‘Hawk—–’
‘Whitney, let’s drop the subject, shall we,’ he cut in forcefully, obviously wearying of the subject. ‘I had the Freedom brought up to London with the intention of taking her out at the weekend for a week or so. This has changed my plans somewhat.’
‘I don’t see why,’ she protested. ‘If you’ll just let me go ashore—–’
‘No,’ he bit out before she could finish. ‘You’re staying right here until everyone forgets you were doing a story on Tom Beresford.’
She remembered the predatory look in the pale blue eyes of the other man and shook her head. ‘That could take weeks,’ she derided impatiently.
‘You have weeks,’ Hawk told her in a calm voice. ‘Months, if necessary. After all, you’re unemployed, and you don’t have a cat to feed!’
‘I—–’
‘And don’t even think about carrying out your threat to take this story to another newspaper,’ he added grimly, his eyes narrowed. ‘If you attempt to do that Martin will have to retaliate by quietly spreading the word that the absenteeism story was just that, that really you were sacked for embellishing the facts to get a better story.’
Whitney paled, knew her career would be at an end if such a rumour were ever started, however untrue. ‘I don’t believe you would do that to me.’ She shook her head.
Hawk shrugged, his expression cold. ‘Try me,’ he invited softly.
He had to know that a rumour like that, started from such a reliable source as Martin Groves, would finish her as a reporter forever. Not even a provincial newspaper would employ her after that. And she was damned good at her job. ‘You aren’t doing this to protect me at all,’ she accused.
‘Who, then?’ he grated harshly.
‘Geraldine!’ Her eyes were bright with anger. ‘If her husband falls so will she! I don’t believe any woman could be that close to a man and not know exactly what lengths he goes to to earn his money!’
‘No,’ Hawk conceded. ‘I’m sure Geraldine is aware of every corruption her husband is involved in.’
‘Then—–’ She broke off as his expression changed, blinking her confusion as he strode purposefully across the room towards her.
‘For God’s sake, Whitney, I’m not going to hit you!’ he growled as she flinched, his fingers biting into the tops of her arms enough to hold her in front of him but not enough to actually hurt her.
‘What are you—–?’
‘Be quiet!’ he grated, his head bending as his mouth claimed hers.
All the breath left her body at the unexpected caress, her limbs trembling as he moulded her body to his, her senses quivering—–
‘I’m sorry, Hawk, I had no idea—–!’ The shocked voice of another man interrupted them.
Golden eyes gleamed their satisfaction before Hawk turned to look at the other man. ‘It’s all right, Stephen,’ he assured smoothly. ‘Whitney, you remember the captain of the Freedom?’ He quirked dark brows at her.
She had met the other man several times during previous visits to the yacht, and nodded her head in greeting to him, now knowing the reason for Hawk’s sudden—and devastating—kiss. She daren’t even trust the steadiness of her voice to talk to the tall, distinguished captain!
Stephen Hollister still looked uncomfortable for having interrupted them at such an intimate moment. ‘I can come back later.’
Hawk gave Whitney a hard look before nodding to the other man. ‘Maybe that would be best,’ he acknowledged. ‘I was just about to escort Whitney down to her suite anyway.’
The innuendo in his tone was unmistakable, and with a rueful shrug of understanding the older man left them alone once more.
Whitney spun away from Hawk’s side as soon as the door closed. ‘And what if dear Geraldine got to hear about that?’ she challenged, hurt by the way he had used her. Her worst humiliation was that he had to know she had responded to him.
His body tensed, his eyes as hard as the metal they resembled. ‘My staff is paid very well not to gossip about me,’ he bit out. ‘Besides, none of them ever cared for Geraldine.’
She was so angry she just wanted to unnerve him the way he had disturbed her. ‘And what about Mr Peterson?’ she taunted. ‘Was he paid to forget, too?’
‘Yes,’ he answered with simple arrogance.
‘You didn’t have to kiss me just now to shut me up,’ she told him agitatedly, still able to feel the imprint of his lips on hers. ‘A simple “someone’s coming” would have sufficed! I know I lost my temper with you earlier but I’m not in the habit of causing a scene.’
‘I know that,’ he sighed wearily. ‘I just—I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.’ He shrugged awkwardly.
Embarrassed! She was a quivering mass of nerves, was still having trouble breathing, could barely resist the impulse to place her fingertips where his lips had touched hers; embarrassment was the last emotion she felt!
‘You were my guardian for six years, shouldn’t you be the one to feel embarrassed at being caught making love to me?’ she scorned, to hide her complete devastation.
He drew in a ragged breath. ‘Embarrassment doesn’t come into it. You’re right, I should never have kissed you. I’ll have a word with Stephen and tell him to forget what he saw.’
‘Don’t forget to explain to him that the kiss you gave me couldn’t possibly have meant anything when you still love your ex-wife!’ Whitney’s eyes were heavy with unshed tears.
‘Whitney—–’
‘Don’t bother to see me to my suite,’ she told him heatedly. ‘I’m sure it’s the same one that I usually occupy!’ She closed the door forcefully behind her, resisting the impulse to lean weakly back against it, her back straight and unyielding as she took the stairway down to the deck that housed the suites.
She didn’t relax that control until she had the door to the peach and pale cream suite firmly locked behind her; Hawk hated having people walking out on him in the middle of a conversation; she had learnt that at a very young age, having to spend every afternoon for a week of her holiday studying French the first time she had done it.
She had been fifteen when she had been put into Hawk’s guardianship, when she had met him for the first time at all. She knew he and her father were friends, her father often speaking of him, and she had seen articles about the Hawkworth heir in the same magazines that wrote about her father.
At that time the two men had dominated the motor-cycle circuits, one of them always taking first place, the friendly rivalry inducing a lasting friendship. Whitney had known what her father did for a living, had been proud of his achievements from the safety of the boarding school he had sent her to when she was eight, her mother having died while she was still a baby. The day James Hawkworth arrived at the school in her father’s place she had known Dan Morgan’s sparkling career had come to an end on the race circuit he had loved so much.
The teachers at the school had managed to keep the knowledge of the fatal bike accident from her until Hawk arrived to gently break the news of her father’s death, and because she had known of her father’s close friendship with the younger man she had moved instinctively into his arms to cry over her loss. He had held her until the tears stopped, not speaking, just holding her, and then he had quietly explained to her that her father had left her care to him.
And so as well as her father’s death she also had to contend with the fact that she had been left in the hands of a complete stranger. At first nothing