The Devil and the Deep. Amy Andrews
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was all happening.
Then the cursor winked at her from a blank page and the buzz and pulse inside shrivelled like a sultana.
What? No...
She took her hands off the keyboard, waited a moment or two, then placed them back on. She waited for her fingers to roam over the keys, pressing randomly to make words on the page. She consulted her notes and desperately tried to recall spunky Lucinda.
But nothing came.
‘You’re up early,’ Rick’s voice murmured in her ear as he plonked a steaming hot cup of coffee at her elbow and she almost leapt two feet off the chair.
‘Bloody hell, Rick, do you mind?’ she griped as she clutched at her chest. Had she been that focused she hadn’t even noticed he was up, or smelled the aroma of coffee?
‘Whoa there, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.’ He grinned. ‘What are you working on?’
Stella minimised the document, leaving only her screen saver to view. She glared up at him. Then she wished she hadn’t. He was wearing long stripy flannelette pyjama bottoms and nothing on top. The drawstring was pulled low and tight on his hips, revealing way too much skin right at her eye level.
Suddenly Lucinda whispered in her head again, murmuring her story, buzzing through Stella’s veins like an illicit drug. Flashes of her childhood felt sweet against Stella’s tongue. Lucinda’s despair over Inigo tightened Stella’s chest.
This was crazy.
Stella turned back to the computer, the need to write an imperative even with Rick hovering. But as suddenly as it had come upon her the flow stopped. Stella blinked—was there a tap somewhere that somebody had just turned off?
Rick let out a long low wolf whistle, ignoring her silence—Stella had never been a morning person. ‘Sexy cover,’ he murmured, taking the other chair at the desk and straddling it. ‘Great rack.’
Stella, still willing Lucinda to come back, took a moment to work out what Rick was referring to. She looked at her computer, the cover for Pleasure Hunt her screen saver. Lady Bingham’s flowing scarlet dress with the plunging neckline made the best of her assets, pushing her milky breasts practically into the face of the leering Vasco Ramirez.
‘Nice.’ Stella glared at him as she reopened her blank page, obliterating the screen saver.
Lucinda? Lucinda? Where are you?
‘I’m just saying, he seems to be enjoying the view and I can’t blame him.’
It would indeed be hypocritical, Rick thought, considering how very much he enjoyed that kind of view himself. The kind of view that Stella was giving him right at this moment as her gown flapped open and the low-cut vest shirt she wore gaped a little to reveal a glimpse of soft female breast.
The view he was trying to ignore.
He’d had a lot of practice at ignoring Stella’s breasts, given his treasured honorary position in the Mills family, but that didn’t mean it had been easy—then or now. Witness the time he’d lost his head and succumbed to her kissing dare with a heady mix of trepidation, challenge and anticipation.
Anticipation that had been building since the summer she’d arrived on the Persephone with curves and a bra.
Being sprung by her father before he’d reached his target and Nathan’s little chat with him afterwards had set him straight. And he’d never betrayed Nathan’s trust.
Not consciously anyway.
‘He’s practically drooling,’ he murmured, gaze firmly fixed on the screen.
Stella turned to Rick to defend Vasco. To say that her hero was not a salivating pervert, but of course she couldn’t because the man was a scoundrel of the highest order and she knew damn well he’d appreciated Mary’s cleavage as he’d appreciated countless other women’s cleavages before he’d met Mary and probably still was, out there in fiction land somewhere.
But it all died on her lips as Lucinda’s sweet melodic voice started up a dialogue in her head again, talking about her father disowning her for following a whim and her mother’s grief over their rift.
The implications stunk to high heaven.
Oh, God. Please no, not this, Lucinda. I’ll do anything, I’ll go anywhere else you want, but not this.
Just then Diana entered the room, negating the need for Stella to say anything, for which she was grateful. She yawned loudly and bade them both a good morning as she made her way to the kitchen in her clingy satin Hello Kitty pyjamas and poured herself a coffee from the percolator.
Rick whistled. ‘Well, hello Kitty.’
Stella rolled her eyes. Diana grinned as she plonked herself down in a lounge chair.
‘So?’ she demanded. ‘Are you going with Rick or what?’
‘Good question, Miss Kitty.’ Rick nodded. ‘Well?’ he asked, seeking Stella’s gaze.
Even just looking at him looking at her, Stella could feel the story buzzing through her veins. She could feel Lucinda beckoning her like the siren she was, waving at her from the rocks, drawing her ever closer to her doom.
She looked back at the computer screen with its mocking little cursor and acres of blankness and got nothing.
She sighed as Lucinda won. ‘Yes. I’m going.’
‘Really?’ Rick stood and punched a fist in the air at her curt nod.
How on earth was she going to share a boat with him when she hadn’t had sex in ages and he’d always been her private fantasy go-to man?
They were friends.
They were business partners, for crying out loud!
‘I’ve booked us two tickets to Cairns on a flight that leaves Heathrow early this evening.’
‘Ooh, cocky, I like that,’ Diana murmured, sipping her coffee.
Stella ignored her, as did Rick who, Stella knew from experience, must be biting his tongue to let that one go.
‘Australia?’ she squeaked.
Rick shrugged. ‘The map’s Micronesia and I haven’t taken the Dolphin out since I bought her.’
Stella stood. ‘You bought the Dolphin?’
Rick had been fascinated with the thirty-foot classic wooden yacht for as long as she could remember. They’d seen it in various ports over the years and it had always been a dream of his to have it for himself.
‘When?’
He grinned. ‘A few months ago. I finally tracked her down in New Zealand and had her refitted in Cairns. She’s ready to go.’
Stella felt a little thrill that had nothing to do with Lucinda. Rick had talked about it so much over the years it had almost become her dream too. ‘So we’re going to take her?’ she clarified.
He nodded. ‘If you want to. I could always hire something bigger, whiter, more pretentious if you preferred.’
Stella smiled at the distaste curling his lips. The Mills and Granville salvage fleet was three big white, powerful boats strong and, while she knew Rick was proud of what her father and he had built up, his passion had always been the classic beauty of the Dolphin. ‘Perish the thought.’ She grinned.
Rick grinned back at her and felt a hum of excitement warm his belly. There was something different about Stel this morning. Last night she’d been the Stella he’d always known—slopping around, no airs and graces, no special treatment.
This morning she glowed as if she had a secret that no one else knew. Her olive-green eyes seemed to radiate purpose. Her cheeks seemed pinker. Even her scraped-back ponytail seemed to have more perk in it.