‘No chance,’ he said. ‘With that cyclone brewing off the coast, I’m not risking the airport closing and getting stuck here on the island with no way off.’
‘I heard it’s changed direction and veered away. Please, let me work this one shift. And then I’ll come with you.’
Like hell she’d come with him. When she was no doubt already thinking of a plan to get away and continue her little escapade somewhere else.
She must have read the doubt in his eyes. ‘I’m not planning on running away again, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just don’t want to let my friends down. They were good enough to give me a job when I had no experience, and I won’t leave them in the lurch, just because you have an overblown sense of responsibility.’
He didn’t bother responding. She wasn’t going to listen anyway.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ she went on, trying to make him see reason and bend even just a little. ‘It’s just one more day. Where’s the problem with that?’
There was a problem. No, there were two. The first problem was that the Prince had been informed, and Theo would not risk losing the Princess. Not after she’d already embarrassed him and his firm by evading discovery for so long.
The second was more disturbing. There was something about the Princess—something that set alarm bells ringing under his skin. It was bad enough that she was attractive. But he didn’t need to know how well she felt in his arms. He knew she was a danger to him—someone he needed to keep his distance from. The sooner he was rid of her, the better.
The Princess was impatient for his reply. ‘Check out the weather radar if you don’t believe me. The island isn’t in the path of the storm.’
He didn’t answer. Simply turned away to stash his bag in his room.
‘Please,’ she said, chasing after him. ‘It’s important to me. Don’t make me let them down.’
He turned back on a sigh. ‘It’s not up for discussion, Princess. Now, how about you go upstairs and wash out whatever the hell that cacophony of colour is that you’ve got going on in your hair?’
Izzy was beyond frustrated. She stepped into the rainforest shower and tilted her head under the cascade of water. She didn’t need shampoo at first, the chalk washed freely from her hair, turning the floor of the shower stall into a crazy shifting kaleidoscope.
As the colour bleached away, Izzy felt like she was losing the identity she’d been so enjoying. The free-wheeling backpacker adventurer she’d been pretending to be was being washed away, and more and more it felt like she was being forced back into her previous life. The life of the Princess Isabella. Bound by protocols. Restricted by rules.
Sold to the highest bidder.
And her captor thought nothing of forcing her back to the hell-hole she’d escaped. And yet she was no minor who’d run off in a snit. She was an adult. And if there were rogue actors out there who were after her for their own gain, as he’d claimed, maybe it was preferable to risk her future with them. She’d successfully avoided her pursuers until now, and why shouldn’t she keep avoiding them? There was no safety awaiting her in Rubanestein.
It was clear she was going to have to come up with a new strategy. Dealing with Theo was like dealing with a block of granite. The man didn’t respond to reason—he had not one ounce of empathy in his entire body. He thought she was lying, he thought she was confecting her reason for running. He had clearly drunk her brother’s Kool-Aid. That, or he was being paid so much that his head wasn’t about to be turned. Whatever the reason, clearly, he wasn’t about to change his mind any time soon.
Which meant she had to up her game.
If she didn’t, she’d be on that plane to Sydney tomorrow and heading back to Rubanestein and a fate and a future she couldn’t bear. All she needed was a plan.
From the far edges of her mind random thoughts and possibilities drifted in and out of view, until like jigsaw pieces, some of them fitted together, forming a scheme that she would never before have considered, let alone dared. But these were extraordinary times. Desperate times. And as someone very wise a very long time ago said, desperate times called for desperate measures.
The only question was, was she brave enough to carry out her crazy plan?
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS Asummer trip to the beach, a rare escape from their landlocked village for Theo’s hard-working family. The sun shone in a sky of endless blue, the golden sand warm beneath their feet. Together the family built a sandcastle, decorating the walls with shells and digging a moat around it, along with a canal to let in the incoming waves.
Theo’s younger sister gave squeals of delight as every wave after wave flowed in, filling the moat surrounding their sandcastle, before draining back into the sea. And when that novelty wore off, Theo and his sister played in the shallows, following schools of tiny fish while their parents took a break under a tent set up on the shore.
It was a perfect summer day.
The change came almost imperceptibly at first. A subtle shift in the weather, the breeze changing direction and turning gusty, stirring gentle waves into whitecaps. Laughter from swimmers turned to whoops, some of delight, some of shock as the waves built.
Theo’s father was the first in their family to react. ‘Theo, Helena,’ he called, rising from his chair, ‘it’s time to come out.’
Theo agreed. They were still only in the shallows, but a sudden undertow was sucking at his legs. He turned to relay the message to his sister in case she hadn’t heard, when he saw a wave break behind her, knocking her off her feet and tumbling her into the wash.
‘Helena!’ he screamed, bracing himself against the crashing wave before surging through the water to reach his sister. Until just a moment before Helena had been a scant few feet away. But a few feet might well have been light years away. The sea was now a mess of white froth and tumbled sand, his sister nowhere to be seen. The next wave caught him unawares, sending him sprawling.
He felt something brush past his arm—Helena!—and he made a desperate lunge for her, but she slipped away, sucked in the backwash. He emerged, gasping from the water, catching a glimpse of his sister being dragged out.
