Riptide (9 page)

“Not today.”

“Not in a lot longer than that, I bet,” she told him with asperity as she started sliding off the bed.

Her feet gingerly touched the wood-planked floor, and Nick gently wrapped his fingers around her upper arm as she teetered. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She had muscles under the velvety soft skin. He found himself stroking his thumb across tawny satin, then dropped his hand. She was steady enough, and he’d be better off not touching her again.

The feel of her under his hand was addictive. He stuck his fingertips in the front pockets of his jeans.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “If the man responsible is securely locked up, I’m going back to my cabin.”

“I think it’d be better if you stay put until I see what he has to say for himself.”

Her lips, bare of lipstick, tightened. Her lower lip was fuller than the top one, and Nick had to force himself to get a grip and not lean in for a taste. The princess would probably resort to violence if he made a move on her. Especially now.

Sometimes Nick envied his younger brother Zane’s savoir faire. His brother was so charming, he charmed himself.

Nick knew who he was, and who he wasn’t. Hitting on a woman who’d just been attacked, a woman he wasn’t sure he trusted, was out of the question. More so because like it or not—and it was a big fucking
not
—she was under his care for the duration.

She gave him a narrowed-eyed look, as if she’d read his mental gymnastics. Crossing her arms, she rubbed her hands up and down her biceps. The movement almost covered the fact that she was still trembling. “What am I supposed to do while I’m waiting?” she demanded.

The spiced peach scent of her skin tantalized him and he clenched his teeth. “Whatever you were going to do in the crew quarters.”

A flare of amusement darkened her eyes. “Take a shower and go to bed.”

If Nick read that brief spark correctly, she’d been primed to seek sexual satisfaction alone in that narrow bunk. A glutton for punishment, he indicated the door to the bathroom. “Shower.”

She had very expressive eyebrows, which were at the moment telling him he was insane. “The bathroom door has a lock,” he told her shortly in response to what she didn’t say. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be back.”

“How long?” she asked, suspicion lining every facet of her gorgeous—fucking hell—
bruised
body.

He heard the steward enter the adjoining office, followed by the rattle of china. “I’ll have Khoi stay outside the door until I get back.” It wasn’t perfect, but it was reassurance. Of a sort. “Grab a shower, have a cup of tea, or have him get you a Scotch. Relax. You’re safe here.”

He’d make damn sure the situation with Halkias had been an isolated incident.

*   *   *

“Jesus, Jonah. Not five minutes ago I assured her she was safe, and now you’re telling me Halkias managed a Houdini and escaped?”

The captain didn’t look any less furious than Nick was feeling. “He had help. And I have all hands searching for him.”

“Let me guess, the same fucking hands that helped him get away?”

Jonah gave him a pained look. “We don’t know that.”

“I know that,” Nick told him, his voice cool. “I want to see his log, his CV, and his hiring information. Now.”

“I hired him myself on the Vietnam trip last year,” Jonah ran his hand around the back of his neck, cleary frustrated. “His performance has been exemplary from day one. No drinking. No fights. No indication of any sort of drug or mental problems. And in such close quarters, someone would’ve reported to me if there was any evidence to the contrary.

“Your princess did a number on him, I have to tell you, Nick. She beat the sonuvabitch bloody
and
broke two of his fingers.”

Nick raised his brow disbelievingly. “He must’ve gotten into a brawl before he attacked her.”

“No. She attacked him right back,” Jonah said admiringly. “Her Highness inflicted a heap of hurt on the guy,
and
he’s twice her size.”

“Shit. None of this is making any sense.” A Ninja princess? That put yet
another
question mark against what the hell she was doing on board.

“I hear you. I have all his info in my office. I’ll go with you, then start taking statements.”

“Let’s get this done.” Nick grabbed the SAT phone from its hook. “I’m calling Max Aries and having him send someone here to escort the princess wherever she wants to go first thing in the morning. Under armed guard if necessary.”

Considering Aries was the one who had pulled him into this dangerous game with the diamond smuggling, that seemed reasonable. The princess wasn’t supposed to be part of it.

He dialed. Aries picked up on the second ring. “Aries.”

“It’s Cutter.”

Aries was nobody’s fool. “You’re taking a risk calling me,” he said shortly, his voice tense on the line. “What’s happened?”

Nick told the T-FLAC operative about the princess, the attack, and the Houdini dude.

“Disappeared?” Aries demanded.

“Like smoke.” He had a big ship, but this was ridiculous.

“Hang tight.”

Jonah raised his eyebrows at him as Nick dropped the mouthpiece away from his lips and stared up at the ceiling. “Anything?”

“He’s checking,” Nick said shortly.

He didn’t have to wait long. The line clicked over. “Preliminary intel turned up no connection between the diamonds and the princess,” he said shortly.

Nick hadn’t really believed she was involved. A few weeks in the company of counterterrorist operatives and he saw conspiracies all around. “Good to know. Come get her. Keep her safe until this situation is done.”

“Sorry, Cutter. I know you want her off the
Scorpion,
but she’s safer on board until you find Halkias.”

“Leave her where she’s already been attacked?” Nick asked, his tone downright frigid. “That makes no fucking sense.”

“It gives us time to run intel on Halkias. See if or what the connection.” Aries continued, unruffled.

“A safe house in
Paris
would do that.”

“All I got for now. I want things contained. If we swoop in now to claim your princess—”

“She’s not—” He bit off his retort. Damn it, she wasn’t
his
princess.

“The princess,” Aries corrected without a hitch, “then the whole operation is blown to hell. We can’t afford to spook the tangos, you got it?”

Yeah, he got it. Nick disconnected and narrowed his gaze at Jonah. “Until they figure out the who and the why—”

“Yeah,” his friend cut him off. “I got the gist. They don’t think this has anything to do with Tamiz and Qassem or the diamonds?”

“Nope. Do you?” When Jonah rubbed his hand over his jaw and shook his head, Nick said, “Neither do I. Let’s find the son of a bitch and ask him.”

Chapter 5

But the Greek couldn’t be found. The whole damned crew, even the salvage team, once they learned the princess had been attacked, got in on the hunt, scoured the ship from stem to stern, and then repeated the search again, and then again. Nick temporarily called it off.

Bria was locked safely in his cabin, Khoi standing guard outside. She’d stay there until Cappi Halkias was found and detained. Had she gotten rid of the itch? In his bed? The thought made Nick’s heartbeat pick up the pace. “She’s probably asleep by now,” he told Jonah when his friend yawned pointedly. “I’ll bunk in here with you.”

Jonah grinned. “Interesting.”

“That we’re both tired and need a few hours shut-eye before we start our day?” he asked flatly. “Yeah, real interesting.”

Jonah made a sound like a gameshow buzzer. “Wrong. One, I notice you insist on calling her the princess, instead of Bria.”

“So, what?”

“And two, that you have a beautiful woman sleeping in your bed, and yet you’d rather sleep with me,” Jonah added, his grin widening.

Nick resisted the urge to swat the back of his friend’s head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered. “She’s banged up, and needs her rest. Why disturb her when I don’t have to?”

Why disturb
me
if I don’t have to?
Nick thought irritably.

“I think not, pal. She’s your princess, not mine. If you’re too chicken to go to your own cabin, then take the one she vacated down in the crew quarters.”

“Basim’s back in there.” He presumed.

“I refuse to share my cold and celibate bed with you. And no. You can’t sleep on the chair, or the floor, or in my bathtub either.”

“Jonah—”

“No thank you,” Jonah cut him off. “Handsome as you are, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let you be the warm body in my bed.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head, and started on the zipper of his pants, giving Nick a meaningful look. “Get lost, Cutter.” He jerked his chin at the door. “I want at least a few hours of sleep before the fun starts all over again.”

Son of a bitch. Some friend he turned out to be. Nick exited Jonah’s suite and walked toward his own cabin via the deck. It was a hot still night. The breeze had died down, and the sea was black and calm, scattered with glittering pinpoints of shimmering starlight dancing on the surface.

The faint savory smell of their barbecue dinner lingered, kissed with the ever-present salty balm of the sea. Wavelets slapped the side of the ship like the applause of mermaids.

Nick shook his head at his fancy as he paused to look out across the water, his fingers curled around the wood railing. He loved the quiet. Loved the solitude. Loved the heartbeat of the
Scorpion
’s generators throbbing calmly beneath his feet as she lay at anchor.

She was hovering protectively over a wreck that, while not breaking new ground as far as artifacts went, was going to net everyone involved a healthy chunk of change. Bria’s brother was going to be able to buy ten islands when he got his payout. She’d be happy about that. She might not be happy about how long that would take, but good things came to those who waited.

Was she awake in his bed? Had she found satisfaction?

The idea of climbing into musk-scented sheets, with her, sleepy and satiated, gave Nick an erection. He sucked in a draft of warm night air, trying to ignore the raging hard-on.

Like his captain, Nick needed some rest. He could sack out on one of the sofas in any number of public spaces on board. Plenty of them.

Neither of them would sleep long, if at all. His friend was too good at his job for that. He’d be in his office pacing, probing, trying to figure this out. Bria’s attack had happened on his watch, by a man he’d hired. And that man was gone. Lost on two hundred feet of ship in the middle of an ocean.

He wouldn’t get far.

Nick’s fingers tightened around the smooth wood of the rail, a rail that Halkias had spent the better part of that day polishing. How and why had the man gone from diligently doing his job day after day to attempted murder?

What was he missing? It seemed to Nick that if there were dangerous elements on board, then the diamonds were at the heart of it. The Moroccans had paid a lot of money to have them smuggled aboard. And with good reason.

They’d seen Bria at the
medina
and she’d inquired about the very ship they were using to carry their uncut gems out of the country. Easy to consider—very seriously—that they might assume that was too damned many coincidences.

Or,
they’d
set up that scenario at lunch the other day, and they were the ones who’d hired her to come on board and keep an eye on their investment. The fact that the princess was exactly the make and model of women Nick favored, and that she’d sought him out in Tarfaya, where he just happened to be closing the deal with Tamiz and Qassem, was also suspect.

He shook his head. It was a possibility, but his gut said she had absolutely nothing to do with the diamonds. He trusted his gut. Sometimes a coincidence was just a coincidence.

He knew the crew and his dive team were taken in by the perfect ass and long slim legs wrapped in skin-tight denim, the clingy T-shirt and tantalizing view of cleavage, and the long dark fall of her hair that swung about her shoulders. Hell, had he been a less thoughtful man, he could have succumbed to the temptation too. She was just his type all the way down to the little gold toe ring she sported on her shapely right foot. So he couldn’t blame them.

Sure, there was no doubt she was who she claimed to be. But was she the concerned sister of the king of a small country, who was trying to stabilize himself financially, or was that a convenient ruse to get her on board where she could keep him distracted for the duration?

His alter ego, El Malamah, had carried the blood diamonds on board, then disappeared. Nick Cutter, owner of the
Scorpion,
didn’t know anything about them. But did Principessa Gabriella Visconti?

He pushed off the rail and strode silently down the dew-beaded deck to his cabin. Question was, was she an innocent victim or a cleverly chosen plant? Because, goddamn it, now that he was mulling over all the imaginable scenarios, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the “attack” had been nothing more than a carefully staged ruse to bring her even closer to him physically. His gut notwithstanding, he couldn’t completely discount the possibility.

He shoved open the door to his office to see Khoi and Basim, playing cards. They jumped to their feet. Nick glanced at the closed door to his suite. “Everything okay?”

Khoi nodded. “The princess asked for nothing, and has been quiet, boss,” his chief steward informed him as he gathered the playing cards and returned them to the box, then put them away in their thirteenth-century Chinese lacquered box on the bookshelf. Jonah had hired him on a couple of years ago in Vietnam, and he’d quickly climbed the ranks. The man had the uncanny ability to know what Nick wanted before Nick knew himself. An excellent trait in a man whose duties covered your modern day butler’s.

“I took the liberty of having someone procure clothing for the princess from the storeroom,” he said now, looking around to see if there was anything else he needed to do before departing. Satisfied, he looked back at Nick. “A selection is being laundered. And I will personally ensure that the clothing is delivered here when she wakes.”