Page 4 of Depths of Desire
I grin. “What? You think I’m worried you are going to tell the police that I killed that guy?” I shake my head. “Luna, I can provide twenty witnesses who will say I was somewhere else when all this happened. I’m not worried about you getting me arrested, but I am curious why you’re here.”
She glances over her shoulder, and I know instantly that she’s going to make a break for the door. “Don’t run, Luna. You won’t make it. I will catch you and, quite frankly, I’m not in the mood. Just tell me why you are here.”
“I…it’s not important. Can you just forget you saw me?”
Her brown eyes are wide with fear, but also something else. Determination?
I cross my arms over my chest. “I can’t do that. You tell me why you’re on this tub, and then I’ll decide whether I’ve seen you or not.”
She licks her lips again, and I follow her tongue with my gaze. Luna has always appealed to me in ways I cannot understand. With both of my brothers married to her two best friends, thelast thing I want to do is get mixed up with her in any way, but if I leave her here and something happens to her, it will be on me.
“You were either meeting someone to pick something up or drop something off. There’s no other reason for you to be here. So, what’s the cargo? Are you doing some business for your father?”
“Um…yes. He asked me to do a deal for him, but I got…distracted, and now the ship left port. I ran into that guy”—she tips her head toward the railing—“when I was searching for…” Her heart rate ratcheted higher the more she spoke. I didn’t need to witness the pulse pounding in her throat. The erratic thumps were audible over the noise of the ship. To me, anyway.
“Lying to me isn’t going to work. I can tell.”
She shivers. “I’m not lying.”
“Luna, really, I don’t have time for this. We both know your father would never send you to conduct business for him. He’s way too old-fashioned for that. Besides, if he’s doing business on this ship, then it’s a problem for me. So you need to tell me why you are on board… Right. Now.”
She takes another step backward. “It’s nothing. Won’t interfere in your stuff at all.” Her voice is wobbly and adrenaline is flowing through her veins. The sound of footsteps reaches me. Someone is coming. They are approaching the metal door next to us. Two someones. “We have to go, people are coming,” I say as I reach out and grab her. I moved her down the catwalk so fast that her feet barely touch the metal. We’re through the door and moving down an interior passageway before she can respond.
“Where are you taking me?” she blurts out.
“That depends,” I say. “What are you doing here?” Once again, the sound of humans coming in our direction distracts me, and I hustle Luna into a stairwell and drag her a couple of floors up. Then we’re bursting out into a hallway. She frowns but suddenly shakes off my arm and starts walking with purpose.Two turns later, we’re in front of a door she unlocks. We step inside, and she quickly closes it and engages the lock. She leans against the bulkhead, her expression still wary.
I take in the room and then capture her gaze. “You were running away,” I say. “Making your grand escape.”
Mutely, she folds her arms over her chest and glares at me. “You need to forget you ever saw me.”
I make a non-committal sound in my throat. “And how am I going to do that when you’re right in front of me?”
She rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. You just go about your business and forget we ever bumped into each other. I won’t say anything about you…and that guy, and you don’t say anything about seeing me.” She offered her hand. “Do we have a deal?”
I take her hand in mine. It’s tiny by comparison. I give a tug that she wasn’t ready for, and she falls against my chest. I trap her in my arms. Her breathing quickens as she meets my gaze.
I smile. “You seem to be forgetting that we’re on a cargo ship in the middle of the Ligurian Sea. We’re stuck here together for the next twelve days.”
CHAPTER THREE
My heart slams painfully against my sternum. I’m sure Nico can feel the wild rhythm in his chest. His eyes bore into mine, and I couldn’t seem to breathe. Can’t even think. "I saw you fall,” I blurt out. “There's no way you should be standing here right now. You fell at least two stories—you landed on metal." My breath catches. "No one survives that."
Nico releases me, and I stumble backward to bang into the wall. He leans against the door with infuriating nonchalance, arms crossed over his broad chest. A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, as if my panic amuses him. "I have a certain set of skills," he says smoothly.
I snort. "Who are you? Liam Neeson?"
His smirk deepens. "You could say that."
A shiver runs down my spine, a mix of unease and something dangerously close to intrigued. "And your ‘specific set of skills’ lets you survive a fall that should have turned you into a pile of broken bones?"
"Essentially, yes. It does."
I shake my head, my hands curling into fists. "I don’t believe you."
Nico shrugs, utterly indifferent. "Whether you believe me or not, it’s true."
I stare at him, my pulse pounding. If it’s true, then that means… There’s no way. I refuse to believe that because it would have too many implications, and I can’t get my brain around even a fraction of them.
