Carole Mortimer - Hawk's Prey

And the man watching her with narrowed eyes from the top of the gangway.

TWO things became apparent to her at the same time, firstly that she wasn’t about to be killed after all, and secondly that her driver hadn’t been employed by Tom Beresford at all. The latter won out, the relief of the first realisation overshadowed by the anger of the second.

‘You bastard!’ she burst out furiously, hurling herself up the gangway without a glance for the distance between that and the murky water below. ‘You unspeakable bastard!’ The second accusation was accompanied by a powerful slap to one lean cheek.

Long slender hands came up to grasp both her wrists to ward off more blows reaching their target. ‘Whitney—–’

‘I thought I was going to die!’ she choked, her eyes misted with tears as she looked up at him. ‘And it was you all the time!’

‘Mr Hawkworth—–’

Hawk glanced over her head at the driver as he stood hesitantly beside the car at the bottom of the gangway. ‘It’s all right, Peterson, I can handle Miss Morgan from here,’ he assured the other man confidently.

Maybe it was that arrogance, or maybe she just didn’t care what he thought of her behaviour after frightening her the way that he had, but suddenly she was kicking and scratching like a wild thing, Hawk unable to prevent all of the blows making contact, cursing under his breath as the pointed heel of her sandal caught him in the middle of the shin.

‘So I see, Mr Hawkworth,’ Peterson softly derided.

Tawny eyes, a clear golden colour, narrowed on him with displeasure. ‘Just send me your bill,’ he told the other man abruptly.

‘There’s nothing else I can do for you?’ The other man lingered, obviously enjoying the show.

‘Nothing,’ Hawk grated, his eyes flaring with anger as he glared down at the still struggling Whitney. ‘Stop it, you’re making a damned fool of yourself!’ he instructed through gritted teeth.

She stopped struggling only because she had run out of energy, knowing she wasn’t the one to look the fool, he was! And looking foolish didn’t sit well on the broad shoulders of James Charles Hawkworth. He towered over her now as he watched Peterson climb into the limousine and drive away, topping her five-feet-ten inches in the high-heeled sandals by at least four inches.

‘Martin must have called you as soon as I left his office,’ she muttered resentfully.

‘He had better have done,’ Hawk rasped with barely a movement of his lips.

Whitney glared up at him, resenting the fact that she had to do so. ‘You scared me half to death,’ she accused heatedly. ‘I thought I was on my way to be fitted for a pair of concrete shoes!’

‘That could still be arranged,’ he told her with icy control.

‘Don’t you threaten me,’ she snapped. ‘I could still have you arrested for kidnapping.’

Hawk eyed her mockingly with those curiously gold eyes fringed by thick dark lashes. ‘You’re a little old to be called a kid!’

‘Don’t prevaricate.’ She wrenched out of his hold on her arm, facing him now, wishing he didn’t look quite so handsome in the open-necked white shirt and tailored white trousers, the Gucci shoes also white. ‘You had me abducted in broad day—–’

‘On whose evidence?’ He quirked brows the same dark colour as his lashes, his hair a dark blond with gold streaks among its thickness from the amount of time he spent aboard Freedom in warmer climates than the one in England; the name Hawk suited his colouring perfectly.

‘Mine!’ she claimed indignantly. ‘And Peterson—–’

‘Oh, he wouldn’t back up the kidnapping story,’ Hawk denied with confidence.

Her eyes flashed. And to think that a short time ago she had been lamenting the fact that she hadn’t had the chance to tell this man she loved him; she didn’t love him at all, she hated him! ‘I think you’re overestimating your power of persuasion—–’

‘It isn’t a question of persuasion, Whitney,’ he mocked. ‘I’m sure that where a man is concerned your accomplishments in that direction are much more successful than mine could ever be.’ He made it sound like an insult. ‘But Peterson believes your protests to have only been part of the game.’

Whitney’s eyes narrowed. ‘What game?’

‘Shall we go inside?’ he suggested with a pointed glance at the crew members standing about watching them curiously. ‘If you’re going to give another display like the one earlier I would rather it was a private showing.’ He indicated that they should go into the lounge.

Whitney preceded him with a disgruntled scowl. She had been on Freedom several times in the past, and its elegant beauty didn’t impress her at all at this moment, although she acknowledged that Hawk had refurbished the spacious lounge that was larger than a single floor of her house. She knew there was also a library and dining room on this upper deck, that below, the hundred-foot yacht also boasted six luxurious bedroom suites, as well as accommodation for half a dozen crew members. Hawk spent a lot of time on board, and as such the furnishing in leather, brass and glass was of a high standard; it was more than a home-away-from-home for him. Hawkworth House had never seemed as warm and welcoming.

‘What game?’ she demanded once more as he closed the door behind him, only the hum of the air-conditioning on this hot July day to disturb the silence; the crew were paid well to make themselves inconspicuous.

Hawk shrugged broad shoulders. ‘You don’t think Peterson—procures women for a living, do you?’

‘He did a good job of abducting me,’ Whitney maintained stubbornly.

Hawk limped over to the bar, drawing attention to the fact that she had bruised him earlier, taking a jug of the fresh orange juice he knew she liked from the fridge and pouring them both a glass. Whitney ignored hers once he had placed it on the glass-topped coffee-table, and with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders Hawk moved to sit down in one of the brown leather armchairs.

‘Hawk!’ she demanded impatiently as he sipped his drink, feeling suspiciously like stamping her foot at his infuriating behaviour, resisting the impulse with effort.

His expression softened, if a face carved out of granite could soften! He had the hard features that should only have appeared on a sculpture but were in fact flesh and blood, his cheekbones high, his cheeks fleshless, his mouth a hard, uncompromising slash. And those eyes could be just as hard and uncompromising, as they had been the day he walked out of her life.

‘Peterson believes it’s a game we play,’ he drawled in a bored voice. ‘You’re the madly desirable woman and I’m the wicked abductor. Kinky, hm?’ he derided.

‘It’s sick!’ She dropped weakly into a chair, at last understanding the driver’s amusement at her predicament, heated colour flooding her cheeks at how well she had played the supposed game. The man must think she was a pervert!

‘Don’t look so worried, Whitney,’ Hawk mocked. ‘He assured me it wasn’t the most unusual request he’s received since he began his limousine service three years ago!’

‘Just one of them!’ she groaned her mortification.

‘Oh, I don’t know, the one about the sheikh who—–’

‘Hawk, I’m really not interested in the idiosyncrasies of an Arab too rich to have anything better to do than play ridiculous games!’

‘No, maybe not,’ he agreed slowly. ‘That one did go a bit far. I was only trying to show you that Peterson didn’t find anything unusual in our request—–’