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‘In spite of him being my son?’ he guessed, putting a finger on her dilemma.
‘He’s a very nice boy,’ she sniffed.
‘He wouldn’t thank you for calling him a boy. He’s a young man, filled with a young man’s passions…’
And foolish ideals.
Regan bit her lip and he turned to join her at the rail, his shoulder brushing against her navy sleeve as he bent to lean on both elbows, looking down into their lightly churning wake. ‘Ryan loves complexity and finds any sort of mystery irresistible. You can’t blame him for being intrigued, you’re probably the most complex woman he’s ever encountered. Add big violet eyes and a sleek little body to the equation and you have a perfect recipe for infatuation. He may think his intellect will protect him from emotional harm, but he doesn’t realise that some emotions are not always answerable to reason…’
That was cutting too close to the bone. She looked at his bowed head, noting the way the breeze ruffled his hair, and the silky black growth on his muscled forearm. ‘I really think you’re overreacting—I’m just a novelty—’
‘He watches you when he thinks you aren’t looking…’
She tore her yearning gaze away from his averted head. ‘So? You have no idea what’s going on inside his brain.’
‘I know how males think. And I know Ryan better than most men know their sons.’
‘I just don’t think he thinks about me that way,’ she said feebly. ‘You make it sound as if I’m some kind of femme fatale…’
He straightened up, removing his sunglasses, and she immediately wished he would put them back on. His eyes made her stomach lurch. Then she realised there was a physical reason for her reaction; they were moving out of the mouth of the canal into the light chop of the channel which extended from a half-melon of sandy beach—dotted with family groups taking advantage of the school holidays—to the open gulf.
‘And you make it sound as if you don’t believe you’re innately attractive to men. That unless you set out to entice a man he’ll simply ignore your femininity. Why, I wonder?’
Regan’s fingers automatically moved to twist her absent wedding ring. ‘I’m not here for psychoanalysis,’ she rasped.
‘You sound a little dry,’ he said gently. ‘Would you like something to lubricate your throat while we argue the point?’ He signalled to someone out of Regan’s sight-line, and she completely lost her train of thought when she saw who it was bringing forward the silver tray.
‘Champagne cocktail or tropical crush, Mam’selle Eve?’
She blushed furiously at the sight of his ugly face, pruned into a wrinkled smile. ‘Hello, Pierre,’ she said faintly, grabbing the nearest drink without caring what it contained.
‘Actually, her name is Regan,’ Joshua told his man, accepting a stemmed glass of straw-coloured liquid containing a hulled strawberry. ‘She prefers to reserve Evangeline for those occasions when she’s inc
ognito.’
Regan jerked around to remonstrate, and fruit juice spilled out of her glass down the lapel of her jacket.
‘Ah, Mam’selle, let me sponge that out for you before it stains.’ The glass was taken out of her hand and her jacket removed and borne away into the air-conditioned depths of the vessel before she could do much more than stutter a protest.
‘I think you might be safer with the champagne,’ said Joshua, handing her one of the tall cocktails, his eyes flicking over the white singlet top she had worn under her navy suit.
‘How did you find out my middle name?’ she demanded.
Joshua toasted her with his glass. ‘I asked around.’
She knew what that meant for a man of his wealth and power.
‘You mean you had me investigated,’ she snapped.
‘Do you blame me?’
No, that was the problem. It was what she would have done were their circumstances reversed.
‘I hope you got your money’s worth,’ she gritted.
The prow of the boat eased higher in the water as a low grumble signalled a surge of power from the throttle, and as Regan listed on the wooden decking in a belated attempt to find her sea legs Joshua reached out to steady her, his fingers firm on her waist. The breeze became a tugging wind as the vessel cut through the water with smoothly accelerating speed and the airstream flowed around the sleekly aerodynamic body to flute invisibly above the turbulent wake.
‘Not yet.’ His steadying hand dropped away. ‘I’m only getting my reports in dribs and drabs. And it’s mostly raw facts, not feelings. Care to fill in the blanks?’
