Free Riptide by Cherry Adair Page B

her eyes glittered with unshed tears. Yeah. He got that she was furious. But he saw too that she’d had some of the bravado scared out of her. There were dark bruises now marring her beautiful skin. He’d prefer to see her mad rather than terrorized. He suspected she had a temper and wondered, if not under these circumstances, under what circumstances she’d let it rip.
    Experiencing one of her tempers would probably be similar to being hit by a tsunami.
    His brothers teasingly referred to him as Spock. Emotionally detached. Unflappable. Extreme displays of emotion made Nick want to run, not walk, to the nearest exit. Always had. But right now, rather than have her sitting so still and withdrawn here on his bed with this dazed look in her eyes, he’d welcome her losing it.
    Cry. Scream. Anything .
    His control was bone-deep.
    The princess was hanging on to it tooth and nail with everything she had.
    “Start from the beginning.” He’d get a lot more detail from Halkias when he interrogated the deckhand—none too gently—later.
    “The guy passed me in the corridor.” She smoothed her hair back in a nervous tell. “At first I thought I knew him, he looked a little familiar.”
    That surprised him. So this was personal. In a way, that was a relief. A relief that she wasn’t involved with the Moroccans after all and he wouldn’t have to turn her over to his friends at T-FLAC who knew how to handle terrorists. “His name is Cappi Halkias.”
    She was already shaking her head gingerly. “I don’t know him, I just thought I did because he looked a little like my nail guy.”
    “What’s a nail guy?” Nick asked, puzzled.
    She held out a slender, lightly tanned hand and showed him her red nails, and the three woven gold bands on her middle finger. “The guy who does my nails.”
    He was more interested in the dark bruises marring the smooth skin of her forearm. She’d blocked a heavy blow. Several. “A manicurist?”
    “Manis and pedis, yes.” She paused, and added dryly, “The guy who attacked me isn’t my nail guy.”
    That she’d been injured on his watch infuriated him, but damn, he was unaccountably amused by her. He rolled his hand, motioning for her to get on with the story. Because amused by her or not, the situation wasn’t funny in the least.
    “I thought perhaps he was sick. He looked—”
    He waited a few beats, then prompted, “Looked?”
    She blinked, the distant glazed look in her eye refocusing. “Jumpy. Nervous. Sweaty.” She shrugged. “Odd I guess. I was going to ask if he needed help, but when I turned around he was gone. I presumed he’d gone into one of the cabins. I unlocked the door and he jumped out of nowhere. He hit me here.” She touched two fingers to the red mark on her temple. “I went flying. He grabbed me, wrestled me to the bed, jumped on top of me and tried to strangle me. That’s about it.”
    No, Nick thought with cold fury. That wasn’t it. He might not want Bria Visconti on board, but he was still responsible for her safety. “Do you need anything?” Other than the bruises, which were bad enough, she didn’t appear to have suffered any physical damage, but emotional damage was sometimes harder to recover from.
    Emotional damage was so far out of his comfort zone. He’d rather break the man’s face and call it good.
    She dropped her hand to her lap. “I suppose a bodyguard would be redundant now?”
    “Not unless more than one person has it in for you, Princess. The man’s locked up.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he added pointedly, “You should’ve brought your own guard with you.”
    She didn’t fight back. Not even with a look. Unaccountably, that worried him more than the bruises did. “I don’t have one anymore. I live in California and nobody cares about my pedigree as a princess of a small island nation when they have movie stars about.”
    A hint of fire flashed in her eyes as she added, “Has anyone told you just how