Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

Her mother, her companion in the trenches, understood her motivation for upsetting the family wheelhouse and cared little for what gossip surrounded her daughter. Their relationship was close and open and far too strong to be shaken by rumor. But her behavior could still impact the way her mother was treated in society, whom she was allowed to see, what services she could solicit. Hel knew her mother would say it saved her from frequenting with fools, but hearing that her mother had been denied an appointment at her salon after Helene joined the royal guard had triggered the protective response that years of living with her father had developed in her. She wouldn’t do anything that might limit her mother’s hard-earned freedom.

So rather than seek backup, Hel stayed her course, nearly to the spot that she and her cousin had named The Leap of Death.

They’d discovered it when they were eleven, once again illicitly exploring the ducal palace’s roof.

“If you jump from here you would land in the deep pool,” Zayn had said with a frown on his face, the one young Helene recognized as his figuring face. She’d looked, gauged the necessary arch, then given him a wide grin. He’d shaken his head. She’d taken a running start and jumped.

He’d been right. Thankfully.

After that, The Leap of Death had become the preferred method of testing the mettle of each and every educator and mentor assigned to bring them to heel. With the exception of one, none had realized the jump was safe until their charges returned hours later.

Hel was banking on the phenomenon that watching her leap to her death at sea would have the same demoralizing effect on the man chasing her as it had on so many of her would-be educators.

Meanwhile, she could swim into the natural caves, then take the path back up to the palace and figure out who in the hell the guy was. And she could do it with pants on.

She made the final turn on the roof, a sharp left that angled her toward the sunrise balconies—it was the turn that would lead her to the leap.

The man remained close on her heels.

Abruptly, she sprang off the beam, her body arching into a perfect dive, her blood singing a thrilling song she hadn’t heard in too long.

Blood rushed in her ears as she angled toward the water, her body lighting to the experience like a long-lost friend.

Laughter bubbled out of her underwater.

She needed to do this more often.

She’d entered the water as slick as a seal, her momentum taking her another thirty yards before she surfaced.

Breathing heavily, she looked up at the corner of the roof she had jumped from, taken, as always, by how small and far away it looked. Her pursuer was nowhere to be seen. A wide grin spread across her face. The Leap of Death had come through once again.

She set a leisurely pace swimming back toward the caves, entering their shadowed depths quietly, her feet appreciating the cool and cleansing sting of the salt water after running through the broken glass.

And then she heard the sound of something large landing in the water.

Spinning around, she treaded water as she squinted in the direction of the sound. For a moment, all she saw was gently waving sea.

Then he surfaced.

She turned back to the cave, swimming furiously now, but he cut through the water behind her like some kind of sinister merman.

As she pushed deeper into the cave, a large shape took form, and she stopped in her swim. Once again treading water, her gasp was magnified and echoed by the curvature of the cave’s walls.

There was a ship anchored in the cave.

Masculine laughter broke out behind her, swirling around her, surrounding her in the high-ceilinged space.

Mere feet separated them in the water. She considered her next move. There was no way she could outswim him. She sensed it without a doubt, not needing to test the hypothesis.

There was something about him, his aura somehow half sea creature. Or maybe it was the fact that he seemed completely at one with the water, despite the fact that he swam in soaking-wet formal wear.

Of course, even against impossible odds, it never hurt to try.

Darting away from him, she put all her energy into speed and zoomed with a mad burst through the water.

And it worked. Shooting yards ahead of him, she felt the exhilaration of defeating a worthy opponent. It was certainly a better way to spend her father’s birthday than pretending to love and honor him.

At that moment, the strength of her surge circled back to bite her. Swimming with enough speed to retain her lead required her full power, all of her energy driving ahead...straight into a tangle of net.

Caught in thoughts and swimming through churning waters, she’d missed it, floating in the water ahead of her.

Her momentum sent her into the net in a tangle of limbs before the heavy waterlogged ropes, now knotted around, began to drag her below the surface. She struggled, but only tangled herself further.

He was on her in seconds, securing her around the waist with the iron band of his arm. He was treading water while untangling the ropes from her limbs with the other arm.

The water was his ally, accepting him as one of its own while he worked smoothly, as if they weren’t bobbing in a cove.

Smoothly, until the palace alarm sounded above them.

Her absence had been noted.

Cursing under his breath, he made quick work of the last of the grasping ropes before pulling them with fast strokes toward the ship.

“None of this is going according to my plan.” He sounded like a weary grandfather.

She ignored him, aiming for a casual tone, though it was strained. “At least this answers how you got in.”

The whole experience was turning out to be enough to throw her off balance. It wasn’t every day a handsome stranger