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

“I assume that’s your ship?” she asked, as if the answer was of no importance.

He laughed, the sound once again echoing in the chamber of the cave, but said nothing.

They were nearly to the hanging rope ladder that would carry them onto the ship. She was exhausted, with welts beginning to form on her skin from her bout with the fishing net, and she blamed it on the dress.

If she hadn’t been wearing a dress, they wouldn’t have even made it to the harbor. She would have easily subdued the mesmerizing man in the family courtyard, learned what he wanted and ended the day nestled snugly in her childhood bed. It was becoming clearer and clearer to her that he had never intended to kidnap her, and that, as he carried them up the ladder with a slight huff to his breath and a new, more serious intensity now that the alarm had sounded, it might have actually made things more inconvenient for him.

Pondering all of this meant she didn’t fight as he scaled the rope ladder with one arm and climbed aboard, his other arm holding her all the while.

Men and women of assorted shapes and sizes milled about on the deck, but no one seemed to bat an eye as he carried Hel aboard. A few even paused in what they were doing to wave and nod in greeting.

He acknowledged them with the briefest nod en route to wherever they were going.

The cabin he took her into was like walking into a Moroccan library—bright, airy and warm, with blindingly white walls lined with sleek bookshelves made from a honey-colored wood and large-sized porticos and skylights that drenched the room with sunbeams. It was utterly masculine, with its streamlined, low-profile decor, with soft, low-profile furniture, and each and every surface bare and clean enough to eat from. Each bookshelf was quite full and had a small lip. The lip, she presumed, was to keep the books where they were meant to be in the event of turbulent seas. The immense collection, she presumed, was for show, though the tradition was to pretend otherwise. In her lifetime, Hel had observed that men of action were rarely readers. Readers spent their evenings at home, not out at sea.

Yet, looking closer, she noticed signs of wear and tear—and not light—marking each volume: cracked spines, slightly bent covers, warped lines.

His books had not just been read. They’d been loved soft.

Despite the utter maleness of the room, no one would have called the space sterile or aggressive. Instead, it was warm and natural. Rich, vibrant-hued upholstery—goldenrod-yellow suede leather for the accent chair and deep burgundy silk for the matching sofa—and the woven wool throw pillows made the room homey. At their feet was a handwoven rug in a black-and-white Berber style on gleaming hardwood whose honey tones matched the bookshelves. Centered on the rug was a large, single-slab driftwood table, three inches thick and gleaming in the room’s natural lighting, unabashedly gorgeous in all its Technicolor wood-grain glory.

So unless she was mistaken and this was not the wealthiest vessel she’d ever stumbled upon, the absolute lap of luxury, boasting subtle features here and there that even an aristocrat like herself might have trouble getting her hands on, this man was not hurting for cash.

Beneath the room’s warmth, however, were signs she was dealing with a professional.

Surveillance cameras whispered in the corners of the room and there were items cleverly designed to look like pieces of the room that she was certain were weapons—a bookend, the unique detachable legs of a globe stand and an evil eye that hung on a long slender cord that she would have called a garret, if it hadn’t been attached to one of the few pieces of decor in the cabin. There was a safe camouflaged among the books. It was one of the best jobs Hel had ever seen.

The man had money, a ship and he was paranoid. Putting the three things together, she could come to just one conclusion.

He was a pirate.

Hel had been kidnapped by pirates.

But why would a pirate kidnap her? Tierrza, her estate, was a port, but she didn’t have any problems with pirates. They’d never truly had pirates, just smugglers, and her ancestors had dealt with them long ago.

But modern pirates still plagued the Mediterranean.

Just not usually Cyrano.

Hel quirked her lips, the private joke sliding across her mind that it was a sign her cousin, King Zayn, was succeeding in putting their island nation on the map. The fact that she was once again the one making jokes, even if just privately and in her mind, felt like a sign she’d only momentarily lost her groove—a brief blip in what was otherwise a perfect record.

Well, no one would really ever call her record perfect, but she was a damn good guard.

“Are you done with your tour? Forgive me if not, it just seemed like you had moved on.” His voice was dry, filled with a joke just for him, leaving Hel with the strangest sense of being left out...and caring about it.

Hel’s eyes narrowed, but she was determined to meet him head-on, even if she was barely clothed. “It’s all right, some nice stuff in here, but it’s just one room.” She paused and looked around again, exaggerating the whole thing, then added with a disappointed frown, “And it’s kind of small.”

He let out a bark of laughter and she started, the sound entrancing her momentarily, a real-life version of the Pied Piper’s flute. “Size doesn’t matter, it’s the motion of the ocean.” His eyes laughed as he delivered the line with no shame, his open palm gesturing at the open sea around them through the porticos.

Hel forced herself to look away, following the path of his hand to stare hard at the water and grumbled, “That’s not the ocean.”

She didn’t know what was wrong with