The Balfour Legacy. Кэрол Мортимер
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manage an egg. Actually, I was thinking of something a little simpler.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, access to the Internet would help. I assume you have it on board?’
‘Oh, come on.’ His hard smile became edged with mockery. ‘And have you sending out SOS messages to all the admiring men in your life, asking them to come and rescue you?’
Kat shook her head. The only man she could imagine masterminding some sort of high-seas rescue mission was sitting right in front of her and he was far from admiring. ‘I’m not planning to escape. I already told you that. All I want is to find some simple recipes with simple instructions. Recipes that I might actually be able to use—and prevent some sort of mutiny from the crew.’
Carlos studied her thoughtfully. She had a point. There was no way he wanted a repeat of the fiasco they’d been forced to endure last evening. The question was—could he trust her? Should he even try? Staring down into her brilliant blue eyes, he dipped his voice. ‘But if I let you, I don’t want you wasting time.’
‘Of course not.’
‘No emails. No browsing unrelated websites.’
What a tyrant he was! ‘Maybe you’d like to stand over me and police it?’ she challenged.
He met the challenge in her eyes with one of his own. ‘Maybe I will.’ Or maybe it would be a little crazy to put temptation in his way when he was finding it harder and harder to remain immune to her aristocratic appeal.
Sipping his coffee, he studied her. This morning she’d tied the thick black hair back into a single plump plait which gave her a particularly youthful appearance—emphasised by the simple shorts, T-shirt and deck shoes she wore. But it was something else. Something other than a more casual look than she usually favoured. He frowned. ‘You’re not wearing any make-up,’ he observed slowly.
With something of a shock, Kat lifted her fingertips to her face as she realised that he was right—and that she hadn’t even noticed. She who had worn make-up every day since she’d been fifteen years old! ‘There wasn’t time this morning. To be honest I didn’t even think about it. I…I must look a fright.’
A fright? He felt the sudden beating of a pulse at his temple and the flickering throb of awareness as their eyes met. ‘On the contrary—I think it suits you,’ he said obliquely, pleased when his cellphone began to ring and he could turn his back on the crushed-petal perfection of her lips. ‘Speak to Mike about the Internet—tell him I’ve given you permission to have limited access. And I mean limited, Princesa.’
He really was a control freak, Kat thought, as she heard him begin to speak rapidly in Spanish, and she hurried down to the galley to make herself a cup of coffee.
But the tiny freedom Carlos had granted her by allowing her access to the Internet somehow shifted the balance of power, if only slightly. Very subtly it changed her attitude towards her enforced captivity. By giving her an element of responsibility, she now felt that she had something to prove to him—and she was determined to do it.
She was allocated use of the desktop computer in Carlos’s study which apparently he used mainly in winter or when the weather was inclement. His desk was bare and uncluttered—without a single family photo and barely a keepsake which might have given a clue about the identity of its owner. Only a single oil painting gave some sort of idea about what kind of life Carlos Guerrero might live when he wasn’t at sea—and it was not what Kat would have expected. Instead of some sophisticated modern canvas, the painting was of a lovely and rather old-fashioned house set in a beautiful landscape of lemon trees and distant mountains, bounded by a sky which was vast and magnificent.
Kat found herself staring at it more than once and wondering where it was—and if it had been anyone else she might have asked them. But not Carlos. Carlos didn’t really invite small talk—and hadn’t he made it crystal clear that any kind of personal interaction between the two of them was strictly off the menu?
She found a website for beginner cooks called ‘Can’t Boil An Egg?’ which was reader-friendly and took her through all the basics. And Kat soon realised that the number-one rule about successful cooking was to keep it simple. Fancy sauces and hundreds of clashing ingredients were passé—fresh and seasonal was the way to go.
She soon found that the stronger she made the coffee, the more everyone liked it—Carlos especially. And that the crew adored warm bread served with every meal, and were just as happy with cheese as a pudding afterwards.
That wasn’t to say that there were no more disasters, though none quite as bad as on that first night. She quickly learnt that it was a mistake to make ice cream unless you were a lot more experienced than she was. And Kat soon noticed a direct correlation between hard work and personal satisfaction. That if the crew—and Carlos—were happy with the meals she prepared, then she was too…
Happy? Well, that might not be the best word to choose to describe her feelings, not when she felt a sense of aching awareness every time she saw him. The memory of his kiss lingered just as potently in her mind as it ever had and reminded her how it felt to be held close to that powerful, hard body. And she’d have been a liar if she’d denied her desire to have him pull her into his arms again—only this time, not to stop. To carry on plundering her lips with that hard and hungry kiss…
She was just writing down a recipe for a green sauce to accompany some free-range chickens she’d defrosted when a shadow fell over the desk and she looked up to find Carlos standing there staring down at her, his expression inscrutable.
‘How diligently you work, Princesa,’ he said softly.
Hating herself for noticing that the top three buttons of his shirt were revealing a tantalising triangle of silken olive-gold flesh, Kat attempted an expression of cool efficiency. Not easy when her heart was pounding so loudly beneath her breast that she was surprised he hadn’t heard it.
‘Is that supposed to be a criticism?’
‘Actually, it was supposed to be a compliment.’
‘In that case…thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he mocked.
Walking over to a line of leather-bound books, he ran his forefinger over the ornate gold script of an atlas, trying to analyse why he found Kat Balfour’s presence here so unsettling. Maybe because a boat was such a confined space and he was not used to being in such close proximity to a woman—not 24/7. It was too close to something Carlos didn’t do—and that something was intimacy.
Because Carlos compartmentalised his women, in the same way that he compartmentalised the rest of his life. Work came first—which was why he now owned real estate in most of the major capital cities in Europe. He rarely took a holiday—even his luxury yacht doubled as a temporary office when he was on board. Enforced relaxation made him restless—it always had.
Women were for bedding and occasionally providing a little light relief in his high-powered competitive world. The occasional dinner or breakfast with them he could tolerate, mainly because he knew that was the price you paid for sex. But the moment they started yearning for the impossible—some kind of commitment—then that was the time to kiss them goodbye. With a costly bauble which would cushion some of the pain they felt on parting.
But having Kat here…
He wondered if she knew just how different she looked from the pouting beauty who’d arrived. The absence of make-up seemed to have become a daily habit, just as she’d taken to wearing her clothes looking like she wanted to leave them on, instead of stripping them off to the sound of sultry music. Even her hair was now worn in a functional plait which fell over one shoulder.
The look should have been the antithesis of sexy, and yet ironically it was the very opposite. She looked very sexy indeed. Cinderella in reverse, Carlos thought wryly. And as she peeled off all the different layers of artifice, he thought he could catch a glimpse of the woman beneath.
‘We