Marion Lennox: Cinderella: Hired by the Prince

She closed her eyes. Charlie was quite capable of carrying out his threats. This man was capable of anything.

Why had she ever borrowed money from him?

Because she’d been desperate, that was why. It had been right at the end of Matty’s illness. She’d sold everything, but there was this treatment… There’d been a chance. It was slim, she’d known, but she’d do anything.

She’d been sobbing, late at night, in the back room of the café. She’d been working four hours a day to pay her rent. The rest of the time she’d spent with Matty. Cathy had found her there, and Charlie came in and found them both.

He’d loan her the money, he said, and the offer was so extraordinary both women had been rendered almost speechless.

Jenny could repay it over five years, he’d told them, by working for half wages at the café. Only he needed security. ‘In case you decide to do a runner.’

‘She’d never do a runner,’ Cathy had said, incensed. ‘When Matty’s well she’ll settle down and live happily ever after.’

‘I don’t believe in happy ever after,’ Charlie had said. ‘I need security.’

‘I’ll pledge my apartment that she’ll repay you,’ Cathy had said hotly. ‘I trust her, even if you don’t.’

What a disaster. They’d been so emotional they hadn’t thought it through. All Jenny had wanted was to get back to the hospital, to get back to Matty, and she didn’t care how. Cathy’s generosity was all she could see.

So she’d hugged her and accepted and didn’t see the ties. Only ties there were. Matty died a month later and she was faced with five years bonded servitude.

Cathy’s apartment had been left to her by her mother. It was pretty and neat and looked out over the harbour. Cathy was an artist. She lived hand to mouth and her apartment was all she had.

Even Cathy hadn’t realised how real the danger of foreclosure was, Jenny thought dully. Cathy had barely glanced at the loan documents. She had total faith in her friend to repay her loan. Of course she had.

So now there was no choice. Jenny dug her hands deep into her pockets, she bit back angry words, as she’d bitten them back many times before, and she nodded.

‘Okay. I’m sorry, Charlie. Of course I’ll do the weekends.’

‘Hey!’ From behind them came Ramón’s voice, laced with surprise and the beginnings of anger. ‘What is this? Four weekends to pay for two minutes of amusement?’

‘It’s none of your business,’ Charlie said shortly. ‘Get lost.’

‘If you’re talking about what happened at the café, I was there. It was a joke.’

‘I don’t do jokes. Butt out. And she’ll do the weekends. She has no choice.’

And then he smiled, a drunken smile that made her shiver. ‘So there’s the joke,’ he jeered. ‘On you, woman, not me.’

And that was that. He stared defiance at Ramón, but Ramón, it seemed, was not interested in a fight. He gazed blankly back at him, and then watched wordlessly as Charlie swung himself unsteadily back into his car and weaved off into the distance.

Leaving silence.

How to explain what had just happened? Jenny thought, and decided she couldn’t. She took a few tentative steps away, hoping Ramón would leave her to her misery.

He didn’t. Instead, he looked thoughtfully at the receding car, then flipped open his cellphone and spoke a few sharp words. He snapped it shut and walked after Jenny, catching up and once again falling into step beside her.

‘How much do you owe him?’ he asked bluntly.

She looked across at him, startled. ‘Sorry?’

‘You heard. How much?’

‘I don’t believe that it’s…’

‘Any of my business,’ he finished for her. ‘Your boss just told me that. But, as your future employer, I can make it my business.’

‘You’re not my future employer.’

‘Just tell me, Jenny,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly so concerned, so warm, so laced with caring that, to her astonishment, she found herself telling him. Just blurting out the figure, almost as if it didn’t matter.

He thought about it for a moment as they kept walking. ‘That’s not so much,’ he said cautiously.

‘To you, maybe,’ she retorted. ‘But to me… My best friend signed over her apartment as security. If I don’t pay, then she loses her home.’

‘You could get another job. You don’t have to be beholden to this swine-bag. You could transfer the whole loan to the bank.’

‘I don’t think you realise just how broke I am,’ she snapped and then she shook her head, still astounded at how she was reacting to him. ‘Sorry. There’s no need for me to be angry with you when you’re being nice. I’m tired and I’m upset and I’ve got myself into a financial mess. The truth is that I don’t even have enough funds to miss a week’s work while I look for something else, and no bank will take me on. Or Cathy either, for that matter-she’s a struggling painter and has nothing but her apartment. So there you go. That’s why I work for Charlie. It’s also why I can’t drop everything and sail away with you. If you knew how much I’d love to…’

‘Would you love to?’ He was studying her intently. The concern was still there but there was something more. It was as if he was trying to make her out. His brow was furrowed in concentration. ‘Would you really? How good a sailor are you?’

That was a weird question but it was better than talking about her debts. So she told him that, too. Why not? ‘I was born and bred on the water,’ she told him. ‘My dad built a yacht and we sailed it together until he died. In the last few years of his life we lived on board. My legs are more at home at sea than on land.’

‘Yet you’re a cook.’

‘There’s nothing like spending your life in a cramped galley to make you lust after proper cooking.’ She gave a wry smile, temporarily distracted from her bleakness. ‘My mum died early so she couldn’t teach me, but I longed to cook. When I was seventeen I got an apprenticeship with the local baker. I had to force Dad to keep the boat in port during my shifts.’

‘And your boat? What was she?’

‘A twenty-five footer, fibreglass, called Wind Trader . Flamingo, if you know that class. She wasn’t anything special but we loved her.’

‘Sold now to pay debts?’ he asked bluntly.

‘How did you know?’ she said, crashing back to earth. ‘And, before you ask, I have a gambling problem.’

‘Now why don’t I believe that?’

‘Why would you believe anything I tell you?’ She took a deep breath. ‘Look, this is dumb. I’m wrecked and I need to go home. Can we forget we had this conversation? It was crazy to tell you my troubles and I surely don’t expect you to do anything about them. But thank you for letting me talk.’

She hesitated then. For some reason, it was really hard to walk away from this man, but she had no choice. ‘Goodbye, Mr Cavellero,’ she managed. ‘Thank you for thinking of me as a potential deckhand. It was very nice of you, and you know what? If I didn’t have this debt I’d be half tempted to take it on.’

Once more she turned away. She walked about ten steps, but then his voice called her back.

‘Jenny?’

She should have just kept on walking, but there was something in his voice that stopped her. It was the concern again. He sounded as if he really cared.

That was crazy, but the sensation was insidious, like a siren song forcing her to turn around.

‘Yes?’

He was standing where she’d left him. Just standing. Behind him, down the end of the street, she could see the harbour. That was where he belonged, she thought. He was a man of the sea. He looked a man from the sea. Whereas she…