by Pennza, Amy
“Having a woman like that by your side can make all the difference in a campaign.” Lopez’s eyes took on a faraway look. “I never ran for office, but I credit my wife with helping me build a successful business.”
This was the first Juan heard of Lopez being married. “My apologies, Ernesto. I don’t believe I’ve met your wife.”
“Late wife,” Lopez said, a small, sentimental smile on his lips. “She passed about ten years ago.”
Catalina came back to the table. She set a glass before Juan, then went to Lopez’s side and handed him his drink. A mix of surprise and sympathy crossed her face. She settled next to Lopez and put a hand on his arm. “You must miss her,” she said softly.
He patted her hand. “Of course, of course.” He was silent a moment, then he gestured around the patio. “I named this island for her, you see. She loved butterflies.”
Catalina smiled—a genuine smile that shone in her eyes. “It’s a lovely name.”
“I named my new yacht for her, too. La Mariposa.” He looked between Juan and Catalina. Then he slapped the table, as if he just reached an important decision. “You must come see it.”
Juan paused with his drink halfway to his mouth. “Right now?”
“Of course, right now.” Lopez stood and offered a hand to Catalina. “It’s docked here by the house.”
She glanced at Juan. “I don’t know…”
“Come now, Catalina,” Lopez said. “Humor an old man.” He shot Juan a conspiratorial look. “Help your husband win this election, and he just might buy you one, hey?”
Damn. In one breath, Lopez had managed to tug on Catalina’s heartstrings and remind Juan of his financial support.
Catalina met his gaze, the message in her eyes clear. Welcome to the world of politics…
Lopez turned his attention to Juan. “Tell your wife it’s okay, Juan. We’ll be gone twenty, thirty minutes, tops.”
Juan forced a smile. “Twenty minutes?”
“Twenty minutes.” Lopez raised a thick-fingered hand in salute. “You have my word.”
* * *
An hour later, Juan stood on the bow of an eighty-foot luxury yacht, Lopez’s voice and Catalina’s soft laughter drifting through the bridge’s open windows as Lopez maneuvered the boat through the choppy waters off the Gulf of Mexico.
What had started out as a “quick tour” had turned into a goddamn deep-sea exploration. First, Lopez insisted on showing Catalina he could pilot the yacht without a crew. Then he wanted her to see the island from a distance.
Now they were so far out, the island’s lights were no longer visible. They were surrounded by black water on all sides. Overhead, a starless night sky spread like an inky blanket. There wasn’t so much as a buoy to signal that civilization was nearby.
Still, the yacht’s engine thrummed in a quiet purr, carrying them farther into the open water. Lopez gave a low chuckle, and Juan looked over his shoulder.
Through the bridge’s slanted windows, Lopez sat in the captain’s chair, a drink in his hand. He’d removed his tie and jacket, and his shirt gaped at his neck. Catalina stood at his side, one arm draped over his shoulder as he pointed out something on the yacht’s instrument panel. Lopez made a comment, and she laughed and gave his shoulder a playful slap. Bent as she was, the tops of her breasts were soft, tempting swells that dared a man to look.
Lopez looked.
Juan cursed and strode to the bridge, skirting a line of plush lounge chairs as he went. The yacht lurched, and he stumbled, catching himself just before he lost his footing and crashed onto a lounger. He steadied himself against a railing.
Inside the bridge, Lopez and Catalina continued their banter, oblivious to his near miss. “And this,” Lopez said, gesturing to an unseen item on the panel, “es bueno, no?”
Catalina smiled and leaned more heavily on his shoulder. Putting her mouth near his ear, she said, “You know, Don Ernesto, in Venezuela we say chévere.”
“Ah, sí?” Lopez sat back and put a light hand on her hip. “What was it, again?”
Lips curved in a sultry smile, she bent until their cheeks nearly touched. “Chever-aye.”
Juan’s chest grew tight. What the hell was she playing at? He went to the door, yanking it open with more force than necessary.
Catalina straightened. “Juan!” As soon as she got a good look at his face, she frowned. “Is something wrong?”
Lopez set down his drink and swiveled his chair toward Juan. “Seasick? I’ve got some patches that work wonders.”
“I’m not seasick.” The denial came out harsher than Juan intended, and he modified his tone. “Thank you, Ernesto. I’d just like to head back, if you don’t mind.”
Lopez held his gaze a moment, then nodded and swung to the panel of flat screen monitors. “No problem. I just need to slow down before we turn.” He punched a few buttons, and the yacht’s engines filled the bridge with a low, powerful hum.
Over his shoulder, Catalina hesitated, then crossed to Juan, worry plain in her eyes. She touched his arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
He glanced at her fingers on his sleeve. “I’m fine,” he said, uncaring if he sounded cold or abrupt. “I’ll be on the deck.” He turned toward the door.
“Wait.” She gripped his jacket. When he turned back, her gaze was uncertain. “Should I come with you?”
“No need.” He smiled and jerked his chin toward Lopez. “Enjoy the trip back with your new pana.”
Her nostrils flared at his use of the common Venezuelan slang for “buddy.”
“You—”
A wrenching, high-pitched squeal split the air, and the yacht pitched forward. Catalina gasped and would have fallen, but Juan caught her. Instinct kicked in, and he grabbed a nearby hold bar. He wrapped his free arm around her shoulders before her momentum sent them both crashing through the door.
Lopez caught himself against the instrument panel, the violent upheaval almost unseating him.
The horrible squealing ceased, and the bridge went silent.
Juan set Catalina away from him and gripped her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Y-yes.” She brushed hair from her face with a shaking hand. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” He took her hand and placed it on the hold bar. “Don’t move.”
For once, she didn’t argue. Blue eyes huge in her face, she nodded, her hand wrapped tight around the bar.
Juan went to Lopez’s side. “What is it?”
The little man’s brow furrowed as he fiddled with the controls. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his breaths were labored. “I don’t know… The engines are down.”
“Both of them?”
Lopez shot him an irritated glance. “Yes.” He swiped at the moisture on his forehead. “It’s probably just air in the fuel lines.” He stood and brushed past Juan. “I need to check something,” he said as he headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
Without stopping, Lopez half turned and spoke over his shoulder. “The engine room.” He was out the door and halfway across the deck before Juan could say anything else.
Juan peered through the windows. Outside, Lopez wrenched open a recessed panel mounted near the deck’s bar area. A second later, there was an electronic whir, and a section of the decking lifted into the air, revealing a set of stairs that led to some kind of below-deck room. Lopez waited until the whirring stopped, then disappeared down the steps.
Catalina came to his side, the captain’s chair between them. She cast a worried look over the opening in the decking. “Should you go help him?”
And do what, exactly? He knew next to nothing about boats, let alone fixing their engines. Hopefully Lopez did. As Juan gazed out the window, he muttered, “The only help we need is a crew and a real captain.”
“What do you mean? Ernesto is the captain.”
All the aggravations Juan had smothered over the past hour flared back to life. He faced her. “Ernesto
is a hedge fund investor. This is an eighty-foot yacht. Only an idiot takes something this size onto the water without a full crew.”
Catalina’s brows snapped together. “Why are you yelling at me about this?”
“I’m not yelling.”
“Fine.” She folded her arms. “You’re speaking in an angry manner. Is that better?”
He gripped the back of the captain’s chair. “You could say I’m angry about being stuck in the middle of a goddamn ocean at close to midnight, yeah.”
“Once again, not my fault.”
“I don’t know,” he said, sarcasm thick in his voice. “Lopez seemed pretty distracted in here.”
If she frowned any harder, she was going to make a permanent wrinkle in her forehead. “What are you talking about?”
Was she really going to play dumb about this? He held her stare, trying to decide if her confusion was genuine. After a second, he released the chair, setting it spinning in a fast circle. “I think you know, Catalina.”
She watched the chair for a second, then grabbed the back, stilling its movement as if the rotation irritated her. “You forced me to come with you tonight.” Her voice rose. “I got Lopez to back your campaign. And now you’re angry about it?”
He glanced out the window. “Keep your voice down.” Lopez knew damn well why Juan agreed to the dinner. That didn’t mean Catalina needed to shout it from the rooftop. Or the bow.
Whatever the fuck it’s called.
“Why?” Her eyes flashed. “Five million isn’t good enough?”
“The donation isn’t the problem, Catalina,” he said, talking over the growl that threatened to burst from his throat. “Just the way you went about getting it.”
Her lips parted on an angry gasp. “By talking?”
“You were doing a lot more than talking.” An image of her laughing at Lopez during dinner flashed in his mind, followed by one of her smiling as she murmured in his ear. “You were hanging all over him.”
She rounded the captain’s chair. “You’re joking, right?” She studied him, then put her hands on her hips and let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You’re not joking.”
If he was smart, he’d walk away—maybe go outside and see if he could hurry Lopez along. But something about her anger fanned his, and it made him dig in deeper. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“From where I’m standing, you look like a hypocrite.”
He closed the distance between them, until her skirts brushed his legs. “How so.”
“You came here for money.” She tipped her head back, meeting him eye to eye, the heat from her body mingling with his. The air between them seemed to vibrate, tension coiling like a snake. “You’ve run for office before, Juan. You know it takes flattery and feigned interest to win supporters.”
He couldn’t help lowering his gaze to her breasts. “You didn’t appear to be feigning anything.”
“You really think I’m interested in Lopez? Are you insane?”
At this point? Yeah, he probably was. Because she made him freaking crazy.
She narrowed her gaze. “Or maybe you’re just jealous.”
Something inside him snapped. He leaned forward. “Of course, I’m jealous. You had your tits in his face.”
He caught her wrist just before the slap landed.
“Pendejo.” She jerked against his hold, her chest heaving.
Remembering her fluid, evasive movements in the drugstore, he pulled her into him before she could strike out, trapping her hand between their bodies. He lowered his head, his lips inches from hers. “Sí, y tu marido.”
“You’re not my husband.” She rose on tiptoe, her face so close he could see his reflection in her eyes. “You’re not anything to me.”
“You’re wrong, and you know it. You’re mine.” He dipped his head, and she caught her breath.
Her gaze flicked to his mouth.
“Ahh, yes,” he said, the affirmation leaving him in a satisfied sigh. “Your body knows it, too.”
The lights flickered, and every monitor on the bridge’s instrument panel went dark. A second later, a vibration rumbled across the floor.
Catalina gasped. “What was that?”
Lopez. Blinded by lust, Juan had forgotten all about their host. The monitors stayed dark.
A tingling awareness lifted the hairs on his nape.
Something is wrong.
“We need to check on him,” Juan said. He stepped around her and headed for the door. As he reached for the latch, the unmistakable sound of a speedboat engine split the air. A dark object shot from the yacht’s starboard side and sped across the water.
“What the…” He rushed through the door, Catalina on his heels. They reached the railing just in time to catch a glimpse of the man racing the speedboat at full throttle away from the yacht, its wake like a line of white chalk on the dark water.
“It’s Lopez,” Catalina said, shock in her voice. “He just…left us here.”
Juan gripped the railing, his gaze on the black horizon, where Lopez was now just a distant dot. “Son of a bitch.”
“Why would he do that?” Catalina tugged at his sleeve. “Do you think he’s going for help?”
Water slapped the side of the yacht, moonlight sparkling along the crests. A mix of Spanish and English curses paraded through Juan’s head. Without engines, the yacht was basically a fancy canoe.
“Juan?”
“No,” he said, answering her question. “There’s only one reason he’d leave us here like this.”
But he needed to be certain.
He shoved away from railing and went to the opening in the deck.
“Wait!” Catalina followed, her skirts caught up in one hand. “What are you doing?”
“Confirming my suspicions,” he muttered, descending the narrow steps. They ended in a small but impressive engine room. Pipes and thick bundles of electrical wires snaked from the ceiling to the floor, twisting and bending around what could only be the engines—a pair of muscular silver structures bolted to the floor, metal railings running around their perimeters. The walls were a sterile white, and the floor was covered in a black non-skid mat. Various dials and levers poked up from the pipes.
But it was a small, blue wire that caught his eye.
“Juan?” Catalina’s voice echoed around the steel pipes as she came down the stairs.
He went to her and took her elbow as she stepped onto the rubber mat.
She gazed around the room. “What’s going on?”
For a second, he considered keeping the truth from her. But he couldn’t do that. As much as he wanted to protect her, she deserved to know the reality of their situation. Besides, she’d see through any bullshit story he came up with.
He led her to the blue wire and pointed. “Lopez cut the power supply to the instrument panel.”
Her lips parted. “Why…” She swallowed, her gaze on the snipped wire. “Why would he do that?”
“Rafe.”
She tensed. “You said Lopez is a supporter.”
“He is. He was.”
“I don’t…” She shook her head like she was trying to clear it. “I’m having trouble making the connection.”
“I don’t know what the connection is, either, but the setup is pretty obvious. We’re at least an hour away from the island, we have no engine power, and Lopez just left like a bat out of hell.” Juan flicked the severed wire. “And my guess is any radio upstairs is now non-functional.” He’d lost cell phone reception shortly after they left the coast. This far out? Forget about it.
She stared at the wire like it might reach out and bite him. “No one else has a reason to do this?”
“You mean, do I have any other enemies who might like to see me stranded in the Gulf of Mexico?” He let out a short bark of laughter. “No, Catalina. Only Rafe has a reason to want me dead.”
“But he said he doesn’t care about the money.” As soon as she finished the sentence, horror crossed her
face. “I mean… I…” She put her fingertips to her mouth, as if she wished she could stuff the words back inside.
Juan stilled. For a moment, he was unable to speak. Unable to move.
But only for a moment.
Slowly, so very slowly, he advanced on her.
“It seems you have something to tell me, Catalina.”
13
Catalina backed up a step. Then two. “Juan…”
He kept coming, the muscle in his jaw doing that clenching thing it always did when he was angry. Her back bumped something—one of the engine’s guardrails.
Nowhere to go.
She put out a hand. “If you come any closer, I’ll scream.”
He stopped. “Do it. Maybe a dolphin will hear you.”
Oh, he brought jokes?
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing. When did you talk to Rafe?”
“Stop looming over me, and I’ll tell you.”
He gave her a look, but he moved backwards. Then he folded his arms. “Better?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She pushed away from the rail. “First of all, he called me. On the flip phone.”
“Impossible.”
“Apparently not.” An argument gathered in his eyes, so she rushed ahead. “Look, believe it or don’t, but there was no way for me to contact him. I was locked in your apartment, remember?” Fresh rage over that little incident kindled in her veins.
Juan seemed to think it over, then grunted.
Well, that’s settled.
“Go on,” he said.
The only thing to do was tell the truth. She took a deep breath and relayed as much of the conversation as she remembered, from Rafe’s offer of assistance to his assertion that he didn’t begrudge her the inheritance.
Juan listened with his head down, a scowl pulling his brows together. When she finished, he was silent a moment, as if he was analyzing and reanalyzing her words from every angle.
She leaned against the railing again. It had to be well past midnight. The engine room’s stark white walls glowed under the bright overhead lights. A little ache hovered in the center of her forehead, waiting for the right opportunity to bloom into a migraine.
