A Bride for the Maverick Millionaire

Quite a big part.

Whoa.

‘It’s time to move on,’ she said, returning purposely to being brisk and efficient. ‘Shower and lunch and then the ship’s cruising to the next fabulous place. With so much fabulous around, Finn Kinnard fades into insignificance.’

‘He’s not insignificant,’ Maud said darkly. ‘He may be a lot of other things, but he’s never that.’

There was another excursion after lunch, and then a great after-dinner movie. After such a day, Rachel expected to fall into bed and sleep until dawn.

Or hoped. Instead she did what she so often did. She woke in the small hours, with the nightmares right where they always were.

The fear of this morning had brought back a too-recent memory of the moment her life had changed for ever.

One lost baby.

How long did it take to get past grief?

If only she didn’t think it was her fault. She’d fallen in love with Ramón—handsome, charming, the lead dancer in her sister’s ballet company—and someone who lied and lied and lied. She remembered that last awful day. She’d met him after work. He’d been with friends and she’d looked doubtfully at the empty glasses on the table. But—’I’ve had one wine, baby, but I’m not over the limit. Of course I’m driving us home.’

After the crash his blood alcohol level showed him once again as the liar he’d been throughout their marriage, but the damage was done. She’d been seven months pregnant. A little girl.

Lost because she’d wanted to believe his lies.

And Ramón hardly cared.

‘Women miscarry all the time. Get over it. My ankle, though… I won’t be able to dance for months. Quit with the crying, woman, and start worrying about me.’

Get over it.

She almost had, she thought. Or as much as she ever would. The appalling blackness had lifted in the last few magic weeks, travelling through the Outback with her sister, Amy, and with Maud and Maud’s gorgeous grandson. She’d watched Amy fall in love. She’d scattered her baby’s ashes at Uluru, where her grandmother came from, and she’d felt at peace.

But it still didn’t stop her waking at three in the morning, with her hands on her belly, aching with loss.

She lay in the dark and let the ache subside, as she knew it must. She thought of what she’d done over the last few weeks. She thought of Finn’s words.

Ghastly things happen, but life’s still great. You remember what’s lost with regret, but you still look forward. There’s always something.

There was… Finn?

He’d kissed her.

Ridiculous.

Ridiculous or not, she was thinking of it, and she found herself smiling in the dark. There was no pressure from Finn. He’d declared himself an honourable scoundrel and backed away. She could remember the kiss without any expectation that it’d lead anywhere else.

It was not a scoundrel sort of kiss.

But she needed to remember the scoundrel, she told herself firmly, and tossed in bed and wondered if she could get to sleep again. She knew she couldn’t.

Her hip ached.

It always ached. Ignore it.

Something else was superimposing itself on her thoughts.

The Kimberley Temptress wasn’t big enough for a swimming pool. What it had was a spa pool, set into the deck on the boat’s highest level. With such a limited adult-only passenger list—and because it was only four feet deep—there was no need for supervision or time restrictions. The pool was filled during the day with passengers soaking aching joints after strenuous shore excursions, but at night it lay deserted, a gleaming oasis in the moonlight.

The night sky would be awesome up there, Rachel thought. And the sun-warmed water on her aching hip would be even more awesome.

She and Maud had separate cabins. She wouldn’t disturb anyone if she slipped upstairs and counted stars.

So… Enough of the lying here wallowing in the past. She was in one of the most magical places in the world. Get out there and enjoy it.

Finn was far back in the shadows of the top deck. The deckchairs had been cleared to make room for passengers to gather for cocktails at sunset. At dawn they’d be set up again, but for now they made a deep shadowed recess of stacked wood.

Stacks could be manoeuvred, just slightly, so that a passenger could set up one chair behind, far into the shadows, and doze and watch what went on around the ship in the small hours.

He was on this ship incognito because he suspected his crew was drug-running. Simple as that. Said out loud, it sounded appalling. It was appalling. He didn’t want to believe it but, the more he saw, the more he thought he was right.

Each time he’d taken this cruise before, the crew was flawless. The cruise was flawless. Since then there’d been a gradual attrition of staff. This crew, this cruise, was less than flawless.

During last night’s delay the Temptress had veered slightly off course. He’d dozed at the wrong time but had woken just as a small dinghy pushed away from the side.

He wasn’t very good at this spy stuff. A real spy would never have dozed, but he was figuring things out.

Indonesia was close. The Temptress never left Australian waters so was never searched by customs officials. Drug transfer would be all too easy.

By his boat and his crew. The thought made him feel ill.

He would not go to sleep tonight.

And then she came.

Rachel.

There was one light up here, for safety’s sake, forward of the spa pool. He watched through the mass of folded deckchairs as she slipped off her bathrobe, revealing her swimming costume. He watched as she slid into the water, and he heard her murmur of pleasure as the warm water enfolded her.

She lay back on the padded cushions at the side and gazed up at the night sky and he glanced up, too, and saw the Milky Way as one never saw it on land, as one could only ever see it where there was no one, nothing for miles.

As they were now. No civilisation for a thousand miles. The ends of the earth.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be watching. He was starting to feel as if he was invading her space, her privacy.

So stand up and say hi? He’d scare the daylights out of her.

‘Who’s there?’

He froze. What the…? He was tucked right in behind the stacked chairs. There was no way she could see him. Was there someone else coming up to join her?