That didn’t surprise her. But then, none of his outrageously macho behaviour really surprised her. Kat ate some fish, but the evening was much too balmy to produce an appetite. Plus, she wasn’t finding it very easy to concentrate on food, not when Carlos was sitting there with the light breeze billowing at his silk shirt and hinting at the hard torso beneath. She pushed her plate away.
‘Not hungry?’ he questioned softly.
‘Not really, no. It’s too hot.’
‘Sí.’ Carlos leaned back in his chair. It was much too hot, and she was much too distracting. The sun was dipping now—its magnificent light gilding the deep sapphire of the sea, while the faint pinprick of stars were beginning to appear in the darkening sky. He could hear the slick lick of water as it slapped against the sides of the boats which were moored in the tiny port, and his eyes drank in the distant green hues of the island’s mountains. It looked like paradise—and in truth, at that moment, it felt like paradise. Good food. Good wine—and a beautiful woman who wanted him. And if it were any other beautiful woman than Kat, he would be sailing urgently back to his yacht to make love to her.
His thoughts were rewarded with the sharp stab of desire and he cursed himself for his stupidity in dwelling on such thoughts. Because this was the real world, he reminded himself—not some soft-focus ad man’s version of it.
Okay, so she’d embraced a little domesticity these past few days at sea, had shown that she wasn’t completely spoiled. But she was still trouble. Still the kind of idle, rich woman for whom he had no time. The fact that he wanted her was just nature’s idea of a joke—and nature could be cruel. Carlos’s mouth hardened. Didn’t he know that better than anyone?
He hadn’t had sex in almost a year, although offers spoken and unspoken came his way pretty much every day of the week. But he was discerning—and increasingly so as time went by. Although creamy, firm flesh still appealed to him on a very base level, his boredom tolerance was at an all-time low. And sometime last year he had decided he couldn’t face any more early morning pillow talk with beauties who turned out to be total airheads with nothing but marriage in mind.
Sooner or later he would carefully select for himself a bride with all the qualities he admired in a woman. Qualities such as humility and compassion. And she would possess a quiet, soft beauty—not the hard-edged glamour of this Balfour heiress.
So get away from her before the moon rises and the wine blurs your senses any more.
‘Has everyone finished?’ questioned Carlos, pulling a wallet from the back pocket of his jeans.
Deliberately, he sailed back in a different boat to Kat in an attempt to limit temptation to a manageable degree, though the two vessels were close enough for him to see her face as they cut through the indigo waters.
From the distant shore, he heard the crack-crack of some small explosion—was it fireworks?—and his attention was drawn to the small sound of alarm she made in response. Saw the sudden blanching of her face beneath her tan. Was she frightened of fireworks? he wondered.
But Kat Balfour’s neuroses were as meaningless to him as was fantasising about her body.
She was there to work, Carlos thought grimly, as he turned his back to the other boat. Not to tempt him into doing something he would bitterly regret.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘NO!’
The piercing and blood-curdling scream echoed through the night and Carlos woke instantly. Staring into the pitch darkness, his senses were on instant alert as the reality hit him that it was a woman’s scream—and there was only one woman on board. He frowned. Kat? Screaming? What the hell was she playing at?
Leaping naked from his bed, he dragged on a pair of jeans and headed for her cabin, his heart pounding frantically in his chest as he pushed open the door.
‘No!’
Once more he heard the terrified word torn from her throat as he burst inside—but it was not directed at him, nor at anyone else. For the cabin was empty save for Kat sitting bolt upright in bed. Through the moonlight which flooded in from the porthole he could see that her face was ashen with terror, her eyes glazed as they stared unseeingly in front of her. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost and was clearly having some kind of nightmare.
His movements were soft and stealthy as he moved towards her—remembering reading somewhere that if you startled someone from a nightmare, it could cause them a serious shock to the system.
‘No, no, no!’ she screamed again, now shaking her head wildly from side to side.
Carlos reached the bed and, brushing aside the silken spill of her hair, placed his hands on her shoulders, his voice as soothing as if he were calming down a fractious horse. He could feel the heat of her skin and see the frantic movement of a pulse at her temple. ‘Kat,’ he urged softly. ‘Kat. Wake up. Come on, wake up, Princesa—you’re having a bad dream.’
‘No, please,’ she whimpered. ‘Please don’t. Don’t…’
He found her helpless whisper curiously affecting and a rush of unwilling protectiveness flared through him. Had someone attacked her in the past? Made her…
‘Kat,’ he said again, his voice firmer now. ‘It’s okay. You’re here. Nothing’s happened. Wake up. You’re safe.’
Safe… The single word filtered into her consciousness as Kat awoke, memories which she kept buried deep and out of sight now staining her mind like a dark poison. Convulsively, she shivered as graphic images danced in her mind and sheer horror racked through her body.
But someone was holding her in their arms—and it was the warmest and most comfortable place she had ever been. So that, yes, for a moment, the word had the ring of truth to it and she really did feel safe. Safe and protected.
Until past and present merged with horrifying clarity. It was no nightmare. It had happened. Victor was dead. Her beloved stepfather gone.
‘No,’ she whimpered.