Unexpected Places (5 page)

Then she turned her attention to the seedy, sordid town at the end of the jetty. Run-down shops lined what seemed to be the main and only street. A few old cars were parked here and there. Motor scooters, with men — only men — driving them dodged around the pedestrians, cars and skinny dogs, and avoided the deep open sewers that ran either side of the street.

With shaking hands, she wiped the sweat from her upper lip, and walked, stiff-legged, down the jetty.

What horrified her was the attention she was attracting. Her eyes searched the small population that seemed to be staring at her. Where were the women? All she could see were men. If those horrible deckhands had given her time to change into her pretty kurta, she might have been okay. But no. Here she was, no bra, a skimpy khaki tank top that revealed half her breasts and a good portion of her stomach, and tiny, tight black shorts. They were clothes she wouldn’t wear out in public in Australia, let alone in a conservative country, apparently populated only by males.

Her eyes flitted to the various groups, standing, staring. They all wore traditional loose-fitting shirts and sarongs, but on every man the fabric was scruffy and old. Suddenly, one of the men, a younger man, raised his arm and pointed at her. He yelled something, and, if she hadn’t had everyone’s attention before, she did now. Every single man stared at her, open-eyed, drop-jawed, in a moment of silence. Then, as one, they moved toward her, nudging, jostling each other, smiling, calling out to her.

Pressing her lips together, she ignored her now pounding heart as she arrived at the end of the jetty. Although she stared down at the ground, she knew more men had gathered. She wiped her clammy palms down the sides of her shorts.

As she stepped off the jetty, several men stood in her way, refusing to move. They spoke among themselves, laughing. One reached out a hand to touch her. Sudden, seething anger blazed inside her. No way was she going to let this creepy man touch her without a fight. She glared at the man, who wasn’t much taller than her, swiped at his hand, and through gritted teeth she said in her best Sister Mary Kathleen voice, ‘How dare you!’

Her voice, which was a fair imitation of Sister Mary’s frigid tones, found its mark. The man’s eyes widened, and the group stepped away. Ariana swept past them, head high. But she knew it was only a small reprieve. Several men standing a short distance away chuckled. One of them yelled, and her creepy little fellow answered angrily.

Her breath was bursting in and out of her lungs, and her legs tightened, ready to run to goodness only knew where. Then she saw it. Probably the town’s only hotel. Throwing aside caution and dignity, she dodged around another group of men and sprinted the short distance to the hotel entrance, up its three rickety stairs, and landed, puffing as if she’d run a marathon, at the badly lit reception desk. Glancing behind, she saw a group of men arrive, grinning and puffing, at the bottom of the stairs, ready to follow her inside the hotel. The man behind the desk snarled at them, and they froze at the doorway. Then the man’s eyes flicked back to her. He smiled. Her skin prickled with fear. She didn’t like that smile at all. She reached into her bag, and drew out her remaining rupees. With a shaking hand, she offered them to him, and turned her head, putting her two hands next to her ear, in a universal mime for sleep.

He dealt her few pitiful coins and notes a scornful glance. Then he smiled. What did he mean by that smile? He held up one finger. She had accommodation for one night.

As she sat on her stained mattress a few minutes later, and stared around the small, bare room, she knew this was only a short reprieve. What would happen tomorrow? And what might that man at the desk have in mind? She could hear men out on the street through her window. There were murmurs, shouts. Were there more of them now? Slipping off the bed, she crept over to the window and looked out, and suddenly couldn’t breathe too well. At least twenty men had gathered in the street, two levels down from her grimy window. Eager, bored men who believed that because she was a lone, blonde female dressed appropriately for the weather, they were entitled to…

A cry went out when one of them spotted her face at the window. Instantly she ducked down, but in that split second, she’d recognised their eager expressions.

Flying back to her smelly mattress, she curled up into a foetal position and tried to breathe.

There was a loud knock on her door. Ariana sat up, every muscle taut. She stared in horror as the doorknob turned. She’d locked it of course. More knocks and thumps, each louder and harder than the last. Her mouth dried and her scalp prickled as she waited, her heart pounding, for whoever was on the other side to break in.

The door flew open with a crash. Ariana drew in a huge breath to scream. Then froze.

Luke Donahue stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. He strode inside, slamming the door shut on the way.

She flopped back on the mattress, giddy, and ran a trembling hand through her hair. Luke could save her. Then she glimpsed his stony expression, as his eyes darted around the room. Her heart sank.

But a tiny part of her numbed brain registered an inescapable fact. Luke Donahue had a seriously spectacular body.

He was wearing vastly different clothes from what she’d seen him wear, once on a laptop and once at a real-life cocktail party. Faded blue jeans clung to his long legs and slim hips. He wore tattered, once-white joggers on his feet. Her eyes travelled up past his trim waist, to his broad chest, with its black T-shirt clinging to every clearly outlined muscle. He stalked right up to her handbag, with the map in it. It wasn’t too hard to find, since there was no furniture in the room other than the bed. He removed the map and carefully placed it in the back pocket of his jeans.

After throwing her bag onto the bed, he lifted his head. Ariana’s stomach tightened as she got her first real look at the fury in his face. Oh dear. Back to Mr Angry then. Not that she could expect anything else. Those blue chips of ice froze her to the mattress. His jaw was clenched tightly. A muscle twitched below his ear. Seconds passed as he continued to inhale deep, long breaths. Then he leant over, grabbed her by the tops of her arms and lifted her off the bed. His calloused fingers dug into her flesh. She could feel his restraint, could feel the strength he was forcing himself to rein in.

She swallowed.

He stared down into her face for long, horrifying seconds, then suddenly his fury vanished, replaced with a cold contempt that chilled her blood. Dropping her back onto the mattress, he paced about the room. That muscle in his jaw kept twitching. Ariana sat with her legs drawn up in front, arms behind bearing her weight. Ready to run. To fight. She shuddered. Fight Luke Donahue? She sat still, not wanting to poke the angry tiger.

He stopped and ground out, ‘Don’t worry, I’d never hurt a woman.’

Ariana heard herself say, ‘Oh, good.’

‘Oh, good?’ he mocked. ‘A great comeback, Moonbeam. But before you and I have a little chat about, oh I don’t know, drugs and champagne bottles, I want to know. Where is he? Who is he? The bastard Changpu planted into my office?’

A vague inkling of what Luke was talking about registered through her panicked brain. She didn’t have to run or fight. He wasn’t going to hurt her. And he didn’t know about Jason.
Yes, Ariana. Jason. The one who is depending on you.
Maybe she could save him after all. And there was that Changpu again.
Okay, think, Ariana.

‘Um, yes, it was, um, Chang…Pu who hired me.’ She sat up, and swung her legs off the bed, licking her dry lips. ‘I…I don’t know who the plant is. Um…Mr Pu keeps us separate, you know.’

Luke stared at her for several seconds, then the corners of his lips turned up in an unpleasant smile. ‘Is that so?’ he said softly. His hard eyes swept down the length of her body, pausing at her breasts that were, she knew, clearly outlined by her brief, clinging tank top. They travelled further down to the junction of her thighs. She winced and wished with all her heart she’d packed more modest clothes. But how was she supposed to know she’d be abandoned on a conservative tropical island?

‘Well, little Ariana, I have to tell you I’m sick to the back teeth of your fucking boss, and it seems he’s left you to carry the can.’

Luke strolled toward her. She backed away, until she felt the bed at her knees. ‘So what am I going to do about you, sweetheart?’ His smile contained all the warmth of an igloo in winter, but with an extra dose of frightening, white-hot fury.

‘Um…’

‘You’re going to have to work on your vocabulary, baby.’

He pushed her down onto the bed. A gentle push. And in that instant, she had an inkling of Luke Donahue’s strength. He followed her down, draping one long leg over her lower body. He effortlessly held her in place. Reaching out, he stroked her cheek softly.

Something shifted inside her. She was so sick of being bullied and frightened by men. Even gentle Jason had forced her into doing something she didn’t want to do. Then there was Earnest and company. And now Mr Intimidating had taken over the reins.

She grabbed the hand that was caressing her face, drew it toward her and bit his thumb.

‘Shit!’

Luke snatched his hand away and, in that brief moment’s grace, she slithered out from under him and scrambled off to the other side of the bed. ‘Get your hands off me, you horrible man,’ she spat in a commendably stern tone.

* * *

Despite the fury that had propelled him into her room, despite the near-superhuman effort it had taken to soften his grip on her slim arms, Luke felt his lips twitch.

Ariana took swift advantage of his hesitation. She snatched up the only object of any size in the room, her handbag. ‘Don’t you dare touch me, you big bully.’ Holding the bag by its strap, she held it out to her side, ready to swing.

He bit his lip.

‘I can understand why you’re angry, and I’m sorry I drugged you, but I think you’re being extremely unfair. You
told
me to hit you with the champagne bottle.’

What?

All inclination to laugh vanished. Luke couldn’t believe the line she was taking. He rose from the bed and followed her as she paced hastily backwards. ‘I
told
you to hit me?’

‘Yes, you did tell me to hit you,’ she snapped, and continued to back away until her back touched the wall. ‘You told me to do my worst. So I did.’

Then he remembered. In the hotel room. Ariana, so tiny and furious, threatening him with the nearly-empty champagne bottle. And this time, he couldn’t hold it back. He burst out laughing. ‘I do remember saying that, now you come to mention it. But I can’t say as how I believed you would.’

Oh, Ariana-Moonbeam-Whatever-Your-Name-Is, you are good. Keep me on the back foot. Keep changing the game.

He studied her trim, petite body and snorted when her face flushed. ‘Quit the virginal blushing, Ari,’ he said impatiently. ‘Changpu doesn’t hire innocent young things.’ He glanced about the dirty room, then toward the grimy window, as the shouting on the street suddenly grew louder. For all her current spirited fight, she did seem to be in a bit of trouble. ‘How did you end up here, all by yourself in this crappy hotel, with a horde of men waiting for you downstairs? I gather it’s you they want?’

He paused. ‘One of them yelled something about a yellow-haired slut as I was coming in.’

In fact, when he’d arrived downstairs, one of the guys had called out to him, excitedly. ‘The yellow-haired film star Scarlett Johansson has come to our Island! We’re so excited to meet her! Is she going to do a movie here? Are you with the film crew?’

To which he’d answered, of course, ‘Yes.’

It was possible she was only in danger of being hounded for her autograph. But was he going to tell her that? A memory of waking up, covered in dry, sticky champagne, with the bottle broken cleanly on either side of him and his map missing, flashed into his mind.

No, she could stay scared a little while longer. Anyway, it seemed she really did need his help to get off the island. He smothered a grin as an idea occurred to him. Oh revenge would be so sweet. And this little lady owed him big time.

She swallowed. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘I caught my plane and boat okay…’

Her
plane and boat? The ones
he’d
booked, and that anonymous bastard at his office had cancelled? He’d woken two hours after Ariana had clocked him with the champagne bottle, and had staggered to his feet, sick and groggy from the effects of the drug she’d slipped him. She’d won that battle, but he’d sworn by everything he held holy and unholy that she wouldn’t win the war. For that’s what it was. War.

‘…I caught
your
plane and boat okay, the ones you’d booked,’ she amended, her voice faltering in the face of what he knew was a pretty angry frown. ‘But when I got to Manitia Island, the men on the boat stole nearly all my money and dumped me on the side of the dock. This horrible place is all I could afford, and I can only afford it for tonight, and I don’t have any clothes, and…’

Her voice rose in volume and pitch with her panic. ‘Those men downstairs, they’re going to…they’re going to…Mr Donahue, you’ve got to help me. I’m sorry I stole from you. I…I had to. You have your map. I didn’t hurt you that much, did I?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yes you fucking did,’ Luke snapped, remembering the horrendous headache he’d woken up with. ‘And why should I care what happens to you? As you say, I have the map.’ He patted his back pocket. ‘Have fun.’

He walked toward the door.

‘Mr Donahue!’ she screamed. ‘Please help me. I’ll do anything. Please…help me.’

Luke stood with his hand on the doorknob, his back to her.

As he turned, he let Ariana see the victory he knew was written on his face. Her eyes widened as he let her consider it, absorb it. He’d won. She’d lost. His eyes caressed her face, her body. He grinned, as he saw full comprehension hit her. Time for the winner to take the spoils. ‘Now this is where my revenge gets interesting, sweetheart. Yes, I’ll get you off this island. But you have to pay the price.’