‘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.
CHAPTER TWO
COOL dampness rippled enchanting fingers across her cheeks and Ella let out a small sigh.
‘Mmm! S’nice!’
‘Drink this!’
It was the voice that wouldn’t go away. The voice that wouldn’t take no for an answer. The voice that had been popping in and out of her consciousness with annoying frequency. A bossy, foreign voice, but an irresistible one, too.
Obediently Ella opened her lips and sipped again from the cup she was being offered, only this time she drank more greedily than before, gulping it so that the water ran in riveluts down her face, trickling over her chin and startling her out of the hazy fog that engulfed her.
‘That is better,’ said the deep voice, with a touch of approval. ‘Take some more still, and then open your eyes properly.’
Befuddled, she did as she was told—only to find herself even more confused. For there was a man standing over her—a man she didn’t recognise.
Or did she?