‘I didn’t believe them. Not until now. But there really is something going on between you and the doctor, isn’t there?’
‘You know me, sir.’ Nikhil gritted his teeth. ‘All work, no play.’
‘It’s served you well,’ the Captain agreed. ‘But a word of advice. The last time I saw someone wear that expression was when I looked in the mirror the first time I realised I was in love with my wife.’
‘I am certainly not in love with Dr Sinclair.’
‘That was thirty years ago,’ the older man continued, as if Nikhil hadn’t even spoken. ‘And she is still the only woman I have ever looked at that way. Even since she died there has been no one else. So if you care about that woman over there, Nikhil, I suggest you do something about it. Before one of these other blokes around here decides she’s fair game.’
Nikhil clamped his jaws together so hard that it was almost painful. But he refused to let anyone see how his old mentor’s words got to him. He refused to show any weakness. And these...feelings he had for Isla Sinclair were surely a weakness.
‘And, you know, it couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time, actually,’ the Captain confided suddenly.
‘Is that so?’
Nikhil didn’t really want to know. He didn’t care. He just wanted to end the conversation so that he could go over and wrap her arm through his—staking his claim on her in front of all these would-be suitors, like a damned dog marking its territory.
‘One of the other fleet Captains is retiring at the end of the year. We’ve all been asked to put forward potential candidates for promotion. I wanted to put you forward.’
‘You wanted to?’ Nikhil frowned, his mind struggling to keep up, when all it really wanted to do was snap straight back to the woman across the room.
‘I have no doubt that you’re the best officer for the role, Nikhil, but Head Office prefer their Captains to be married, or widowed. They don’t like single, even one as dedicated and professional as you.’
Finally, Nikhil’s gaze stopped trying to fight its way back to Isla. He stared at the Captain. ‘You’re saying that they wouldn’t consider me for promotion without a wife?’
‘Archaic, isn’t it?’ The older man shrugged. ‘The one thing you’ve avoided all this time is going to be the thing that gets you the promotion you’ve been working for, your entire career.’
Nikhil watched her move. Her lithe body rippling under the sequinned fabric, arresting heads—and other, more carnal parts of the male anatomy. She was magnificent. Incomparable and, apparently, the key to getting everything he’d ever wanted.
His own ship.
So why did he know, without even thinking about it, that there was no way he could use her like that? He’d been fighting their attraction because he’d always prided himself on his professionalism, yet it seemed that resisting temptation would be his downfall, not his success.
So why not give in to it? Why not give in to Isla, and gain two things in the process?
Because she deserves better than that, a voice insinuated itself into his head. And he didn’t exactly try to silence it.
Instead, he watched as she circled the room, apparently doing all she could to avoid moving to the point where he stood, still with the Captain. Now she was with the woman who declared herself to be Isla’s mother.
He could certainly see the resemblance. The high, fine bone structure, the delicate nose and those oh-so-expressive eyes. But Marianna had a worldliness to her that Isla didn’t possess. And though they both had an intelligent sharpness in their gaze, he could read the honed intellect in Isla’s expression that simply wasn’t present in that of her mother.
For over an hour he watched her move between guests, charming people and laughing with them, and he told himself that he didn’t feel jealous, or possessive, or indeed anything at all.
He wasn’t sure that he fell for it, for a moment.
And then, suddenly, she was right in front of him and every cell in his body zinged with awareness.
‘Nikhil, I want to introduce you to my mother, Marianna Sinclair-Raleigh-Burton. Mother, this is Nikhil Dara.’
‘Nikhil Dara.’ Isla’s mother held her hand out for him to take as he smiled politely, wholly unprepared for the blow he was about to suffer. ‘Surely no relation to the delightful Daksh Dara of DXD Industries?’
* * *
Isla had no idea why she was standing there, unable to breathe, as Nikhil and her mother stood face to face, each weighing up the other in their different ways.
Her mother on one side, as glittery and charming as ever on the outside, but with the lethal blade of a smile that only Isla knew was being wielded as a weapon. And Nikhil on the other, a hard edge to his body that she’d never seen before, an expression she couldn’t read playing across his harsh features.
There was no reason for her to have wished so fervently that things would go well between the two of them during these introductions, and yet that was exactly how she’d felt.