Scent of a Woman (6 page)

“A brilliant idea, isn’t it?” Mike helped himself to a drink from Giorgio’s minibar selection. The officer’s room was ten times nicer than the stateroom Mike had been offered as part of his lecturer gig. At least he didn’t have to share it the way the lower-level crew members did. Some of them had to bunk with six people in a room.

When Giorgio didn’t respond, Mike figured he needed to spell out the benefits of the plan.

“This way we don’t have to worry about hiding anything or getting caught with suspicious goods after those last few artifacts were discovered in the potted plants—your idea, you might recall. Now everything is out in the open and passed off as reproductions. As I pick up new things, we’ll add them to the collection as fakes.”

Giorgio glared at him.

“Brilliant is not what I would have called it. There has been more attention on your collection ever since those pieces were discovered. And the cleaning staff is grumbling about having to dust all those breakables.”

“Remind me why I care what the guy with the mop thinks?” Mike poured himself a second drink since the bartender in the cigar club was convinced a priest shouldn’t receive full-strength alcohol.

Giorgio swore. Or so Mike supposed. The words he rattled off in Greek didn’t exactly sound complimentary.

“A pissed-off guy with a mop is more likely to bring attention to your display from crew and passengers alike. A cruise liner like this is a rumor mill. Someone starts talking, and pretty soon it’s the conversational topic for the whole ship. Nick Pappas is looking for any reason at all to link me to trouble. I guarantee you the boss isn’t going to like all that attention.”

“Don’t worry about Captain Pappas. And I guarantee the boss won’t appreciate having a pussy on staff. Will you relax?” Mike thought about asking Danielle Chevalier out for a drink to discuss Bast in more detail. Single women were all over the ship and there was no way he could ignore that fact for the whole season.

Tuning out whatever Giorgio was saying now, Mike set down his glass abruptly.

“I’m out of here.” It would be easy to find out which room Danielle was in since the woman at the purser’s desk liked him. Perhaps he’d see if Danielle wanted to explore one of the ports with him this week to provide a much needed distraction.

“Don’t forget you have to meet our contact tomorrow to pick up new pieces.” Giorgio hovered over him like an old woman as he made his way toward the door.

“I’m going to score tomorrow.” Shaking off Giorgio’s tense words, Mike stepped out into the corridor. “You can count on it.”

“I
S EVERYTHING ALL
right back home?” Adam asked Danielle the next day as he rowed their boat through the water that would lead them to
La Grotta Azzura
, Capri’s famous blue grotto.

She’d been quiet ever since returning from a phone call she’d had to her brother shortly after they’d arrived in Anacapri, a section of Capri that was so lush and beautiful he regretted not traveling more before now.

Blue water surrounded them now as the hills of the island shrank slightly in the distance. Three other small boats rowed near them and larger vessels with tour groups drifted ahead and behind them, waiting to enter the grotto. Dozens of cruise passengers had chosen to tour Capri during the ship’s stay in Naples. Apparently the grotto was a major attraction even though Adam had never heard of it. Something about cruising the Mediterranean this week made him think he’d been living in too isolated a world. He knew he’d been busting his butt with work for years, but not until this trip had he realized he was also living with his head under a rock.

“I am unsure.” Danielle shook her head as if trying to shake off a dark mood. “My brother didn’t say anything was wrong, but his voice—Marcel did not sound like himself. He even neglected to ask me about you, and I know for a fact he is worried about you and I seeing each other.”

Adam leaned forward to dip the oars behind him and then pulled back hard, taking pleasure from the way the simple, clear-cut task propelled them through the water faster. There was something reassuring about being able to control an end result by how hard you worked to achieve it. Too often in business that wasn’t the case.

“What is there to worry about?” He pulled the oars out of the water, pausing to let them drip.

“I have…how shall we say? A poor track record when it comes to men.” She repositioned her legs to one side of the boat, her tanned shapely calves catching his eye.

As always, she looked phenomenal in linen shorts and jacket, every inch the wealthy European businesswoman. Her narrow leather belt and small designer satchel probably cost as much as his whole outfit. A silk tank top hugged her curves beneath the jacket, the delicate white fabric allowing him tantalizing glimpses of some kind of lace thing underneath.

“
You
have a poor track record? I find that hard to believe.” Any man would want to claim a woman like Danielle for his own.

She propped a pair of big sunglasses on her head, revealing her eyes.

“The last man I grew attached to stole a valuable perfume formula before I went to market with the product.”

“Bastard.” He wondered what had been more devastating for her—the knock to her business or the toll it must have taken on her heart.

Not to mention her pride.

“Precisely.” She peered around to see a small boat with tourists float into the grotto under a low rock wall.

“But one jerk doesn’t make a bad track record. Everyone has lousy luck in romance now and then. Witness my relationship with Jessica, which she completely manipulated.” He turned around to judge the distance to the grotto. The man who’d rented them the boat told him to make sure they lay down as they went under the low-hanging cave wall since an unexpected wave could lift the craft high enough to risk injury.

“Ah, but he was just one example.” She waved another boat ahead of them as he backed near the entrance. The couple near them shouted something that sounded like Italian for thank you.

“I hope he’s the worst case.” The guy had a hell of a nerve to hurt her on both a personal and professional level.

“He is,” Danielle acknowledged. “The others just dated me for the wealth of my mother’s estate. My brother Marcel calls them lazy pretty boys.”

“Then Marcel ought to think I’m all aces since I haven’t taken a day off in six weeks or a week off in six years.” He propped the oars up again so they could settle themselves inside the boat before they floated under the entrance wall. “And no one’s ever accused me of being a pretty boy.”

He scowled at the very idea.

“No?” She smiled, sliding to one side of her seat. “Do you really think your Hollywood princess would wish to be photographed with an unattractive man?”

“Hell, yeah. It makes her look better.” He wished they hadn’t been talking about another woman at the very moment they needed to lie down together, possibly his only chance to get horizontal with her today.

He put his feet up on her seat while she stretched out beside him, their bodies spanning the two metal seats like bridges. He slipped his arm around her, cushioning her head and shoulders.

“Your track record is about to improve,” he assured her, speaking into her ear through the veil of her hair.

The boat floated slowly beneath the rock wall, the light, the air and the sounds around them changing as they entered the grotto. The place smelled earthy and damp without the benefit of a fresh breeze.

“Oh.” Danielle’s breath caught as the flood of intense blue light washed over them.

“Wow.” Adam didn’t sit up even, though they’d cleared the low wall to float freely inside the grotto by now. The experience of holding Danielle, her head resting on his shoulder, seemed even more amazing than the indigo spectacle drenching their bodies in rich color.

“It’s like we fell into the sky.” Danielle’s voice remained hushed, her quiet no doubt inspired by the same awe that kept the other boaters calm, too.

The boating parties that had been loud and raucous and multilingual outside the cave now shared a universal silence as they took in a sight that seemed almost sacred.

The space was no bigger than a half a football field, the rocks above them echoing back the liquid sounds of waves lapping at the sides of the boats.

“Let’s look at the water,” Adam said finally, reluctant to move but not wanting Danielle to miss out on the full experience of the grotto.

Her cheek grazed his chest for an instant before she righted herself, her long, dark hair sliding down his body like a lover’s fingers.

“C’est magnifique.”
She dipped her hand in the water, which was colored as richly as the air, and it took on an ultraviolet hue.

“Too bad they don’t let people swim in here.” He leaned behind her to immerse his hand in the water next to hers.

“We have found a magical place, no?” She turned to smile at him over her shoulder and he felt the air sucked right out of his lungs. Twisting in her seat to face him, she trailed her wet hand up his arm, coating his skin with fine blue mist.

His reaction was swift and fierce as heat flared deep inside him.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a very sensuous nature?” He shook his head. “Does that sound like the world’s worst pick-up line?”

Her fingers trailed down to the water again and back up his arm, technically cooling his skin but somehow making his blood simmer at the same time. He wanted to sink down into the bottom of the boat with her and never come up.

“It is no pick-up line when it is true. We are only half living if we do not use all our senses to appreciate life.”

Their boat might have been floating straight into a rock wall and Adam would never have known it. He seemed to be drowning in a blue sea of longing.

He gripped her hand at the top of his shoulder and held her fast, twining their fingers as he folded her palm into his own.

“I’m feeling very appreciative right now.” He breathed in the scent of her mingled with damp rock and salt water. “If you let me taste you, I’ll show you how much.”

Her eyes lingered on his mouth before she licked her lips. That was all the answer he needed.

He tipped her head back, angling her beneath him before he lowered his mouth to hers. A soft sigh escaped her, tempting him to pull her to the floor of the boat again where they might be hidden from view.

Just for a moment.

They sank together, as if drawn by her will as much as his, their boat floating listlessly around the cavern. Untwining their hands, he skimmed her jacket off her shoulders as he eased her down onto the worn wool throw that had been given to them with the boat for the afternoon. The scent of her skin incited a hot, possessive reaction, and Adam knew that even if he never recognized the low notes or the high notes in the fragrance, he would be turned on by it for the rest of his life.

The blue light made her pale skin almost transparent and she glowed beneath his touch as he ran one fingertip along the strap of her silk tank top. It drooped off her shoulder, and her back arched.

The sounds of their breathing filled his ears, the splashing boats and soft murmurs of tourists fading away as he bent his head to sample the delicate column of her throat.

Danielle might have been able to resist his touch, but Adam’s lips silenced any thought she might have had to keep their relationship more private. This man’s lips could persuade her to do anything, and she seriously feared she would start peeling off her clothes with no more encouragement than the swirl of his tongue in the hollow at the base of her throat.

She lay there mesmerized by the blue of the grotto and the heat of Adam’s passion, powerless to do anything but follow the wanton urging of her long-denied body.

His mouth descended lower and she thought she would expire with want. She trembled in dark anticipation of his mouth on her breast, even knowing they needed to put an end to their sweet explorations for propriety’s sake.

But no one could see them, a little voice inside her argued, her shoulders shrugging in the hope she might wriggle more of herself out of the silk tank top she wore. Liquid heat pooled in her belly.

“I want to be alone with you.” Adam’s quiet words drummed into her brain along with distant hints of returning reason. “I owe you so much better than this.”

They stared at one another, hearts racing as if they’d run a marathon, and she marveled that she could have as strong an effect on him as he had on her.

“I don’t want to rush and yet I can’t help rushing.” Danielle hadn’t acknowledged that before, but she had to admit that perhaps she’d been partly to blame for allowing her sensual nature to dictate decisions in the past. “Perhaps that is the downside to being impetuous.”

“There is no downside.” He lifted himself to peer over the edge of the boat before he straightened her drooping tank top and drew her upright to sit beside him again. “I wish I could be more like you.”

His words found root in her heart, even if she knew he couldn’t possibly mean them.

“That is the kisses talking,” she chided him, drawing her linen jacket around her shoulders in a weak effort to stamp out the memory of Adam’s lips on her skin.

“No.” He moved the oars from their locked position and dipped them down into the blue water. “That is the experience of a cynic who spends months on end buried in business deals and acting as negotiator for a bunch of overeducated know-it-alls who never learned how to play well with others. Half the people I work with don’t know there’s more to life than making the almighty dollar. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think I realized it myself until three days ago.”

The smooth efficiency with which he rowed them through the water made her think maybe he wasn’t exaggerating. Did Adam normally live and breathe business? He could certainly adopt a facade of detached competency when he wished, like now with the boat. Or when he assured her he didn’t mind the competition for the Dubai retail account. Had he seemed so confident because of a driven nature that didn’t allow him to fail?

“Get down,” he ordered, lining up the boat with the entrance of the grotto so they could leave the cave.

She hunkered down again, but the warmth of all they’d shared was tinged with her fear that once again she’d allowed herself to get close to a man she didn’t understand.

Because as much as she was attracted to Adam, she couldn’t afford to let those emotions derail her from the bargain they’d made. They could pursue a relationship on board
Alexandra’s Dream
, but once they returned home, she’d have to put him in her past.

She was already beginning to think she’d set herself up for an impossible task.

A
LONE TIME
was in short supply on a Mediterranean cruise ship, Adam admitted to himself the next day as he dressed for a luncheon sponsored by the perfume association as one of the conference events.

The stolen moments in the bottom of a row boat with Danielle were as close as he’d come to being alone with her. The way he wanted.

But that would change today. The ship docked in Civitavecchia this morning and would spend a full day into late evening there so that passengers could have more time to make the trek inland to Rome. Adam had reserved a car near the pier in case he could talk Danielle into spending some time on shore with him after the luncheon. Alone.

The phone rang on his way out the door as he juggled a fresh gardenia in one hand, the receiver in the other.

“Hello?”

“It’s Joe. Got any news for me?” His brother’s voice came over the line loud and strong, even with music blaring in the background. Joe had missed the hard rock era while it was happening, but he took great pleasure in dredging it up with vintage vinyl on a record player he kept in his office.

“Yeah I got news. AC-DC is playing too damn loud.” He held the phone away from his ear until the decibel level sank.

“Sorry. But what’s going on with the Dubai retailer? I’ve been staring at my fax machine waiting for you to send some contracts.” Joe still drummed the beat on his desk with a pencil. Adam didn’t need a visual. Joe had been turning everyday household items into drumsticks from the time he was two.

“No deal yet, but I’m only just warming up and finding my way around the perfume world. I figured it didn’t make much sense to make my pitch before I picked up the lingo.” His words made him remember Danielle’s loser boyfriend who’d stolen her perfume recipe, and he vowed not to ask her any more about fragrance-making. He’d be damned if he would give her any reason to compare him to relationships she’d had in the past. If he needed to know anything else about perfumes, he’d ask someone from another company.