AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to hide the incredulity from her voice anymore which also made her sound strained and almost hoarse. “What is happening?”
“So, you know me, then?” He smiled, and a cannonball knocked her heart sideways. She hated that he was so ridiculously good-looking; she wanted to scream at him for being unfairly favored that way and ruining her every thought when it came to other men.
But fuck. He wasn’t supposed to know she knew him, but it was too late now, and she had other things that needed to be taken care of, like why was he here? With her. On a ship. Seemingly alone?
“What is going on? Why are you here?” She started to pace, her default setting taking firm hold of her as she tried to understand everything but failed. “I demand to know what’s going on,” she asked through clenched teeth.
“You’re on a ship, to be precise.” He started to remove his jacket.
“So, there are other people here?” She swallowed, forcing herself not to follow his movements as his shoulder muscles bunched up when he slipped the jacket off.
“Of course. I kept all the staff on board.” His tie came off next.
“The staff? But what about the other guests?”
“There are none. It’s just me and you.” He lifted his gaze directly to hers and began to roll up the sleeves of his snowy white shirt. With every inch of stunningly corded forearms he revealed, her breath became more staggered.
He exposed a kaleidoscope of tattoos that had the ability to mesmerize her if she weren’t careful. She shook her head and allowed her panic to reign. She was in trouble. Deep trouble.
“What?” she asked slowly. Did he just confirm what her friends had been telling her before her phone stopped working?
No. No. No.
She couldn’t be on a ship alone with him.
“You were instructed to wait for my car to pick you up from your apartment. You didn’t.” The sound of his deep, gravelly voice changed at the accusation. It scared her that she understood the cadence of his tone after only hearing it once before when he had warned her about the consequences of leaving the suite which would prompt him to come and find her.
“Instead, you decided to go on a seven-day cruise with your girlfriends as if you were still single, and for that, you must be punished. So, I bought the ship. I’ll use this time to remind you what being Mrs. Knight actually means.”
Her mouth dropped open. Her senses sizzled with shock and disbelief. She couldn’t completely comprehend that he had taken it upon himself to buy an entire over-one-thousand-foot-tall ship with more decks than she had pairs of shoes in her closet, just to teach her a lesson.
Not only that. He then basically ruined everyone else’s holiday plans, and she didn’t care they were refunded with extra monetary perks, plus offered free accommodations on another ship.
“Do you know how insane this sounds? What is wrong with you? Are you crazy?” She didn’t wait for a reply when she knew the answer was going to be yes, he was crazy.
She had to get a grip, and the first step would be accepting that the man who had haunted her dreams for the last three years, and who hadn’t even known she had existed, was nothing but a ruthless, heartless businessman, who would stoop to any level possible if it meant furthering his wealth.
He was that guy.
She had to remember what he had done to her father. That was how she was going to survive him. But if that act didn’t confirm his other more flagrant affiliations, what else would? Was he really the mafia? She didn’t care. Her father had made a mistake. She had paid the price and now he could leave her alone.
Her fury reached a new level as she marched back up to him.
“Why are you doing this? You got what you wanted. Isn’t that piece of land what this is all about? You may have gone around it in the most despicable way imaginable, but it’s yours. And we might be married, but it’s just a piece of paper because I could never really be married to a man who took advantage of someone weaker than himself when he was clearly in a vulnerable state.
“Do you know what that makes you? An unprincipled, deceitful, conniving…” She ran out of energy and words. “Crook,” she added after a pause. “A… a charlatan—and this is for my father...” Without thinking, she picked up the glass of champagne he had clearly poured for her and flung it into his face.
She turned and stormed off. “I’ll find my way off this ship if it kills me.”
But she didn’t get very far before a large hand gripped the hair at the nape of her neck, and she was pulled back into his chest.
Heat streamed down her body. The cotton summer dress she wore offered no protection from his consuming power as his touch scorched her right down to her cells.
“I will allow you one chance to apologize.” His breath tickled against her ear. His thighs provided hard warmth that destroyed almost all her brain cells.
“Go to hell,” she breathed and sighed in relief that she didn’t just crumble at his feet and beg him to touch every part of her body, which had been fodder for her dreams since the moment she had seen him.
“As you wish.”
