The Bridal Bargain (6 page)

Hannah
is mine!

The possessive ring of those words had been so loud and strong, nothing else had really penetrated Hannah’s mind during the brief meeting with Tony’s brother, the tropical fruit plantation King, Matt... Matteo...more Italian-looking than Tony or Alex, his eyes so dark they were almost black, reminding her of his grandmother.

Tony had cut him off so fast, she’d only had an initial impression of big vitality, then...
Hannah is mine!
Was it simply a territorial demarcation, brooking no interference with his staff placement? Or was it as personal as it had sounded? Intensely personal.

She’d been incredibly nervous about coming face-to-face with Tony this morning. Having watched and assisted Chris for the past two days, she was reasonably confident of handling the job. That wasn’t the problem. It was the feeling that Tony King had the power to stir things in her she had no control over, which really threw her into a loop.

Physical attraction was fine. It was natural. Mutual attraction made it all the more exciting. But chaos had never been acceptable in Hannah’s world. She liked to plan, to have her life proceeding in an order that made sense to her, that resulted in foreseeable outcomes. Of course, one had to make reasonable allowances for the unpredictable, and she’d always been able to adjust quickly to external surprises. But she’d been well and truly rocked by the internal shocks Tony King had left her with on Wednesday afternoon.

Hannah is mine!

Did he sense he could just take her if he wished?

It was a terribly disturbing thought. She wasn’t just a body that responded willy-nilly to his. She needed to get some respect going here. There was a little matter of freedom of choice, too. Tony King did not
own
her, not even as a chef. Being on trial went both ways. She could leave if she wanted to.

Though when it came to
wanting,
she couldn’t help thinking he looked stunningly handsome in his white and navy captain’s uniform. Most of the incoming female passengers obviously thought so, too, glowing as he greeted them on entry to the saloon, then casting an interested second glance at him as they advanced to the bar for tea or coffee.

“A terrific host,” Sally had said, and certainly he was giving out pleasure as though he had an endless well of it to give. In fact, Hannah was beginning to feel quite jealous of the smiles he bestowed so easily on other women. She remembered his first smile to her up at the castle, before his grandmother had declared her the new chef for
Duchess.
Definitely pleasure. But he’d withheld it from her ever since. Which begged many questions and didn’t make her feel good.

Nevertheless, she put on a happy face for the people she was serving, automatically feeding their anticipation of having a wonderful day ahead of them and fully intending to contribute to it every way she could. It wasn’t her fault that the smile froze on her face at the sound of a voice she’d never wanted to hear again.

“Hannah! I can’t believe it! What on earth are you doing here? I thought you must have taken some topflight job overseas...”

Jodie! Her ex-best friend, Jodie Dowler. Who was now Jodie Lovett, Flynn’s wife. Which meant... Hannah’s heart dropped like a stone at the thought of Flynn being on board, too.

Here was Jodie almost at the bar, her long black hair still styled into a sexy tousled look with artistic strands hanging around the darkly pencilled blue eyes, bright red lipstick matching a bright red shirt, gold belt, tight white slacks—gorgeous Jodie, babbling loudly about Hannah having completely dropped out of
the scene.
Had she always been so
loud?

Tony was frowning, his gaze darting between the two of them, and Flynn was bound to appear next— Flynn, the dazzling dynamo of the money markets, whip-lean in his city elegance, sharp, witty, one of the few men Hannah had ever known to carry off chestnut-red hair with distinction, with an arrogance that somehow made it highly individual to him, setting off his high forehead, but not hiding his ears, Hannah reminded herself. Though that detraction didn’t help to lower the rush of inner agitation. She wished there was a hole in the ground for her to drop into.

“Not a word of you from anyone for the past two years,” Jodie complained, as though Hannah had committed a crime against
her.

“Tea or coffee?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Hannah?” It was an exasperated appeal for some personal acknowledgment to be made.

“Fruit juice... soft drink?” The words tripped out in stubborn denial that Jodie
Lovett
had any claim on her apart from the service she was paying for.

“Oh, coffee then,” she gave in petulantly. “Make it two cappuccinos. Flynn will be here in a minute. He just stopped to chat to the dive team.”

Hannah concentrated on using the coffee machine, fiercely cursing the fact she was a captive audience here in the open galley, but be damned if she’d give Jodie or Flynn any response that wasn’t related to her job. She didn’t care if it appeared rude. They’d lost any right to demand anything more personal from her two years ago.

“Hannah, for God’s sake! We were best friends...”

It hadn’t stopped her from having sex with Flynn behind Hannah’s back.

The coffee whooshed into the cups.

“We didn’t plan to hurt you,” Jodie hissed.

“Help yourself to sugar.” Hannah nodded to the sugar bowl as she placed the order on the counter in front of Jodie, determinedly keeping her hands steady. She was shaking inside, hating being cornered like this, hating Jodie for confronting her so publicly, hating herself for not being able to deal with it better.

It was like ghosts walking over her grave—the grave of the life she’d had before it had been killed by Jodie and Flynn. She didn’t want to remember it. It was gone. Long gone. They had no right to come back and haunt her with it. She’d moved on.

“Damn it! I’m not going to let you block me out!”

Selfish. Totally selfish. What Jodie wants, Jodie gets. Except she’d coated her selfishness with lots of sugar in the old days, so sweetly cajoling Hannah had been fooled into closing her eyes to that truth. Much easier to go along with Jodie’s plans, to fit in. But not today. Not anymore. Ever.

“Flynn and I are only human, Hannah,” came the slimy defence. “If you hadn’t been up on your highflying pedestal, not making time for us...”

“Please excuse me. There are other people to serve.”

“The other girl can serve them,’’ was snapped back at her.

Hannah ignored that argument, skirting Megan to move to the other end of the L-shaped bar where there were people waiting, wonderful strangers who had no axe to grind. She bestowed her best smile on them.

“Tea or coffee?”

“Tea, please.”

Thank heaven she didn’t have to move back to the coffee machine. The urn for tea was at this end. “Is this your first visit to The Great Barrier Reef?” she asked brightly, picking up the woman’s very English accent.

“Yes. Though we have dived in the Caribbean,” her husband remarked.

Hannah grinned. “Ah...but what we have here is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.”

They laughed and took their tea. “I’ll report back to you,” the man tossed at her as they left the bar.

“You do that,” Hannah cheerfully invited, wishing they’d stayed to chat longer. It was easy to give out to strangers. She had a desperate need to surround herself with them. Then she could keep operating on a surface level that didn’t hurt. But Megan was serving the only other person waiting.

“Flynn, Flynn...”

Jodie’s call was like a nailfile scraping her spine.

“...look who I’ve found! It’s Hannah!”

She would not turn around. No way. She picked up the bowl of used teabags and emptied it in the garbage bin.

“Hannah?” Flynn’s voice sounding puzzled and disturbed.

Hannah hoped a load of guilt was hitting him like a freight train and he’d want to get out from under the weight of it as fast as he could.

“Come and say hello to her,” Jodie commanded, a note of sweet malice in her tone now, determined on breaking Hannah’s guard against them.

“Ah, Jodie, isn’t it?” Tony’s voice. “I was just inviting Flynn up to the bridge to watch us take
Duchess
out now that everyone’s on board. You have your coffee? Yes, I see you have. Good! Do come and join us.”

A very smooth rescue mission.

Hannah hated his awareness of a problem blowing up with her at the centre of it, but was intensely grateful for his interference.

“Thank you,” Jodie crooned. “But Flynn must say hello to Hannah first. We haven’t seen her for so-o-o long.”

Putting her on the spot in front of her boss!

No ready excuse to deny a simple greeting.

No escape.

Flynn had to be faced.

Get it over and done with, Hannah savagely reasoned.

Her stomach was curdling with rebellion as she swung around, her gaze instinctively targeting Tony, the green blaze of her eyes warning she was not going to play Jodie’s game, come hell or high water.

“It’s good to see you, Hannah,” Flynn said quietly.

He was a blur beside Tony—a grey blur in some grey outfit—and she kept him a blur. Tony was taller, broader-shouldered, physically a stronger male image that helped to blot out Flynn’s, and his eyes were certainly just as sharply intelligent, boring into hers for answers that were buried under too many layers of pain to be dragged out into the open.

She forced herself to nod at Flynn but she wouldn’t speak to him. Wouldn’t look directly at him, either. She didn’t care if Tony fired her on the spot. Her eyes challenged him to do it if he wanted to. Everything within her revolted against pretending this situation was acceptable in any shape or form.

“Right! Let’s move,” Tony said with firm authority, picking up the two cups of coffee, thrusting one at Jodie and one at Flynn so they were forced to take them. “Hannah has a lot to do preparing for lunch and it’s a fine morning to be up on the bridge. Come and enjoy the view.”

He literally herded them away, talking at them with so much dominant energy, any protest they might have made wilted under it. Even so, Hannah knew Jodie wouldn’t be silenced for long. In no time flat she’d be spilling out to Tony that his new chef was a very
new
chef, her major work experience being in a completely different field. And then she’d pump him for all he knew about her—ammunition for her next visit to the galley.

“What a pushy bitch!” Megan commented.

Hannah took a deep breath to ease the painful tightness in her chest. The sense of being intolerably trapped was pressing in on her. The urge to run, to jump off the boat before it left dock, warred with the responsibility she had taken on. Impossible for Megan to handle all the work of the galley alone. The others had their duties. She’d be letting everyone down if she skipped out on them.

“Are you okay?” Megan asked, concern in her voice.

Hannah looked at her, desperation voicing a plea. “Could I ask a big favour of you, Megan?”

“Keep between you and them?”

She nodded. “They caused me a lot of grief in the past.”

“Leave it to me. You just do your stuff, Hannah, and I’ll spike their guns every time they front up to the bar.”

“Thanks.” She managed a wobbly smile. “I’d really appreciate it.”

“Be a pleasure. Though I don’t think you need worry too much. Tony caught the drift and he’ll cut them out of the pack.”

“Cut them...what do you mean?”

“Oh, he has a way of spotting trouble-makers and diverting trouble before it can develop. The guy is really smart, you know? Not just a pretty face?’’

A nervous little laugh gurgled from Hannah’s throat. “I haven’t thought of Tony King as pretty.”

Megan grinned. “You mean...more a knock-out hunk? Gotta say he’s not bad for an older guy.”

“Not bad,” Hannah agreed, wondering precisely how old Tony was. Early thirties? The phrase, “older guy” hadn’t even occurred to her. On the other hand, Megan was only nineteen, making the age gap bigger.

“Anyhow, you just relax now,” the younger girl advised. “You won’t see those two again until lunch-time, and you can bet your boots Tony will be right on their tails, making sure you don’t get hassled out of focusing on cooking.
Duchess
is his baby, you know. Got to have the food and everything else for it just right.”

“A hard boss?” Hannah queried, worrying now that she might not measure up under the stress of being accessible to Jodie and Flynn. Did they have to keep spoiling everything for her?

“No. He’s very fair. You can count on that. He expects you to be fair to him, too. That’s okay in my book.”

Hannah nodded, though she bitterly wondered if there was any fairness in this world. Why did Flynn and Jodie have to visit Port Douglas at this time and book a trip on
Duchess
today of all days? If they had any decency, they’d stay away from her. Just let her get on with this job since it was her choice. They’d certainly made their choice.

Amazingly that seemed to happen. Or Tony King made it happen. They made no re-appearance in the saloon at all, not even for lunch. Keith, the first mate, brought down an order for three lunches of barramundi and salad. Hannah cooked the fish, Megan served the salads, and the lunches were taken up to the upper deck, along with a chilled bottle of Chardonnay.