Avoiding Mr Right (16 page)

The Princess caught sight of Christina. She gave a nervous laugh.

‘Oh, you mean the boy in the hotel pool. He isn’t a strange man. He’s the swimming instructor. He teaches the children. And he’s Christina’s boyfriend.’

‘
What
?’ Luc’s face was suddenly grim.

About to deny it, Christina suddenly clamped her teeth shut on the words. It might be all to the good if Luc thought that Karl was more than a friend.

His sister gave Christina an apologetic, charming smile.

‘In fact, he wanted me to give her a message. Sorry, I forgot, Christina. He was asking if you want to go to the hotel disco tonight. Call him if you want to. Er—what’s his name?’

‘Karl,’ said Christina.

‘Yes, of course. Karl. I’d forgotten.’

Luc was staring at Christina as if she had suddenly turned radioactive. Even his sister noticed.

‘He seems very pleasant,’ she added, her bright tone faltering.

Christina met Luc’s eyes unflinchingly. ‘He is.’

He made no movement. His expression told her nothing at all.

‘Then of course you must go,’ Luc said at last politely. He sounded as remote as the moon.

He was even more arctic when she came up onto deck that night before leaving to meet Karl. She was wearing a simple black shift, with gold chains at her throat. Luc’s eyes swept her up and down, leaving her feeling as if she had been lightly dusted with frost.

‘Have a good time,’ said the Princess kindly.

Luc’s smile was sardonic. ‘Don’t get carried away, Cinderella.’

Christina raised her brows. ‘Is that an oblique way of telling me to be back before midnight?’

The handsome face closed. ‘If that’s how you want to take it.’

‘Kay,’ protested the Princess, startled.

But Christina gave him a glittering smile. She clicked her heels in their soft-soled pumps.

‘Sir!’ she said, sketching a salute.

For a moment she thought his mouth twitched. He touched her on the elbow. It was just a touch, no more. But it made her whole body jerk with awareness.

She removed her elbow at once before dancing off down the gangway with an airy wave. She hoped that Luc did not detect that her stylish exit was all too close to a retreat.

If she’d thought the evening would take her mind off Luc, she could not have been more wrong. Karl was glad to see her but throughout the evening he seemed more interested in hearing about her glamorous employer than he was in her, Christina noted wryly. The problem was that it was all to easy to talk about Luc. She liked Karl, she adored dancing and the disco was a good one. It made no difference. It was as if Luc were at her shoulder all the time.

In the end she gave up and asked Karl to take her home. He was friendly and attentive but he made no protest about leaving before midnight. Which was just as well, because she had come to the end of her ability to pretend to be enjoying herself.

He walked her back to the harbour.

‘Will I see you again?’

‘I don’t know how long we’re in port,’ Christina said. ‘There’s a party tomorrow but after that I just don’t know.’

‘If the party finishes in time, call me. We can dance again,’ he said. He sent her a sideways look. ‘Or I could come and help out—wait tables, play the records.’

Christina was taken aback.

Karl grinned. ‘If that will get me an invitation to meet the Prince,’ he said frankly. ‘He negotiated the Trakai Peace Treaty. To be honest, he’s one of my heroes. My thesis is on twentieth-century localised wars. He could really help.’

‘I’m glad he can help someone,’ muttered Christina, but she was impressed in spite of herself. Aloud she said, ‘OK, I’ll see what I can do. Be in touch.’

Karl gave her waist a grateful squeeze. ‘Thanks.’

He watched her onto the boat, then waved and turned back the way he had come. Pausing by the rail, Christina smiled ruefully at his retreating back.

Then her smile died. For all his interest in the Prince, Karl had not noticed how she’d tensed every time his name had been mentioned. But it was only a matter of time before somebody did, she thought. You couldn’t go around feeling as if you were being launched into mid-air every time someone said a certain name without it showing on your face.

‘Damn him,’ she muttered. She was not talking about Karl.

She hesitated, looking round warily. There were lights on the other side of the boat and a couple of the staterooms were still illuminated but there was no one on this side of the deck. More particularly, no Luc.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said to herself. ‘Are you a woman or a mop for him to wipe the floor with?’

That was better. Forget the way he made her heart faint with desire. Remember she was an independent woman. Remember she had sworn that she would never, like her poor mother, put her life on hold while she waited for the man of her dreams. Remember he had lied and lied even while he’d urged her to go to bed with him. Unfortunately, along with those salutary recollections came the less welcome one. that she had very nearly gone with him.

‘Damn,’ said Christina.

Someone came round the corner. Christina’s heart lurched up to her throat and fluttered there like a trapped moth. She stopped and drew herself up to her full height.

But it was not the Prince. As soon as she caught the smell of stale brandy on the air, she knew who it was. Christina stiffened, but she did not let her apprehension show.

‘Good evening,’ she said pleasantly.

‘Good evening,
Captain,’
Demetrius corrected her. He sounded truculent, which was normal. He was also slurring his words, which was not.

Her apprehension grew.

‘Good evening, Captain,’ she replied in a level voice.

‘You’re back at last, then.’ He added something slurred and insulting which Christina decided not to understand. In his turn, he decided to be more explicit. ‘Got a man in the hotel, then?’

She tried to take it lightly. ‘Several of them. And they’re still dancing.’

He did not think that was funny. ‘What’s wrong with you? Don’t you like men?’

He leaned forward, peering at her in the semi-dark. The brandy fumes were almost palpable. He did not frighten her but the smell was unpleasant. She took a couple of steps away from him.

‘Some of my best friends are men,’ she said neutrally.

‘Friends! Pah!’ He made a lurching grab for her which, between the brandy and the distorting effect of the shadows, came nowhere near her. ‘You married?’

For some reason that made her wince. She did not understand it. Lots of people had asked her that over the last six years. It had never made her wince before.

But she answered steadily. ‘No.’

‘I am.’

Ah, so that was where he was heading. Here it comes, thought Christina resignedly. My wife doesn’t understand me; I need someone to think I am wonderful. She braced herself.

But Captain Demetrius was more direct than she gave him credit for.

‘I am. Married, I mean. Makes no difference. At sea, weeks apart. I do what I want. Know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ said Christina grimly.

‘I told you at start—’

‘And I told you when I came on board that I was here to cook. Nothing else.’

He did not appear to have heard her. He made another grab. She evaded him easily but this time his hand touched her bare arm. She could not repress an exclamation—or her little shiver of distaste. He decided to misinterpret both.

‘You be nice to me. We can make a good thing out of this trip.’

‘This is as nice as I get,’ Christina said.

He made his third grab. Christina had been on her own for six years. She knew how to look after herself. Captain Demetrius was strong but he was off balance and fuddled by the drink with which he had been drowning his embarrassing failures. She sidestepped him neatly; twisted out of the reach of his flailing arm and pushed him back hard against the bulkhead.

‘Touch me again and I’ll throw you,’ she said evenly. ‘I can you know. I’m on my third judo course.’

She could hear him breathing hard in the darkness, feel his eyes on her. Malice was as heavy in the air as the brandy fumes. He said nothing. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling anything.

Christina bit her lip. It had not been a good trip for Captain Demetrius—accident upon accident, then one, public humiliation in front of the employer’s sister and now another, private rejection at the hands of the lowest member of the crew. To a man of his temperament, that would probably be even more shaming. She would have to watch her step with him even more than she had done up to now.

She was making a resolve to do just that when she found it was too late. He grabbed her in a clumsy but powerful embrace. To her chagrin Christina, the accomplished brown belt, found it impossible to remove herself. He was breathing hard, fumbling with her short, full skirt. Christina felt his bruising grip on her upper thigh and abandoned the principles of a lifetime.

She put back her head and yelled for help.

CHAPTER EIGHT

C
HRISTINA’S assailant swore virulently and clamped a hand over her mouth. She bit him. He jumped and his hold loosened involuntarily. She hooked a foot round his ankle and nearly overbalanced him. But for all Demetrius’s brandy-induced swaying he had a perverse ability to stay on his feet. She fought strenuously, her hair flying.

And then abruptly he let her go. Christina was not expecting it and she half fell to the deck, ending on one knee. Her chest rose and fell agonisingly with the effort to steady her breathing. She did not know what had happened.

She shook her head to clear it. She looked up.

Captain Demetrius was backed up against the iron stairway. The expression of dismay on his face was almost comical. His opponent was tall, but slim as a whip. It was not his size which set the burly captain cowering, a shaken Christina thought, but the stark rage which came off him in waves.

‘Y-your Highness…I can explain…’ he began thickly.

Luc cut him off with an abrupt gesture, like a razor slicing through the air. Demetrius flinched.

‘Enough.’

Christina hauled herself to her feet. The captain’s eyes slid round his opponent to her.

‘This little tramp was back late,’ he said virtuously. ‘She is no good. No good. It is her fault we collide with the other boat. And when we do she laughs.
Laughs
.’

‘I heard,’ said Luc.

Christina thought that if she had been the captain the ice in that soft voice would have frozen her to the spot. Demetrius, however, did not notice.

‘It is my responsibility to discipline the crew. I am Captain.’

Saying it seemed to give him confidence. His shoulders straightened. Luc surveyed him with an expression that made Christina quail.

‘Not on any boat of mine,’ he said softly.

The captain stared as if he did not understand.

‘I have had enough, by God I have,’ Luc said with sudden harshness. ‘The boat is damaged. The cruise is a shambles. The harbour-master would have prosecuted if Christina hadn’t talked him out of it.’

He glanced briefly, coldly at Christina. Her presence clearly reminded him of yet another cause of displeasure.

‘That galley is lethal. As captain you are, as you have pointed out, responsible. And I do not care for your methods of disciplining female crew members. You will leave tomorrow.’

Captain Demetrius was clearly trying to overcome the effect of the brandy fumes. He shook his head. ‘I have a contract…’ he challenged.

‘You will be paid.’ Luc said. ‘Come to my office at eight. You shall have all the money your contract specifies. And then I want you off this boat by nine tomorrow morning. Is that clear?’

‘You can’t do that…’ the captain began to bluster.

Luc was implacable. ‘I assure you I can.’

‘Because of one little tramp?’ He was incredulous.

Luc hit him.

The blow finally knocked the captain off his precarious balance. He slid down the wall behind him, an expression of the blankest astonishment on his face. He put the back of his hand to his mouth. His lip was bleeding.

‘I’ll sue,’ he said triumphantly.

Luc was not even breathing heavily. He reached out a long arm, gathered together a fistful of the man’s T-shirt and hauled him onto his feet.

‘Understand me, Captain Demetrius. You collect your money and leave tomorrow, or you will be removed.’

‘You wouldn’t call the police.’

‘Who said anything about the police?’

Luc’s teeth gleamed white. He was smiling like a jaguar sighting its prey, thought Christina with a shudder.

‘So far I haven’t had much of a holiday, Captain Demetrius,’ he said conversationally. ‘Removing you personally from my vicinity might just change that.’

The captain peered at Luc. Whatever he saw in his face clearly convinced him that the prudent course was to accede.

‘I get all my pay?’

‘You have my word.’

The captain shrugged. ‘OK. Your loss.’

Luc released his shirt. Demetrius shook himself, smoothed his grubby T-shirt and left with as much dignity as he could manage in the circumstances. Luc watched him go.

‘Did he hurt you?’ he flung over his shoulder at Christina at last. He did not look at her.

She was shaken by the ugly little scene.

‘No. He—startled me, that’s all.’

Luc did look at her then. ‘Say terrified and you’d be nearer the mark. I heard you scream. He frightened you, didn’t he?’

Her dignity was outraged. ‘No. I can take care of myself.’

Luc reached out and flicked at the torn strap of her dress.

‘So I see,’ he said ironically.

She blushed and grabbed a hand to it. The strap had slipped disastrously, exposing far too much of a creamy breast. Luc watched, his eyes hooded. She glared at him in defiance. Abruptly he turned away.

‘It cannot go on. But this is not the time to discuss it.’

Christina gave a hard laugh. ‘Does that mean you want me to see you in your office tomorrow as well?’

He stiffened. ‘That is an idea, certainly,’ he said evenly.

She prowled round and stood in front of him, her chin thrust forward challengingly.