A Bride for the Maverick Millionaire

He’d just met a woman he thought was adorable. Rachel Cotton seemed a woman he’d really like to get to know.

But… was this the way his father had thought at the beginning of each and every one of his shipboard romances? He wouldn’t mind betting it was.

Finn’s grandfather had built a line of cruise ships that were world-renowned for their luxury and the fantastic places they went. The old man had been passionate about his ships and the experiences he gave his passengers.

Finn’s father, however, had inherited little of his father’s acumen but all of his love of luxury. He’d travelled the world, playing the wealthy ship owner, turning the heads of women he sailed with. They became his passion.

He’d selected innocents. He had a type. Little, cute, vulnerable women, sailing alone.

Finn was the first of his three known children, born to three different mothers and then totally rejected by their playboy father. Finn’s mother had returned from her once-in-a-lifetime cruise, nineteen years old, pregnant and sure her life was ruined. She’d died five years later, leaving Finn to be raised by his grandparents. As he’d grown old enough to enquire, he’d found he had a half-sister and a half brother who hadn’t even had the support he’d had.

Finn’s father had left the remnants of the shipping line to Finn on the condition he change his name. Finn’s first instinct had been to refuse. He hadn’t needed his father for thirty years; why take his money now?

But then he found out more about his younger half-siblings. They were still just kids, and both were desperately unhappy. Richard was packing shelves in a supermarket, but aching to study. Connie was working on an assembly line in a textile factory, and already starting to suffer from arthritis in her hands.

When his father had died, Finn had been working as a boat-builder. Maybe that was why his father had chosen him. His sources must have told him of Finn’s passion for boats—or maybe it was the fact that Finn’s grandparents had never thought of asking for his father’s assistance. It seemed the other women who’d borne him children had tried to get support and failed. But…

‘He gave us you, so we can’t hate him,’ his grandfather had told him. ‘But I’m darned if we’ll take anything else from him.’

Finn didn’t need his father, or his inheritance. The cruise line was in financial crisis. Split and sold off, it’d produce little.

But Connie and Richard haunted him. They had minimal education and no way forward without help.

A boat-builder couldn’t help them.

So he’d taken a risk. He’d accepted his father’s name, sold off the bigger ships and put what was left into a small line of intimate cruisers. He tailored his cruises to make them ecologically wonderful, exciting, fun. He took a wage but the remaining profits went into a family trust. He and Connie and Richard thus all inherited.

And somehow he’d found a life he loved. He’d established a relationship with Connie and Richard. He’d even become attached to two kids who were still disbelieving of their new life.

But now… Something was wrong with the Kimberley Temptress and he was determined to find out what. It was a challenge he relished.

He did not need the complication of being attracted to Rachel Cotton.

So he’d lied to her?

Not exactly lied.

Lied, his conscience told him. He’d implied that Connie and Richard were his children.

His half-brother and sister now shared his father’s massive house with him. Somehow over the last few years they’d established a loose sibling bond. It was true he was enjoying three weeks without Connie’s questionable taste in music, but as for escaping from children… Connie was now twenty-five, and Richard was twenty-one.

They still seemed like kids to him. They’d come from damaged homes. There were still times when they were vulnerable; when he needed to look out for them.

But they weren’t children, they weren’t his and he’d implied to Rachel and to Maud that they were.

The deception had been necessary, he told himself as he showered. With the connection he felt between himself and Rachel—with this weird, uncalled for attraction, and with Maud obviously set on making the most of it—he’d done what he must to protect both Rachel and himself.

‘You could have done it without lying,’ he told himself.

‘I didn’t lie,’ he said out loud.

‘That’s semantics. You deceived them. They’re not women to be deceived.’

And deceiving women was what his father had done, not him.

The conversation was futile, he told himself. What was done was done. Go back to avoiding them and move on. Remember why he was here.

For instance, they’d missed the tide today. They’d not been able to spend nearly as much time exploring the rock art as had been promised in the cruise itinerary. Passengers were awed by the art they had seen, and they wouldn’t be happy with the shortened visit.

And Esme, the tour guide, had been distracted. She’d looked tired.

A minor mechanical glitch and a tired tour guide. These were tiny things but they were enough to cast a shadow on what should have been a flawless morning.

So focus on that, he told himself. That was what he was here for. Not wondering about the morality of deceiving a woman he couldn’t have anything to do with.

‘There are things he’s not telling us.’ Maud plonked herself on her luxurious bed and glared at Rachel. ‘The man’s an enigma.’

‘The man’s told us more than we had a right to ask or know,’ Rachel retorted, flushing. ‘Enigma or not, Maud, you overstepped the mark.’

‘I know I did,’ the old lady conceded, and sighed. ‘He just seemed so perfect. He still seems perfect, but if he really has a taste for shipboard affairs… Though why tell us? It doesn’t make sense. He’s an honourable scoundrel?’

Rachel giggled. ‘I kind of like the concept,’ she confessed. ‘So he’s here to ravish some unsuspecting maiden who isn’t me. Who, then? There aren’t a lot of maidens left.’ She met Maud’s twinkle and chuckled. ‘How about you?’

‘Well, I won’t be adding more children to his nursery,’ Maud retorted and chuckled her agreement. ‘But there’s more to Finn Kinnard than meets the eye, mark my words. Scoundrel, though… Maybe you do need to stay clear of him.’

‘I can look after myself.’

‘If you can’t, then he’ll have me to deal with,’ Maud retorted. ‘But he obviously has no intentions where you’re concerned.’

‘He kissed me in the cave,’ Rachel said and coloured.

‘He what?’ Maud sat bolt upright, and Rachel could almost see her antennae rise and quiver. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard. He kissed me.’

And she’d done what she’d planned to do. She’d shocked the normally unshockable Maud, who stared at her, open-mouthed.

‘What… what sort of kiss?’ she managed at last.

Rachel chuckled, and pretended to consider, as if academically interested. ‘Not very hard. It was more a brush of lips than a proper kiss. Maybe he didn’t like it.’

‘Did you like it?’ Maud demanded and Rachel forgot about being academic and coloured a bit more.

‘I didn’t mind it,’ she conceded. ‘But I’m not looking for more.’

‘Well… Maybe it’s just as well I told him about your loss,’ Maud said, sounding dumbfounded. ‘Maybe that’s what’s making him confess all. If so, it’s just as well. With your history, there’s no way you need a scoundrel.’

‘Even an honourable scoundrel?’ Rachel demanded and grinned. In truth, she was as confused as Maud, by the strangeness of her feelings towards Finn as much as anything else. Why had she reacted like she had? In the dark of the cave… She’d almost kissed him back, she conceded. She’d felt him wanting to kiss her again, she’d known such a kiss was within her reach, and a part of her had almost thought about encouraging him.