Cipriani's Innocent Captive

Jet? Helicopter?

Katy did a double-take. Her eyes swivelled from private jet to helicopter and, sure enough, there he was, leaning indolently against a black and silver helicopter, dark shades shielding his eyes from the early-afternoon glare.

Her mouth ran dry. He was watching her from behind those shades. Her breathing picked up and her heart began to beat fast as she wondered what the heck she had got herself into, and all because she had stumbled across information she didn’t even care about.

She didn’t have time to dwell on the quicksand gathering at her feet, however, because with the sort of efficiency that spoke of experience the driver was pulling the car to a stop and she was being offloaded, the driver hurrying towards the helicopter with her bag just as the rotary blades of the aircraft began to whop, whop, whop in preparation for taking off, sending a whirlwind of flying dust beneath it.

Lucas had vanished into the helicopter.

Katy wished that she could vanish to the other side of the world.

She was harried, panic-stricken and grubby, because she hadn’t had a chance to shower, and her jeans and shirt were sticking to her like glue. When she’d spoken to her mother on the phone, under the eagle eye of Vicky, she had waffled on with some lame excuse about being whipped off to a country house to do an important job, where the reception might be a bit dodgy, so they weren’t to worry if contact was sporadic. She had made it sound like an exciting adventure because her parents were prone to worrying about her.

She hadn’t thought that she really would end up being whipped off to anywhere.

She had envisaged a laborious drive to a poky holding pen in the middle of nowhere, with Internet access cruelly denied her. She hadn’t believed him when he had told her to the contrary, and she certainly had not been able to get her head around any concept of an unplanned holiday unless you could call incarceration a holiday.

She was floored by what seemed to be a far bigger than average helicopter, but she was still scowling as she battled against the downdraft from the blades to climb aboard.

Lucas had to shout to be heard. As the small craft spun up, up and away, he called out, ‘Small bag, Miss Brennan. Where have you stashed the books, the sketch pads and the tin of paints?’

Katy gritted her pearly teeth together but didn’t say anything, and he laughed, eyebrows raised.

‘Or did you decide to go down the route of being a good little martyr while being held in captivity against your will? No books...no sketch pads...no tin of paints...and just the slightest temptation to stage a hunger strike to prove a point?’

Clenched fists joined gritted teeth and she glared at him, but he had already looked away and was flicking through the papers on his lap. He only glanced up when, leaning forward and voice raised to be heard above the din, she said, ‘Where are you taking me?’

Aggravatingly seeming to read her mind, privy to every dark leap of imagination that had whirled through her head in a series of colourful images, Lucas replied, ‘I’m sure that you’ve already conjured up dire destinations. So, instead of telling you, I’ll leave you to carry on with your fictitious scenarios because I suspect that where you subsequently end up can only be better than what you’ve wasted your time imagining. But to set your mind at rest...’

He patted the pocket of the linen jacket which was dumped on the seat next to him. ‘Your mobile phone is safe and sound right there. As soon as we land, you can tell me your password so that I can check every so often: make sure there are no urgent messages from the parents you’re in the habit of calling on a daily basis...’

‘Or from a married ex-boyfriend?’ She couldn’t resist prodding the sleeping tiger and he gave her a long, cool look from under the dark fringe of his lashes.

‘Or from a married ex-boyfriend,’ he drawled. ‘Always pays to be careful, in my opinion. Now why don’t you let me work and why don’t you...enjoy the ride?’

CHAPTER THREE (#u2d4766e7-0036-5982-8147-1fe249c0d07b)

THE RIDE PROBABLY TOOK HOURS, and felt even longer, with Katy doing her best to pretend that Lucas wasn’t sitting within touching distance. When the helicopter began descending, swinging in a loop as it got lower, all she could see was the broad expanse of blue ocean.

Panicked and bewildered, she gazed at Lucas, who hadn’t looked up from his papers and, when eventually he did, he certainly didn’t glance in her direction.

After a brief hovering, the helicopter delicately landed and then she could see what she had earlier missed.

This wasn’t a shabby holding pen.

Lucas was unclicking himself from his seat belt and then he patiently waited for her to do the same. This was all in a day’s work for him. He turned to talk to the pilot, a low, clipped, polite exchange of words, then he stood back to allow her through the door and onto the super-yacht on which the helicopter had landed.

It was much, much warmer here and the dying rays of the sun revealed that the yacht was anchored at some distance from land. No intrusive boats huddled anywhere near it. She was standing on a yacht that was almost big enough to be classified as a small liner—sleek, sharp and so impressive that every single left wing thought about money not mattering was temporarily wiped away under a tidal wave of shameless awe.

The dark bank of land rose in the distance, revealing just some pinpricks of light peeping out between the trees and dense foliage that climbed up the side of the island’s incline.

She found herself following Lucas as behind them the helicopter swung away and the deafening roar of the rotary blades faded into an ever-diminishing wasp-like whine. And then she couldn’t hear it at all because they had left the helipad on the upper deck of the yacht and were moving inside.

‘How does it feel to be a prisoner held against your will in a shabby cell?’ Lucas drawled, not looking at her at all but heading straight through a vast expanse of polished wood and expensive cream leather furniture. A short, plump lady was hurrying to meet them, her face wreathed in smiles, and they spoke in rapid Italian.

Katy was dimly aware of being introduced to the woman, who was Signora Maria, the resident chef when on board.

Frankly, all she could take in was the breath-taking, obscene splendour of her surroundings. She was on board a billionaire’s toy and, in a way, it made her feel more nervous and jumpy than if she had been dumped in that holding pen she had created in her fevered, over-imaginative head.

She’d known the guy was rich but when you were as rich as this, rich enough to own a yacht of this calibre, then you could do whatever you wanted.

When he’d threatened her with legal proceedings, it hadn’t been an empty threat.

Katy decided that she wasn’t going to let herself be cowed by this display. She wasn’t guilty of anything and she wasn’t going to be treated like a criminal because Lucas Cipriani was suspicious by nature.

She had always been encouraged by her parents to speak her mind and she wasn’t going to be turned into a rag doll because she was overwhelmed by her surroundings.

‘Maria will show you to your suite.’ He turned to her, his dark eyes roving up and down her body without expression. ‘In it you will find everything you need, including an en suite bathroom. You’ll be pleased to hear that there is no lock on the outside of your room, so you’re free to come and go at will.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ Katy told him, mouth set in a sullen line. Her eyes flicked to him and skittered away just as fast before they could dwell for too long on the dark, dramatic beauty of his lean face because, once there, it was stupidly hard to tear her gaze away.

‘Correction—there’s every need to be sarcastic after you’ve bandied around terms such as kidnapped. I told you that you should look on the bright side and see this as a fully paid two-week vacation.’ He dismissed Maria with a brief nod, because this looked as though it was shaping up to be another one of those conversations, then he shoved his hands in his pockets and stared down at her. She looked irritatingly unrepentant. ‘In the absence of your books, you’ll find that there is a private home cinema space with a comprehensive selection of movies. There are also two swimming pools—one indoor, one on the upper deck. And of course a library, should you decide that reading is a worthwhile option in the absence of your computer.’