Love Islands: Red-Hot Sunsets. Jane Porter
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and nodded to one of the grey upholstered chairs tucked neatly under the metal kitchen table. Katy sat and sipped the wine very slowly, because she wasn’t accustomed to drinking.
‘Has her own quarters on the lower deck. I dismissed her rather than let her hang around listening to...a conversation she would have found puzzling. She might not have understood the meaning but she would have got the gist without too much trouble.’
Lucas sat opposite her. ‘It is rare for me to be on this yacht with just one other person. It’s generally used for client entertaining and occasionally for social gatherings. Under normal circumstances, there would be more than just one member of staff present, but there seemed little need to have an abundance of crew for two people. So, while we’re here, Maria will clean and prepare meals.’
‘Does she know why I’m here?’
‘Why would she?’ Lucas sounded genuinely surprised. ‘It’s none of her business. She’s paid handsomely to do a job, no questions asked.’
‘But wouldn’t she be curious?’ Katy couldn’t help asking.
Lucas shrugged. ‘Do I care?’
‘You might not care,’ she said tartly. ‘But maybe I do. I don’t want her thinking that I’m... I’m...’
‘What?’
‘I wouldn’t want her thinking that I’m one of your women you’ve brought here to have a bit of fun with.’
Lucas burst out laughing. When he’d sobered up, he stared at her coolly.
‘Why does it matter to you what my chef thinks of you? You’ll never lay eyes on her again once this two-week stint is over. Besides...’ he sipped his wine and looked at her over the rim of his glass ‘...I often fly Maria over to my place in London and occasionally to New York. She has seen enough of my women over the years to know that you don’t fit the mould.’
Katy stared at him, mortified and embarrassed, because somehow she had ended up giving him the impression that...what? That she thought he might fancy her? That she thought her precious virtue might be compromised by being alone with him on this yacht, when she was only here because of circumstances? The surroundings were luxurious but this wasn’t a five-star hotel with the man of her dreams. This was a prison in all but name and he was her gaoler...and since when did gaolers fancy their captives?
‘Don’t fit the mould?’ she heard herself parrot in a jerky voice, and Lucas appeared to give that some consideration before nodding.
‘Maria has been with me for a very long time,’ he said without a shade of discomfort. ‘She’s met many of my women over the years. I won’t deny that you have a certain appeal, but you’re not my type, and she’s savvy enough to know that. Whatever she thinks, it won’t be that you’re here for any reasons other than work. Indeed, I have occasionally used this as a work space with colleagues when I’ve needed extreme privacy in my transactions, so I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she puts that spin on your presence here.’ He tried and failed to think of the woman sitting opposite him in the capacity of work colleague.
You have a certain appeal. Katy’s brain had clunked to a stop at that throwaway remark and was refusing to budge. Why did it make her feel so flustered; hadn’t she, two seconds ago, resolved not to let him get to her? She wanted to be as composed and collected as he was but she was all over the place.
Why was that? Was it the unsettling circumstances that had thrown them together? Lucas was sexy and powerful, but he was still just a man, and male attention, in the wake of Duncan, left her cold. So why did half a sentence from a man who wasn’t interested in her make her skin prickle and tingle?
She forced her brain to take a few steps forward and said faintly, ‘I didn’t realise men had a type.’ Which wasn’t what she had really wanted to say. What she had really wanted to say was ‘what’s your type?’
Rich men were always in the tabloids with women dripping from their arms and clinging to them like limpets. Rich men led lives that were always under the microscope, because the public loved reading about the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but she couldn’t recall ever having seen Lucas Cipriani in any scandal sheets.
‘All men have a type,’ Lucas informed her. He had a type and he was clever enough to know why he had that particular type. As far as he was concerned, knowledge in that particular area was power. He would never fall victim to the type of manipulative women that his father had. He would always be in control of his emotional destiny. He had never had this sort of conversation with a woman in his life before, but then again his association with women ran along two tracks and only two. Either there was a sexual connection or else they were work associates.
Katy was neither. Yes, she worked for him, but she was not his equal in any way, shape or form.
And there was certainly no sexual connection there.
On cue, he gazed away from her face to the small jut of her breasts and the slender fragility of her arms. She really was tiny. A strong wind would knock her off her feet. She was the sort of woman that men instinctively felt the need to protect.
It seemed as good a time as any to remember just the sort of women he went for and, he told himself, keeping in the practical vein, to tell her, because, work or no work, aside from his chef there were only the two of them on board his yacht and he didn’t want her to start getting any ideas.
She was a nobody suddenly plunged into a world of extreme luxury. He’d had sufficient experience over the years with women whose brains became scrambled in the presence of wealth.
‘Here’s my type,’ he murmured, refilling both their glasses and leaning towards her, noting the way she reflexively edged back, amused by it. ‘I don’t do clingy. I don’t do gold-diggers, airheads or any women who think that they can simper and preen their way to my bank balance—but, more than that, I don’t care for women who demand more than I am capable of giving them. I lead an extremely pressurised working life. When it comes to my private life, I like women to be soothing and compliant. I enjoy the company of high fliers, career women whose independence matches my own. They know the rules of my game and there are never any unpleasant misunderstandings.’
He thought of the last woman in his life, a raven-haired beauty who was a leading light in the field of international law. In the end their mutually busy schedules had put paid to anything more than a six-month dalliance although, in fairness, he hadn’t wanted more. Even the most highly intelligent and ferociously independent woman had a sell-by date in his life.
Katy was trying to imagine these high-flying, saintly paragons who didn’t demand and who were also soothing and compliant. ‘What would constitute them demanding more than you’re capable of giving them?’ she asked impulsively and Lucas frowned.
‘Come again?’
‘You said that you didn’t like women who demanded more than you were capable of giving them. Do you mean love and commitment?’
‘Nicely put,’ Lucas drawled. ‘Those two things are off the agenda. An intellectually challenging relationship—with, of course, ample doses of fun—is what I look for and, fortunately, the women I go out with are happy with the arrangement.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know what?’
‘That they’re happy. Maybe they really want more but they’re too scared to say that because you tell them that you don’t want a committed relationship.’
‘Maybe. Who knows? We’re getting into another one of those deep and meaningful conversations again.’ He stood up and stretched, flexing muscles that rippled under his hand-tailored clothes. ‘I’ve told you this,’ he said, leaning down, hands planted squarely on the table, ‘Because we’re here and I wouldn’t want any wow moments to go to your head.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re here because I need to keep an eye on you