Читать книгу The Mediterranean Prince's Passion - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 7

IT WAS just a dazzle of white set against the endless sapphire, but the sun was blinding her too much to see clearly. Ella’s eyes fluttered to a close in protest. Maybe she had imagined it. Like a person hallucinating an oasis in the desert, perhaps her mind had conjured up an image on the empty sea that surrounded them. Some sign of life other than the birds that circled and cawed in a sky as blue as the waters beneath.

‘Mark.’ She croaked the unfamiliar name through lips so parched they felt as if they had never tasted liquid before. ‘Mark, are you there?’ She racked her brains for one of the women’s names. ‘Helen!’

But there was no answer, and maybe that wasn’t so surprising, for the throb, throb, throb of loud music from the lower deck drowned the sound of her feeble words. She could hear the muffled sound of girlish, drunken giggling drifting upwards. She moaned.

How long? How long since she had drunk anything? She knew she ought to go and get some water, but her legs felt as though they had been filled with lead. She lifted a heavy hand to try to brush the weight of damp hair that flopped so annoyingly against her cheek, but it fell uselessly to her side.

She was going to die. She knew she was.

She could feel the strength slowly ebbing from her body. Her ears were roaring and the weak flutter of her heart beat rapidly against her breast. Her skin was on fire, it was burning…burning…burning…

Below, the cool, darkened interior of the cabin beckoned to her enticingly, but an instinct even stronger than her need to escape the sun stopped her from giving in to it. Down there lay chaos, and no chance for escape, but at least here on deck someone might see her.

Her eyes began to close.

Please, God, let someone see her…

His dark hair ruffled by the breeze and his strong body relaxed, Nico stared at the horizon, his eyes suddenly narrowing as the flash of something on the horizon caught his attention.

A boat? Where there should be no boat? Here in the protected waters on this side of Mardivino? His mouth tightened. Modern-day bandits? Seeking access to the tax haven guarded so jealously by the super-rich? The island had a long history of being beseiged by bounty-hunters and their modern-day counterparts—the paparazzi—and his face darkened. Where the hell were the Marine Patrol when you needed them?

But the devil-may-care facet of his character made his pulse begin to race with excitement. Ignoring—almost relishing—the potential danger to himself, he reached for the throttle and his jet-ski sped forward, roaring in a spray of foam towards the stricken craft, which bobbed like a child’s toy on the waves.

As his craft approached he could see a figure lying on the deck, and as he drew alongside he could see that it was a woman and that she appeared to be sunbathing. Tawny limbs and tawny hair. Slim and supple, with the tight lushness of youth. It took him precisely two seconds to assess whether or not this was a ploy and she the decoy. It was an age-old method he had encountered before; it came with the territory he inhabited.

But she was not sunbathing. Something was very wrong—Nico could see that from her slumped and unmoving pose.

Moving swiftly, he secured his jet-ski and jumped on board, his stance alert and watchful as he scanned the deck for a brief moment and listened intently. From a distance he could hear the loud beat of dance music, but the woman appeared to be alone on deck.

In a few strides he had reached her. Bending over, he turned her onto her side, blotting out his instinctive first reaction to the way her magnificent breasts rose and fell beneath the skimpy jade-green bikini top she wore.

She was sick.

Assessingly, he ran his eyes over her. Her breathing was shallow, her eyes tight-closed and her skin very pink. He laid a brief exploratory hand on her forehead and felt the heat sizzling from it. Fever. Probably sunstroke, by the look of her.

Urgently, he shook her. ‘Svegli!’ he ordered, but there was no response. He tried in French. ‘Reveillezvous!’ And then, louder, in Spanish. ‘Despierte!’

Through the mists of the dream that was sucking her down towards a black numbness Ella heard a deep voice urging her back to the surface, back towards the light. But the light was hurting her eyes and she didn’t want to go there. She shook her head from side to side.

‘Wake up!’

Her eyes flickered open. A face was looming over her—its hard, handsome features set in a look of grim concern. A dark angel. She must be dreaming. Or dying.

‘Oh, no!’ he exclaimed, and levered her up into his arms, supporting her head with an unmoving hand as it threatened to flop back. ‘You will not sleep again! Do you hear me? Wake up! Wake up now, this instant. I demand it!’

The richly accented voice was too commanding to ignore, but Ella was lost in the grip of a fever too powerful to resist.

‘Go away,’ she mumbled, and she felt a cold terror when he lowered her back onto the deck and did just that—left her all alone again. She gave a little whimper.

Nico went below deck and the noise hit him like a wall. He stood for a moment, studying the scene of decadence that lay before him.

He could count five people—three men and two women—and all of them were in advanced stages of intoxication. One woman was topless and snoring quietly on the floor, while another gyrated in front of one of the men like a very poor lap-dancer.

Only one of the men seemed to notice his arrival, and he raised a half-empty bottle of Scotch.

‘Hey! Who’re you?’ he slurred.

Nico gave him a look of simmering fury. ‘Are you aware that you’re trespassing?’ he snapped.

‘No, matey—I think you’re the one doing that! This boat I paid through the nose for, and—’ The man pointed exaggeratedly upwards. ‘The sea is free!’ he added, in a sing-song voice.

‘Not here, it isn’t. You’re in forbidden waters.’ And, turning on his heel, Nico went back up onto the deck. He slid a mobile phone from his back pocket and punched in a number known to only a very few, which connected him straight to the Chief of Police.

‘Pronto? Si. Nicolo.’ He spoke rapidly in Italian.

There was a pause.

‘You want that we should arrest them, Principe?’ asked the Capo quietly.

Nico gave a hard glimmer of a smile. ‘Si. Why not? A night in jail sobering up might teach them never to put themselves nor others in danger again.’ But he stared down thoughtfully at the girl, for she was not drunk; she was sick.

He bent down and shook her gently by the shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open, dazed and green as spring grass.

Through the haze of her fever she saw his strength—a rock, a safe harbour and her only means of escape. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged.

The raw emotion in her voice made him still momentarily but it was an unnecessary appeal for he had already made up his mind. ‘I have no intention of leaving you,’ he said tersely, and scooped her up into his arms before she could protest.

Her arms clasped tightly around his neck, she slumped against his chest like a rag doll in an unconscious attitude of complete trust. He gripped her tightly as he manoeuvred her onto the jet-ski.

Most men would have struggled to cope with a woozy female, but Nico had been born to respond to challenge—it was one of the few things in life that invigorated him. A small smile touched the corners of his mouth as he set off for the shore.

He was always trying new thrills and spills, but this was the first time he’d ever rescued a damsel in distress.