No one was laughing now, Amber noticed.
Chapter One
He noticed the girl right away.At every port, there were managed crew changes, but this one was different from his usual recruits.Young and curious, the leggy girl was not the type of savvy help that generally peopled his yacht.He called his purser aside.“Tell me?”
“The girl?She comes with impeccable references and an interesting CV.I sent a file through to you.Bright kid.Scholarship to a top school.Chose the army over university.Selected for Special Ops training, which she completed successfully.When she left the forces, she turned up as a trainee journalist atHard News.”
“An interesting career path.”Alexei’s brow lifted as he turned a level stare on his purser.
His man smiled faintly and inclined his head.“I thought she might prove useful in the next part of our expansion.”
“We can test her out,” Alexei agreed.
“On the practical front, she can help in the kitchen, act as stewardess, and I thought she looked presentable.”
More than, Alexei thought as the slender redhead viewed his superyacht in awe before sliding her bulky rucksack from her back in preparation for passing through security prior to boarding.Tiny shorts with frayed edges, cut from a pair of jeans, were the perfect foil for her long legs.Her backside was just the right size for his hands.Her waist was slim.Her breasts were pert, up-tilted, and almost certainly the real deal.A jumble of faded T-shirt and a fringed scarf thrown untidily around her neck completed the picture.She’d look sensational in a red silk dress, split to the waist, or a bikini of his choosing.Better still, naked.
“What does she know about us?”he asked as he watched her come aboard.
“Nothing more than the usual gossip.I thought it better to use the organic method of induction.”
“I’m good with that,” Alexei agreed.
“On the practical front, we’re shorthanded, Alexei.If nothing else, she can fulfill her shipboard duties.She’s signed the usual confidentiality agreement, and we can always put her off at the next port.”
“I’ll interview her.Bring her up to my study.”
“Of course, Alexei.”
Saluting as he would have done when they were both in Special Forces, the purser, once a lieutenant in the elite force where Alexei had served as his commanding officer, left the bridge to summon the new recruit.
“Alexei Riga wants to see me?”This opportunity to meet the man who had glowered at her from the screen in London had come much sooner than Amber had expected.She had barely had time to familiarize herself with her new quarters, let alone prepare herself for interview.
“Yes, ma’am, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Her heart was beating in double time as she studied the man in officer’s whites.He looked battle ready rather than like a purser working for a billionaire on his superyacht.
“Ma’am?”
“Coming.”After dropping her bag on her bunk, she tugged off her scarf, straightened her clothes, and prepared to follow him.
Another image stuck in Amber’s mind as they jogged up the companionway leading from the crew quarters in the bowels of the ship to the main part of the yacht, and it wasn’t the comparatively tame image of Alexei Riga she’d seen in London, but the flesh-and-blood man who’d stood watching as she’d boarded.Naked to the waist in cut-offs that left very little to her imagination, with a towel slung around his neck, still gleaming from his swim, Alexei Riga was hot, hard, and assault ready like his yacht.She’d done her homework and knew thatRussian Thunderwas faster than boats half its size.Boasting a knifelike prow and a rounded hull that made it almost impossible to board, drones and two satellites monitored its every move as well as the movements of other craft within a phenomenal radius.There were cameras and motion detectors on deck, as well as a night-vision system, providing a battalion of eyes.Two helicopters squatted menacingly on the top deck, while a submarine and twin landing boats that were mini superyachts in themselves were housed on one of the lower decks, and the entire floating fiefdom was protected by a missile defense system and bombproof glass.What type of man commanded that?
An ineffectual and pretentious billionaire, as suggested by one of Amber’s colleagues?
She didn’t think so.Alexei Riga’s superyacht was equipped to serve a small army, which was what she suspected it did.
The officer escorting her used iris recognition to open a door leading to a different part of the ship.“Have I done something wrong?”she asked as he held the door to let her through.
“Come with me, please.”
Mr.Chatty wouldn’t tell her anything, Amber concluded.She was growing nervous at the thought of meeting Alexei Riga face-to-face.She’d never imagined a man who carried such a potent sexual charge, let alone met one in the flesh.She might have other useful skills, but sexual technology wasn’t one of her qualifications, and rumors abounded where the founding member of the Blood and Thunder polo team was concerned.
This felt more like a walk to the gallows than to an interview with the elusive owner of the superyacht, Amber thought as she passed more hard-faced crew members, who treated her as if she were invisible.She was escorted into an elevator in the same tense silence and taken to an even higher deck, where the air, to Amber’s overworked imagination, appeared to be scented with an equal mix of wealth and ozone.The honeyed teak of the lower decks gave way to a thick, sound-absorbing carpet, and all the soft furnishings were white.Not yellowing white, or dusty white, or, heaven forefend, grubby white; this was the world of white perfection, the world of order and control.
Since when did Russian oligarchs with more money than Croesus interview lowly members of staff?Chills raced up and down her spine as she caught sight of herself in one of the many crystal-framed mirrors, prompting her to change the walk-to-the-gallows metaphor to that of lamb to the slaughter.
The next door opened onto an area that lifted her spirits.It was a surprisingly airy salon where Scandinavian minimalism predominated.Vivid acrylics on canvas enlivened the restrained décor with action scenes from polo matches, but even that wasn’t enough to stifle her apprehension as Mr.Chatty led the way to a highly polished door, where he knocked discreetly.
