The Balfour Legacy

Kat looked at him hopefully. ‘So you’ll take me?’

‘I cannot,’ he snapped. ‘Surely your attention span isn’t so short that you’ve already forgotten the letter from your father which you read last night?’

She thought back to that ridiculous set of rules her father had set out—the one Carlos had presented her with when he’d arrived on board. ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten, but my father has clearly taken leave of his senses!’

‘Wrong again.’ Carlos’s lips flattened into an uncompromising line. ‘In fact, I think his intervention is long overdue and it’s time you stopped acting like a spoilt little princess. One who snaps her fingers and thinks the world owes her a living. An overindulged rich girl who sees just what she wants and then takes it. I cannot believe that nobody has ever accused you of it before. Princesa.’

Kat stood as he taunted her with the word, but now her heart had begun to thunder erratically as ice-cold tentacles of fear began to tiptoe down her spine, in spite of the warmth of the morning sun. Fear that she usually kept battened down, hidden away like a dark secret. Didn’t he realise that she, of all people, couldn’t cope with the idea of being trapped? That she had witnessed enough violence and horror to last a lifetime—and that sometimes she needed to run from those memories. Quite literally, to run.

Like a dark and acrid poison, reminders of that time rose up in her mind, but she blocked them. The way she’d been blocking them ever since her world had been turned upside down by the death of her stepfather and nothing had ever been the same again. She never talked about it with anyone. Anyone. Not all the counsellors or psychologists they’d paid for over the years. Not her mother or her father. Nobody. And she certainly wasn’t going to start with this arrogant beast of a man who seemed to bring out the very worst in her.

‘I am not going to stay here slaving away for an arrogant man who insults me,’ she blurted out. ‘And what is more, you can’t force me to!’

‘Oh, but I can. And I will,’ he returned implacably as he rose from the table. ‘One day you may even thank me for it.’

‘The hell I will!’

He gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, but I can see that you are in urgent need of subduing, Princesa. And if you’re planning any more theatrical displays like diving in and swimming to shore, then forget it. I might not be so inclined to jump in and save you next time.’

He saw her bright blue gaze moving distractedly round the deck, as if searching there for some other kind of getaway. ‘What’s more, if you’re thinking you might spirit yourself away on one of my motor-boats, I’d better warn you that I’ll be keeping all the ignition keys close to me. And the rest of the crew have instructions not to take you ashore, no matter how beguilingly you decide to ask them.’ His black eyes glittered a stark warning. ‘So don’t bother wasting your time trying to escape.’

Kat stared at him. If being trapped with him wasn’t bad enough, his cavalier and patronising attitude made it a hundred times worse.

And suddenly, all her feelings of hurt and rage and frustration welled up into an urgent need to make him realise that she meant what she said.

‘Let me off this boat at once, you…you…overbearing…beast!’ she half sobbed, launching herself towards him before she stopped to think about the wisdom of her actions, drumming her fists furiously against the rock-solid wall of his chest. ‘Just let me go!’

For a moment, Carlos didn’t react to the warm intoxication of her proximity and the realisation that the soft curve of her hips was only a thrust away. He was known for his restraint, for a steely self-control which had seen him turn down more women than most men would dream of.

And yet now he could feel the first stealthy silken tug of sexual awakening as the coldly analytical side of his brain fought against the escalating clamour of his senses.

His mouth hardened. He didn’t even like Kat Balfour. So why was his body hardening with unbearable tension, its demands beginning to wash over him in hot, sweet waves?

‘Let me go!’ she repeated, as the drumming of her fists increased.

‘No,’ he grated, staring down into her bright blue eyes with dislike. ‘What a little hypocrite you are, Kat. Women who want men to let them go don’t start pressing themselves against them and flaunting their bodies in such a way that shows they’re just begging to be kissed. Do they?’

She opened her mouth to deny it but as she stared up into his face she could see that his eyes were no longer like stone. In fact, they blazed like ebony fire as they raked over her. And despite the condemnation in his tone, Kat’s words died on her lips as, with a growl of desire and fury, Carlos lowered his head towards hers and began to kiss her.

She swayed as she felt the hard pressure of his mouth driving down on hers, clutching at the silken-clad expanse of his shoulders, her thoughts swirling as their flesh met and melded. This was bliss, she thought distractedly, as she clung to him, heart beginning to pound as she felt the first flick of his tongue. Wasn’t this how a kiss was supposed to feel? What she’d been holding out for all her life? ‘Oh,’ she moaned helplessly, as the pressure of his lips increased. ‘Oh!’

¡Dios!

Carlos felt her instant capitulation, as sweet and responsive as he had guessed she might be. As he deepened the kiss, he could feel her breasts peaking against him. Sweet, neat breasts—like tender peaches just waiting to be bitten into. He wanted to take one into his hand, to rub his thumb against its ripe nub. And then to delve his fingers beneath the soft silk of her sinful little dress, to discover if she was wearing proper panties this time. Or another of those X-rated G-strings…

For several agonisingly tempting moments, he imagined plunging into her, imagined her hungry little cries as she urged him on. And then, just as suddenly as the kiss had started, he tore his lips away from hers, stepping back as if she was contaminated, his furious gaze raking over her flushed cheeks and darkened eyes.

Frustrated desire found an outlet in heated accusation as he willed the frantic thudding of his heart to lessen and the fierce aching at his groin to stop throbbing and tormenting him. ‘Do you always act like this—like a sex-starved tramp?’ he demanded unevenly. ‘Are you one of these women who are ruled by the hunger of their bodies, perhaps—who grab at the nearest man whenever he happens to be available?’

The harsh words hurt, but presumably that had been his intention. ‘C-can’t the same be said about you?’ she shot back, stung, because he was so wrong in his character assessment of her that it would have been almost laughable had it not been quite so insulting. Clamping her arms around her still-tender breasts she hid her arousal and confusion behind a shield of sarcasm. ‘I mean, obviously you have a fantastic technique—’

‘That was never in any doubt, Princes a.’

‘I’m just appalled at my own reaction to an uncaring brute like you,’ she choked. ‘Especially since you had another woman in your arms only yesterday!’

Carlos found his gaze drawn irresistibly to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts which she was trying and failing to hide. ‘I had another woman in my arms only yesterday,’ he repeated slowly.

‘The woman in the gold bikini!’ she accused, hating the shaft of pure jealousy which shot through her.

‘The woman in the gold bikini?’

‘Will you stop repeating everything I say?’

‘Then would you mind explaining what the hell you’re talking about?’

‘The gold bikini top,’ elaborated Kat bitterly. ‘The one I found along with the remains of the meal in the dining room!’

‘Ah, yes!’ A slow and glittering smile of comprehension began to curve at Carlos’s lips as he remembered. ‘Tania Stephens…I had forgotten all about that.’

Kat felt sick, appalled at her own behaviour. She had been…been…Well, if she were being absolutely honest, hadn’t she been like the softest putty in his hands? Wouldn’t she still be writhing pleasurably beneath his practised caresses if he hadn’t put a stop to it so abruptly? And yet he’d been doing the same thing to another woman only yesterday and had forgotten all about it! Didn’t that speak volumes about his attitude to women in general and her in particular? What a lucky escape she had had!

‘You make love to a woman and less than twenty-four hours later you’ve “forgotten all about it”?’ she breathed in disbelief.

‘I did not make love to her.’

Kat’s heart pounded. ‘So a woman’s gold bikini top just happens to be lying discarded on the floor of your dining room, along with evidence of some intimate little meal à deux—and yet you claim to know nothing about it?’

‘That’s not what I said,’ he snapped. ‘I said that I didn’t make love to her.’

‘But…but she wanted to?’

There was a pause. ‘Of course she did,’ he agreed softly. ‘All women want me to make love to them. Didn’t you demonstrate that yourself only moments ago?’

Kat flinched at the accusation, but she couldn’t deny it, could she? ‘So who was she?’ she questioned.

‘A journalist.’ Carlos allowed himself a brief, hard smile. ‘Who I heard was doing a feature on me—and so I invited her here to find out what angle she was taking, and whether or not I needed to persuade her to adopt a different one.’

‘Why would anyone want to do a feature on you?’

Black eyes challenged her. ‘Any ideas?’

‘Because you’re rich? Or because you’re unbearable?’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘Wealth is hardly an achievement in its own right. You of all people should know that, Princes a.’

And then she remembered the photo. That startling photo. The young Carlos wearing the richly ornate jacket of the bullfighter—his face just as proud and as beautiful as it was now, but without the cynicism which time had etched onto the features of his older self.

‘Bullfighting,’ she said slowly. ‘She wanted to talk to you about bullfighting.’

There was the beat of a pause. ‘Of course she did,’ he said slowly. ‘They always want to talk about bullfighting.’

‘But why?’ Kat stared at him. ‘Because it’s exciting—or because hardly anyone does it as a career choice?’

‘Both those things, but it is a little more complex than that.’ He met the question in her eyes. ‘It’s fifteen years since I left the ring, and she’s just digging around because she wants to know why.’

‘And why did you leave?’

‘You think I want to talk about it with someone like you?’ he queried softly. ‘A woman whose definition of a hard day’s work is painting her own nails because the manicurist happens to be off sick?’

He saw her flinch but Carlos didn’t care. Couldn’t she take the truth about the kind of woman she was? He had vowed never to talk of those days, to relive the pain and the torture which had raged inside him during his tumultuous years in the ring. A pain which had little to do with the noble bullfight itself, and more to do with the cruel father who had made his life such a torment.

The journalist had tried every trick in the book to get him to talk, and a couple more besides. She had certainly been enterprising, he would say that for her. The editor had probably selected her for her beauty and her sheer ruthlessness. So that when the lunchtime interview had not been progressing as she’d wished, she had suggested sunbathing. And then laughingly stripped off her bikini top as if it had been the most natural thing in the world.

He had been aroused, yes—of course he had. The woman’s breasts had been full and pale and her glossy lips had parted as if to demonstrate that she was very accomplished with her mouth. But sex offered to him on a plate had never been his thing.

He looked down into the blue eyes of the Balfour girl. Maybe he should tell her that and have done with it—because, in effect, wasn’t she doing exactly the same? Trying to twist him round her little finger with her come-to-bed eyes and pouting lips. Perhaps he should tell her that no matter how much she tried to tempt him, she was here to do a job and nothing more. He had given his word to her father that he would teach her something in the way of commitment, and Carlos always kept his word.

So why had he kissed her? And why was the memory of that kiss making him grow hard even now? So hard that he would have liked to have taken hold of her aristocratic hips and thrust right into her.

‘You’d better have some breakfast,’ he said harshly. ‘And then start by clearing away the mess in the dining room.’

Kat met the stony black gaze. ‘And if I don’t?’

He thought how beautiful she looked when she defied him. ‘If you don’t? Then, Princesa, I will quickly lose patience with you, and I don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ he answered. ‘You might do well to remember that the sooner you start fulfilling your obligations, the sooner you can leave—and free us both from this infernal incarceration.’

Shaken, Kat stood watching as he walked away from her, her eyes drawn to the graceful movement of his white-jeaned physique and the way the silk shirt billowed slightly in the breeze. Unthinkingly, she touched her fingertips to her lips—to where the tender flesh still tingled with the heat of his passionate kiss—and she felt the corresponding thunder of her heart as she remembered it. But the kiss meant nothing, she reminded herself—and Carlos couldn’t have made that clearer.

She wondered if he’d gone off to work in one of the warren of luxurious rooms which lay below the deck, but it wasn’t until a few minutes later when she heard the throaty roar of a powerful engine that she realised that he’d gone. Properly gone.

Racing over to the side of the yacht, she saw a flash of silver as a powerful little motorboat cut through the sapphire waters. The wind streamed through the wild black curls of the man who stood at the helm and the sun had illuminated his olive skin into dark gold. He looked, she thought, like some powerful and formidable god of a man.

For one split second, their eyes met—and Kat registered the implacable coldness in his gaze, with barely a flicker of recognition or acknowledgement on his stony features. Was he demonstrating the fact that he was free to come and go as she was not? Or was he silently laughing at her and her lowly predicament?

She turned away and looked around the deck. Either way, she was trapped here—with a list of menial chores to do for a sexy tyrant of a man, and no means by which she could escape.

Chapter Five

AFTER Carlos had gone, Kat was left with the stinging realisation that she’d never had to clean up after anyone.

At all the different schools she’d attended—before being kicked out of most of them—there had always been someone else to make the beds and do the laundry for the privileged schoolgirls. Even at home, she’d managed to wriggle out of helping with domestic chores—maybe because her kindly and efficient mother had been a bit of a pushover.

When her mother had divorced Oscar and married Victor, it had been a fairly amicable arrangement for all concerned. But even so, Tilly Balfour had been so racked with guilt over the inevitable disruption it had caused that she’d tried to cushion her three daughters against any emotional fallout by spoiling them just a little. And Kat, being the youngest, had been very easy to spoil.

And then when Tilly’s new husband had been posted to Sri Lanka, there had been servants galore to run around after the whole family. Until…

Kat blinked back the tears which could still catch her by surprise, even all these years later. But for once the thought was stubbornly refusing to be blocked.

When Victor had been killed—murdered—nobody in their right mind was going to ask Kat to do anything she didn’t want to do. And if they did, then she usually turned her back on it and ran away.

But now suddenly that had all changed. Because for the first time in her life—quite literally—there was nowhere for her to run. And she was faced with a man she could not twist around her little finger. A man she still desired, no matter how much she tried to deny it.

She felt the acrid rise of panic in her throat—but with an effort she forced herself to crush it because what good would panicking do? It would paralyse her as much as stubborn defiance, and she could afford to do neither. Because even though she hated to admit it, she could see that if she wanted to get off this boat she was going to have to make some kind of an effort. To co-operate with Carlos Guerrero, even though every fibre of her being screamed out in protest.

Kat set off to explore the galley, where she found a cupboard containing an army of brushes, buckets and cloths as well as a confusing array of cleaning products, and she carried a selection of these down into the dining salon and set to work.

The first thing she did was to dispose of the gold bikini top, gingerly picking it up as if it was contaminated and chucking it into a black bin-liner. With a smile of satisfaction on her lips, she threw all the left-over food on top of it and watched the gleaming fabric sink beneath the weight of a banana skin. After that, she piled up all the crockery and china onto a tray and carried the whole lot down into the galley, and left it by the side of the sink before going back upstairs.

With the table now clear, she gave the place a quick wipe and sprayed some furniture polish in the air for added effect because she remembered reading somewhere that this would make the room smell clean. And then, her tasks completed and with no sign of Carlos returning from his boat trip, she slipped into a bikini of her own, found a magazine and went to lie by the swimming pool.

It should have been heaven basking there—with the warmth of the sun stealing over her skin and the sound of the waves swishing rhythmically against the boat. But in truth, Kat felt jittery and couldn’t concentrate on any of the iconic fashion images which usually held her attention—because a face with glittering black eyes and a mocking stare kept breaking into her thoughts and unsettling her.

She did her best to enjoy the hours which drifted by and eventually fell into a fitful sleep—only jumping into half wakefulness by the sound of a distant drone and then by the certainty that someone was watching her. Her eyes fluttered open to see that her thoughts had become reality and a shadow had fallen over her—its hard, dark outline making her heart leap into an annoyingly dizzy and familiar beat. Kat felt her throat dry. Carlos!

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ came a low and disbelieving voice.

She’d tidied up his salon, hadn’t she? Put on that stupid apron and buzzed around like Mrs Mop? Yanking the straps of her bikini back up, she sat up and pushed the hair away from her face. ‘What does it look like?’

‘It looks,’ he gritted out, trying very hard not to let his gaze linger on the miniscule bikini she was wearing, ‘as if you’re just indulging in a little more of the same of your idle, jet-set lifestyle.’

‘I’ve done what you asked me to do!’

‘Oh, really?’ he questioned dangerously.

‘Yes, really,’ she defended. ‘I’ve tidied up the mess left by you and your tame journalist—’

‘You think so? Then I must beg to differ, Princesa. You’ve left it only half done,’ he corrected coldly. ‘The salon is not properly clean and I understand you haven’t even bothered to wash up.’

‘So?’

‘So, you’d better get it into that little air-brain head of yours that I am used to perfection from my staff and you have fallen way short of that. And what about the crew’s lunch?’

‘What about it?’

‘It’s almost three o’clock. Didn’t it occur to you that they might be hungry?’

Three o’ clock? Kat stared at him blankly. ‘Is it really that time?’ she queried. ‘I had no idea—and as you know, my watch is broken—’

‘Get up when you’re talking to me!’ he roared, and then when, to his surprise, she shrugged and began effortlessly to rise like some graceful Venus emerging from a shell, he instantly regretted his suggestion.

Because if he’d thought that the little sundress she’d been sashaying around in earlier was sinful, then this bikini was positively X-rated. ¡Madre de Dios! Two tiny scraps of turquoise material which had been sewn with exquisite care to make a garment which was only this side of decent. Or maybe it was just the way she wore it. Her breasts seemed to be spilling over a woefully inadequate top and the bikini bottoms taunted him with two tantalising bows on either side of her hips. Bows which could be undone with a single tug of a silken piece of fabric…

Bad enough that her kiss had awoken in him an inconvenient hunger he had no intention of satisfying, but to add fuel to the fire which still smouldered within him, he was now forced to confront the stuff of fantasy.

‘And for pity’s sake, cover yourself up!’ he snapped. ‘Instead of draping yourself around the deck like some kind of latter-day Mata Hari!’

‘Who?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he retorted impatiently, tossing her a filmy sarong. ‘Put this on?’

With a scowl, Kat folded and weaved the piece of material around herself, pushing her feet into a pair of glittery flip-flops. ‘So what do you want me to do now?’ she questioned insolently.

To his fury Carlos felt the sudden hot rush of blood to his groin. Thinking that if she’d asked any other man such a question in such circumstances as these, she might find herself being pushed back on that sun lounger and having the turquoise bikini peeled away from her body. And this time he just might not have the self-control to stop…

Carlos swallowed down the dryness in his throat. ‘Just go and get dressed,’ he ordered tersely. ‘And then come back here.’

Infuriated by his peremptory tone, Kat was tempted to disobey him just for the hell of it, but the rebellion had left her by the time she reached her cabin. Because hadn’t she already decided that there was no point in fighting him—other than an enduring battle of wills which Carlos would surely win, simply because he was in the dominant position of power? No. Better to co-operate. To make an attempt to do the wretched man’s bidding and pray that time passed quickly.

Peeling off her bikini, she changed into a pair of linen trousers and T-shirt. She even twisted the thick fall of her dark hair into a practical knot and pulled on the dreaded apron, regarding her reflection in the mirror with a grimace. Why, she was scarcely recognisable as herself!

He was waiting where she’d left him, talking into a cellphone, his dark features shuttered as he finished his conversation.

‘Buy,’ he was saying softly. ‘But don’t go any higher than forty. No. No. De eso ni hablar. Sí.’

He glanced up as Kat approached, his black eyes narrowing as he terminated the connection, surprised to see that she had fallen in completely with his wishes and had covered up. The turquoise bikini had been consigned to fevered memory, but although almost every centimetre of her flesh was no longer visible, her outfit did little to deter the heated progression of his thoughts.

She should have looked demure, but somehow she failed on every level because now he knew only too well what lay beneath. He could picture her creamy-caramel flesh beautifully naked, with all its enticing shadows which beckoned a man to the places where nature had intended for him to linger. The firm curve of buttock and breast, and the delicious honey-sweet destination between her thighs.

‘Is that better?’ asked Kat.

‘Marginally better,’ he conceded thickly.

‘What were you buying on the phone just now?’

‘Property.’

‘Is that what you do, then?’

‘Some of what I do. And stop trying to change the subject. Just go back down to the galley and wash up all the dishes which I’m told you left dumped on the side. And after that, you can make a start on dinner. Do you think you can manage that?’