‘You’re kidding me, right?’
He smiled and led the way back down the companionway. Opened another door. Ushered her in.
He’d decorated this room. Sofía had added a couple of touches-actually, Sofía had spoken to his plumber so the bathroom was a touch…well, a touch embarrassing-but the rest was his.
It was bigger than the stateroom he’d offered Jenny. The bed here was huge but he didn’t have hangings. It was more masculine, done in muted tones of the colours through the rest of the boat. The sunlit yellows and golds of the salon had been extended here, with only faint touches of the crimson and blues. The carpet here was blue as well, but short and functional.
There were two amazing paintings on the wall. Recognizable paintings. Jenny gasped with shock. ‘Please tell me they’re not real.’
Okay. ‘They’re not real.’ They were. ‘You want to see the bathroom?’ he asked, unable to resist, and he led her through. Then he stood back and grinned as her jaw almost hit the carpet.
While the Marquita was being refitted, he’d had to return to Bangladesh before the plumbing was done, and Sofía had decided to put her oar in here as well. And Sofía’s oar was not known as sparse and clinical. Plus she had this vision of him in sackcloth and ashes in Bangladesh and she was determined to make the rest of his life what she termed ‘comfortable’.
Plus she read romance novels.
He therefore had a massive golden bath in the shape of a Botticelli shell. It stood like a great marble carving in the middle of the room, with carved steps up on either side. Sofía had made concessions to the unsteadiness of bathing at sea by putting what appeared to be vines all around. In reality, they were hand rails but the end result looked like a tableau from the Amazon rainforest. There were gold taps, gold hand rails, splashes of crimson and blue again. There was trompe l’oeil-a massive painting that looked like reality-on the wall, making it appear as if the sea came right inside. She’d even added towels with the monogram of the royal family his grandmother had belonged to.
When he’d returned from Bangladesh he’d come in here and nearly had a stroke. His first reaction had been horror, but Sofía had been beside him, so anxious she was quivering.
‘I so wanted to give you something special,’ she’d said, and Sofía was all the family he had and there was no way he’d hurt her.
He’d hugged her and told her he loved it-and that night he’d even had a bath in the thing. She wasn’t to know he usually used the shower down the way.
‘You…you sleep in here?’ Jenny said, her bottom lip quivering.
‘Not in the bath,’ he said and grinned.
‘But where does the owner sleep?’ she demanded, ignoring his attempt at levity. She was gazing around in stupefaction. ‘There’s not room on his boat for another cabin like this.’
‘I… At need I use the bunkroom.’ And that was a lie, but suddenly he was starting to really, really want to employ this woman. Okay, he was on morally dubious ground, but did it matter if she thought he was a hired hand? He watched as the strain eased from her face and turned to laughter, and he thought surely this woman deserved a chance at a different life. If one small lie could give it to her…
Would it make a difference if she knew the truth? If he told her he was so rich the offer to pay her debts meant nothing to him… How would she react?
With fear. He’d seen her face when he’d offered her the job. There’d been an intuitive fear that he wanted her for more than her sailing and her cooking. How much worse would it be if she knew he could buy and sell her a thousand times over?
‘The owner doesn’t mind?’ she demanded.
He gave up and went along with it. ‘The owner likes his boat to be used and enjoyed.’
‘Wow,’ she breathed and looked again at the bath. ‘Wow!’
‘I use the shower in the shared bathroom,’ he confessed and she chuckled.
‘What a waste.’
‘You’d be welcome to use this.’
‘In your dreams,’ she muttered. ‘This place is Harems-RUs.’
‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘But it’s still a working boat. I promise you, Jenny, there’s not a hint of harem about her.’
‘You swear?’ she demanded and she fixed him with a look that said she was asking for a guarantee. And he knew what that guarantee was.
‘I swear,’ he said softly. ‘I skipper this boat and she’s workmanlike.’
She looked at him for a long, long moment and what she saw finally seemed to satisfy her. She gave a tiny satisfied nod and moved on. ‘You have to get her back to Europe fast?’
‘Three months, at the latest.’ That, at least, was true. His team started work in Bangladesh then and he intended to travel with them. ‘So do you want to come?’
‘You’re still offering?’
‘I am.’ He ushered her back out of the cabin and closed the door. The sight of that bath didn’t make for businesslike discussions on any level.
‘You’re not employing anyone else?’
‘Not if I have you.’
‘You don’t even know if I can sail,’ she said, astounded all over again.
He looked at her appraisingly. The corridor here was narrow and they were too close. He’d like to be able to step back a bit, to see her face. He couldn’t.
She was still nervous, he thought, like a deer caught in headlights. But caught she was. His offer seemed to have touched something in her that longed to respond, and even the sight of that crazy bath hadn’t made her back off. She was just like he was, he thought, raised with a love of the sea. Aching to be out there.
So…she was caught. All he had to do was reel her in.
‘So show me that you can sail,’ he said. ‘Show me now. The wind’s getting up enough to make it interesting. Let’s take her out.’
‘What, tonight?’
‘Tonight. Now. Dare you.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, sounding panicked.
‘Why not?’
She stared up at him as if he were a species she’d never seen.
‘You just go. Whenever you feel like it.’
‘The only thing holding us back is a couple of lines tied to bollards on the wharf,’ he said and then, as her look of panic deepened, he grinned. ‘But we will bring her back tonight, if that’s what’s worrying you. It’s seven now. We can be back in harbour by midnight.’
‘You seriously expect me to sail with you? Now?’
‘There’s a great moon,’ he said. ‘The night is ours. Why not?’
So, half an hour later, they were sailing out through the heads, heading for Europe.
Or that was what it felt like to Jenny. Ramón was at the wheel. She’d gone up to the bow to tighten a stay, to see if they could get a bit more tension in the jib. The wind was behind them, the moon was rising from the east, moonlight was shimmering on the water and she was free.
The night was warm enough for her to take off her coat, to put her bare arms out to catch a moonbeam. She could let her hair stream behind her and become a bow-sprite, she thought. An omen of good luck to sailors.
An omen of good luck to Ramón?
She turned and looked back at him. He was a dark shadow in the rear of the boat but she knew he was watching her from behind the wheel. She was being judged?
So what? The boat was as tightly tuned as she could make her. Ramón had asked her to set the sails herself. She’d needed help in this unfamiliar environment but he’d followed her instructions rather than the other way round.
This boat was far bigger than anything she’d sailed on, but she’d spent her life in a sea port, talking to sailors, watching the boats come in. She’d seen yachts like this; she’d watched them and she’d ached to be on one.
She’d brought Matty down to the harbour and she’d promised him his own boat.
‘When you’re big. When you’re strong.’
And suddenly she was blinking back tears. That was stupid. She didn’t cry for Matty any more. It was no use; he was never coming back.