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‘Oh!’ She startled, and he looked just as surprised. ‘I didn’t realise you were in here.’
He regarded her for several seconds without moving. ‘Well, I am.’
‘I see that now.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I came to get a book.’ She gestured to the shelves.
‘A book?’
‘To read,’ she babbled, then clamped her lips together. Caught off guard, she was on the back foot, not sounding as assertive or confident as she wanted. ‘As I have literally nothing else to do, I presume you won’t mind?’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ he said, waving a hand to the wall of titles. ‘Take whatever you want.’
‘Oh, thank you so much,’ she replied, heavy with angry sarcasm. ‘What a considerate kidnapper you are. Is there somewhere online I can leave a five-star rating?’
Another smile, which he was quick to smother, but Amelia saw it and her stomach did a strange flopping motion.
‘There’s a cinema downstairs, you know.’
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘A cinema?’
‘And a gym. A spa. I was going to show you yesterday, but then you asked me to kiss you...’
‘I seem to remember you kissing me,’ she said, though in fact, while his body had come close to hers, it was Amelia who’d sought his lips. She coloured to the roots of her hair.
‘We’ll have to agree to disagree.’
‘You are seriously the worst.’
His eyes bored into hers. ‘Do you want to finish the tour?’
‘I can probably work it out for myself,’ she said after a beat.
‘Afraid to be alone with me?’
She ground her teeth together. ‘Of course not. Just trying to follow your instructions.’
‘Okay.’ He didn’t move, and her stomach dropped to her toes, the emotion easily identifiable as disappointment. ‘Suit yourself.’
Amelia’s lips parted but she left the room before she could say something really stupid and beg him to show her.
Unfortunately, when Amelia made her way to the end of the corridor and down the wide stairs, it was to discover a door at the bottom wouldn’t open. Had he known?
With a noise of frustration, she turned on her heel, strode back into his office without knocking, hands on hips. ‘It’s locked.’
Head bent over some documents, Benedetto took a moment before looking at her. She hadn’t really given his desk any proper attention, but now she saw it was incredibly ordered, as though he could only function when everything was in its place. There was a laptop, a pile of papers, a leather-bound diary, and, from where she stood, the back of a photo frame. Curiosity had her wanting to move forward to see what kind of picture a man like Benedetto would keep on his desk, but Amelia would die before she’d show that much interest in his life.
‘I’ll open it, then,’ he said simply, standing.
‘Why is it locked? We’re on a boat.’
‘It’s a security feature—the door’s self-locking. It doubles as a safe room. There’s an alternative bridge down there, a backup command system. In case the boat’s ever breached.’
She blinked at him, the thought unsettling. ‘Is that likely?’
‘I’m a very wealthy man. It’s not unlikely.’
