Master of the Desert

He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had challenged him. In a world of bowed heads and whispering obedience, it was almost a refreshing change. But the girl’s safety came first, and for the pirates to be captured he had to warn her off ever doing anything similar again, and find out everything she could tell him. ‘Save the attitude,’ he barked, ‘And stick to the facts.’

She blinked and rallied determinedly, and as her story unfolded his admiration for her grew. It also made him doubly determined that she must learn from the experience. ‘You seem to have confused some romantic notion with reality,’ he observed acidly when she paused for breath. ‘This part of the Gulf is no holiday resort, and you’re lucky these are only scratches.’

It had been a relief to find that none of her injuries was serious and was what he might have expected after hearing she’d jumped overboard. ‘This will sting,’ he warned, loosening the top on a bottle of iodine. To her credit, she barely flinched as he painted it on. The only sign that it hurt her was a sharp intake of breath. She had beautiful legs, coltish and long, and her skin was lightly tanned, as if she had only recently landed in the Gulf. ‘What brought you to these shores—a gap year?’

‘Sort of.’

She winced—from fear of discovery that she was doing something she shouldn’t, he guessed—but before he could question her she hit him with, ‘What brought you here?’

No one questioned him. He had to forcefully remind himself that here on this desert island they were anonymous strangers and she couldn’t know who he was. He shrugged. ‘The storm.’

That was the simple answer. Sailing grounded him; it reminded him he was not only a king but a man, and that the man owed it to his country and his people to go hunting for his humanity from time to time. Whether he would ever be successful in that quest, only history would judge. ‘And where did you say you were heading?’ he prompted.

‘I didn’t say, but I’m heading for Sinnebar,’ she admitted grudgingly when he held her stare.

She was hiding something, he concluded when her gaze flickered away.

‘Do we have to talk now?’ she muttered, playing the hard-done-by card.

‘If you want the pirates to escape…’

‘No, of course I don’t,’ she declared, staring him full in the face.

‘Good. So tell me where the attack took place. Did you get a fix—coordinates?’ he pressed when she didn’t answer right away.

‘I know what you mean,’ she flared, but for the first time he thought she seemed disappointed in herself because she couldn’t give him the detail he required.

He gathered from what she went on to tell him that the pirates had taken advantage of the poor visibility to target an unsophisticated boat that lacked the latest radar equipment and alarm systems. ‘So you weren’t sailing your own boat when the pirates attacked?’ he guessed.

‘No.’

Burying her head in her knees, she tensed, but with the criminals still on the loose this was no time to go easy on her. ‘Sit up,’ he barked.

She snapped upright, and the look in her eyes suggested she was only now realising she might have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. He felt some sympathy for her. Dressed in cut-off shorts and faded top with a shark knife hanging from his belt, he was hardly a reassuring sight. ‘Come on,’ he pressed impatiently. ‘I need this information now, not sometime next week.’

She bit her lip and then admitted in a voice that was barely audible, ‘I hitched a lift on a fishing boat.’

‘You hitched?’ Words failed him. The girl’s naivety appalled him; the danger she had put herself in defied reason. ‘What were you trying to prove?’

‘Nothing.’

He doubted that. There would be someone back home she wanted to impress. ‘Couldn’t you have caught the ferry? Or was that too easy for you?’

‘I thought the fishing boat would give me a more authentic experience.’

‘More authentic?’ he demanded cuttingly. ‘So, you’re another tourist who thinks you can visit a foreign country with nothing more than your thirst for adventure and a bleeding heart in your survival kit?’

Her face paled. ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’

‘It was exactly like that. And then you wonder why you find yourself in danger? Keep your arms outstretched,’ he reminded her when she flinched.

His pulse was thundering with outrage at the thought of pirates in the sea off the shores of Sinnebar, though the girl had his attention too. He looked at her tiny hand and thought her courage all the more remarkable, given her petite frame. She was barely half his size, her skin-tone pale against his bronze. Her quick thinking had saved her, he concluded, and because her boldness was at odds with her fragile appearance the pirates had underestimated her. He would not make the same mistake.

Now she was speaking more, she went on to talk with passion of punishment for the pirates and compensation for the fishermen, which launched another unwelcome surge of arousal which he quickly stamped on. However soft and yielding she felt beneath his hands, her mind was not half so compliant, and he had no room in his life for complications. ‘What type of boat did they have? Never mind,’ he rapped, impatient to gather as much information as he could before placing a second call to the commander of his naval forces. ‘Just tell me the colour.’

‘It was a skiff,’ she said with mild affront. ‘Powerful engine; peeling white paint above the water-line; black below. And the interior was painted a vivid shade of aquamarine.’

‘A vivid shade of aquamarine?’ he murmured dryly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Perfectly sure,’ she said, holding his gaze with curiosity, as if surprised to see the humour there. ‘Have I told you enough?’ she asked as he turned to use the radio.

‘More than I expected,’ he conceded as he prepared to place the call. ‘You did well.’

He could feel the heat of her gaze on his back as he fired off orders. He had become part of her desert fantasy, he guessed. Too bad; he wasn’t interested. There were plenty of women who knew the score, and this girl wasn’t one of them. Breaking radio connection, he turned to face her again.

‘Okay?’ she said hopefully.

‘Okay,’ he confirmed. ‘So now it’s all about you.’ He ran a cool stare over her. ‘Let’s start with your name and what you’re doing here.’

No name. She could have no name. Signorina Antonia Ruggiero must have no name. Whoever he was, this man was successful; successful people knew other people. And people talked. How good would it look for her to be branded a thief? Or, worse still, a demented creature with a knife? Before she’d even begun the work she’d set out to do.

‘You’re European,’ the man observed in a voice that strummed something deep inside her. ‘Although, like me, I suspect you were educated in England. Am I right?’

She took in the fact that his husky, confident baritone was barely accented even though he had spoken Sinnebalese fluently. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Her own voice sounded hoarse.

‘Where in England were you educated?’ His keen eyes watched her closely, and the intensity of expression in those eyes warned her not to lie to him.

‘I went to school in Ascot.’

‘Ascot?’ There was a faint note of mockery in his voice. He’d heard of the very expensive girls’ school there. ‘So you’re a very proper young lady?’

Not in her head. One flash of this man’s muscular back when he changed his top confirmed she was anything but proper. ‘I try,’ she said primly.

‘What is such a well-brought-up young lady doing on my yacht, stealing my food and threatening me with a knife?’

His relentless stare sent ribbons of sensation flooding through her, making it hard to concentrate—but this was her best, maybe her only, chance to get to the mainland and it was crucial to forge a relationship with him. She also had to persuade him not to report her to the authorities to avoid being arrested the moment she landed. ‘I was hungry—thirsty. Your yacht was here; I took my chances.’

She flinched when he laughed. Short and sharp, it held no hint of humour.

‘You certainly did,’ he agreed. ‘Didn’t you think to call out when you came on board? You could have made some attempt to locate the owner before you stole his food.’

‘I did call out, but no one answered.’

His lips curved as he propped his hip against the bench where she was sitting. ‘So you helped yourself to whatever you felt like?’

‘I didn’t touch anything outside the galley.’ Must he move so close and tower over her?

‘And that makes it right?’