Читать книгу The Balfour Legacy - Ким Лоренс, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 27

KAT awoke to an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar feeling.

Eyelids fluttering open, she gazed around in confusion as she registered the strange rocking sensation, trying to work out where she was and how she’d got here. The room was luxurious, lined with gleaming wood and Venetian mirrors. Persian rugs lay strewn on the floor and she could see her two bags standing next to the wardrobe. And hanging on the back of the door was that damned apron. She was on Carlos Guerrero’s luxury yacht!

Groaning, she propped herself up on the bank of soft pillows. She was lying on top of a huge bed, covered by two enormous cashmere throws. And…Kat froze as the palms of her hands skated down over her body as if to verify her initial fears. Because beneath the blankets she was completely naked.

That would explain the unfamiliar feeling. She always slept covered up. Always. Cosy, warm pyjamas in winter and a lightweight cotton-lawn version during the warmer weather. It dated back to childhood—a habit she’d never quite got out of, a habit more deeply engrained by never quite knowing what the night might throw at you…

With a start, she sat up, her eyes automatically straying to her wristwatch and blinking in confusion to see that it was shiny with droplets of water—and that it had stopped completely.

Haphazardly events came flooding back in a disconcerting stream. Being tricked onto the yacht and told that she was to be some sort of servant to Carlos Guerrero. And then…Kat bit her lip as she remembered trying to flee. Diving overboard into the Mediterranean and Carlos coming after her and bringing her back. Had she really done something that crazy?

Hanging over the back of the chair were her little denim shorts, T-shirt, her bra and tiny thong—and with a heated rush of blood to her cheeks, Kat recalled Carlos peeling the garments from her body. And the way that had made her feel.

Locking the door and picking up one of her bags, she stumbled into the bathroom, shocked at the sight of her white face and the mess of black hair. But a hot shower and an intense toothbrushing session soon had her feeling almost normal as she riffled through her bags for something to wear. But what? The clothes she’d brought had been chosen for the purpose of not doing very much at all—other than lazing around on deck and relaxing in the sun.

Yet since she had been duped into coming here, why should she care that many of the outfits at her disposal were completely inappropriate for her lowly new post? Especially when there was no way she was going to take that post on—no matter what her father said!

Defiantly, Kat pulled a slithery silk slip-dress over her head. It was made by that season’s hottest new designer and it had sold out weeks before it had even hit the shelves. Only the favoured few had managed to get their hands on it—and Kat had been among them. Falling to mid-thigh, it showed off the even caramel tan of her legs and was an extremely flattering fit—so why shouldn’t she wear it?

But her heart was pounding with something which felt like trepidation, as she went off to find Carlos Guerrero.

Guided by the strong aroma of coffee which was drifting in from the direction of one of the decks, she stepped out into brilliant light, blinking a little and wondering if she should go back for a hat. Sunlight was dancing in a frenzied light show on the sapphire sea, and the sky was a piercingly clear shade of azure. At any other time and in any other place, Kat might have sighed and simply appreciated the scenic splendour—but now her attention was elsewhere. Diverted to the infinitely more human splendour which was lying just a few short feet away…

Carlos was sprawled on some sort of huge chaise longue—tapping away at some sleek-looking computer, wearing a pair of low-slung white jeans, an open white shirt and a pair of dark shades. Nearby, was a large table on which stood a steaming coffee pot and a basket of different breads. But despite the sudden gnawing hunger at her stomach, Kat paid the food no attention.

For a moment she simply stood there and observed the man whose blue-black hair glinted in the sunlight. Powerful and lean, his body looked indolent and relaxed—the way you sometimes saw those black pumas in wildlife programmes looking when they’d just been fed. Kat’s stomach flipped as she registered the broad shoulders, the narrow jut of his hips and the long legs which seemed to go on for ever. And yet coupled with her undeniable attraction towards him was a faint sense of wariness and the reluctant acknowledgement that this was the kind of man whose will could never be bent to the wishes of a woman…

Carlos glanced up as Kat walked out on deck towards him and felt his body tense. He wondered if she realised that the powerful sun was angling on her tiny sundress and outlining her body in eye-popping detail, making it appear as if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

Of course she realised, he told himself cynically. Women like her used their clothes to showcase their sexuality. A sexuality which she seemed to have no qualms about putting out at every opportunity and which he was just going to have to ignore. His mouth hardened as he averted his eyes from her magnificent breasts.

‘So you have decided to grace us with your presence at last,’ he observed coolly.

And stupidly, despite his disparaging tone, Kat’s heart began beating furiously. ‘Wh-what time is it?’

‘Eleven.’

‘In the morning?’

He glanced around at the gold-dappled splendour of the deck. ‘We don’t usually have sunshine at eleven in the evening,’ he answered sardonically. ‘Even in the Mediterranean.’

‘Eleven!’ she exclaimed, ignoring his sarcasm. ‘You mean I’ve slept for…for…’

‘Hours,’ he agreed tightly. ‘Too much burning the candle at both ends, no doubt. Either that or the wine you drank made you sleep.’ He lifted the dark shades away from his eyes and stared directly into her face, fixing her with a glittering black gaze. ‘And I see that you opened the Pétrus.’

Kat remembered the anger she had felt at being trapped and told she was to work on the Spaniard’s yacht. Remembered too the discarded gold bikini top—and once again a stab of something which felt uncomfortably like jealousy unsettled her. So what if she had drunk half a bottle of his very expensive wine? ‘Sorry. I just couldn’t resist it,’ she said guilelessly. ‘Was it very expensive?’

There was a pause. ‘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 to kiss her.

She swayed as she felt the hard pressure of his mouth driving down on hers, clutching at the silken-clad expanse of his shoulders, her thoughts swirling as their flesh met and melded. This was bliss, she thought distractedly, as she clung to him, heart beginning to pound as she felt the first flick of his tongue. Wasn’t this how a kiss was supposed to feel? What she’d been holding out for all her life? ‘Oh,’ she moaned helplessly, as the pressure of his lips increased. ‘Oh!’

¡Dios!

Carlos felt her instant capitulation, as sweet and responsive as he had guessed she might be. As he deepened the kiss, he could feel her breasts peaking against him. Sweet, neat breasts—like tender peaches just waiting to be bitten into. He wanted to take one into his hand, to rub his thumb against its ripe nub. And then to delve his fingers beneath the soft silk of her sinful little dress, to discover if she was wearing proper panties this time. Or another of those X-rated G-strings…

For several agonisingly tempting moments, he imagined plunging into her, imagined her hungry little cries as she urged him on. And then, just as suddenly as the kiss had started, he tore his lips away from hers, stepping back as if she was contaminated, his furious gaze raking over her flushed cheeks and darkened eyes.

Frustrated desire found an outlet in heated accusation as he willed the frantic thudding of his heart to lessen and the fierce aching at his groin to stop throbbing and tormenting him. ‘Do you always act like this—like a sex-starved tramp?’ he demanded unevenly. ‘Are you one of these women who are ruled by the hunger of their bodies, perhaps—who grab at the nearest man whenever he happens to be available?’

The harsh words hurt, but presumably that had been his intention. ‘C-can’t the same be said about you?’ she shot back, stung, because he was so wrong in his character assessment of her that it would have been almost laughable had it not been quite so insulting. Clamping her arms around her still-tender breasts she hid her arousal and confusion behind a shield of sarcasm. ‘I mean, obviously you have a fantastic technique—’

‘That was never in any doubt, Princes a.’

‘I’m just appalled at my own reaction to an uncaring brute like you,’ she choked. ‘Especially since you had another woman in your arms only yesterday!’

Carlos found his gaze drawn irresistibly to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts which she was trying and failing to hide. ‘I had another woman in my arms only yesterday,’ he repeated slowly.

‘The woman in the gold bikini!’ she accused, hating the shaft of pure jealousy which shot through her.

‘The woman in the gold bikini?’

‘Will you stop repeating everything I say?’

‘Then would you mind explaining what the hell you’re talking about?’

‘The gold bikini top,’ elaborated Kat bitterly. ‘The one I found along with the remains of the meal in the dining room!’

‘Ah, yes!’ A slow and glittering smile of comprehension began to curve at Carlos’s lips as he remembered. ‘Tania Stephens…I had forgotten all about that.’

Kat felt sick, appalled at her own behaviour. She had been…been…Well, if she were being absolutely honest, hadn’t she been like the softest putty in his hands? Wouldn’t she still be writhing pleasurably beneath his practised caresses if he hadn’t put a stop to it so abruptly? And yet he’d been doing the same thing to another woman only yesterday and had forgotten all about it! Didn’t that speak volumes about his attitude to women in general and her in particular? What a lucky escape she had had!

‘You make love to a woman and less than twenty-four hours later you’ve “forgotten all about it”?’ she breathed in disbelief.

‘I did not make love to her.’

Kat’s heart pounded. ‘So a woman’s gold bikini top just happens to be lying discarded on the floor of your dining room, along with evidence of some intimate little meal à deux—and yet you claim to know nothing about it?’

‘That’s not what I said,’ he snapped. ‘I said that I didn’t make love to her.’

‘But…but she wanted to?’

There was a pause. ‘Of course she did,’ he agreed softly. ‘All women want me to make love to them. Didn’t you demonstrate that yourself only moments ago?’

Kat flinched at the accusation, but she couldn’t deny it, could she? ‘So who was she?’ she questioned.

‘A journalist.’ Carlos allowed himself a brief, hard smile. ‘Who I heard was doing a feature on me—and so I invited her here to find out what angle she was taking, and whether or not I needed to persuade her to adopt a different one.’

‘Why would anyone want to do a feature on you?’

Black eyes challenged her. ‘Any ideas?’

‘Because you’re rich? Or because you’re unbearable?’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘Wealth is hardly an achievement in its own right. You of all people should know that, Princes a.’

And then she remembered the photo. That startling photo. The young Carlos wearing the richly ornate jacket of the bullfighter—his face just as proud and as beautiful as it was now, but without the cynicism which time had etched onto the features of his older self.

‘Bullfighting,’ she said slowly. ‘She wanted to talk to you about bullfighting.’

There was the beat of a pause. ‘Of course she did,’ he said slowly. ‘They always want to talk about bullfighting.’

‘But why?’ Kat stared at him. ‘Because it’s exciting—or because hardly anyone does it as a career choice?’

‘Both those things, but it is a little more complex than that.’ He met the question in her eyes. ‘It’s fifteen years since I left the ring, and she’s just digging around because she wants to know why.’

‘And why did you leave?’

‘You think I want to talk about it with someone like you?’ he queried softly. ‘A woman whose definition of a hard day’s work is painting her own nails because the manicurist happens to be off sick?’

He saw her flinch but Carlos didn’t care. Couldn’t she take the truth about the kind of woman she was? He had vowed never to talk of those days, to relive the pain and the torture which had raged inside him during his tumultuous years in the ring. A pain which had little to do with the noble bullfight itself, and more to do with the cruel father who had made his life such a torment.

The journalist had tried every trick in the book to get him to talk, and a couple more besides. She had certainly been enterprising, he would say that for her. The editor had probably selected her for her beauty and her sheer ruthlessness. So that when the lunchtime interview had not been progressing as she’d wished, she had suggested sunbathing. And then laughingly stripped off her bikini top as if it had been the most natural thing in the world.

He had been aroused, yes—of course he had. The woman’s breasts had been full and pale and her glossy lips had parted as if to demonstrate that she was very accomplished with her mouth. But sex offered to him on a plate had never been his thing.

He looked down into the blue eyes of the Balfour girl. Maybe he should tell her that and have done with it—because, in effect, wasn’t she doing exactly the same? Trying to twist him round her little finger with her come-to-bed eyes and pouting lips. Perhaps he should tell her that no matter how much she tried to tempt him, she was here to do a job and nothing more. He had given his word to her father that he would teach her something in the way of commitment, and Carlos always kept his word.

So why had he kissed her? And why was the memory of that kiss making him grow hard even now? So hard that he would have liked to have taken hold of her aristocratic hips and thrust right into her.

‘You’d better have some breakfast,’ he said harshly. ‘And then start by clearing away the mess in the dining room.’

Kat met the stony black gaze. ‘And if I don’t?’

He thought how beautiful she looked when she defied him. ‘If 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.