Riptide (7 page)

She was a public relations professional without a job, a princess without a place in her own country, and a sister trying to bail her brother out of a massive mess of his own making.
And
she was stuck on a ship with a man who looked at her as if she was hamburger when he was looking forward to Chateaubriand.

How Nick Cutter perceived her was immaterial, she reminded herself firmly.

She was there on a mission. A short-term, extremely serious, deeply personal mission for the people of Marrezo.

When her transportation had flown away, it had given her a reprieve, and a few more hours to convince him to see things her way.

All bets were totally off.

“There’s not a thing in the rule book that says it’s illegal to use flirtation as a tool of negotiation, is there? No, there isn’t.” After spritzing a light mist of fragrance on her throat and wrists, she slid the keycard Basim had given her into the back pocket of her jeans, leaving the cabin with a spring in her step and a glint in her eye.

Bria’s sense of direction was good, which was fortunate, since she didn’t see a soul as she bypassed the circular glass-and-wood elevator and took the stairs all the way up to the sundeck.

Through the large windows, she saw Nick standing in the middle of a group of men by the rail. Just seeing him made her heart speed up. The man was potent. And not interested, she reminded herself firmly.

Not. Interested
.

The movement of the luxury ship was barely perceptible. She could be in any boutique hotel in the world. The sound of the waterfall as it spilled in a tinkling, sparkling fall over chunks of rough-cut white marble was a soothing counterpoint to her racing pulse. Bria found it interesting that her body reacted to Nick Cutter exactly the same way it would react to extreme danger.

Unfortunately, the flood of flight-or-fight adrenaline was accompanied by a hormonal surge of oxytocin.

“Analyze it on the way home,” she told herself out loud in the vast, empty room. Just because she saw something she wanted, didn’t mean she should have it. She’d wanted the dancing red-gold flames in a fire pit when she was five, too. Fortunately, wiser heads had prevailed, preventing her from being badly burned.

“Think fire.” A good “safe” word that would help her through the next few hours.

It wasn’t fully dark yet, but a few lamps around the room cast a warm glow on the white furnishings. Out on deck, strings of white lights moved with the slight dip and sway of the boat. The backdrop of the last glimmer of the sunset smudged the horizon with salmon and lavender. The scene was picture postcard perfect.

Bria slid the door open and stepped out on deck. The sultry evening breeze, after the air-conditioning, wrapped around her in a welcome embrace and brought with it the mouthwatering smell of barbecuing meat. The men turned as one, and the animated conversation cut off mid-word.

There seemed to be a lot of them, but a quick headcount assured her there were only seven guys drinking beer and staring at her as if she were an alien life form. Well, six stared; one was supremely disinterested.

“Princess Gabriella Visconti.” Nick stayed where he was, his hip on the rail, and indicated her with his beer bottle. “You met Jonah earlier. Pierce, Levine, Mikhail, Burke, and Olav.”

She turned to smile at the guys. “Bria, please.” She shook hands and tried to fix names and faces using the same techniques she did when working a room at any client event.

Pierce: Slight, freckly redhead. Levine: Bald, tattooed biker-type. Mikhail: Russian Norse god with big, very white teeth in a darkly tanned face. Burke: Dark skin, sun-bleached hair, predatory gaze. Olav was as tall as Nick, with beautiful white-blond hair and hands like hams. She presumed the tall guy with epaulets and a winning smile who had come out of Nick’s office earlier was Jonah.

They all looked to be in their thirties, all fit and tanned. T-shirts, shorts. Barefoot. Outdoorsy. And interested as they clustered around her. Someone offered her a drink. Beer. Bottle was fine, and he went off to retrieve it from a nearby cooler.

She slid a glance at Nick. He was still by the rail. Wondering how he could weight her body? She was ultra-aware of him watching her. Maybe she was hyperaware of his gaze because his eyes were such a vivid and startling blue. Or maybe, she acknowledged, it was the strong pull of his disinterest that attract—intrigued her.

Fire
.

She accepted a frosty bottle from Pierce, whose blush obliterated all his freckles as he smiled at her. That fair skin must be a big problem on board ship. She smiled her thanks, and turned the smile to the other man beside her. “Jonah, nice to actually meet you.” She held out her hand, inviting Jonah to acknowledge Nick’s lapse in manners. “You captain a beautiful yacht.”

Jonah’s eyes glinted with amusement as he lightly kissed her knuckles, European style.

“Ship,” Nick clarified in clipped tones. So, her shoes and red dress got her nowhere, but insult his ship by calling it pretty and he actually winced.

“What’s the difference between a yacht, a boat, and a ship?” Not that she gave a flying flip, but these men were all on one, and the question was meant as a conversation starter.

Nick answered before anyone else. “You can fit a boat inside a ship, but you can’t fit a ship inside a boat.” He drank from his beer as he turned to look out over the water.

Fabulous. He’d just stopped the conversation with his generic answer and surly tone.

Jonah smiled. “Nick designed the
Scorpion
. And I’m the lucky man who guides her through smooth waters.”

“Who steers in a storm?” Bria asked with a teasing grin, sending a pointed glance at Nick’s back.

Jonah laughed, offering her his arm, then led her to the large round table. “Me.”

Olav, who was about to sit down himself, pulled out her chair, his expression telegraphing his appreciation. Bria didn’t flatter herself. As the only female on board, she was also the only game in town. Several of them, including the very attentive Jonah, were attractive. She had no interest in male companionship. Okay. A lie.

Fire
.

She wasn’t here to find a fling, temporary or otherwise. All she wanted was Draven’s damned money … Until she got it, her life was on hold.

“Where do you live, Princess?” Levine asked as Khoi and Basim served a simple dinner of enormous barbecued steaks, baked potatoes, and a salad.

“Bria,” she corrected warmly. “Sacramento, California.” She placed her palm over her wineglass as Basim paused beside her chair with a bottle of wine. “No thank you, Basim.”

“What do you do there?” Jonah handed Olav the basket of bread.

Bria picked up her fork. “I’m in public relations.” Currently unemployed and possibly destined to stay that way.

“The princess has come to make sure her brother gets an instant return on his investment,” Nick told the others, his tone conveying exactly what he thought of that.

“Ah.” Olav drank from his bottle of beer.

Mikhail smiled sympathetically, his teeth blindingly white against his suntanned skin. “That isn’t how it’s done, Princess.”

Damn. He was already rallying the troops to his corner. Bria shrugged, disarmingly breezy. “There’s always an exception,” she said lightly, cutting into the king-sized-bed–sized steak that mooed on her plate.

“Nobody, not even Nick, gets his share until we’re done.” Pierce, the freckled redheaded said, sounding apologetic. “We aren’t done with
El Puerto
yet.”

“To great dives!” Jonah raised his bottle and the rest of the table cheered.

Bria glanced up and her gaze tangled with Nick’s. Her fingers clenched around her utensils as an almost physical lightning bolt shot through her body. Just from a look, for goodness sake. Thank God she was leaving in the morning, because that was about all the time she could hang on before she did something she’d regret the morning after.

Blissfully unaffected, Nick gave her a bland look in return, then turned to talk with Burke, seated beside him.

“The more treasure we salvage, the larger everyone’s share.” Levine, a short, skinny guy ran a hand over his shaved bald head. His smile, like Mikhail’s, telegraphed his sympathy.

Seemed everyone had to wait.

Bria lifted one shoulder. “I’m not asking for a profit, just the king’s original investment returned.”

“And you’ve already gotten the answer six ways from Sunday.” Cutter told her shortly.

“Then I’ll keep asking until I get the answer I like.” Bria said hotly. The man was infuriating, and the cooler he became, the hotter her temper got. Better than lust in this instance.

Flies. Honey. She reminded herself. Damn it, even her toes were clenched in her sandals, making her great-grandmother’s antique gold wedding ring dig uncomfortably into her toe. She had to put her fork down because she was gripping it hard enough to bend it.

The table had gone quiet, eyes darting from her to Nick and back again like spectators at a tennis match.

“As I said,” Bria calmly picked up her bottle of beer. “I’ll be leaving soon enough.” She sipped. Cold. Bitter. Just like Cutter.

Nick sipped from his own. “Perhaps you didn’t pay the pilot?”

“I told you. Both ways.” Bria kept a lid on her annoyance with a great deal of effort. The man was absolutely maddening.

“Charter out of Las Palmas?” Jonah asked. Was he smiling behind his beer? “Notorious for cheating their customers.”

She smiled, every inch the poised confident princess she wasn’t. “I’ll contact them in the morning and have another pilot come and get me.” After I’ve sat on Nick Cutter and he’s given me Draven’s money back. Only perhaps without the sitting on him bit. The visual
that
stimulated made her palms sweat, and her heart thud uncomfortably. A chemical reaction, she reminded herself. She drank from the bottle. She took another sip to cool down. It didn’t work. She was still annoyingly hot and bothered.

She added
chemical
to her danger word.

Nick Cutter was a chemical fire.

How the hell, Bria thought crossly, rolling the chilled bottle over her hot cheek, could someone so damned cold be so hot?

“Oh, I’d
hate
to inconvenience you,” she told him cheerfully, putting the bottle on the table to pick up her fork. “I don’t mind waiting a few more days for the commercial charter.” If she wasn’t gone by lunchtime, she was either going to toss his unconscious body overboard or seduce him. Perhaps the one before the other.

Nick’s incredible blue eyes glinted as he asked blandly, “
Where
did you say you work, Princess?”

*   *   *

Despite Nick’s efforts to embarrass her and put her on the spot as far as her employment went, Bria had quite enjoyed dinner. The silky feel of the warm night air and the smell of the ocean were soothing, even if Nick’s glances were not. His dive team, as a whole, were charming, and friendly, and their tales of various dives fascinating.

She flirted lightly with Jonah, who was seated beside her. But she suspected he was no more interested in her than Nick was. The long hours of travel and stress were now catching up with her, and she’d excused herself before dessert was served. She was ready to turn in. Ready, she had to admit, to not be “on.”

She needed some downtime. Time to decompress.

In spite of its size, the
Scorpion
was easy to navigate. Bria used the stairs instead of the small elevator just to get a little exercise. The honey-toned, wood-paneled lower deck corridor was well-lit, but kind of spooky and quiet as she walked it alone. It was fairly early, so she presumed the crew were finishing up their day’s work, or having dinner of their own, since there was no one around.

She had a feeling she’d be tossing and turning and cursing Nick Cutter’s name when she got into bed. He was a potent guy for all his chilliness. Just because he didn’t appear interested, didn’t mean she felt the same way. He might be as annoying as hell, but there was some unidentifiable pull of sexual tension when he looked at her, which made her blood course through her veins like fizzy champagne.

Fantasy and imagination mixed with heightened awareness.

No doubt about it. There’d be a lot of tossing and turning tonight. Her need for sexual satisfaction would have to be a solo flight. She was already uncomfortably aroused and he hadn’t so much as touched her. Bria rubbed the goose bumps on her bare arms as she walked faster.

Potent stuff, Nick Cutter.

A man dressed in the white shirt and shorts indicating he was a crew member came around the corner as she was sliding her keycard out of her back pocket. He looked vaguely familiar, which was unlikely considering where she was. Really, he shared all the traits of everyone else on this boat: suntanned skin, easy athleticism. White shorts. White T-shirt.

Though his attention was on the piece of paper in his hand as he walked toward her, he glanced up as she got closer. He started to smile a greeting, but his eyes widened with surprise and the smile died. His steps faltered as, clearly shocked, he gave her a startled look. “Principessa?!”

“Buona sera,”
Bria smiled.
“Ti conosco?”

He shook his head and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Sono in ritardo per il lavoro. Mi scusi.”

He looked Greek, but spoke fluent Italian without an accent. The Italian press had had a field day with the Visconti’s return home. He must recognize her from her pictures splashed all over the news.

As he hurried past her in the narrow space, Bria noticed the gleam of sweat on his forehead. He looked ill, and she turned to offer her help, but he was gone. Boy, he must’ve run like hell to disappear down the long corridor so quickly, or slipped into a nearby cabin.

It had taken her a long time to get used to casual recognition from strangers. Getting one’s face splashed all over the news had a way of stripping away a girl’s anonymity.

She turned the corner and found her cabin easily enough. Inserting the keycard, she rotated her tense shoulders. A hot shower, a little manual stress relief, and a good night’s sleep would make a world of diff—