Riptide (24 page)

Damn it to hell.

He was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t.

Was Aries right? Were calls to and from the
Scorpion
being monitored? Or was Aries manipulating him, and his ship, for his own agenda?

“Fuck them all.” He’d take the chopper to Las Palmas or Tenerife, and contact Aries from there on a public phone and get the answers to all his questions.

Nick pushed open the door to the storeroom, felt for the light switch, and walked into the large, crowded space. Even if the operative sent an escort for Bria, depending on where he
was
, it could take valuable hours, if not days before Nick was sure she was safe.

It would be quicker to take her to Marrezo.

Under the guise of returning her idiot brother’s investment, Nick could ensure that she stayed in the royal palace, where she’d be securely guarded twenty-four-seven. If he pulled the money from his personal bank accounts, nobody would be the wiser.

He wended his way between deck chairs, tables, and broken lamps until he saw the old walk-in refrigerator in back and plugged it in. It rattled, hummed, and settled into an asthmatic drone. Good enough.

He went back to inform Jonah that he was going to escort Bria to Marrezo, right after they moved the body.

*   *   *

Nick had threatened her with working for passage. Bria grinned. Although the idea had appeal, she presumed he hadn’t meant on her back. She needed something constructive to do. Preferably something that allowed her free rein and not confinement in the cabin.

There was still a murderer on board. But with the Bersa, she was confident she could protect herself. Still, Nick’s order that she not be alone anywhere without himself or Jonah was sound. She wasn’t going to have a too-stupid-to-live moment and skydive without a parachute.

Having no idea what had alarmed Nick, she was not willing to fill her brain with a thousand different alarming scenarios when she couldn’t do anything to help.

She was good at making lists. She’d had a year of unemployment to fill, and no money to travel. Her lists had lists. Putting aside her sketch pad—she’d been adding mythical creatures to liven up the uninteresting view of flat water as far as the eye could see—she picked up the gun he’d given her and got off the chair by the bedroom window.

Nick had left the connecting door to his office open and she went in there for a change of scenery. Her bare toes sank into the soft wool rug, and she enjoyed the explosion of colors and textures lacking on the rest of the ship. It smelled great in his office too. Like tobacco—although she’d never seen him smoke. Slightly musty from the old manuscripts and charts all over the place, but mostly the scent was Nick, and smelling Nick made her feel flushed on the outside and fluttery on the inside.

She liked the sensation. A lot.

She put the gun down where she could reach it and went around his giant desk to push open the large window. Air conditioning was great, but the warm, salty tropical breeze would at least give the illusion that she wasn’t locked in.

He’d asked that she not use his computer or his phone, which Bria thought a bit high-handed. But as it was his stuff, and as such he had a right to ask her not to mess with it, she found a nice rollerball pen in a container in his desk drawer, and took a sheet of paper from his printer.

Curling up in his chair, she started to work out a list of anything she thought she could do on board. The big leather chair smelled of him. Crisp and clean and intrinsically masculine. Nothing frou-frou about Nick Cutter. No colognes or scented body washes. Just clean skin and male. Incredibly sexy.

1.

She closed her eyes to think about her first priority. But instead of coming up with some duty that Nick didn’t realize was vital to the running or whatever of his ship, she thought about what his mouth tasted like.

Which wasn’t getting the list written. She opened her eyes and did a quick sketch of his sexy mouth on the edge of the sheet. Then got serious and wrote—

2.

Nothing came to mind. Her pen eased to a new line.

3.

4.

He had a staff of fourteen—oh, damn—thirteen, now that Halkias was dead. Everyone seemed extremely efficient, and everything on board ran like clockwork. She doubted he’d want her swabbing the decks. But since she needed to add something, she wrote—

5. Swab decks.

She knew how to clean, and was good at it.

4. Maid service.

She clicked the pen a couple of times and chewed her lip. Did a few lines of his eyebrow. Wrote—

3. Sort artifacts from dives.

That was good. There were still a lot of bins on the deck. Things had to be moved around so same-as-same were together. She could do that with a little instruction.

2.

Nothing … Click. Click. Click.

She glanced at the dark computer screen. She’d love to check her e-mail and Facebook … Send a message to the McMan of McMan and Tate who was expecting her to show up to work soon. If she was really quick, he’d never know. Bria reached out to turn on the computer, then jumped as the door to Nick’s office opened and he strolled in.

“Was it serious?” she asked, because God only knew, she couldn’t tell from his poker face what was going on in his head.

“Nothing Jonah and I can’t handle.” He removed the Sig from under his shirt and laid it on the edge of the desk next to the Bersa. “I’ve given it some thought, and I’ve reconsidered my position on refunding King Draven’s investment.”

She blinked for a moment as the words sank in. Then she smiled. “Thank you, that’s wonderful!” Gratitude was her first thought.
Oh, my God, it’s worth five million euro to get rid of me,
was her second. “What made you change your mind?”

His features were inscrutable as his powerful shoulders flexed. “I hate to think that centuries of history and tradition will be broken by one man’s desperation.”

“That’s amazingly generous of you. I know Draven will be grateful.” No, he wouldn’t. Her brother would rip her a new one for interfering with his scheme, and probably remind her for the rest of her natural life that she’d lost him a fortune.

It was worth it to get the loan paid off and her country on an even keel, however. Times were going to be tough. But it could be done. Draven just had to stop throwing good money after bad.

“Can you do it on the computer?” she asked, casually folding the piece of paper she’d been doodling on into quarters as she slid off his big comfortable chair. “Or do you need to send a bank draft? I’m not sure how these things work. It’s a large amount…”

“We’ll deliver it together.”

Stunned by the suggestion, Bria paused as she was rounding the desk, tucking the piece of paper in her back pocket. “You want to go with me to Marrezo?”

He nodded, his blue-as-ice eyes trained on hers. “Sure. Grab your stuff. I want to leave right away.”

Bria hesitated, her inner senses straining to pick out something, anything for a clue here. When he made a decision he wasn’t kidding around. He was practically shoving her out the door. No, not
practically,
he
was
shoving her out the door.

The man was running scared.

Her conflicted emotions turned over into sympathy. And a flicker of annoyance. Did he think she was that easy to get rid of? After last night? After this morning?

She perched on the corner of his desk. “Let me get this straight. You have a demented killer on board. You don’t pay out early to investors. You know my brother is— Well, let’s just say not exactly fiscally responsible. And—” She almost pointed out that she had a loaded weapon an inch from her hand. “And you’re in the middle of a dive.”

“
Tail end
of the dive,” he corrected, as if she hadn’t just outlined everything before it. “I won’t be gone long. Jonah will take care of things until I get back.”

“Ah.” Sympathy edged to anger. And hurt. “We’ll leave together and you’ll return alone.” She hopped off the desk, shaping a sunny smile she was far from feeling. “Got it.”

His startling blue eyes narrowed slightly. What? Had he expected another scene? Bria wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “It’ll take me all of ten seconds,” she said, keeping her voice breezy, and was rewarded by his eyes narrowing a little more. “I didn’t have much to start with, after all. I’ll separate out what I came with, of course.”

He said nothing, and she walked to the door between the rooms in silence before turning. “Did you call the charter company to send a helicopter? Or would you like me to do it?”

He folded his arms over his broad chest. “I’ll fly us to Tenerife, then grab a flight from there to your island.”

Chapter 14

The five-seater helicopter appeared to be state-of-the-art, with every bell and whistle under the sun. It had been tucked, like a small white praying mantis, under the heliport on the sundeck.

Nick was an excellent pilot, but then Bria expected nothing less. He was focused and serious as they flew the thirty-five minutes from the
Scorpion
to Tenerife’s North airport. “Can your cell phone get international?” Bria asked through the headset. “I’ll call my brother and let him know I’m on my way with the money.”

“It’s in back. You can call when we switch planes at Tenerife.”

Bria tried for tact. “I appreciate you doing this, but I insist on paying my own airfare to Marrezo.”

“We’re not going commercial. I’ve chartered a jet. It’ll be quicker.”

And of course he had. She hoped to God they were holding her job, because she’d used up all her savings getting here. Maybe Draven would— No. He wouldn’t and she wasn’t going to ask. Still, she wasn’t going to let Nick throw money at her. “Then I insist on reimbursing you once I’m back in Sacramento.”

“I don’t want your goddamned money—” he snarled, surprising her with his vehemence. He caught himself, features settling into that Cutter implacability again, and he said mildly, “Fine. We’ll square up later.”

Wow. Bria glanced at his profile as he flew low over the small island of Tenerife. Was that a little zing of temper? How interesting. Her? Or whatever his captain had alerted him to? Probably the latter.

She stretched her legs out as much as the space allowed and asked, “What was so urgent with Jonah, Nick? Is whatever it was why you didn’t even give me time to find my shoes before we lit out of there?”

He studied the breathtaking expanse of blue through the windshield as he answered, “I’m returning your brother’s investment. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes. And that still doesn’t answer the question. You could give me a bank draft or whatever, and I could drop it off on my way home. Home to Sacramento.”

“I want you to stay with your brother for a while.”

She frowned. The idea had no appeal whatsoever. “Why? And what’s a ‘while’?”

His fingers flexed on the controls, but his tone was still even as he said, “Until matters on board the
Scorpion
are resolved to my satisfaction.”

She shook her head. “Still isn’t an answer. What happened?”

Nick paused.

“Don’t lie to me, Nick.”

She watched the decision slide into his blue eyes moments before he said flatly, “Jonah found another crew member dead. His throat was cut.”

She put her hand to her throat. “Who?”

“Fakhir.”

“Chef’s helper brownie-guy? Buck teeth and cute smile?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, God, Nick—why? I don’t understand. Why would anyone want to kill him, he was so sweet and shy…”

“Your brother will have top security guarding him and the palace. Stay there until I tell you not to.”

Her eyes popped open, half blinded by the light but pinned on his hard expression. “That’s pretty damned autocratic of you,” she told him. “I’m not your responsibility. I can defend myself—remember? Besides which, you haven’t proven that this has anything to do with me. Perhaps the two incidents
are
related, but I didn’t know Halkias, and I only talked to Fakhir a couple of times. I didn’t know
him
either. So, connected somehow, probably—but not connected to
me
.”

Nick’s jaw tightened.

She took a deep breath. “Therefore, no one is going to follow me across the world to my little condo in Sacramento to assassinate me.” She glanced down as they skimmed low over the airport, and pulled her bag into her lap. Taking out a lipstick, she uncapped it, holding the wand in her hand without applying it.

Still Nick said nothing.

“What happened to those two poor men, as hideous as it was, has absolutely nothing to do with me. I work in public relations, not some secret terrorist group or whatever. Which means I can go on my merry way back to Sacramento without some ninja special-ops type coming after me.” She paused. “Unless you can prove otherwise?”

*   *   *

His gut wasn’t proof.

Interesting that she’d bring up spec ops. What did a publicist know about shit like that? Nick was saved from answering as he responded to the tower’s landing instructions. Within minutes, he landed the single-engine Robinson lightly on the tarmac, its two-bladed main rotor spinning overhead. Constructed from advanced composites, aluminum alloy sheet and chromoly steel, the R66 was Nick’s latest toy, and with a cruise speed of 120 knots per hour, it had gotten them to the airport, and Bria off the
Scorpion,
in record time.

He felt better already.

They unbuckled and got their bags, then climbed out and headed toward the waiting car. The tarmac was sweltering hot, and there was absolutely no breeze, yet he could smell the earthy peach scent of her. Sunglasses covered half her face, and her lips were a bright, glossy cherry red.

He knew exactly how they tasted. With or without gloss.

The waiting driver immediately whisked them to another part of the airport where a pilot and a sleek white Lear jet waited on the runway, the engine idling so that they took off as soon as they were buckled in.

They were the only two passengers in the luxurious eight-seat cabin. It was a four-and-a-half-hour flight to Marrezo. Nick went to greet the flight crew, then sat across the aisle from Bria and fastened his belt as they taxied down the runway.