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So she stood up, and pushed at his chest, a thrill of pleasure running through her at how good it felt to take out her annoyance on the man who’d caused it. ‘Stop telling me what to do.’
‘It’s for your own good.’
‘Oh, yeah, right, and you’re what, a doctor?’ she prompted sceptically. ‘Some kind of fainting expert?’
His lips clenched. ‘Fine, have it your way,’ he said, a strange quality to his voice. ‘But don’t expect me to catch you next time.’
‘I didn’t expect you to catch me this time,’ she responded firmly.
‘That doesn’t sound like “thank you”.’
‘You seriously expect me to thank you? I fainted out of shock, a shock caused by your pronouncement that you’re attempting to kidnap me against my wishes and return me home, also very much against my wishes. Tell me, what exactly should I be grateful to you for?’
‘Kidnapping is, I think, always against a person’s wishes,’ he said, concentrating on the semantics of her accusation, earning an eye roll from Amelia.
‘By all means, correct my sentence structure,’ she snapped. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact you’ve broken about a million laws. You do realise I’m under the protection of the Catarno royal guard?’
‘Are you?’ he replied. ‘Where are they?’
She floundered. Damn it, that was an easy lie to catch her in. ‘I mean, in theory,’ she responded testily. ‘I have no need for them here, but what you’re doing is a serious crime in Catarno. You’d be stupid to take me there and not expect consequences for this.’
‘Fine, I’ll drop you off just outside the waters of your country,’ he said with something like amusement, which only served to strengthen her anger.
‘You will do no such thing.’ She drew herself up to her full height, no idea that she looked like a modern-day Boudicca with her hair wild around her shoulders and a quiet, dignified strength emanating from her.
‘No?’
She shook her head. ‘You will have your crew turn this boat around and put it back into dock. I will leave, and never see you again.’
His laugh was a short, sharp sound, filled with the same anger she’d detected in him at their first meeting. ‘No.’
‘No?’ Her nostrils flared. ‘What do you mean “no”?’
‘Your brother asked me to bring you home, and that’s what I’m doing.’ She blanched once more, and, despite what he’d said minutes ago, he moved swiftly, as if anticipating the worst, but stopped short of touching her.
‘This is absolutely not simple,’ she said, hands on hips, staring across at him. ‘Did it occur to you that I left Catarno for a reason?’
‘I presume you had reasons you thought were valid at the time. Perhaps you didn’t realise how hard it would be on your family. Or perhaps you just didn’t care about them. Maybe you’re only capable of caring about yourself and your own happiness,’ he added, eyes lancing hers with an accusation that made the bottom fall out of her world.
Was that really what he thought of her?
And had he formed that opinion based on what Anton had disclosed? Was that how Anton viewed her? Nausea flooded Amelia’s body, so she spun away to conceal the way her throat moved and her mouth tightened.
‘It’s none of your business,’ she said unevenly, after a long, pained pause. ‘I left. I’m a free person, capable of making my own decisions. None of that is your concern.’
‘No,’ he agreed quickly, so she was gratified. ‘And yet, you’re hurting someone I owe a huge debt of gratitude to, someone who wants—needs—you to return to Catarno, for one week only.’
‘You really think I can go home for a week, attend the wedding, then disappear into my life again? Do you have any idea how impossible that will be? Escaping once was a goddamned miracle, there’s no way I’ll be able to do it again.’
‘Escaping?’ He homed in on her use of the word. ‘What exactly did you need to escape? A life of idle luxury? Of low expectations and a schedule that was one hundred per cent geared to pleasure-seeking?’
Amelia gasped, shocked by the level of her anger, and by the hand that lifted and struck his cheek, by how good it felt to slap him, to release that tension, shocked by the way his flesh changed colour, darkening red in the shape of her palm, and at the way her stomach knotted—and not from tension so much as something infinitely darker and more dangerous. Shocked and delighted at how he gripped her wrist the moment after she’d connected with his skin, the way his fingers curled around her, held her hand in the air, so much stronger than she was, so easily able to command her body with his.
‘Did that feel good?’ he asked, eyes like lasers, cutting through her.
‘Yes.’ She didn’t bother to lie. ‘It felt bloody great, actually,’ she admitted, even when she knew she should feel ashamed. She’d never condoned violence, and it didn’t matter that she was his physical inferior, much slighter and weaker, it was still violence. It was still wrong.
His eyes flared, and heat arced between them, so despite her hatred for him, her fear at the thought of going home, that same heady throb of need was tormenting her, making it almost impossible to remember where she was, with whom, and why she had to fight this.
