Cinderella: Hired by the Prince / The Sheikh's Destiny. Marion Lennox

him.

      Her thoughts must have shown on her face. ‘What is it?’ Ramón asked, and his smile suddenly faded. ‘Hey, Jenny, don’t look like that. There’s no strings attached to this offer. I swear you won’t find yourself the seventeenth member of my harem, chained up for my convenience in the hold. I can even give you character references if you want. I’m extremely honourable.’

      He was trying to make her smile. She did smile, but it was a wavery smile. ‘I’m sure you’re honourable,’ she said—despite the laughter lurking behind his amazing eyes suggesting he was nothing of the kind—‘but, references or not, I still don’t know you.’ Deep breath. Be sensible. ‘Sorry,’ she managed. ‘It’s an amazing offer, but I took a loan from Charlie when I wasn’t thinking straight, and look where that got me. And there have been…other times…when I haven’t thought straight either, and trouble’s followed. So I don’t act on impulse any more. I’ve learned to be sensible. Thank you for your offer, Mr Cavellero…’

      ‘Ramón.’

      ‘Mr Cavellero,’ she said stubbornly. ‘With the wages you’re offering, I know you’ll find just the crew you’re looking for, no problem at all. So thank you again and goodnight.’

      Then, before she could let her treacherous heart do any more impulse urging—before she could be as stupid as she’d been in the past—she turned resolutely away.

      She walked straight ahead and she didn’t look back.

      Chapter Two

      HER heart told her she was stupid all the way home. Her head told her she was right.

      Her head addressed her heart with severity. This was a totally ridiculous proposition. She didn’t know this man.

      She’d be jumping from the frying pan into the fire, she told herself. To be indebted to a stranger, then sail away into the unknown…He could be a white slave trader!

      She knew he wasn’t. Take a risk, her heart was commanding her, but then her heart had let her down before. She wasn’t going down that road again.

      So, somehow, she summoned the dignity to keep on walking.

      ‘Think about it,’ Ramón called after her and she almost hesitated, she almost turned back, only she was a sensible woman now, not some dumb teenager who’d jump on the nearest boat and head off to sea.

      So she walked on. Round the next corner, and the next, past where Charlie lived.

      A police car was pulled up beside Charlie’s front door, and Charlie hadn’t made it inside. Her boss was being breathalysed. He’d be way over the alcohol limit. He’d lose his licence for sure.

      She thought back and remembered Ramón lifting his cellphone. Had he…

      Whoa. She scuttled past, feeling like a guilty rabbit.

      Ramón had done it, not her.

      Charlie would guess. Charlie would never forgive her.

      Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh.

      By the time she got home she felt as if she’d forgotten to breathe. She raced up the steps into her little rented apartment and she slammed the door behind her.

      What had Ramón done? Charlie, without his driving licence? Charlie, thinking it was her fault?

      But suddenly she wasn’t thinking about Charlie. She was thinking about Ramón. Numbly, she crossed to the curtains and drew them aside. Just checking. Just in case he’d followed. He hadn’t and she was aware of a weird stab of disappointment.

      Well, what did you expect? she told herself. I told him press gangs don’t work.

      What if they did? What if he came up here in the dead of night, drugged her and carted her off to sea? What if she woke on his beautiful yacht, far away from this place?

      I’d be chained to the sink down in the galley, she told herself with an attempt at humour. Nursing a hangover from the drugs he used to get me there.

      But oh, to be on that boat…

      He’d offered to pay all her bills. Get her away from Charlie…

      What was she about, even beginning to think about such a crazy offer? If he was giving her so much money, then he’d be expecting something other than the work a deckie did.

      But a man like Ramón wouldn’t have to pay, she thought, her mind flashing to the nubile young backpackers she knew would jump at the chance to be crew to Ramón. They’d probably jump at the chance to be anything else. So why did he want her?

      Did he have a thing for older women?

      She stared into the mirror and what she saw there almost made her smile. It’d be a kinky man who’d desire her like she was. Her hair was still flour-streaked from the day. She’d been working in a hot kitchen and she’d been washing up over steaming sinks. She didn’t have a spot of make-up on, and her nose was shiny. Very shiny.

      Her clothes were ancient and nondescript and her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. Oh, she had plenty of time for sleep, but where was sleep when you needed it? She’d stopped taking the pills her doctor prescribed. She was trying desperately to move on, but how?

      ‘What better way than to take a chance?’ she whispered to her image. ‘Charlie’s going to be unbearable to work with now. And Ramón’s gorgeous and he seems really nice. His boat’s fabulous. He’s not going to chain me to the galley, I’m sure of it.’ She even managed a smile at that. ‘If he does, I won’t be able to help him with the sails. He’d have to unchain me a couple of times a day at least. And I’d be at sea. At sea!’

      So maybe…maybe…

      Her heart and head were doing battle but her heart was suddenly in the ascendancy. It was trying to convince her it could be sensible as well.

      Wait, she told herself severely. She ran a bath and wallowed and let her mind drift. Pros and cons. Pros and cons.

      If it didn’t work, she could get off the boat at New Zealand.

      He’d demand his money back.

      So? She’d then owe money to Ramón instead of to Charlie, and there’d be no threat to Cathy’s apartment. The debt would be hers and hers alone.

      That felt okay. Sensible, even. She felt a prickle of pure excitement as she closed her eyes and sank as deep as she could into the warm water. To sail away with Ramón…

      Her eyes flew open. She’d been stupid once. One gorgeous sailor, and…Matty.

      So I’m not that stupid, she told herself. I can take precautions before I go.

      Before she went? This wasn’t turning out to be a relaxing bath. She sat bolt upright in the bath and thought, what am I thinking?

      She was definitely thinking of going.

      ‘You told him where to go to find deckies,’ she said out loud. ‘He’ll have asked someone else by now.’

       No!

      ‘So get up, get dressed and go down to that boat. Right now, before you chicken out and change your mind.

      ‘You’re nuts.

      ‘So what can happen that’s worse than being stuck here?’ she told herself and got out of the bath and saw her very pink body in the mirror. Pink? The sight was somehow a surprise.

      For the last two years she’d been feeling grey. She’d been concentrating on simply putting one foot after another, and sometimes even that was an effort.

      And now…suddenly she felt pink.

      ‘So go down to the docks, knock on the hatch of Ramón’s wonderful boat and say—yes, please, I want to come with you, even if you are a white slave trader, even if I may be doing the stupidest thing