the sooner you start fulfilling your obligations, the sooner you can leave—and free us both from this infernal incarceration.’

      Shaken, Kat stood watching as he walked away from her, her eyes drawn to the graceful movement of his white-jeaned physique and the way the silk shirt billowed slightly in the breeze. Unthinkingly, she touched her fingertips to her lips—to where the tender flesh still tingled with the heat of his passionate kiss—and she felt the corresponding thunder of her heart as she remembered it. But the kiss meant nothing, she reminded herself—and Carlos couldn’t have made that clearer.

      She wondered if he’d gone off to work in one of the warren of luxurious rooms which lay below the deck, but it wasn’t until a few minutes later when she heard the throaty roar of a powerful engine that she realised that he’d gone. Properly gone.

      Racing over to the side of the yacht, she saw a flash of silver as a powerful little motorboat cut through the sapphire waters. The wind streamed through the wild black curls of the man who stood at the helm and the sun had illuminated his olive skin into dark gold. He looked, she thought, like some powerful and formidable god of a man.

      For one split second, their eyes met—and Kat registered the implacable coldness in his gaze, with barely a flicker of recognition or acknowledgement on his stony features. Was he demonstrating the fact that he was free to come and go as she was not? Or was he silently laughing at her and her lowly predicament?

      She turned away and looked around the deck. Either way, she was trapped here—with a list of menial chores to do for a sexy tyrant of a man, and no means by which she could escape.

      Chapter Five

      AFTER Carlos had gone, Kat was left with the stinging realisation that she’d never had to clean up after anyone.

      At all the different schools she’d attended—before being kicked out of most of them—there had always been someone else to make the beds and do the laundry for the privileged schoolgirls. Even at home, she’d managed to wriggle out of helping with domestic chores—maybe because her kindly and efficient mother had been a bit of a pushover.

      When her mother had divorced Oscar and married Victor, it had been a fairly amicable arrangement for all concerned. But even so, Tilly Balfour had been so racked with guilt over the inevitable disruption it had caused that she’d tried to cushion her three daughters against any emotional fallout by spoiling them just a little. And Kat, being the youngest, had been very easy to spoil.

      And then when Tilly’s new husband had been posted to Sri Lanka, there had been servants galore to run around after the whole family. Until…

      Kat blinked back the tears which could still catch her by surprise, even all these years later. But for once the thought was stubbornly refusing to be blocked.

      When Victor had been killed—murdered—nobody in their right mind was going to ask Kat to do anything she didn’t want to do. And if they did, then she usually turned her back on it and ran away.

      But now suddenly that had all changed. Because for the first time in her life—quite literally—there was nowhere for her to run. And she was faced with a man she could not twist around her little finger. A man she still desired, no matter how much she tried to deny it.

      She felt the acrid rise of panic in her throat—but with an effort she forced herself to crush it because what good would panicking do? It would paralyse her as much as stubborn defiance, and she could afford to do neither. Because even though she hated to admit it, she could see that if she wanted to get off this boat she was going to have to make some kind of an effort. To co-operate with Carlos Guerrero, even though every fibre of her being screamed out in protest.

      Kat set off to explore the galley, where she found a cupboard containing an army of brushes, buckets and cloths as well as a confusing array of cleaning products, and she carried a selection of these down into the dining salon and set to work.

      The first thing she did was to dispose of the gold bikini top, gingerly picking it up as if it was contaminated and chucking it into a black bin-liner. With a smile of satisfaction on her lips, she threw all the left-over food on top of it and watched the gleaming fabric sink beneath the weight of a banana skin. After that, she piled up all the crockery and china onto a tray and carried the whole lot down into the galley, and left it by the side of the sink before going back upstairs.

      With the table now clear, she gave the place a quick wipe and sprayed some furniture polish in the air for added effect because she remembered reading somewhere that this would make the room smell clean. And then, her tasks completed and with no sign of Carlos returning from his boat trip, she slipped into a bikini of her own, found a magazine and went to lie by the swimming pool.

      It should have been heaven basking there—with the warmth of the sun stealing over her skin and the sound of the waves swishing rhythmically against the boat. But in truth, Kat felt jittery and couldn’t concentrate on any of the iconic fashion images which usually held her attention—because a face with glittering black eyes and a mocking stare kept breaking into her thoughts and unsettling her.

      She did her best to enjoy the hours which drifted by and eventually fell into a fitful sleep—only jumping into half wakefulness by the sound of a distant drone and then by the certainty that someone was watching her. Her eyes fluttered open to see that her thoughts had become reality and a shadow had fallen over her—its hard, dark outline making her heart leap into an annoyingly dizzy and familiar beat. Kat felt her throat dry. Carlos!

      ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ came a low and disbelieving voice.

      She’d tidied up his salon, hadn’t she? Put on that stupid apron and buzzed around like Mrs Mop? Yanking the straps of her bikini back up, she sat up and pushed the hair away from her face. ‘What does it look like?’

      ‘It looks,’ he gritted out, trying very hard not to let his gaze linger on the miniscule bikini she was wearing, ‘as if you’re just indulging in a little more of the same of your idle, jet-set lifestyle.’

      ‘I’ve done what you asked me to do!’

      ‘Oh, really?’ he questioned dangerously.

      ‘Yes, really,’ she defended. ‘I’ve tidied up the mess left by you and your tame journalist—’

      ‘You think so? Then I must beg to differ, Princesa. You’ve left it only half done,’ he corrected coldly. ‘The salon is not properly clean and I understand you haven’t even bothered to wash up.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘So, you’d better get it into that little air-brain head of yours that I am used to perfection from my staff and you have fallen way short of that. And what about the crew’s lunch?’

      ‘What about it?’

      ‘It’s almost three o’clock. Didn’t it occur to you that they might be hungry?’

      Three o’ clock? Kat stared at him blankly. ‘Is it really that time?’ she queried. ‘I had no idea—and as you know, my watch is broken—’

      ‘Get up when you’re talking to me!’ he roared, and then when, to his surprise, she shrugged and began effortlessly to rise like some graceful Venus emerging from a shell, he instantly regretted his suggestion.

      Because if he’d thought that the little sundress she’d been sashaying around in earlier was sinful, then this bikini was positively X-rated. ¡Madre de Dios! Two tiny scraps of turquoise material which had been sewn with exquisite care to make a garment which was only this side of decent. Or maybe it was just the way she wore it. Her breasts seemed to be spilling over a woefully inadequate top and the bikini bottoms taunted him with two tantalising bows on either side of her hips. Bows which could be undone with a single tug of a silken piece of fabric…

      Bad