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No way. I’d rather swim a mile in designer couture than face those judgmental snobs again.
She strode to the end of the wooden platform built into the rock wall—to make sure there were no other viable exits from the Dock of Doom—and spotted a gleaming motor launch tethered at the far end.
Wasn’t that the boat she and Lacey had arrived on from Sorrento?
She scoured the deck—but it was empty and dark, there wasn’t even a light coming from the half-doors that led to the cabin.
The old fellow who had driven them here was probably getting his supper with the other staff up at the palazzo—ready to escort her and Lacey back to Sorrento when the event ended after midnight. She pulled out her phone to call him. Then swore. No service.
She shoved the phone back in her evening bag.
The Cade Launch Ball was due to go on for at least another two hours. The elegant event she would rather die than have to return to this century.
But... Why not just borrow the launch? She knew how to drive it, because she used the same make, if a much older model, toferry tourists around the marina in Genoa, one of the two jobs she was currently juggling. Once she got back to the luxury hotel in Sorrento where she and her sister were staying, she could get one of the Cade staff to return the boat to Capri and pick up her sister later?
Fireworks exploded in the sky, the cheers of the crowd on the terrace above reminding Milly of all the reasons why she did not want to go back.
The sparkle of blue and green lights glittered over the bay.
She took a staggered breath and slung her heels on board. Tucking the hem of the gown into her panties, she leapt over the railing.
The boat swayed as she tiptoed towards the console. And grinned. Because there was the key, stuck in the ignition. That had to be a sign. Surely?
She rushed to untie the anchoring lines.
As soon as I have service, I’ll let them know I’ve borrowed it.
Getting back to Sorrento early would also mean she could be packed and changed and at the bus station before Lacey returned to the hotel. She did not need another tortuous conversation tonight about her independence, to go with all the others she’d had with Lacey over the past year.
She would send her sister a text as soon as she was on the bus, apologising and telling her not to worry before Lacey took the Cade jet back to London tomorrow morning.
Milly returned to the console and fired up the boat. The engine purred as she steered the launch round the other bigger vessels and out into the bay.
As the tidal waters from the Gulf of Naples tugged the hull, she scanned the horizon, her vision adjusting to the milky darkness. The water was clear as far as the eye could see, the fishermen and tourists having gone to bed hours ago.
A triumphant laugh popped out as she slammed back the throttle. Adrenaline hurtled through her system as the boat reared, skipping across the surf as if it were flying.
Free at last.
Of the obligations and anxiety that had dragged her down ever since Lacey had invited her to the event. And she had felt obliged to attend.
She let out a rebel yell—the endless frustrations of her overprotective family and trying to figure out her future lifting off her shoulders as the wind slapped her face.
But the whoop strangled in her throat as the cabin door burst open and a man charged out. Dark and dishevelled, in a black tuxedo jacket and trousers, his feet bare and his white dress shirt undone to the waist, this guy was not sixty-something Paulo who had driven them to Capri three hours ago.
Awareness shot through her as she got an impressive eyeful of his bare chest sprinkled with hair and spotted a tattoo of crossed cutlasses over his heart.
A marauding pirate in a designer tuxedo... Am I dreaming or hallucinating or both?
‘Who are you?’ she demanded of the apparition, so shocked the words came out on a high-pitched squeal. ‘And what were you doing hiding down there?’
His staggeringly handsome face contorted into a furious scowl.
‘I wasn’t hiding, I was sleeping, until you woke me up,’ he growled in a deep voice loud enough to be heard over the hum of the engine—and the heartbeat now punching her eardrums. ‘And this is my boat. So, what the hell are you doing stealing it?’
The truth dawned, like the fireworks still bursting in the sky behind them.
Oh, fabulous... Miss Screw-Ups-R-Us just borrowed the wrong boat!
