Riptide (5 page)

“Ears like a bat.”

“So I hear.” Nick watched him cross to the door, then warned, “Hey, Jonah? We still have two weeks at anchor before we head home. Treat everyone—without exception—as a suspect until we know who are us, and who are them.”

Jonah paused with his hand on the brass handle to look back. “There are people on board I’ve known since I signed on two years ago. Most of them guys you’ve known for longer than that. You really think—”

“I think that everyone has secrets.” Nick cut in smoothly. “And money, this kind of money, is enough to motivate even the most loyal employee. Watch your six at all times.”

“I hear you.” Jonah opened the door and stepped aside to let the princess into the cabin. “Ma’am,” he offered cordially, then slipped out behind her and shut the door.

She looked as beautiful and put together as a fashion model as she paused just inside the door, bringing with her the heady fragrance of hot summer nights. The princess’s makeup was perfect, hair meticulously pulled back. Her eyes were large, dark, and long-lashed, her nose straight, her jaw stubborn. A striking—hell—
stunning
face. Instinct suggested that the exquisite exterior package was a thin veneer over a gypsy soul.

“Take a seat.” Nick gestured to the chair Jonah had just vacated. Principessa Gabriella Ilaria Elizabetta Visconti’s bare legs, long, tanned, and looking extremely smooth and stroke-able, flashed beneath the flirty hem of the clingy red dress as she crossed his office. Discreet gold flashed at her wrist and ears, and her black hair was slicked back. He wondered how long it was, and if it felt half as smooth as her skin wou—

She was nothing more than a royal pain in his ass, he reminded himself. A pain in his ass with an agenda that might very well affect the safety of his crew and dive team, and the outcome of his little side dealings.

Instead of sitting, she rested her hands lightly on the back of the chair. Nick could almost feel those long red nails scoring his back as he pumped inside her. Thank God nothing of his thoughts showed in his expression. His body approved the thought, however, and he was damned grateful he was sitting behind his desk.

“Thanks for your hospitality, but I have to run,” she demurred, her sultry gaze matched her sultry smile. I’m female–you’re male, that look said. Her husky voice stroked his ego and libido both. Exactly as it was supposed to, he had no doubt. Unimpressed, he didn’t bat an eyelash. Zane, his younger brother, a born flirt, could charm a snake into making itself into a pair of shoes without breaking a sweat. Nick had plenty of practice not caving to a winning smile.

The princess knew to the last eyelash flutter exactly how sexy, desirable, and beautiful she was. He was completely, utterly unaffected—Who was he kidding? He’d have to be made of stone not to be affected by her blatant sensuality. Didn’t mean he had to take the bait and act on it. But, damn, she was making him work for sanguine.

“Sit anyway,” he suggested silkily, his tone making it clear it wasn’t a suggestion. “We’re not royalty, but we’re civilized people on the
Scorpion
.” He eyed her steadily, trying not to notice the curve of her cheek, or how the sunlight, shining through the window at his back, put her in a spotlight of gold. Everything about her was vibrant and vivacious and so fucking
alive
it hurt his eyes.

Her crimson lips tightened just a fraction at his subtle dig and he could see her inner conflict. Add that the princess didn’t like being told what to do to her not liking to be told no.

After a brief hesitation, she sat down, sliding one silky-smooth leg over the other. A barely there sandal, with ridiculously inappropriate high heels, dangled from her red-tipped toes.

Smoothing her hair back with one slender hand, she gave him a steady look from those big, guileless brown eyes. Her hand dropped to her lap. “I’m sure you’re a busy man, Mr. Cutter.” A hint of annoyance lay just beneath the surface of the words. “If you’d cut the check, I’ll be on my way.”

She had sexy feet and it took a moment to gather his thoughts enough to return his attention to her face. She smiled sweetly, showing almost straight white teeth. Her eyeteeth were a little crooked, taking her exotic beauty to an all new level; a difference that Nick was hard pressed to identify.

The small imperfection was probably charming to another man. But he didn’t have time to be charmed. He had plenty enough distractions in his life already. He wished she’d leave so he could remember to breathe.

He wasn’t enchanted by her smile. Or her bare toes. Or— He found his gaze fixated on her silky legs for the second time, and dragged his attention back to her face. Where it belonged. “Check?”

Her smile slipped. “The refund of my brother’s investment?”

He’d seen feet before. Plenty of feet. He’d felt the drum of heels in the small of his back, he’d felt soft soles surrounding his dick—

Don’t go there.

The fact that he liked her feet was his problem. Which made it hers by default. His eyes narrowed. “The salvage operation is still ongoing, Princess. The artifacts have to be taken to Cutter Cay for cleaning and appraisal. After that, the Spanish will get their take. I suspect Portugal is going to want a finger in the pie as well. We’re talking months, if not years, before there’s a return on the king’s investment.”

That smile melted, and she straightened in her chair so subtly that he wasn’t sure she realized she’d done it. Shoulders settling as if gearing up for a fight, she said crisply, “I wasn’t asking for a ‘return,’ Mr. Cutter. I want a
refund.
”

“Impossible.”

She blinked.
“Impossible?”

“The salvage business isn’t an ATM machine.” He waited a beat. “Princess.” A flicker of her lush lashes told him the way he said it grated. “On a salvage, it’s always a crapshoot if there’s any return on the investment at all.”

Nick already knew their investors—all of them—were going to be very happy, and he and his dive team hadn’t finished the salvage, much less had everything cleaned and processed. An educated guess put everyone’s profits at a conservative 600 percent return.
Conservatively
.

Not that he’d share that information until all Brian’s I’s and T’s were crossed and dotted. Maybe it wasn’t any of her business. Maybe she was scheming to make off with her brother’s money after all.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“I mean,” he said evenly, “that your brother knew the risks when he made the investment and handed over the check.”

“My God.” Her skin suddenly looked pale against her dark hair. “The risks? Are you saying you haven’t recovered anything in all these months? That Draven has lost his investment?”

What? He frowned. “No, I’m telling you that the dive isn’t completed, and that everything we do retrieve has to be taken back to our archeologists on Cutter Cay before proceeding.” Like he’d said already. “Until then, your brother’s investment is not in the form of liquid assets.”

She looked horrified, appalled down to her manicured nails. “It was five million euro!”

“A hefty sum,” Nick agreed.

Bitter chocolate eyes flashed and the expertly applied makeup failed to hide the heightened color in her cheeks. “How long will that take?”

Nick shrugged. “Six months. A year. Maybe more.”

“That’s unconscionable! Haven’t you found the shipwreck you were looking for?”

“We found her.”

“Then what’s the da—” She caught herself and finished in a more modulated tone. “What’s the problem?”

Nick repeated what he’d told her—in Italian.

Her chin tilted, and her expressive eyes darkened with annoyance. “I understood you perfectly well in English, Mr. Cutter. I’m neither brainless nor deaf. I understand the process of provenance. But if a portion of the
El Puerto
’s treasure has already been retrieved, then I’ll take Marrezo’s share now, and save you the time and trouble of returning Draven’s investment to him later.”

“No.” He said it without a fleck of emotion. Cold and controlled. Reluctantly fascinated by the fact that the cooler he became, the harder it appeared for her to contain her temper. Nick found watching it unravel fascinating. If looks could kill he’d be a dead man.

“Wha—”

“
Naheen. Ngo. Saan
. Do you have a language preference for the word no, Your Highness? If so, I’d be happy to use it.”

Color high, teeth clenched. She recrossed her legs impatiently. Pissed, but not moving until he gave in.

“I’m not leaving empty-handed.”

“Hard to swim carrying plastic buckets of gold coin.”

“I won’t be swimming, Mr. Cutter.”

“Yes, you will.” As if on cue, the whop-whop-whop of helicopter rotors cut through the ambient splash of waves against the hull. “That sound you hear is your ride leaving.”

Chapter 3

Bria hadn’t heard the helicopter before Cutter mentioned it, but now that she did, she shot out of her chair as if jet propelled. Just in time to see her ride back to civilization swoop down, and then lift out of sight. “That—”
Scum-sucking, bastard
. “I told him to stay. I paid him to
wait
.”

“Hire him out of Las Palmas?”

“Yes.”

“Notoriously unreliable.” He didn’t look even mildly sympathetic.

Lord. Could this trip get any worse? “Apparently.” Bria sank back into the chair. Her eyes rose to his. “Now what?” The question was more for herself than him.

Not a flicker of reaction to her plight. He couldn’t be pleased to be stuck with an uninvited guest, but his expression was impossible to read. “Apparently you’re stranded, Princess. Inconvenient.”

God, yes it was. “Not really.” She leaned back and recrossed her legs. Slowly. With the sunlight streaming in behind him, it was difficult to see his expression, but Bria suspected there was none. He wasn’t gay; she’d bet her first paycheck on it.

But he was also completely unimpressed.

A challenge for sure.

She had to take a few rapid-fire beats of her heart before she could sound casual and unfazed as she mentally scrambled to regroup. “Since I’m not leaving empty-handed, his departure works out just fine.” Like hell. Other than a couple of changes of underwear, jeans, a couple of shirts, and only two pairs of shoes, she was on board a ship, in the middle of nowhere, with just the skimpy clothes on her back. When this was over, her brother was going to owe her
big
.

“You have a Plan B?” he inquired politely, looking at her from those arctic eyes.

He wasn’t just good-looking, he was drop-dead, fantastic-looking. Those eyes … Still, he had zero charm, less than zero warmth, and sub-
sub
-zero interest.

The man, Bria thought, looking for any sign of emotion and seeing none, was an iceberg. What made him interesting was, presumably, the ninety percent he was hiding. Or maybe he wasn’t hiding anything. Maybe what she saw was
exactly
who Nick Cutter was.

Intriguing. No, she scolded herself. Not intriguing at all.

He was clearly stratosphere-wealthy. And he was arrogant.

The arrogance was his problem. His wealth was convenient, he could simply write her a check.

She barely had a plan A, but she adjusted quickly. “I’ll just stay until you give me what I came for,” she said, striving for cheerful calm. She barely managed either, but gave herself points for effort.

“Unwelcome and uninvited?”

Her good cheer almost slipped its moorings. Bria had a sudden flash of herself lunging across his big fancy desk and beating him to death with his fancy humidor. While satisfying—until she got arrested for murder—it wouldn’t get her what she’d come for. Marrezo’s damned money.

The money her people desperately needed, money that Draven had recklessly invested.

Her lips curved in a smile. “Mr. Cutter, I’ve spent half my life being unwelcome and uninvited.” A bit of a stretch, but he didn’t know that. God. Was he wearing colored contacts to make his eyes that extraordinary cold sapphire blue? But then dropping her gaze to his Sean-Connery-in-his-James-Bond-prime mouth wasn’t any less disconcerting.

Bria had been attracted to men before— No. Not like this.
This
took physical attraction into a whole new stratosphere. The unfamiliar sensation—heat, excitement, heart-racing-pulses-pounding-hyperawareness—was something she’d
never
felt before in her life. Odd, since she found him annoying as hell. Interesting, because the sensation was exhilarating.

Bria lifted her gaze to an inch left of his ear. Better. “Believe me, this won’t be much different. I don’t eat much, and I won’t take up a lot of space. You won’t even know I’m on board.” And then her point, delivered with a brilliant smile. “But if you want to get rid of me, pay me what you owe my brother, and I’ll make arrangements to leave.”

He took so long to answer, and was so still, Bria wondered if he was considering tossing her through the window behind him. Still, she schooled herself not to be the one to break the silence. Her small smile didn’t falter as she awaited his response. Every breath she took during this meeting was directed toward getting her brother’s money back. Her country’s money back. Her reaction to him was none of his business.

She was holding on to her temper with everything she had, bound and determined to remain cool, calm, and in control, be it by a thread.

She’d never wanted something to be over with more than this meeting with Nick Cutter. She felt like a cat with its fur being repeatedly rubbed the wrong way.

Thousand and one.

Thousand and two.

Thousand and three.

After what felt like an eternity, he stabbed a button on the phone. “Khoi.”

She kept counting. Thousand and fifty.

Neither said a word until there was a rap on the door, and the skinny guy who’d brought her down earlier popped his head inside. “Boss?”

“Do we have any empty cabins?”

“No, boss.”

Those extraordinary blue eyes focused on her. “Apparently there’s no room at the inn. Sorry.”