Cinderella: Hired by the Prince / The Sheikh's Destiny. Marion Lennox

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      ‘I thought you’d found foster parents for him.’

      ‘Yes, but…it seems wrong to send him away from the palace. What would Ramón do, do you think?’

      ‘I hardly think Prince Ramón will wish to be bothered with a child.’

      ‘No,’ Sofía said sadly. ‘Maybe you’re right. There are so many things Ramón will be bothered with now—how can he want a say in the future of a child he doesn’t know?’

      ‘He won’t. Send the child to foster parents.’

      ‘Yes,’ Sofía said sadly. ‘I don’t know how to raise a child myself. He’s had enough of hired nannies. I think it’s best for everyone.’

      Chapter Three

      THIS was really, really foolish. She was allowing an unknown Spaniard to pay her debts and sweep her off in his fabulous yacht to the other side of the world. She was so appalled at herself she couldn’t stop grinning.

      Watching Cathy’s face had been a highlight. ‘I can’t let you do it,’ she’d said in horror. ‘I know I joked about it but I never dreamed you’d take me seriously. You know nothing about him. This is awful.’

      And Jenny had nodded solemn agreement.

      ‘It is awful. If I turn up in some Arabic harem on the other side of the world it’s all your fault,’ she told her friend. ‘You pointed him out to me.’

      ‘No. Jenny, I never would have…No!’

      She’d chuckled and relented. ‘Okay, I won’t make you come and rescue me. I know this is a risk, my love, but honestly, he seems nice. I don’t think there’s a harem but even if there is…I’m a big girl and I take responsibility for my own decision. I know it’s playing with fire, but honestly, Cathy, you were right. I’m out of here any way I can.’

      And what a way! Sailing out of the harbour on board the Marquita with Ramón at the helm was like something out of a fairy tale.

      Fairy tales didn’t include scrubbing decks, though, she conceded ruefully. There was enough of reality to keep her grounded—or as grounded as one could be at sea. Six days later, Jenny was on her knees swishing a scrubbing brush like a true deckhand. They’d been visited by a flock of terns at dawn—possibly the last they’d see until they neared land again. She certainly hoped so. The deck was a mess.

      But making her feel a whole lot better about scrubbing was the fact that Ramón was on his knees scrubbing as well. That didn’t fit the fairy tale either. Knight on white charger scrubbing bird droppings? She glanced over and found he was watching her. He caught her grin and he grinned back.

      ‘Not exactly the romantic ideal of sailing into the sunset,’ he said, and it was so much what she’d been thinking that she laughed. She sat back on her heels, put her face up to the sun and soaked it in. The Marquita was on autopilot, safe enough in weather like this. There was a light breeze—enough to make Marquita slip gracefully through the water like a skier on a downhill run. On land it would be hot, but out here on the ocean it was just plain fabulous. Jenny was wearing shorts and T-shirt and nothing else. Her feet were bare, her hair was scrunched up in a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, her nose was white with sunscreen—and she was perfectly, gloriously happy.

      ‘You’re supposed to complain,’ Ramón said, watching her. ‘Any deckie I’ve ever employed would be complaining by now.’

      ‘What on earth would I be complaining about?’

      ‘Scrubbing, maybe?’

      ‘I’d scrub from here to China if I could stay on this boat,’ she said happily and then saw his expression and hastily changed her mind. ‘No. I didn’t mean that. You keep right on thinking I’m working hard for my money. But, honestly, you have the best job in the world, Ramón Cavellero, and I have the second best.’

      ‘I do, don’t I?’ he said, but his smile faded, and something about him said he had shadows too. Did she want to ask?

      Maybe not.

      She’d known Ramón for over a week now, and she’d learned a lot in that time. She’d learned he was a wonderful sailor, intuitive, clever and careful. He took no unnecessary risks, yet on the second night out there’d been a storm. A nervous sailor might have reefed in everything and sat it out. Ramón, however, had looked at the charts, altered his course and let the jib stay at full stretch. The Marquita had flown across the water with a speed Jenny found unbelievable, and when the dawn came and the storm abated they were maybe three hundred miles further towards New Zealand than they’d otherwise have been.

      She’d taken a turn at the wheel that night but she knew Ramón hadn’t slept. She’d been conscious of his shadowy presence below, aware of what the boat was doing, aware of how she was handling her. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but she was new crew and to sleep in such a storm while she had such responsibility might have been dangerous.

      His competence pleased her, as did the fact that he hadn’t told her he was checking on her. Lots of things about him pleased her, she admitted—but Ramón kept himself to himself. Any thoughts she may have had of being an addition to his harem were quickly squashed. Once they were at sea, he was reserved to the point of being aloof.

      ‘How long have you skippered this boat?’ she asked suddenly, getting back to scrubbing, not looking up. She was learning that he responded better that way, talking easily as they worked together. Once work stopped he retreated again into silence.

      ‘Ten years,’ he said.

      ‘Wow. You must have been at kindergarten when you were first employed.’

      ‘I got lucky,’ he said brusquely, and she thought, don’t go there. She’d asked a couple of things about the owner, and she’d learned quickly that was the way to stop a conversation dead.

      ‘So how many crews would you have employed in that time?’ she asked. And then she frowned down at what she was scrubbing. How on earth had the birds managed to soil under the rim of the forward hatch? She tried to imagine, and couldn’t.

      ‘How long’s a piece of string?’ Ramón said. ‘I get new people at every port.’

      ‘But you have me for a year.’

      ‘That’s right, I have,’ he said and she glanced up and caught a flash of something that might be satisfaction. She smiled and went back to scrubbing, unaccountably pleased.

      ‘That sounds like you liked my lunch time paella.’

      ‘I loved your lunch time paella. Where did you learn to cook something so magnificently Spanish?’

      ‘I’m part Spanish,’ she said and he stopped scrubbing and stared.

      ‘Spanish?’

      ‘Well, truthfully, I’m all Australian,’ she said, ‘but my father was Spanish. He moved to Australia when he met my mother. My mother’s mother was Spanish as well. Papà came as an adventuring young man. He contacted my grandmother as a family friend and the rest is history.

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