Coercion to Love (16 page)

No, it wasn't enough. Not for her, anyway. Not while she loved him, because it made her feel left right out in the cold. Sighing, she went to turn away, but he stopped her, his hand curving around her nape so that his thumb could gently lift her chin.

'If it bothers you this much, caro, then I promise we will take our time—go at your pace. I am no sex-crazed animal,' he said, then added on a wry grimace that made her heart flip over, 'Well, maybe a little crazed. But I will promise you this one thing. If you agree to marry me, Cassandra, I will do everything within my power to make you happy. It means that much to me. Think about it,' he huskily advised, 'because I am not going to give up on this. I am that determined, you understand?'

Leaning forwards, he pressed a last short but telling kiss to her throbbing mouth, then turned and walked away, leaving Cass leaning weakly against the yacht's rail.

He was beginning to get to her. To really, really get to her. Should she just give in, and simply let him devour her?

And it would be a devouring, she confessed. A complete and utter consuming of her soul.

Turning sluggishly, she lifted her hot face into the cooling breeze and closed her eyes, wondering bleakly just what she was going to do.

'You conniving little bitch!' A shrill voice jarred at her eardrums at the same time as a talon-like hand curled tightly around her arm.

Cass swung around in bewildered shock. 'I'm sorry?' she said, finding herself staring into Sabrina's hostile face.

'Do not play the innocent with me, you bitch!' Sabrina bit out at Cass's blank look. 'I know exactly what you are playing at! And I think it is time someone told you it is not going to work!'

Was she mad? Cass wondered bewilderedly, not knowing what she was talking about.

'Carlo is mine!' she spat. 'And you can taunt him with your sexy body and drive him wild with hunger for you—but in the end he will still be mine!' The violence written on her face was alarming. A green-eyed jealousy spitting venom at her.

'I have put in too many years of patience waiting for him to decide to take another wife simply to stand by and watch a cunning little bitch like you step in and steal him from me.' The fierce digging in of Sabrina's nails into her arm had Cass gasping in pain. 'So be warned, Miss Marlow,' she continued menacingly, 'you are playing a dangerous game. And I would take care that someone does not take steps to ensure your removal from it!'

With that, and while Cass was still floundering from the unexpected attack, Sabrina undipped her nails from Cass's arm and turned to stalk away, leaving Cass shiveringly aware that she had just been seriously threatened.

'What was all that about?' Guido came up, his usual smile nowhere to be seen as he watched Sabrina go. He turned to look curiously at Cass, then frowned when he saw her deathly pallor.

'Watch her, Cassandra,' he warned grimly. 'Sabrina is what we would call una patella—like the limpet,' he explained, 'she latches on to her quarry and holds on tight. It will take a sharp implement and a lot of force to prise her free.'

Cass's hand went up to cover her arm where Sabrina's nails had dug into her skin, and another shiver rippled through her. Unknowingly, Guido had just described Sabrina exactly—and Cass had the marks to prove it.

'Y-you sound as if you don't like her very much,' she murmured absently.

'She is beautiful enough,' he allowed, 'but too—obsessive for my tastes.' He gave a lazy shrug as if in dismissal of something which did not interest him much, and changed the subject. 'I came to see if I could perhaps tempt you to have that drink now,' he invited with his sunny smile back in place.

Pulling herself together, Cass went willingly enough, but she was quiet for most of their sail around the coast, keeping her attention almost exclusively fixed on her niece, who was eager to explore every inch of the yacht.

They anchored off a tiny secluded bay where a half-circle of golden sand was backed by the high sun-bleached cliff-face, making it inaccessible from any other route but the sea. It was here they were to swim before they had lunch. And Cass shyly removed her T-shirt and shorts, and hurriedly slid off the diving platform into the cool, clear water before Sabrina could further unsettle her by running her condescending gaze over her old-fashioned halter-neck style costume. The other woman was wearing a skimpy one-piece of bright fluorescent pink which set off her tan—and showed more than it covered with its waist-high cut-away sides and low-dipping front and back.

Sabrina dived off the side of the boat to enter the water with hardly a splash. 'I wish I could do that,' Terri murmured enviously, treading water with her small chin stuck up in the air while Cass stayed watchfully close to her. The child's in-built fearlessness of water was very commendable, but she had a tendency to be a danger to herself if she wasn't watched.

Carlo entered the water by the same impressive route as Sabrina, followed quickly by Guido, and, within seconds, Cass could see the three dark heads striking out in a smooth line for the shore. She sighed heavily—not because she wished she was with them, but because she knew she did not swim that well or that gracefully. A once-a-week splash in the local public swimming-baths back home did not lend itself to strong swimming—not among the crush of other users in the pool, anyway.

But she and Terri had always enjoyed their weekly play in the water, and that was what they did now, swimming and teasing each other, dipping and diving, always close enough to the diving platform for Cass to heave Terri on to it if she got tired. And for a few precious minutes she was able to forget all the problems assailing her in the comforting delight of Terri's high antics.

So she let go with a high-pitched scream when something warm and alive suddenly swam between her legs and lifted her high on its broad shoulders. Terri swished around in the water with a startled look on her face, then the wretched child was laughing when she encountered Carlo's face grinning at her from between her aunt's golden thighs.

'Put me down, you brute!' Cass cried, her fingers clutching at the wet silk thickness of his hair.

'Down?' he said. 'OK,' and casually tossed her off behind him. She flailed like a beached whale for a moment, gasping and spluttering.

Completely forgetting the tension between them, the desire to get her own back was too tempting to ignore. And with the green flash from her eyes the only warning he was going to get, but one Terri recognised with a squeal of delight, she dived beneath the water and found his feet, tugging him down into the crystal-clear depths with her lungs full enough with air to keep her down for a long time while she didn't care less if Carlo drowned. What she and Terri couldn't do with long, lithe swimming strokes, they could certainly do within the confines of a small space of water. And she turned to grin at him as she let go of his foot, air bubbles escaping from between her even white teeth. Above their heads, Terri had her face stuck into the water to watch the game, her little legs paddling like mad to keep her afloat. Carlo glanced up, saw the little girl, and made a nodding request at Cass, who gave permission to do his worst.

With the lean, lithe stretch of his dark golden body, he struck for the surface, and, as Cass watched from her position beneath the water, Carlo arrived between Terri's legs, giving her the same treatment he had given Cass.

By the time the child landed in a huge splash of water behind him, Cass was striking for the surface, her lungs beginning to burst for air. She came up beside a flailing Terri, intending to gather her into her arms, only to find Guido had got there before her, and was already carrying the giggling child away, leaving Cass alone with Carlo treading water close by, still grinning.

Further away, Cass noticed a dark head bobbing in the water. Sabrina's hard gaze was fixed on her. And once again that feeling of threat assailed Cass, and she lifted her hand to the faded marks on her arm, going cold inside suddenly.

Glancing at her, Carlo went still also, his eyes narrowing as he followed her pensive stare. 'She—worries you, Cassandra?' he asked.

Cass blinked, sending him a brief rueful smile. 'No more than usual, I suppose,' she dismissed, but knew she did not sound sincere, and Carlo frowned at her for a moment, before pulling her close and kissing her fully and seriously on her quivering lips.

'Sabrina means nothing to me—nothing,' he stated huskily. 'You understand, caro’ His dark brows arched at her, and, flushing in confusion, she swam away.

She'd had more than enough play for one day.

They lunched beneath a canvas awning pulled across the sun-deck. Then Terri looked tired, and Cass gently suggested that the child might like to take a nap in one of the cabins below deck. The novelty appealed to the little girl, and she went down happily enough.

By the time Cass came back on deck, dressed in her T-shirt and shorts again, Carlo and Sabrina were stretched out next to each other in the s*m, Sabrina lying flat on her back while Carlo leaned over her. They were talking quietly, almond eyes serious on Carlo as she listened intently to him.

So much for his earlier vow! Cass thought angrily as a pang of burning jealousy had her turning her face away from them. She sank down on one of the soft, cushioned loungers, curling her knees up to her chin to watch the passing scenery as the yacht moved slowly out to sea again. Her heart was actually hammering with resentment, body trembling with a possessive desire to go and break them up.

'The little one is asleep?' A hand appeared in her vision, holding out a tall, clear glass of something refreshing.

'Yes.' She smiled at Guido, accepting the glass from him. 'She will be annoyed later that she missed some of the trip, but if she doesn't take a nap she becomes unfit to know.'

He sat down on the end of her lounger, his tanned chest only slightly less impressive than his employer's. 'I was well and truly hooked by Carlo the first time we met, wasn't I?' he grimaced at Cass. 'You are no more Teresa's mamma than I am!'

She laughed, remembering the look on his face when Carlo had made that implication. 'What gave him away?' she asked.

'Your name did it,' he informed her, adding curiously, 'You are nothing like your sister, are you?

Elizabeth Marlow was at least three inches taller than you, and her hair was the palest natural blonde I have ever seen, and her eyes were blue, not green.'

'You knew Liz?' The surprise showed in her voice. Then she remembered that it was while on location here that her sister met Carlo.

He nodded his dark head. 'Your sister died last year,' he recalled, glancing up to catch the sudden bleakness cloud her sea-green gaze. 'I'm sorry,' he apologised immediately. 'I should not have mentioned it; it is clear the bereavement still brings you pain.'

At that moment, there was a sound of a scuffle, and both Cass and Guido glanced up in time to see Sabrina scramble to her feet. Her beautiful face white with anger, she paused, bending to whisper something harsh to Carlo, who just shrugged his broad, tanned shoulders and did not reply. Then she was glaring at Cass, and the look was so viciously malevolent that Cass gasped.

'My God,' Guido breathed as Sabrina stormed away, 'now what brought that on, I wonder...?'

Cass couldn't answer; she was trembling on the aftermath of that look.

"The wind is getting up.' Carlo's curt voice had their heads turning to find him on his feet studying the sudden change in the sky. 'Clouds are gathering on the horizon. We could be in for a storm. Guido, go and see what Captain Tarazona thinks, while I go and check Teresa. I don't want her frightened of the sea on her first excursion on to it.'

'I'll go, shall I?' Cass was already halfway off the lounger when Carlo stopped her as Guido moved off to speak to the captain.

'No, I'll do it,' he said, waving her back into her lounger then walking away, leaving her alone on the sun-deck.

She sipped at her drink for a while, knees still tucked beneath her chin as she gazed out at the steadily darkening sky, reluctant to go inside if it meant she had to face more of Sabrina's malice. But eventually it got so cold that she had to get up, discarding her glass so that she could rub her bare arms with her hands as she moved to the stern of the boat, where the flimsy chain-link barrier gave access to the diving platform below, still reluctant to go inside.

A sudden gust of wind made her shiver, and she glanced up, surprised to see how quickly the clouds had come upon them, lying black and ugly right above the yacht. The first smattering of rain sprayed into her face, and out to sea white horses were chasing each other across the tops of the waves, and she could feel the difference in the rocking action of the yacht beneath her feet.

Then the rain became a sudden deluge, and she turned quickly, intent on getting inside before she was thoroughly soaked through to the bone. But as she moved the yacht made a sudden lurch when a wave hit it side on, and she staggered, reaching out to grab at the first thing that came to hand. The chain-link barrier swung violently with her weight, and she cried out in alarm when she realised what she had done.

'Cassandra!' someone yelled out. Then, 'Sabrina! Stop her for God's sake!'

But by then the chain link was already swinging giddily away from her, and the last thing Cass heard, as her own body weight took her toppling helplessly over the side of the yacht, was Terri's shrill voice screaming, 'Daddy-----!'

CHAPTER NINE

Cass hit the water just beyond the lethal spin of the yacht's propeller, but the turbulence it was leaving in its wake sucked her downwards in a swirling mass of foaming bubbles. Shocked and disorientated, she had no choice but to go with the violent pull, spiralling downwards with her arms and legs flailing in a useless effort to slow her downward progress. Panic rattled at her senses, the real fear that she was going to drown congealing the blood in her veins. Her lungs were threatening to burst in their need for air, her heart pounding, the fast, erratic beat thundering in her ears. And it seemed like long, terrifying minutes before her own natural buoyancy began to slow her down, then pure instinct had her making a desperate strike for the surface, which seemed a long, long way above her head.