Cinderella: Hired by the Prince / The Sheikh's Destiny: Cinderella: Hired by the Prince / The Sheikh's Destiny

She was totally entranced, moving slowly around the salon, taking in every detail. This was the main room. The bedrooms were beyond. If she was interested, he’d show her those too, but she wasn’t finished here yet.

She prowled, like a small cat inspecting each tiny part of a new territory. Her fingers brushed the burnished timber, lightly, almost reverently. She crossed to the galley and examined the taps, the sink, the stove, the attachments used to hold things steady in a storm. She bent to examine the additional safety features on the stove. Gas stoves on boats could be lethal. Not his. She opened the cupboard below the sink and proceeded to check out the plumbing.

He found he was smiling, enjoying her awe. Enjoying her eye for detail. She glanced up from where she was inspecting the valves below the sink and caught him smiling. And flushed.

‘I’m sorry, but it’s just so interesting. Is it okay to look?’

‘It’s more than okay,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve never had someone gasp at my plumbing before.’

She didn’t return his smile. ‘This pump,’ she breathed. ‘I’ve seen one in a catalogue. You’ve got them all through the boat?’

‘There are three bathrooms,’ he told her, trying not to sound smug. ‘All pumped on the same system.’

‘You have three bathrooms?’ She almost choked. ‘My father didn’t hold with plumbing. He said real sailors used buckets. I gather your owner isn’t a bucket man.’

‘No,’ he agreed gravely. ‘My owner definitely isn’t a bucket man.’

She did smile then, but she was still on the prowl. She crossed to the navigation desk, examining charts, checking the navigation instruments, looking at the radio. Still seeming awed.

Then…‘You leave your radio off?’

‘I only use it for outgoing calls.’

‘Your owner doesn’t mind? With a boat like this, I’d imagine he’d be checking on you daily.’

Your owner…

Now was the time to say he was the owner; this was his boat. But Jenny was starting to relax, becoming companionable, friendly. Ramón had seen enough of other women’s reactions when they realised the level of his wealth. For some reason, he didn’t want that reaction from Jenny.

Not yet. Not now.

‘My owner and I are in accord,’ he said gravely. ‘We keep in contact when we need to.’

‘How lucky,’ she said softly. ‘To have a boss who doesn’t spend his life breathing down your neck.’ And then she went right on prowling.

He watched, growing more fascinated by the moment. He’d had boat fanatics on board before—of course he had—and most of them had checked out his equipment with care. Others had commented with envy on the luxury of his fittings and furnishings. But Jenny was seeing the whole thing. She was assessing the boat, and he knew a part of her was also assessing him. In her role as possible hired hand? Yes, he thought, starting to feel optimistic. She was now under the impression that his owner trusted him absolutely, and such a reference was obviously doing him no harm.

If he wanted her trust, such a reference was a great way to start.

Finally, she turned back to him, and her awe had been replaced by a level of satisfaction. As if she’d seen a work of art that had touched a chord deep within. ‘I guess now’s the time to say, Isn’t she gorgeous?’ she said, and she smiled again. ‘Only it’s not a question. She just is.’

‘I know she is,’ he said. He liked her smile. It was just what it should be, lighting her face from within.

She didn’t smile enough, he thought.

He thought suddenly of the women he worked with in Bangladesh. Jenny was light years away from their desperate situations, but there was still that shadow behind her smile. As if she’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t trust the world.

‘Would you like to see the rest of her?’ he asked, suddenly unsure where to take this. A tiny niggle was starting in the back of his head. Take this further and there would be trouble…

It was too late. He’d asked. ‘Yes, please. Though…it seems an intrusion.’

‘It’s a pleasure,’ he said and he meant it. Then he thought, hey, he’d made his bed this morning. There was a bonus. His cabin practically looked neat.

He took her to the second bedroom first. The cabin where Sofía had really had her way. He’d restored Marquita in the months after his mother’s and sister’s death, and Sofía had poured all her concern into furnishings. ‘You spend half your life living on the floor in mud huts in the middle of nowhere,’ she’d scolded. ‘Your grandmother’s money means we’re both rich beyond our dreams so there’s no reason why you should sleep on the floor here.’

There was certainly no need now for him, or anyone else on this boat, to sleep on the floor. He’d kept a rein on his own room but in this, the second cabin, he’d let Sofía have her way. He opened the door and Jenny stared in stunned amazement—and then burst out laughing.

‘It’s a boudoir,’ she stammered. ‘It’s harem country.’

‘Hey,’ he said, struggling to sound serious, even offended, but he found he was smiling as well. Sofía had indeed gone over the top. She’d made a special trip to Marrakesh, and she’d furnished the cabin like a sheikh’s boudoir. Boudoir? Who knew? Whatever it was that sheikhs had.

The bed was massive, eight feet round, curtained with burgundy drapes and piled with quilts and pillows of purple and gold. The carpet was thick as grass, a muted pink that fitted beautifully with the furnishings of the bed. Sofía had tied in crisp, pure white linen, and matched the whites with silk hangings of sea scenes on the walls. The glass windows were open while the Marquita was in port and the curtains blew softly in the breeze. The room was luxurious, yet totally inviting and utterly, utterly gorgeous.

‘This is where you’d sleep,’ Ramón told Jenny and she turned and stared at him as if he had two heads.

‘Me. The deckie!’

‘There are bunkrooms below,’ he said. ‘But I don’t see why we shouldn’t be comfortable.’

‘This is harem country.’

‘You don’t like it?’

‘I love it,’ she confessed, eyes huge. ‘What’s not to love? But, as for sleeping in it…The owner doesn’t mind?’

‘No.’

‘Where do you sleep?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t give me the best cabin.’

‘This isn’t the best cabin.’

‘You’re kidding me, right?’

He smiled and led the way back down the companionway. Opened another door. Ushered her in.

He’d decorated this room. Sofía had added a couple of touches—actually, Sofía had spoken to his plumber so the bathroom was a touch…well, a touch embarrassing—but the rest was his.

It was bigger than the stateroom he’d offered Jenny. The bed here was huge but he didn’t have hangings. It was more masculine, done in muted tones of the colours through the rest of the boat. The sunlit yellows and golds of the salon had been extended here, with only faint touches of the crimson and blues. The carpet here was blue as well, but short and functional.

There were two amazing paintings on the wall. Recognizable paintings. Jenny gasped with shock. ‘Please tell me they’re not real.’

Okay. ‘They’re not real.’ They were. ‘You want to see the bathroom?’ he asked, unable to resist, and he led her through. Then he stood back and grinned as her jaw almost hit the carpet.

While the Marquita was being refitted, he’d had to return to Bangladesh before the plumbing was done, and Sofía had decided to put her oar in here as well. And Sofía’s oar was not known as sparse and clinical. Plus she had this vision of him in sackcloth and ashes in Bangladesh and she was determined to make the rest of his life what she termed ‘comfortable’.

Plus she read romance novels.

He therefore had a massive golden bath in the shape of a Botticelli shell. It stood like a great marble carving in the middle of the room, with carved steps up on either side. Sofía had made concessions to the unsteadiness of bathing at sea by putting what appeared to be vines all around. In reality, they were hand rails but the end result looked like a tableau from the Amazon rainforest. There were gold taps, gold hand rails, splashes of crimson and blue again. There was trompe l’oeil—a massive painting that looked like reality—on the wall, making it appear as if the sea came right inside. She’d even added towels with the monogram of the royal family his grandmother had belonged to.