Chapter Four #2
She nodded, the wind whipping at her hair, casting it free from the long line of her neck. And while there were many more places on a woman’s body that he found erotic, the swanlike sweep of Rin’s neck into her shoulder fascinated him for far longer than it should have done.
‘You really are an adrenaline junkie,’ she said to him, without taking her eye off the yacht’s light in the distance.
He hadn’t considered himself one before, but he was beginning to agree with her. Being with Rin, playing this cat-and-mouse game, it was thrilling .
She squeaked in alarm when the speedboat hit a particularly determined wave, the thunk sending the nose upwards and in shock she pulled her hands off the wheel. He caught it almost immediately, laughing as she turned into him, hiding her face into his chest as she groaned in embarrassment.
Now that , he decided, was most definitely an act, but it only served his own cause. He anchored her with a hand around the back of her head, holding her to him for comfort.
‘I think I’ll let you do the driving,’ she admitted with a smile, looking up at him with those incredible bright blue eyes.
‘Your wish is my command.’
She turned back to face the horizon, but stayed in the circle of his arms, leaning back against his chest and he wondered whether it was natural to be so impressed with someone so treacherous.
They reached the yacht shortly after, a bright glowing beacon in the night seascape, where they were helped aboard by two uniformed deck-hands.
He’d already warned his staff of Rin’s perfidy—namely so that they too could keep an extra eye on her. He had instructed them to treat her with no less respect or courtesy than any other guest, and he wasn’t surprised to see the captain and crew welcoming her with wide, eager smiles.
‘Shall I show you around?’ Enzo asked, after the introductions were done.
‘Please,’ she said with a wide-eyed glance at her surroundings.
With one of the deck-hands already having swept away her luggage, he held his arm out for her to take. Rin was unable to keep the look of awe from her eyes—no one was that good an actress. Though to be fair, the Sea View was a spectacular ship.
‘She’s one hundred and seventy-one feet, with five suites that can sleep eleven,’ he said as he followed her out of the glass elevator and onto the sun deck that offered a dining area that could seat thirty people, a BBQ, and a protected Jacuzzi.
She gravitated towards the rail at the back of the deck, to where in the distance the lights of Capri danced as the yacht began to muster its engines, ready to move them further on down the coast.
‘The bridge is directly below us, along with many of the staff quarters and facilities. Below that is the lounge, more entertainment areas, and an office.’
‘Do you use that office much?’ she asked turning her back to the view, her arms stretched out across the railings and a wry smile across her lips.
‘Never,’ he lied, intensely private about the income he earned given just how many people wanted pieces of it. Including Rin.
‘And where’s your cabin?’ she asked, the hint of flirtation in her raised eyebrow.
‘Oh, Rin. I have nothing so small as a cabin ,’ he teased, an almost nauseatingly lewd innuendo.
For a second he thought he saw her mask slip, as if she too had thought the same thing, but it was blinked away almost immediately.
‘The Sea View boasts five suites ,’ he clarified. ‘Would you like to see yours?’
She nodded, and he thought he saw relief in her gaze this time. As if she had thought he might try and install her in his. And distaste rolled in his gut. He might be willing to play this game, but he had never, would never, force someone against their will like that.
He took her down three floors to the deck that housed the sleeping quarters.
The interior design was all Art Deco, and he appreciated it anew through her eyes as she unconsciously ran her fingers across the smooth cherrywood polished to a glittering shine.
The owner had been trying to sell it to him for years, but that spoke of a permanency that Enzo disliked intensely and would, he presumed, continue to reject for many years to come.
He led her down the corridor to the open door to the Queen suite and was satisfied to hear her gasp of surprise.
‘It’s huge ,’ she couldn’t help herself from saying and he bit back a retort that would have had them both in hot water.
‘As we missed dinner, I’ve arranged for something to eat back up on the sun deck, in say...thirty minutes?’
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, not quite paying attention as she walked around the spacious room with the double bed and the large sofa, chairs, and coffee table, opposite a desk and the wardrobe where her bags had been unpacked for her already.
‘Then I’ll see you soon,’ he said with a smile, backing away from her room. He enjoyed making her speechless with his wealth. Because it revealed her true colours. Oh yes, he was very much looking forward to playing this game with Erin Carter.
Erin wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with money.
Before her father had sold the family business, they’d been one of the wealthiest families in London.
With an address in Mayfair, she’d been to school at St Paul’s Girls, and it had taken her father just the first fifteen years of her life to burn through the money and assets he had inherited.
Charles Edward Carter had made the grave mistake of falling foul of believing his own hype; that bluff and bluster could hide his own mediocrity and bad business sense. He’d chased one dream after another until finally, one too many bad investments brought debt-collector to their door.
Oh, nothing so uncouth as large scary men in black clothing with rough accents.
No, this creditor was as eloquent as her father.
He’d worn a suit, just like her father. And he’d smiled while he’d stripped them of every single one of their assets, except the house that had been put in her mother’s name down in Cornwall.
So, Erin Carter did remember a time when money was rife. But this? She swallowed as she walked, wide-eyed, around the spacious suite that would fit nearly the entire top floor of her mother’s house in Falmouth inside it.
And yes, in some respects, Erin had her own money—from the sale of the HomeJames.
She had just over one million pounds sitting in her bank account.
But that money was earmarked for Charterhouse.
She’d never even really considered it hers given that it would take every penny of that money to bring the small publishing company back to life and regain all that her father had cost her and her mother.
She pushed through to the en suite bathroom, with a claw tub. A claw tub! The Art Deco mirror above a basin so large she could wash her hair in it was nothing short of beautiful. Shaking her head, she returned to the main suite and collapsed onto the impossibly soft bed.
And he didn’t even own this. He just rented it for the summer.
She shook her head in awe. Enzo really got all this wealth just from his parents?
she wondered, surprised. Yes, she knew that his father had been an actor with a series of wildly successful films in his heyday.
But these days he was known more for the increasingly younger women he dated.
And his mother, Gio’s daughter—strikingly beautiful, dark hair and unusually pale skin—had been cut off from the family coffers when Gio disowned her following her marriage to Luca Rossetti.
Was it possible that there was more to Enzo than he portrayed? So far she’d seen the daredevil, the itinerant playboy, the autocratic charmer...but there was nothing mean in his carelessness, not intentionally so. She sensed nothing cruel about him.
She sank back into the bed. The last few days had been a whirlwind. And really, the hard work was only just beginning. Tomorrow, she’d have to set out to snare more than just the Playboy of Amalfi’s attentions. She needed his ring.
She rubbed a hand over her sternum, willing away any sense of guilt she may have had. She needed to do this. For her mother, for herself. She needed to. So that she would never experience again the kind of hurt and betrayal that her father had shown her.
She sighed and checked her watch. If she was really quick, perhaps she could have a bath in that amazing tub before heading back up for dinner.
Thirty minutes later, punctual because Erin couldn’t concede that personality trait to Rin, she arrived on the deck in a dress from Rin’s side of the closet, determined to kick things into gear now that she was that much closer to getting what she needed.
The burnt orange silk of her dress pressed seductively against her skin from the warm breeze that flowed around the upper deck, as she exited the glass elevator and she stopped in her tracks when she saw what awaited her.
Enzo stood with a bottle of champagne beside a table set for two with a thick white tablecloth, twinkling glasses and rose petals scattered everywhere.
Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the gasp of genuine shock.
Because while in some ways it was beautiful, it was also as if Cupid had gotten a little carried away with himself.
Garlands of red flowers hung in strands, amongst fairy lights that changed from white to red.
There were even paper love hearts strewn about the deck, pressed up against pink lanterns.
‘Champagne?’ Enzo asked exuberantly.
‘Yes please,’ she squeaked, coughing to clear the shock from her throat.
Enzo popped the bottle and poured the champagne into two flutes, thoroughly pleased with himself.
‘Do you think it’s perhaps a little too much?’ Frederick, the deck-hand, had asked when he’d stood back to admire their efforts.
‘Absolutely,’ Enzo had replied. ‘It’s perfect !’