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Cristo, what was he thinking? Not only was she so clearly innocent, but she was also vulnerable on a deep emotional level thanks to the very people who should have protected her. It angered and infuriated him in a way that made a mockery of his desire and need for her.
She stirred beneath him and he quietly cleared his throat, the sound cutting through the small cabin. He forced his frustration to the back of his mind, and without moving her too much reached for the notebook Evelyn had been reading. He supposed if he was to go on a treasure hunt, he should at least try to be prepared.
He peered at the notebook held in one hand through the glasses she’d given him. She’d been right. They were a match for his prescription and he hadn’t even known that. As he read through her notes, he saw the questions scribbled in the margins about what his father would think, whether he would have seen it the same way as she did. And in his mind, he saw a student missing her mentor, finding her own path and making her own discoveries, but alone in those discoveries with absolutely no support from the academic world. And even as his conscience stirred, she nestled deeper against him.
Evie fisted her hand in the cotton sheet as she began to wake. Her felt heart bruised and raw but that was background to something much more persistent in her mind and body. Heat surrounded her, and the scent that filled her senses was woodsy and salty, sharp with a bite of bay. She remembered that scent, but couldn’t quite place it in her half-asleep state. Desire crawled across her skin, heat slipped between her heartbeats and need throbbed between her thighs. She shifted her legs in an attempt to soothe the ache and stopped when she felt the superfine wool of a man’s trousers. Not justaman.Mateo.
Her eyes sprang open to find her hand fisted in the cotton of his shirt, her other hand wedged between her cheek and his chest. Frozen still, she felt a gentle press against the back of her head, and in the reflection of the cabin’s window she realised she was lying practically on top of Mateo, his hand pressed against her head in an almost possessive way. She bit her lip to stop herself from moving, terrified he might wake to find her draped all over him.
His head faced the other way to her, his chin angled down towards the top of her head. His glasses were on the tip of his finger, dangling from his free hand, hanging off the side of the bed and hovering above her notebook that was now on the floor. She must have fallen asleep at the table, she realised. Not that it explained how she was currently sprawled across him.
The sound of his heart thudded in her ear again, slow, powerful and unstoppable. That was what he made her think of, that was what he was like; powerful and unstoppable. She was fascinated by that kind of force, that kind of self-assurance. She had tasted a hint of it in the moments before he kissed her in his bedroom, before he’d discovered who she was. A hint that had remained in the back of her mind like a drug, one she wanted again. Even now her breath caught in her lungs, pressing her chest against his side, arousal and want hardening her nipples to painful points that only he could appease...and never would. Because instead of erotic fantasies, she remembered the way he had pulled back from her in the hotel, apologies in his eyes and barriers between them. And if she continued to lie there indulging in silly schoolgirl fantasies she would only hurt herself more. He stirred beneath her, his free arm coming up from where it had dangled off the bed, to wrap around her and hold her in place.
In her shock she squeaked, but he mumbled at her to go back to sleep. And she wanted to. She wanted to go to sleep with someone holding her tight, wrapped in a warm heat and the unspoken promise of what could happen when she woke. But she couldn’t. Because at that precise moment, the train began to slow.
‘What’s going on?’ a sleep-fogged voice asked from beneath her.
‘We’re here,’ she answered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THECARMATEO’Sassistant had arranged to meet them from the station in Hong Kong took them to a small private airport where Evie’s benefactor had arranged for a small flight to take them out to Amahai Airport on Maluku. From there, further ‘transport’ would take them to the coordinates. Transport turned out to be a one-hundred-and-five-foot yacht with a twin engine, a Jacuzzi, three impressive suites, with a galley and staff accommodation, worth more than he’d just paid for the octant.
‘You need a plan, Evelyn,’ he argued, standing on the jetty beside the exquisite boat that gleamed in the morning sun.
‘I have one,’ she said, passing her briefcase to a young woman in a white uniform.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, this boat will take me to the island the coordinates pinpoint.’
‘Anuninhabitedisland, buried deep in the Kei Islands. What if the weather is bad?’
‘The yacht has state-of-the-art stabilisers, sir,’ the woman in the white uniform informed him. He glared at her in thanks—she wasnothelping.
‘Why are you making this so difficult?’ Evie asked.
‘Because for a genius, you are not thinking this through. You need a base of operations. You need to do your research, gather your information and then go to the site.’
‘You sound a lot like your father at the moment.’
‘Said no one ever,’ he growled.
Evelyn sighed. ‘This will be my base of operations. We will dock...moor, berth—?’
‘Drop anchor, ma’am,’ clarified the woman in the white uniform.
‘Thank you,’ Evelyn said. ‘Drop anchor as near to the coordinates as possible and I’ll assess from there.’
Mateo glared out at the sea.
‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘when you muscled your way onto a journey that, for me, has been almost twenty years in the making, and for you twenty-four hours, did you think that you would suddenly be in charge?’
‘What? Absolutely not,’ he replied, disliking the transparency of his thoughts.
‘Okay, then. I’m sorry you got stuck on a train here with me, and I’m sorry you missed your very important meeting—’
Her words stopped short as he closed the distance between them with a single step. He leaned into her space, not to intimidate but to make his point completely clear. And if his whole body felt on fire being this close to the woman who had slept with him,on him, for the last eight hours, then he ruthlessly ignored it. Only it wasn’t so easy to cast aside the flare of desire he saw burst to life in her eyes.
