Man Overboard. Karen Leabo

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ mother fascinated him. Had she come on this cruise solely to protect Aurora from male predators like the cad she thought him to be?

      He followed Paige to the railing, where she paused to look out over the inky blue water. Taking up a position beside her, he said, “If you’re trying to prevent your aunt from marrying another loser, you have nothing to fear from me. I find her charming, but I have no intention of marrying anyone, not in this century.”

      Paige tilted her head and looked at him skeptically through slitted green eyes. “So you’d rather use her and drop her? Oh, that’s reassuring.”

      “What makes you so sure I intend to ‘use her,’ as you so delicately put it? Couldn’t I just enjoy her company?”

      “If that’s all you’re after, you would be an unusual man indeed, certainly for Aurora,” Paige said. Her head was lowered, her face hidden from view by the wide brim of her ridiculous hat.

      Wanting to see her face, and those incredible green eyes, he impulsively pulled the hat off her head. She looked up suddenly, surprise and confusion warring on her expressive face.

      “Who gave you such a low opinion of men, Paige Stovall?” he asked. When she looked away, refusing to meet his gaze, he touched her chin and gently drew her face toward him again.

      “I’m just a realist,” she countered. “When a man approaches a woman, he has one of only two things on his mind.”

      “Is that so? Which do I have on my mind right now?”

      She stared at him, her eyes wide with surprise, and for a moment he worried that she really could read the less-than-pure thoughts in his head.

      “I don’t know, and I don’t really care,” she finally answered, grabbing her hat from him and jamming it on her head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to my room.”

      “I’ll walk with you,” he said affably, despite the withering dismissal she’d just given him.

      “That won’t be necessary.”

      “But I promised Aurora I’d see you safely back to your cabin. She was worried about you. Umm, the elevators are this way,” he added when Paige took a wrong turn.

      “How do you already know so much about the ship?” she asked, accepting his company for the moment, the way someone accepts taxes and junk mail. “I thought this was your first cruise.”

      “The Mermaid people invited me aboard a day early, so I could observe the cruise preparations. It seems to be a very efficient operation.”

      “Then why do they need your money?” Paige asked as she and Harrison stepped aboard the elevator.

      “Expansion takes capital. Mermaid wants to build a new ship. I’m looking for a way to shelter some of my income for the next couple of years.” He hoped she didn’t delve any deeper than that into his supposed background. His knowledge of the world of high finance was abstract at best.

      Besides, he really hated lying, even if lying was a part of his job. Paige already had a less than sterling opinion of him. He didn’t like giving her more fuel. In fact, he found himself wanting to convince her that there were honorable men on this earth, men who were after more than sex, money and power. He wanted to prove to her that he was just such a man, a man who could value a woman’s intelligence as well as her body, one who enjoyed quiet walks in the moonlight as much as a night of mindless passion in bed.

      But he could hardly prove that to her when it wasn’t entirely true. When it came to Aurora, he might not have money or sex on his mind, but he did have an angle, a self-serving angle. And when Paige discovered he wanted to put her mother in jail, he wasn’t likely to climb in her estimation.

      When he and Paige arrived at the door to her cabin, she had to fish around in her handbag for the pass card. Harrison leaned one shoulder against the door frame and folded his arms.

      “You could at least give me the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “I might not be the ideal match for Aurora, but with me hanging around, she won’t have time to take up with someone even worse than me. That is what you’re worried about, right?”

      Paige seemed to consider his words. “If you and Aurora want to spend time together, there’s not much I can do about it. And I suppose she could do worse than to fall for some wealthy financier—if that’s what you are. But just remember this—I’ll be watching. And if I find out you’re not who you say you are, I’ll show no mercy.” She shoved the magnetic card into the slot and jerked it out, then tried the door. It didn’t open.

      “You did it too fast,” Harrison said.

      “I know how to open a door,” she said impatiently as she repeated the procedure. This time she got the flashing green light, opened the door, stepped inside and closed it again—firmly.

      Harrison felt a pang of guilt, and he had to remind himself again that this was all part of his job. He was being paid to catch a jewel thief. But it seemed grossly unfair that the thief’s innocent daughter would be hurt in the process.

      On the other side of the thin door, Paige held her breath until she was sure Harrison was gone and then released a long, tension-filled sigh. The nerve of that man, hitting on two women at the same time.

      Well, okay, Paige conceded, he hadn’t really been hitting on her. But she’d had this vague but undeniable feeling that something had been going on between them, something sort of...sexual.

      Or maybe she was imagining things. As Aurora so often and annoyingly pointed out, Paige was no expert when it came to men and their baffling ways. Maybe it was only wishful thinking on her part that a wealthy, good-looking man like Harrison Powell would take any interest in an ordinary hospital dietitian like her.

      She threw the silly navy hat onto her bed, then followed it, sitting gingerly on the mattress and leaning her head against the wall. How was she going to keep Aurora from making a fool of herself over this guy? And did she really want to? Harrison had made a valid point when he’d said that, so long as he kept Aurora interested, she wouldn’t have time to fall in love with an even worse prospect.

      An insidious, nasty thought worked its way into Paige’s consciousness. There was one way she might be able to keep Aurora and Harrison apart, and that was to throw herself at Harrison. For her it would be only a meaningless shipboard romance, and through her efforts she might just keep Aurora from walking down the aisle a fifth time. Despite Harrison’s reassurances that he didn’t have marriage on his mind, he might yet fall victim to Aurora’s charisma.

      Nice try, she told herself, attempting unsuccessfully to tamp down her bubbling self-disgust. If Harrison had the slightest interest in her—and that was a big if—it was inexcusable of her to even think of stealing the man her mother had her eye on. And if the very idea weren’t laughable, such a despicable act was not the way to bolster her ego and assuage the five-year-old hurt of Curtis Rittenour’s defection.

      * * *

      When Aurora finally returned from the cocktail party—half-looped, in Paige’s estimation—she solicitously asked after Paige’s headache. Paige resisted the urge to snap, since Aurora had done nothing wrong per se, and gave a noncommittal reply.

      “You’ll feel better once you eat some real food,” Aurora soothed. “I heard there’s shark on СКАЧАТЬ