From the distant shore, he heard the crack-crack of some small explosion—was it fireworks?—and his attention was drawn to the small sound of alarm she made in response. Saw the sudden blanching of her face beneath her tan. Was she frightened of fireworks? he wondered.
But Kat Balfour’s neuroses were as meaningless to him as was fantasising about her body.
She was there to work, Carlos thought grimly, as he turned his back to the other boat. Not to tempt him into doing something he would bitterly regret.
Chapter Seven
‘No!’
The piercing and blood-curdling scream echoed through the night and Carlos woke instantly. Staring into the pitch darkness, his senses were on instant alert as the reality hit him that it was a woman’s scream—and there was only one woman on board. He frowned. Kat? Screaming? What the hell was she playing at?
Leaping naked from his bed, he dragged on a pair of jeans and headed for her cabin, his heart pounding frantically in his chest as he pushed open the door.
‘No!’
Once more he heard the terrified word torn from her throat as he burst inside—but it was not directed at him, nor at anyone else. For the cabin was empty save for Kat sitting bolt upright in bed. Through the moonlight which flooded in from the porthole he could see that her face was ashen with terror, her eyes glazed as they stared unseeingly in front of her. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost and was clearly having some kind of nightmare.
His movements were soft and stealthy as he moved towards her—remembering reading somewhere that if you startled someone from a nightmare, it could cause them a serious shock to the system.
‘No, no, no!’ she screamed again, now shaking her head wildly from side to side.
Carlos reached the bed and, brushing aside the silken spill of her hair, placed his hands on her shoulders, his voice as soothing as if he were calming down a fractious horse. He could feel the heat of her skin and see the frantic movement of a pulse at her temple. ‘Kat,’ he urged softly. ‘Kat. Wake up. Come on, wake up, Princesa—you’re having a bad dream.’
‘No, please,’ she whimpered. ‘Please don’t. Don’t…’
He found her helpless whisper curiously affecting and a rush of unwilling protectiveness flared through him. Had someone attacked her in the past? Made her…
‘Kat,’ he said again, his voice firmer now. ‘It’s okay. You’re here. Nothing’s happened. Wake up. You’re safe.’
Safe…The single word filtered into her consciousness as Kat awoke, memories which she kept buried deep and out of sight now staining her mind like a dark poison. Convulsively, she shivered as graphic images danced in her mind and sheer horror racked through her body.
But someone was holding her in their arms—and it was the warmest and most comfortable place she had ever been. So that, yes, for a moment, the word had the ring of truth to it and she really did feel safe. Safe and protected.
Until past and present merged with horrifying clarity. It was no nightmare. It had happened. Victor was dead. Her beloved stepfather gone.
‘No,’ she whimpered.
‘Kat,’ came a whisper as strong hands now shook her with surprising gentleness and her eyelids fluttered open. ‘Wake up. Come on, wake up, Princes a.’
Her vision cleared and her heart missed a beat. Because the man holding her was none other than Carlos—sitting in her cabin and on her bed and wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
The same man who had made it very clear he didn’t want her was holding her in his arms—and Kat knew she should have torn herself away from his embrace and told him to go. What had she told herself about pride and not letting him see her vulnerable again? But she was still scared enough from the aftermath of the dream to want to stay exactly where she was. Here, where she could feel the powerful pound of his heart.
Carlos stroked the silken tumble of her hair, knowing that the rhythmical movement would soothe her, in the same way that frightened animals were always soothed by rhythm. He was aware of her sweetly scented femininity—but at least she wasn’t distractingly naked. In fact, he was slightly taken aback by her choice of night attire, because a pair of cotton pyjamas was not what he might have expected the sexy Kat Balfour to sleep in.
‘You were having a bad dream,’ he stated softly.
Briefly closing her eyes, she shuddered. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’re awake now, so forget it. Come on. Let it go. Nightmares don’t happen in real life.’
Was it reaction to the shock of having the reoccurring dream that made her want to contradict him? Or was it because, with Carlos holding her like that, she felt as if nothing or no one could ever hurt her again?
‘It’s…it’s n-not a n-nightmare.’ Her voice was shaking with fear as she spoke against the silken warmth of his bare shoulder. ‘It’s t-true.’
Carlos knew about fear. After all, that was one of the simple lures of bullfighting. That’s what the spectators paid huge amounts of money to witness. Why poor men would happily forgo half a week’s wages to watch the ancient battle between man and bull. It had been a long time since he had encountered real fear outside the ring, but he could sense it now in the slender frame of this woman in his arms, and he stilled. ‘What are you talking about?’
Lifting her cheek away from his shoulder, she looked up at him, her heart pounding as she met the gleam of his eyes which was as bright as the light of the moon. ‘I told you,’ she whispered. ‘It’s true—all of it!’
Suddenly, she looked vulnerable, dangerously vulnerable. He stared down into the pale blur of her face and saw the way she was biting her lip—no trace of the confident Kat Balfour now, he thought in surprise. ‘What’s true, Kat?’ he questioned softly. ‘Tell me what is frightening you so much.’
Kat trembled. It was the first time he had ever really spoken to her as an equal. The first time he’d shown her kindness, or consideration. It shouldn’t have mattered but somehow it did—it mattered much more than it should have done. She tried telling herself that she shouldn’t trust him—but somehow she couldn’t help herself. Was it the protective warmth of his embrace which suddenly loosened her tongue—or the inexplicable understanding in his deep, accented voice which made her want to pour it all out?
‘They killed him,’ she whispered. ‘They killed him and I couldn’t stop them.’
‘Who did?’ he commanded urgently. ‘Tell me, Princes a.’
‘I don’t know where to start,’ she whispered.
‘Start at the beginning,’ he said simply.
And then words really started tumbling out—like feathers falling from a pillow which had been ripped wide open by a particularly sharp knife. Words she’d never spoken before. Words which her father had paid counsellors a small fortune to try to extricate from her and which instead she now found herself telling a cold-hearted Spaniard on a luxury yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean.
‘I told you my parents didn’t marry for love—but for c-convenience,’ she stumbled. ‘But then my mother met someone else—someone she knew could be special to her. My father felt it was only fair to let her go, and so they divorced, and she married Victor. He was a major in the army and he was lovely. Really lovely. And a good stepfather to me and my sisters.’
For a moment she allowed herself to remember the happy times. Her mother being truly in love with a man for the first time in her life. The sense of being a proper family. The real bond which had existed between her and Victor. She had been the youngest girl