Riptide (15 page)

She was accomplished, secure in who she was as a woman, and confident. But Bria didn’t need a shrink to tell her that even with all that she was afraid to love. Because eventually, somehow, some way, fate had a way of stepping in and ripping away everything important.

When she was a child on the run, taken away from everyone and everything familiar and loved, all she’d ever wanted was to go home. To go live with her brother, to be the princess while he was the kind and strong king of their people.

But that was never going to happen. Draven wasn’t the idealized hero of her childhood anymore. He was a man she didn’t know, and didn’t feel any connection to. With his massive weight gain, there was nothing familiar about him at all. And really, why would there be? It had been twenty years, after all. She wasn’t the same person as she’d been when she lived on the island either.

Besides, she thought with a sigh of resignation, the fact of the matter was that running a country was hard freaking work. Between their people and his demanding wife, there was no room in Draven’s life for her.

The warmth, the closeness, the protection he’d given her when she was a child, was absent in the adult version. All that remained was an unfeeling, self-absorbed man bent on pleasing the wife who dreamed of being the next Grace Kelly—beloved queen of a small country.

A twinge built in her chest. Her eyes popped open.

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded, knowing full well she was talking to herself and beyond caring. She shouldn’t be thinking like this. It was disloyal. Like her, Draven had grown up knowing his place but barred from it. They’d been raised half a world apart. Of course they were strangers.

But it didn’t make the loneliness any easier to bear. Or Nick’s high-handed behavior any easier to tolerate.

“Oh, woe is me,” Bria said with self-deprecating humor. She rested her head on her stacked hands on the cool glass, and squeezed her eyes shut again. It blocked out the beautiful water, the sparkling sunshine, but an image of her stone-faced tormentor rose sharp and crystal clear behind her eyelids

“God!” she muttered. “He’s infuriating.”

But … She understood why.

Even being raised by a bodyguard, Bria realized she still thought like a princess. She always got what she wanted. But Nick stood firm. He wouldn’t let her boss him around.

In some small part of her brain, the part not sizzling with temper, she realized that Marv would’ve liked Nick Cutter.

He’d never tolerated liars, and he’d never allowed Bria to lie—especially to herself.

And she was really good at doing just that.

“I just wanted to see if he was really as cold as he appeared to be,” she groaned.

Her little experiment proved that he wasn’t. He’d called her bluff. And as Marvin would have told her, “You’ve got your nose bent out of shape ’cause someone didn’t play the way you wanted. So what are you going to do about it, honey?”

Didn’t play the way she’d wanted? “From pucker to DEFCON five in two point five seconds,” Bria told the invisible, and sorely missed, Marv morosely. “Yes, I’d say so.”

She needed a plan.

Chapter 8

Nick and Jonah sat on the aft sundeck near the hot tub, beer bottles in hand, feet crossed at the ankles and propped up on the rail. Nick had showered and changed in Jonah’s cabin, then borrowed clothes from him because he hadn’t wanted to disturb Bria by going to his own cabin.

Jonah had laughed his ass off, and clucked annoyingly.

Their one-a-night drink was another similarity the two men shared. Both of their fathers had been alcoholics.

But that’s where their history diverged. Nick’s father had been a womanizer in addition to his ability to drink his weight in rum, while Jonah’s father had been a hands-on parent and faithful husband despite his liking for too many beers.

Which was probably why Jonah was as well-adjusted as he was, Nick thought absently as he looked at one of the few men he trusted without reservation. The blended and familiar smell of chlorine, hops, and ocean salt was a calming way to finish the day, which had taken Nick through an unfamiliar kaleidoscope of emotions.

Relaxed as he might pretend to be, even to himself, Nick felt … ruffled. “See the silver bars from this afternoon yet?” he asked his friend. The king’s ransom in silver bars that he and his team had spent the better part of the day bringing to the surface was in excellent shape. The cache had been located to the southeast of an already established scatter pattern. A pleasant surprise.

“Olav said some hundred and seventy bars. Weighing what? A hundred pounds apiece?” Jonah leaned over and gave a fist bump. “Nice job.”

“Investors will be happy.” Nick had worked his ass off all day, diving, hauling. Things he did every day of the week with intense pleasure had suddenly become busywork, so he didn’t think of a certain pair of snapping brown eyes and wild gypsy hair.

The only damned problem was … Hell. She surrounded him whether he was with her or not. Her ripe peach scent lingered in his shower, in his office, down the corridors. There was no escape on confined real estate in the middle of the ocean.

Jonah turned to look at him, lowering his sunglasses to make eye contact. Disregarding Nick’s foray into neutral ground, his friend said plainly, “You know you can’t leave the princess locked up in your cabin forever, right? There’s sure to be some inconvenient international laws against it.”

“It’s debatable if I’ll have a cabin left after this morning’s meltdown.” Nick shrugged, keeping his tones cool, detached. “She’s got quite a temper for someone with a royal pedigree. Thought the personality was supposed to be bred right out of them.”

Jonah grinned. “Imagine being married to a woman like that.” He rested his half-filled bottle on his flat belly. “Man, you’d never know what day of the week it was, with that one. Up. Down. She’d turn you inside out.”

Nick took a long pull on his beer. The whole thing sounded like a too-familiar kind of life that he’d rather avoid. His father, the original Casanova of the Caribbean, had been a stellar example of why marriage, or even long-term relationships, weren’t of any interest.

He shook his head. “I shudder to think.” Nick stared out at the water. A small splash indicated a fish coming up for an evening snack. A few lazily drifting cotton candy clouds floated aimlessly in the hard, bright blue bowl of the sky.

A great diving day—marred by thoughts of an infuriating woman. Nick was not happy to have his relaxation spoiled by images of Princess Gabriella Visconti. He rolled his head to look at his friend. “Ever been in love? Like seriously, until-death-do-us-part in love?”

Jonah looked out over the water. “Once.”

News to Nick. In the two years he’d known Jonah, they’d talked about just about everything under the sun and found more similarities than differences. Up to and including being the same age and having birthdays three days apart. But this was one subject they’d never broached. “What happened?”

Jonah brought the bottle to his lips. “She got away,” he said into the glass, and drank.

Nick was silent. What did a man say to something like that?

“What about you?” Jonah countered, his side of the conversation clearly closed. Fair enough. Obviously an unpleasant memory.

“In love? Hell, no. In lust? Oh, yeah.” They both grinned and toasted each other.

“Why do you think that is?” Jonah asked. “Seriously. Why do I still have a jones for the woman who…” He took a slug of his beer without finishing the sentence. “And why don’t you commit? Ever think about it?”

“Not if I can help it.” Images of his mother’s tear-stained face leapt to mind. Marriage hadn’t been the best thing for her or his father. It seemed to cause more hurt than anything, especially when one person wasn’t honest. Everybody lied. It was human nature.

“I wish you could’ve known my father,” Jonah murmured, staring out over the water. “He was— God, he was an amazing man. Even as a small kid, I’d watch him with my mother, and I’d think, damn! I want that.”

“I’d look at my parents,” Nick told him without inflection, “and I’d think, Jesus, I
never
want that.” The lies. The betrayals. The subterfuge.

Jonah shot him a concerned glance. “You aren’t your father. You know that, right?” There was an edge of frustration in his voice. The same conversation they’d had over and over. Jonah was always trying to make fathers out as the greatest thing since salvaging, while Nick stood firm in his opinion that an absent father made the best father. One of their few disagreements, and something they revisited now and then whether it needed rehashing or not.

“That’s only because I purposely set out to be everything he wasn’t from an early age,” Nick said, acknowledging his success with a grim little toast.

“What about Zane and Logan?”

Nick took a long pull from his beer before answering. “Zane did his damnedest to emulate our father in every way, and Logan— Shit, Logan, being the oldest, had his own unique way of dealing with things. Lone wolf doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Jonah grew quiet. Contemplative. As if he wanted to say something, but couldn’t. Nick knew the feeling. It was part and parcel of being the calm, collected brother. Predictable, cool under pressure. Spock.

Sometimes there were things just better left unsaid, which is why he appreciated Jonah so much. Their silence was comfortable. The close confines of the
Scorpion
had accelerated their friendship over the last couple of years. They had similar temperaments, so their friendship was easy. Uncomplicated.

“But now Zane has Teal. She’s the component he was missing, right?” Jonah placed his empty bottle on the deck beside his chair, then folded his clasped hands over his belly. “I’ve always envied the closeness you and your brothers have. Now you’ve made room for Teal to come into your inner circle. Family, you know? More of it. It’s a good place.”

Nick didn’t miss the wistful note in his friend’s voice. Jonah was an only child. Nick couldn’t imagine his own life without his brothers. “We’re damn lucky,” he admitted. “We kept each other on an even keel during the worst of times, and we’re really close still. Always have been.”

His friend expelled a breath. “You have no ide— Oh, for crap’s sake!” Jonah sat up from his slouch, jerking his head to indicate something out on the water. “Look what Poseidon just dragged in!”

The dark hull of the
Sea Witch
clung to the wavelets like an ominous shadow, backlit by the white-hot ball of the descending sun, which had lost none of its intensity as it set. “How are we so lucky that she’s hitting us twice in as many months?” Nick demanded.

The redheaded captain of the small craft was a thorn in Cutter Salvage’s side. She was a pirate, a sneak, and a flat-out thief. She snuck into their sites after dark, pilfering pieces they’d marked for later recovery. Expensive. And, invariably, annoying.

Didn’t matter where in the world Nick, Logan, and Zane might be, the
Sea Witch
would always show up, usually sooner than later. If they weren’t on a salvage, she targeted one of their other ships. Relentless, she always knew where they were, and how long they’d be around, like she had Cutter-sonar.

Nick rested his head against the high chair back. “She’s a small yippy dog who always runs like hell with the choice treats,” he said, unruffled despite his moment of ire.

Fire flashed in Jonah’s eyes. “Those ‘treats’ are valuable. I keep telling you we should go over there and take back our shit!”

“Zane went on board the
Sea Witch
awhile back. Said she has our stuff all over her boat, like trophies.”

Jonah leaned forward—about as jumped up as he ever got, which was just the way Nick liked it. “Let’s go get it back. How about right now? She’ll be diving, ripping us off, while we take back what she stole last time.”

Nick frowned as a woman with long red hair, wearing scuba gear, came out onto the
Sea Witch
’s narrow deck. She waved, then got ready to dive. Idiot for diving alone, he thought without heat. But she wasn’t his idiot to worry about.

While annoying, the Sea Bitch—as Teal called her—wasn’t equipped to steal anything too large. She pilfered a few small, sometimes valuable, items, but the Cutters usually managed to scoop her on the really good finds. The stuff they marked for later, the kind of stuff the Sea Bitch made off with, was yet to be anything jaw-droppingly inspired. She was more of a nuisance and irritant than a financial liability.

“She’ll help herself just to annoy us, and be on her way,” Nick said, dismissing her out of hand. “We have bigger fish to fry.” Like a fortune in blood diamonds and a murderer somewhere on the loose.

“By not prosecuting, you’re encouraging her, you know.” Jonah pressed a hand to his belly as his stomach rumbled loud enough for Nick to hear it.

“Her time will come.” Nick glanced at his watch. “Go grab a snack. Khoi won’t start serving for another hour.” He swung his feet down from the railing, and stood.

“Where are you going?”

Nick’s lips twitched. “To see how long a princess can keep a mad on.”

*   *   *

Bria kept her eyes fixed on the door as it opened.

It wasn’t a tentative, checking-to-see-if-she-was-waiting-for-him-loaded-shotgun-in-hand kind of motion either. Nor was it the kind of caution displayed by a man not quite sure if she’d gone rabid and feral and torn his pristine white-on-white-on-white cabin to shredded confetti.

Or, for that matter, if she’d taken rescue into her own hands and smashed the large picture window and swum to frigging freedom.

All things she’d considered.

But no, none of that appeared to faze Nick Cutter, the rat-fink-son-of-a-bitch-violator-of-civil-liberties, who strolled in as though all was right with the world and not a damn thing had gone on in this cabin five hours earlier.

He looked his usual annoyingly calm self.

Bria’s plan to mimic his
sangfroid
and take over the driver’s seat went out the window the instant her traitorous body remembered what it felt like to be kissed by those arrogant lips.