those few words lifted the hairs on the back of Anet’s neck. Automatically she glanced over her shoulder.
The man from the wharf now stood a few feet behind her, his narrowed gaze fixed on Georgia. Beneath thick black lashes his eyes gleamed turquoise, almost pure blue with just enough green to issue a challenge. But then his whole face dared you not to respond to its lean, ruthless good looks.
A sudden chill in Anet’s stomach expanded to a wintry emptiness. Struck by an intense and frightening foreboding that this man was going to have an impact on her life, she turned away, swallowed and said woodenly, ‘You heard the man, folks. He’s right, so slather on the stuff—and be generous.’
At that moment Scott came bounding up from his devotions over the engine. ‘Hi, Lucas,’ he said, beaming, although clearly surprised. ‘What are you doing here? No, don’t tell me now; I haven’t got time. Do you want to come out this morning?’
‘If you’ll have me,’ the stranger said. His New Zealand accent was barely noticeable, lost in the voice that proclaimed an assurance so deep-rooted it was probably encoded in his genes.
Anet, who had had to work very hard for her confidence, subdued a prickle of animosity.
Sure enough, Scott laughed. ‘There’s always room for you, you know that.’ He turned to Anet. ‘Everyone here?’
Trying to ignore the man whose presence she could feel, watchful, unmoving, almost elemental behind her, Anet said neutrally, ‘As soon as they’ve all put on their sunscreen we’ll be ready to go.’
Resigning herself to the inevitable, Georgia gave a slight, elegant shrug that spurned the bottle Anet proffered, and fished her own expensive brand from her smart bag. When a covert glance revealed that it was over SPF 15, Anet relaxed. The last thing she wanted was a parboiled tourist. Scott’s wife Serena, whose place she was taking on the diving vessel, had warned her that some people just wouldn’t accept how severe sunburn could be until they’d experienced the heat and intensity of the tropical sun.
‘And it is not good for business to dry-fry the customers,’ she’d said wryly. ‘You have to be tough, Annie; some of them are total idiots and will do everything they can to avoid putting it on.’
Like the beautiful Georgia, who was now applying lotion with a sinuous languor that made an erotic exercise of the business—an exercise revealing the many and varied charms of her slender body. Her absorption, her refusal to look once at the man who stood just behind Anet, made it more than obvious at whom she was aiming the whole little production.
It should have been amusing, perhaps rather—pathetic? It was not; in fact, it took all of Anet’s control to quell the sudden, sickening resentment that assailed her. She found herself understanding why her sister found Georgia so irritating.
‘Right,’ she said briskly when at last every revealed inch of the redhead’s honey-smooth skin had had cream smoothed into it with slow, sensual strokes, ‘we’re ready.’
And that was when Georgia stretched, only to slip as the boat lurched in the wash of one of the bigger tourist launches which had just taken off.
With a gasping, choked yelp she went over—fortunately on the lagoon side, not against the heavy, unforgiving piles of the wharf.
‘Look out!’ someone yelled in panicky, high-pitched tones.
Anet fixed her eyes on the cloud of brilliant red hair that bobbed up once before sinking too far down. Slim, pale arms flailed above the surface then disappeared. Without further thought Anet dived overboard, hoping, as the warm waters of the harbour closed around her like a benediction, that the woman was a better swimmer than she appeared to be.
And that the large, laden tourist launch stayed well out of the way.
Several strokes of her powerful arms took her to the floundering tourist, once more on the surface. One look at her face, distorted with genuine fear, convinced Anet that she was going to have to use a release hold. As soon as she got close enough she lifted her arm into the air.
When Georgia grabbed desperately at it with both hands Anet wrenched it down, and used the other woman’s brief confusion to hook her under the chin and kick strongly back towards the boat.
They were almost there when Georgia spluttered furiously, ‘All right. You can let me go now.’
Well, Anet thought wryly, Jan had stated often enough that what few manners Georgia possessed were invariably used as weapons; even allowing for the shock of that sudden immersion, it seemed Jan was right.
Anet released her, but shepherded her back to the diving platform at the stern of the boat. It had happened so quickly that Scott hadn’t yet got there; waiting for them instead was the big man who had, Anet was sure, inadvertently caused Georgia to lose her balance.
Anet could feel frustration and anger emanate from the elegant redhead. No doubt she felt she’d made a fool of herself. Then, so quickly that Anet gave a startled look ahead, the other woman’s resentment evaporated, her frown replaced by a faint, smug smile. Lucas Whatever-his-name-was was crouching on the dive platform, and, although Scott had arrived by the time they reached the boat, it was Lucas’s outstretched hand that Georgia grasped.
A powerful heave brought her up and into his arms, where she clung, shivering artistically. Against his lithe leanness she looked very small and fragile. Scott hovered, talking very fast, ignored by the other two.
Anet pulled herself onto the platform and stood upright, feeling her eyes widen beneath lowered lashes as she watched Lucas soothe the woman.
Lord, she thought hollowly, no wonder Georgia had lost her footing. He was gorgeous—like something out of a virgin’s fevered dreams of romance. That perfectly proportioned body was balanced by a face that could sink a thousand hearts. Not that he projected the sullen sultriness of a male model, with an appeal owing more to fashion than to aesthetics; this man’s beauty was elemental, the result of commanding bone structure backed by a potent, hard-honed magnetism.
And she, Anet realised grimly, was no more immune to that overwhelming combination of dangerous good looks and virile male authority than the woman in his embrace.
At that moment his head came up as swiftly as a predator scenting prey. When her glance met enigmatic turquoise eyes her pulse quickened, and a shuddery little chill tightened her skin.
All sensible thoughts stumbled to a halt; running a hand through her short black hair, she gave him a weak smile. His brows straightened, but then Scott, who apparently belonged to the school which believed that to be effective an apology should be repeated a hundred times, started again, and Lucas looked down again at Georgia, breaking off that moment of silent, almost subliminal communication with a merciless lack of interest.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Scott babbled. ‘Terribly sorry. That should never have happened—’
‘It’s perfectly all right,’ Georgia interrupted graciously, smiling. ‘I’ll be fine as soon as I’m dry.’
Furious with herself, Anet jerked open a locker and got a towel, offering it to her. It was greeted with a dubious frown.
‘I have one of my own, thank you,’ Georgia said, looking past Lucas’s broad shoulder to her slightly less glamorous friend, who, with eyes fixed on Lucas’s face, held out a bag.
Reluctantly, the redhead stepped away from Lucas and drew out a hotel towel, saying to Scott, ‘It was my fault—I just slipped when that other boat went past us. So clumsy.’ Looking at Anet, she finished sweetly, ‘Don’t tell Jan, will you, or I’ll never hear the last of it. Thank you for coming for me—I’m really quite a good swimmer, but you were certainly quick off the mark.’
Clever, Anet thought judiciously. In two sentences she’d managed to imply both that Jan was a harridan and that any fool should have seen that she was capable of saving herself—and her last comment had hinted at a certain surprise that someone as big as Anet could move fast. Probably she had hoped that Lucas would rescue