Cinderella: Hired by the Prince / The Sheikh's Destiny

She reached out and took his hand, to give it a good firm handshake, as if she was a woman who knew how to transact business, as if she should be taken seriously. He took it, she shook, but, instead of pulling away after one brief shake, she found he was holding on.

Or maybe it was that she hadn’t pulled back as she’d intended.

His hand was strong and warm and his grip as decisive as hers. Or more. Two strong wills, she thought fleetingly, but more…

But then, before she could think any further, she was aware of a car sliding to a halt beside them. She glanced sideways and almost groaned.

Charlie.

She could sense his drunkenness from here. One of these days he’d be caught for drink-driving, she thought, and half of her hoped it’d be soon, but the other half knew that’d put her boss into an even more foul mood than he normally was. Once upon a time he’d been a nice guy—but that was when he was sober, and she could barely remember when he’d been sober. So she winced and braced herself for an explosion as Charlie emerged from the car and headed towards them.

Ramón kept on holding her hand. She tugged it back and he released her but he shifted in closer. Charlie’s body language was aggressive. He was a big man; he’d become an alcoholic bully, and it showed.

But, whatever else Ramón might be, it was clear he knew how to protect his own. His own? That was a dumb thing to think. Even so, she was suddenly glad that he was here right now.

‘Hey, I want to speak to you, you stupid cow. Lose your friend,’ Charlie spat at her.

Jenny flinched. Uh oh. This could mean only one thing—that one of the patrons of the café had told Charlie of Cathy’s outburst. This was too small a town for such a joke to go unreported. Charlie had become universally disliked and the idea that one of his staff was advertising for another job would be used against him.

At her expense.

And Ramón’s presence here would make it worse. Protective or not, Charlie was right; she needed to lose him.

‘See you later,’ she said to Ramón, stepping deliberately away and turning her back on him. Expecting him to leave. ‘Hello, Charlie.’

But Charlie wasn’t into greetings. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, making personal announcements in my café, in my time?’ He was close to yelling, shoving right into her personal space so she was forced to step backward. ‘And getting another job? You walk away from me and I foreclose before the day’s end. You know what you owe me, girl. You work for me for the next three years or I’ll have you bankrupt and your friend with you. I could toss you out now. Your friend’ll lose her house. Great mess that’d leave her in. You’ll work the next four weekends with no pay to make up for this or you’re out on your ear. What do you say to that?’

She closed her eyes. Charlie was quite capable of carrying out his threats. This man was capable of anything.

Why had she ever borrowed money from him?

Because she’d been desperate, that was why. It had been right at the end of Matty’s illness. She’d sold everything, but there was this treatment…There’d been a chance. It was slim, she’d known, but she’d do anything.

She’d been sobbing, late at night, in the back room of the café. She’d been working four hours a day to pay her rent. The rest of the time she’d spent with Matty. Cathy had found her there, and Charlie came in and found them both.

He’d loan her the money, he said, and the offer was so extraordinary both women had been rendered almost speechless.

Jenny could repay it over five years, he’d told them, by working for half wages at the café. Only he needed security. ‘In case you decide to do a runner.’

‘She’d never do a runner,’ Cathy had said, incensed. ‘When Matty’s well she’ll settle down and live happily ever after.’

‘I don’t believe in happy ever after,’ Charlie had said. ‘I need security.’

‘I’ll pledge my apartment that she’ll repay you,’ Cathy had said hotly. ‘I trust her, even if you don’t.’

What a disaster. They’d been so emotional they hadn’t thought it through. All Jenny had wanted was to get back to the hospital, to get back to Matty, and she didn’t care how. Cathy’s generosity was all she could see.

So she’d hugged her and accepted and didn’t see the ties. Only ties there were. Matty died a month later and she was faced with five years bonded servitude.

Cathy’s apartment had been left to her by her mother. It was pretty and neat and looked out over the harbour. Cathy was an artist. She lived hand to mouth and her apartment was all she had.

Even Cathy hadn’t realised how real the danger of foreclosure was, Jenny thought dully. Cathy had barely glanced at the loan documents. She had total faith in her friend to repay her loan. Of course she had.

So now there was no choice. Jenny dug her hands deep into her pockets, she bit back angry words, as she’d bitten them back many times before, and she nodded.

‘Okay. I’m sorry, Charlie. Of course I’ll do the weekends.’

‘Hey!’ From behind them came Ramón’s voice, laced with surprise and the beginnings of anger. ‘What is this? Four weekends to pay for two minutes of amusement?’

‘It’s none of your business,’ Charlie said shortly. ‘Get lost.’

‘If you’re talking about what happened at the café, I was there. It was a joke.’

‘I don’t do jokes. Butt out. And she’ll do the weekends. She has no choice.’

And then he smiled, a drunken smile that made her shiver. ‘So there’s the joke,’ he jeered. ‘On you, woman, not me.’

And that was that. He stared defiance at Ramón, but Ramón, it seemed, was not interested in a fight. He gazed blankly back at him, and then watched wordlessly as Charlie swung himself unsteadily back into his car and weaved off into the distance.

Leaving silence.

How to explain what had just happened? Jenny thought, and decided she couldn’t. She took a few tentative steps away, hoping Ramón would leave her to her misery.

He didn’t. Instead, he looked thoughtfully at the receding car, then flipped open his cellphone and spoke a few sharp words. He snapped it shut and walked after Jenny, catching up and once again falling into step beside her.

‘How much do you owe him?’ he asked bluntly.

She looked across at him, startled. ‘Sorry?’

‘You heard. How much?’

‘I don’t believe that it’s…’

‘Any of my business,’ he finished for her. ‘Your boss just told me that. But, as your future employer, I can make it my business.’

‘You’re not my future employer.’

‘Just tell me, Jenny,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly so concerned, so warm, so laced with caring that, to her astonishment, she found herself telling him. Just blurting out the figure, almost as if it didn’t matter.

He thought about it for a moment as they kept walking. ‘That’s not so much,’ he said cautiously.

‘To you, maybe,’ she retorted. ‘But to me…My best friend signed over her apartment as security. If I don’t pay, then she loses her home.’

‘You could get another job. You don’t have to be beholden to this swine-bag. You could transfer the whole loan to the bank.’

‘I don’t think you realise just how broke I am,’ she snapped and then she shook her head, still astounded at how she was reacting to him. ‘Sorry. There’s no need for me to be angry with you when you’re being nice. I’m tired and I’m upset and I’ve got myself into a financial mess. The truth is that I don’t even have enough funds to miss a week’s work while I look for something else, and no bank will take me on. Or Cathy either, for that matter—she’s a struggling painter and has nothing but her apartment. So there you go. That’s why I work for Charlie. It’s also why I can’t drop everything and sail away with you. If you knew how much I’d love to…’

‘Would you love to?’ He was studying her intently. The concern was still there but there was something more. It was as if he was trying to make her out. His brow was furrowed in concentration. ‘Would you really? How good a sailor are you?’

That was a weird question but it was better than talking about her debts. So she told him that, too. Why not? ‘I was born and bred on the water,’ she told him. ‘My dad built a yacht and we sailed it together until he died. In the last few years of his life we lived on board. My legs are more at home at sea than on land.’

‘Yet you’re a cook.’

‘There’s nothing like spending your life in a cramped galley to make you lust after proper cooking.’ She gave a wry smile, temporarily distracted from her bleakness. ‘My mum died early so she couldn’t teach me, but I longed to cook. When I was seventeen I got an apprenticeship with the local baker. I had to force Dad to keep the boat in port during my shifts.’

‘And your boat? What was she?’

‘A twenty-five footer, fibreglass, called Wind Trader. Flamingo, if you know that class. She wasn’t anything special but we loved her.’

‘Sold now to pay debts?’ he asked bluntly.

‘How did you know?’ she said, crashing back to earth. ‘And, before you ask, I have a gambling problem.’

‘Now why don’t I believe that?’

‘Why would you believe anything I tell you?’ She took a deep breath. ‘Look, this is dumb. I’m wrecked and I need to go home. Can we forget we had this conversation? It was crazy to tell you my troubles and I surely don’t expect you to do anything about them. But thank you for letting me talk.’

She hesitated then. For some reason, it was really hard to walk away from this man, but she had no choice. ‘Goodbye, Mr Cavellero,’ she managed. ‘Thank you for thinking of me as a potential deckhand. It was very nice of you, and you know what? If I didn’t have this debt I’d be half tempted to take it on.’

Once more she turned away. She walked about ten steps, but then his voice called her back.

‘Jenny?’

She should have just kept on walking, but there was something in his voice that stopped her. It was the concern again. He sounded as if he really cared.

That was crazy, but the sensation was insidious, like a siren song forcing her to turn around.

‘Yes?’

He was standing where she’d left him. Just standing. Behind him, down the end of the street, she could see the harbour. That was where he belonged, she thought. He was a man of the sea. He looked a man from the sea. Whereas she…

‘Jenny, I’ll pay your debts,’ he said.

She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything.

She didn’t know what to say.

‘This isn’t charity,’ he said quickly as she felt her colour rise. ‘It’s a proposition.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s a very sketchy proposition,’ he told her. ‘I’ve not had time to work out the details so we may have to smooth it off round the edges. But, essentially, I’ll pay your boss out if you promise to come and work with me for a year. You’ll be two deckies instead of one—crew when I need it and cook for the rest of the time. Sometimes you’ll be run off your feet but mostly not. I’ll also add a living allowance,’he said and he mentioned a sum that made her feel winded.

‘You’ll be living on the boat so that should be sufficient,’ he told her, seemingly ignoring her amazement. ‘Then, at the end of the year, I’ll organise you a flight home, from wherever Marquita ends up. So how about it, Jenny?’ And there was that smile again, flashing out to warm parts of her she hadn’t known had been cold. ‘Will you stay here as Charlie’s unpaid slave, or will you come with me, cook your cakes on my boat and see the world? What do you say? Marquita’s waiting, Jenny. Come sail away.’

‘It’s three years’ debt,’ she gasped finally. Was he mad?

‘Not to me. It’s one year’s salary for a competent cook and sailor, and it’s what I’m offering.’

‘Your owner could never give the authority to pay those kind of wages.’

He hesitated for a moment—for just a moment—but then he smiled. ‘My owner doesn’t interfere with how I run my boat,’ he told her. ‘My owner knows if I…if he pays peanuts, he gets monkeys. I want good and loyal crew and with you I believe I’d be getting it.’

‘You don’t even know me. And you’re out of your mind. Do you know how many deckies you could get with that money?’

‘I don’t want deckies. I want you.’ And then, as she kept right on staring, he amended what had been a really forceful statement. ‘If you can cook the muffins I had this morning you’ll make my life—and everyone else who comes onto the boat—a lot more pleasant.’

‘Who does the cooking now?’ She was still fighting for breath. What an offer!

‘Me or a deckie,’ he said ruefully. ‘Not a lot of class.’

‘I’d…I’d be expected to cook for the owner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dinner parties?’

‘There’s not a lot of dinner parties on board the Marquita,’he said, sounding a bit more rueful. ‘The owner’s pretty much like me. A retiring soul.’

‘You don’t look like a retiring soul,’ she retorted, caught by the sudden flash of laughter in those blue eyes.

‘Retiring or not, I still need a cook.’

Whoa…To be a cook on a boat…With this man…

Then she caught herself. For a moment she’d allowed herself to be sucked in. To think what if.

What if she sailed away?

Only she’d jumped like this once before, and where had it got her? Matty, and all the heartbreak that went with him.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face. ‘What is it?’ Ramón asked, and his smile suddenly faded. ‘Hey, Jenny, don’t look like that. There’s no strings attached to this offer. I swear you won’t find yourself the seventeenth member of my harem, chained up for my convenience in the hold. I can even give you character references if you want. I’m extremely honourable.’

He was trying to make her smile. She did smile, but it was a wavery smile. ‘I’m sure you’re honourable,’ she said—despite the laughter lurking behind his amazing eyes suggesting he was nothing of the kind—‘but, references or not, I still don’t know you.’ Deep breath. Be sensible. ‘Sorry,’ she managed. ‘It’s an amazing offer, but I took a loan from Charlie when I wasn’t thinking straight, and look where that got me. And there have been…other times…when I haven’t thought straight either, and trouble’s followed. So I don’t act on impulse any more. I’ve learned to be sensible. Thank you for your offer, Mr Cavellero…’

‘Ramón.’

‘Mr Cavellero,’ she said stubbornly. ‘With the wages you’re offering, I know you’ll find just the crew you’re looking for, no problem at all. So thank you again and goodnight.’

Then, before she could let her treacherous heart do any more impulse urging—before she could be as stupid as she’d been in the past—she turned resolutely away.

She walked straight ahead and she didn’t look back.

Chapter Two

HER heart told her she was stupid all the way home. Her head told her she was right.

Her head addressed her heart with severity. This was a totally ridiculous proposition. She didn’t know this man.

She’d be jumping from the frying pan into the fire, she told herself. To be indebted to a stranger, then sail away into the unknown…He could be a white slave trader!

She knew he wasn’t. Take a risk, her heart was commanding her, but then her heart had let her down before. She wasn’t going down that road again.

So, somehow, she summoned the dignity to keep on walking.

‘Think about it,’ Ramón called after her and she almost hesitated, she almost turned back, only she was a sensible woman now, not some dumb teenager who’d jump on the nearest boat and head off to sea.

So she walked on. Round the next corner, and the next, past where Charlie lived.

A police car was pulled up beside Charlie’s front door, and Charlie hadn’t made it inside. Her boss was being breathalysed. He’d be way over the alcohol limit. He’d lose his licence for sure.

She thought back and remembered Ramón lifting his cellphone. Had he…

Whoa. She scuttled past, feeling like a guilty rabbit.

Ramón had done it, not her.

Charlie would guess. Charlie would never forgive her.

Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh.

By the time she got home she felt as if she’d forgotten to breathe. She raced up the steps into her little rented apartment and she slammed the door behind her.

What had Ramón done? Charlie, without his driving licence? Charlie, thinking it was her fault?

But suddenly she wasn’t thinking about Charlie. She was thinking about Ramón. Numbly, she crossed to the curtains and drew them aside. Just checking. Just in case he’d followed. He hadn’t and she was aware of a weird stab of disappointment.

Well, what did you expect? she told herself. I told him press gangs don’t work.

What if they did? What if he came up here in the dead of night, drugged her and carted her off to sea? What if she woke on his beautiful yacht, far away from this place?

I’d be chained to the sink down in the galley, she told herself with an attempt at humour. Nursing a hangover from the drugs he used to get me there.

But oh, to be on that boat…

He’d offered to pay all her bills. Get her away from Charlie…

What was she about, even beginning to think about such a crazy offer? If he was giving her so much money, then he’d be expecting something other than the work a deckie did.

But a man like Ramón wouldn’t have to pay, she thought, her mind flashing to the nubile young backpackers she knew would jump at the chance to be crew to Ramón. They’d probably jump at the chance to be anything else. So why did he want her?

Did he have a thing for older women?

She stared into the mirror and what she saw there almost made her smile. It’d be a kinky man who’d desire her like she was. Her hair was still flour-streaked from the day. She’d been working in a hot kitchen and she’d been washing up over steaming sinks. She didn’t have a spot of make-up on, and her nose was shiny. Very shiny.

Her clothes were ancient and nondescript and her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. Oh, she had plenty of time for sleep, but where was sleep when you needed it? She’d stopped taking the pills her doctor prescribed. She was trying desperately to move on, but how?

‘What better way than to take a chance?’ she whispered to her image. ‘Charlie’s going to be unbearable to work with now. And Ramón’s gorgeous and he seems really nice. His boat’s fabulous. He’s not going to chain me to the galley, I’m sure of it.’ She even managed a smile at that. ‘If he does, I won’t be able to help him with the sails. He’d have to unchain me a couple of times a day at least. And I’d be at sea. At sea!’

So maybe…maybe…

Her heart and head were doing battle but her heart was suddenly in the ascendancy. It was trying to convince her it could be sensible as well.

Wait, she told herself severely. She ran a bath and wallowed and let her mind drift. Pros and cons. Pros and cons.

If it didn’t work, she could get off the boat at New Zealand.

He’d demand his money back.

So? She’d then owe money to Ramón instead of to Charlie, and there’d be no threat to Cathy’s apartment. The debt would be hers and hers alone.

That felt okay. Sensible, even. She felt a prickle of pure excitement as she closed her eyes and sank as deep as she could into the warm water. To sail away with Ramón…

Her eyes flew open. She’d been stupid once. One gorgeous sailor, and…Matty.

So I’m not that stupid, she told herself. I can take precautions before I go.

Before she went? This wasn’t turning out to be a relaxing bath. She sat bolt upright in the bath and thought, what am I thinking?

She was definitely thinking of going.

‘You told him where to go to find deckies,’ she said out loud. ‘He’ll have asked someone else by now.’

No!

‘So get up, get dressed and go down to that boat. Right now, before you chicken out and change your mind.

‘You’re nuts.

‘So what can happen that’s worse than being stuck here?’ she told herself and got out of the bath and saw her very pink body in the mirror. Pink? The sight was somehow a surprise.

For the last two years she’d been feeling grey. She’d been concentrating on simply putting one foot after another, and sometimes even that was an effort.

And now…suddenly she felt pink.

‘So go down to the docks, knock on the hatch of Ramón’s wonderful boat and say—yes, please, I want to come with you, even if you are a white slave trader, even if I may be doing the stupidest thing of my life. Jumping from the frying pan into the fire? Maybe, but, crazy or not, I want to jump,’ she told the mirror.

And she would.

‘You’re a fool,’ she told her reflection, and her reflection agreed.

‘Yes, but you’re not a grey fool. Just do it.’

What crazy impulse had him offering a woman passage on his boat? A needy woman. A woman who looked as if she might cling.

She was right, he needed a couple of deckies, kids who’d enjoy the voyage and head off into the unknown as soon as he reached the next port. Then he could find more.

But he was tired of kids. He’d been starting to think he’d prefer to sail alone, only Marquita wasn’t a yacht to sail by himself. She was big and old-fash-ioned and her sails were heavy and complicated. In good weather one man might manage her, but Ramón didn’t head into good weather. He didn’t look for storms but he didn’t shy away from them either.

The trip back around the Horn would be long and tough, and he’d hardly make it before he was due to return to Bangladesh. He’d been looking forward to the challenge, but at the same time not looking forward to the complications crew could bring.

The episode in the café this morning had made him act on impulse. The woman—Jenny—looked light years from the kids he generally employed. She looked warm and homely and mature. She also looked as if she might have a sense of humour and, what was more, she could cook.

He could make a rather stodgy form of paella. He could cook a steak. Often the kids he employed couldn’t even do that.

He was ever so slightly over paella.

Which was why the taste of Jenny’s muffins, the cosiness of her café, the look of her with a smudge of flour over her left ear, had him throwing caution to the winds and offering her a job. And then, when he’d realised just where that bully of a boss had her, he’d thrown in paying off her loan for good measure.

Sensible? No. She’d looked at him as if she suspected him of buying her for his harem, and he didn’t blame her.

It was just as well she hadn’t accepted, he told himself. Move on.

It was time to eat. Maybe he could go out to one of the dockside hotels.

He didn’t feel like it. His encounter with Jenny had left him feeling strangely flat—as if he’d seen something he wanted but he couldn’t have it.

That made him sound like his Uncle Iván, he thought ruefully. Iván, Crown Prince of Cepheus, arrogance personified.

Why was he thinking of Iván now? He was really off balance.

He gave himself a fast mental shake and forced himself to go back to considering dinner. Even if he didn’t go out to eat he should eat fresh food while in port. He retrieved steak, a tomato and lettuce from the refrigerator. A representation of the height of his culinary skill.

Dinner. Then bed?

Or he could wander up to the yacht club and check the noticeboard for deckies. The sooner he found a crew, the sooner he could leave, and suddenly he was eager to leave.

Why had the woman disturbed him? She had nothing to do with him. He didn’t need to regard Jenny’s refusal as a loss.

‘Hello?’

For a moment he thought he was imagining things, but his black mood lifted, just like that, as he abandoned his steak and made his way swiftly up to the deck.

He wasn’t imagining things. Jenny was on the jetty, looking almost as he’d last seen her but cleaner. She was still in her battered coat and jeans, but the flour was gone and her curls were damp from washing.