He knocked back the rest of his drink and surged to his feet. The crew member manning the launch a few dozen metres away looked his way and Narciso beckoned him over.
‘It’s time to go.’ Reality and the cut and thrust of Wall Street would bring some much-needed common sense.
Unlike when they’d donned their swimming gear and laughingly dived from the side of the boat half an hour ago, silence reigned on the way back to The Warlock.
When he helped her up from the launch onto the floating swim deck at the back of the yacht, he forced himself to let her go, to stop his hands from lingering on her skin. As much as he wanted to touch her, weave his fingers through the damp hair curling over her shoulders, he couldn’t give in to the spell threatening to pull him under.
‘I have work to do. I’ll catch up with you later.’ With his insides twisting into seething knots, he walked away.
* * *
Ruby watched him walking away, a giant chasm opening up where pleasure had been half an hour ago. Things had been perfect. So much so, she’d pinched herself a couple of times to make sure the combination of sun, sea and drop-dead-gorgeous companion who’d laughed at her jokes and insisted on knowing every thought in her head was real.
She hadn’t told him every thought, of course. For instance, she hadn’t admitted that every time he’d touched her she’d heard angels sing to her soul. That would’ve been nuts. As would’ve been the admission that she was dying to make love with him again.
No chance of that now...
The hard-assed, enigmatic Narciso Valentino of three days ago hadn’t made a comeback—and Ruby hoped against all hope the Narciso who chose to smother away his pain was gone for good—but a new Narciso had taken his place. One who fully recognised his vulnerabilities but then ignored them.
The need to go after him was so strong, she locked her knees and gripped the steel banister. He needed time.
Heck, she needed time to grapple with the mass of chaotic emotions coursing through her.
Scrambling for control, she went into her cabin and showered off the seawater. Clad in a long, flowered dress with a long slit down one side, she returned to the bar and lined bottles on the counter. Work would take her mind off her unsettling thoughts about Narciso Valentino.
She was measuring a shot of tequila into a shaker when one of the crew members approached.
‘Can I get miss anything to eat?’
She shook her head. He smiled and turned to leave. ‘Wait.’ He paused. ‘Have you seen my phone? I’ve been looking for it everywhere.’
He smiled. ‘Oh, yes. One of my colleagues found it in the kitchen yesterday and handed it to Mr Valentino.’
Narciso had her phone? ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. She slowly screwed the top back on the bottle she’d opened and put the lemon wedges back in the cooler. Wiping her hands on a napkin, she left the deck.
His study was on the second level, past a large room with a sunken sitting area perfect for a dinner party. Like the rest of the vessel, every nook and cranny screamed bespoke and breathtaking luxury.
He growled admittance after her tense knock.
Seated in a leather armchair behind a large antique desk, he watched her enter with a frown. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘As long as you can adequately explain why you’ve commandeered my phone, no.’
‘You’re expecting a call?’ he asked.
‘Whether I am or not is beside the point.’ She shut the door and approached his desk. ‘You’ve had it since yesterday. Why didn’t you hand it over?’
He shrugged. ‘It must have slipped my mind.’
Somehow she doubted that. But watching him, seeing his face set in those stern, bleak lines she’d recognised from before made her heart stutter. She’d seen that look before.
She stepped closer, looked down and saw the pictures and papers strewn on his desk. The date stamp on the nearest one—showing that very morning—made ice slide down her spine. ‘This is the business you had to take care of?’
He slowly set down the document in his hand. ‘No. Believe it or not, I intended to scrap all this.’
‘But?’
‘But something came up.’
She glanced down at the photos. All depicted Giacomo. In one of them, the one Narciso had just dropped, he was dining with a stunning woman in her late twenties.
‘Is that the something?’ she asked, telling herself the pain lancing her chest wasn’t jealousy.
His mouth tightened. ‘We’re not having this conversation, Ruby.’
‘What happened to the man who was going to try to find a better way than this need to destroy and annihilate?’