Akira sucked in a breath at the sharp intelligence in the man’s eyes.
She couldn't ignore the rock-hard strength of his chest, or the whipcord force in his shoulders and hands. There was a resolute air around him. This was a man who got things done. No questions asked. And he was something to look at.
But she stopped looking because there was a stir in the pit of her stomach. A tiny tickle that spelled danger. She backed a step instinctively, but his hand around her middle held her in place.
To combat the strength of his hold and his black gaze, she smiled and said, “Remarkable upper body strength.”
She was delighted to see confusion slide into those dark eyes.
An elegant eyebrow cocked. “Beg pardon?”
Akira’s toes curled when she heard that voice. She deduced a correct Oxford accent, with a faint twist of Australian, because talk was her business. But that wasn’t it. It was an alpha male voice. A guy who was used to telling people what to do. A guy who wasn’t easily surprised.
She explained, “You have remarkable upper body strength. This baby weighs a ton.” She looked ruefully at her beloved tote. Usually, she used a nondescript canvas hold-all. But this was a super yacht and yachts were fancy and so she was too.
“You mean it weighs more than you.” He spoke without any expression, although she caught a flicker of humor in his midnight black eyes.
For the life of her, Akira couldn't make herself leave him. And, for some perverse reason, he wasn’t letting go. Yet.
“Don't you know that you are never supposed to refer to a woman’s weight?” She was tempted to bring her five-inch stiletto heel on his bare big toe. Both for the question and the way he was holding her. Close. Intimately.
He gave a small smile that made her suck in her breath. “I thought you were never supposed to ask a woman’s weight.”
And she upgraded the alpha male voice to an alpha-male-meets-smooth-doctor-kind-of-voice. The sort you couldn't put your finger on. The sort that soothed and drove a woman crazy at the same time.
Step away from the man, Akira.
She shrugged. “Semantics. Let me go.”
His hands loosened instantly and he stepped away from her. The bag swung in a huge arc between them as they looked at each other.
Then Rumi’s husky voice broke the spell. “You can’t win with this one, Brand.”
Body heat, was all she could think, while he backed off. The man generated enough body heat to light up the world. But, the moment passed and he’d already dismissed her by turning away to Pedro who was hauling the plank in with him.
Authority figures made her mad. And so did men who made her heart go bump.
“Mr. Brand,” she couldn't resist calling out.
He looked expectantly, emotionlessly at her.
“Thanks for saving me.” Then, with a smile, she turned to a contrite Pedro. “Would you please dump this wherever I am supposed to stay? My shoulder’s banged.”
Rumi frowned and hurried to her side. “Idiot. Who told you to haul it by yourself? Pedro would have gotten it. Here, let me take it…”
Brand spoke up then, stacking the plank in a side cabinet. “If Ms. Naik will leave her bag with me, I’ll get it stowed.”
It sounded like a request. Or an off-hand remark. Nothing of any consequence. Like he expected Akira to obey him.
“Thanks.” She dumped the bag at his feet. It did hit him on the big toe but he didn’t even wince. “There’s some expensive equipment in here. I don't want anything broken.”
“Don't worry, Ms. Naik. Our security check will ensure that nothing is,” he said evenly, before lifting her bag like it weighed nothing and walked off in the other direction.
Akira glowered at his departing back.
Rumi laughed, linked arms with her friend and led her away. “Brand’s a little bit like that.”
“Like an arrogant commando?”
Rumi laughed. “I’m not answering that.”
At Akira’s arch look she added hastily, “Let me show you where you’re staying? I have the cabin next to mine reserved for you. Then we’ll have breakfast. And then I want to see your shoe collection. I have nothing to wear!”
Two
“What do you think of the reporter?” Santiago Sebastian Delgado, Premier of San Magellan, asked Brandon Rice the question.
Brand finished his security check on Akira’s bag. It contained frilly woman’s items. Excuses for underwear which shouldn’t have tightened his gut, but did. Shoes… the woman had brought along four pairs for shoes for a two-day event… most of them impractical. And then there was the wardrobe and the laptop.
The camera he shook, tossed to his tech guy, Lucas, who took it apart in seconds. This was done as much for protection as for the security of the man who had asked him about the reporter.
A question Brand wasn’t sure he could answer objectively. He was puzzled by that.
“Rumi likes her so she has redeeming qualities.” He didn’t add that he knew pretty much everything there was to know about Akira Ashwin Naik. That she had been thoroughly vetted weeks before the gilt-edged invite bearing her name had been shipped to Myanmar, where she’d been covering the genocide against the Rohingyas.
“Is she as good as the reports she writes? I want your unvarnished opinion.” Delgado asked him in Spanish.
Brand was forced to look at the man. Lucas only spoke a smattering of Spanish. And there was no need for any secrecy from his team. But, the man was ruler of a country so he had to be indulged.
Brand shrugged. “Yes, she is that good. Scared of the water. But she is a good reporter. When the time comes for your interview, she’ll do.” He grinned then. “She’ll ask you the hard questions.”
Delgado himself smiled then. A hard, firm smile that highlighted the absolute brown of his eyes. “Then I will be ready for her.”
Then Delgado left Brand in the navigation room and went to attend to official matters. Very few crew on the ship knew that the Premier was aboard. And since the media frenzy was not to begin till late in the afternoon, Brand wanted his presence kept quiet. As it is, disturbing reports were reaching him. Violence was in the air.
He could smell it.
He followed Delgado out to the aft deck.
Sebastian was shorter than him by a couple of inches, but exuded power in his simple black pants and shirt. He had been a farmer and a lawyer before taking up politics. Both of his heritages showed on his face as he faced the coming dawn.
“You know, you don't have to prove anything. You can call this whole thing off right now. And it will be--”
“Safe, wouldn’t it? It would be safe.” Delgado finished for him.
“Yes, it would be safer for you,” Brand admitted quietly. He absently looked at Lucas expertly putting the pretty reporter’s computer back together. He thought, for an instant, of the feel of her in his arms.
It bothered him that he was thinking about her at all.
“The militia is just waiting to strike, Sebastian. You’re aware of this.” The death threats – in mail, email and video form - were daily assessed by Brand’s team. Delgado’s opposition was probably encouraging most of the weirdos who wanted to assassinate San Magellan’s Premier.
“And so you think it’s best if I hide from them. Like a coward.” It was a statement. Flatly made.
“Not best, maybe. But the safest,” Brand argued. “You can wait till the geology reports become official. You know you can.”
“I have you by my side, friend. And I’m on board the safest ship in the world. I don't worry. Not anymore.” Delgado smiled again. And this time it was one of camaraderie. Respect.
And dammit, even Brand felt the same, which was why he was compelled to add, “You’re paying me and my team heaps of money so you don't have to worry anymore.”
Then he went back in because the reporter’s things had to be stowed in her cabin. He wondered if he should let Lucas do it. Meeting her would only...spark the
m both.
But because he felt the way he did, because it was never in his nature to hide, he hefted the carry-all and walked away from the nav cabin.
Lucas was on point for now, at the wheel. And everything seemed to be in control. No enemy bogies to be seen. And no air attacks for miles to come. No one was coming, at least not for now.
He went through all his contingency plans as he walked the length of portside, down the flight of stairs that led to the more luxurious cabins. He himself had one here, though since boarding he had been sleeping in snatches with the rest of his team and the crew. The decks and seaside air made him feel free again.
Three nights back he had even strung up a hammock and swung to sleep. As a man who made his living with death, Brand appreciated life as most wouldn’t. It was because of this need, this instinct for self-preservation that’d kept him alive for these many years, that he’d known what he didn’t tell Delgado.
The reporter was trouble. Not for the premier, for him. Because when he’d held her, he’d touched. And she’d touched too. The awareness had been in them both in that first instant before training, before reality had kicked in.
Brand didn’t care much for primal awareness. It was brutal and it destroyed more often than not. He believed in logic, in planning out every detail. Death, after all, was the ultimate chess-master. Outwitting it could only be done with synchronized precision.
He thought of all this and the scent of the reporter as he knocked on her cabin door. The one he’d ear-marked for her. The one next to Rumi’s… opposite his. Now he wished he hadn’t stationed her so close to him.
But, before today she’d just been a face. Just details. Age thirty-one, eyes brown, hair natural black with red highlights and weight fifty eight kilograms, mother remarried, sister deceased. Just data.
“Come in,” the reporter called out, and he stepped in. “I'm just changing...” She shrugged out of her light green sweater and tank-top.
“I do believe you are. Timely of me to bring your stuff back, right?” He spoke with a laugh in his voice, but he stepped back, nearly out through the door. For self-preservation.
Akira didn’t shriek; he gave her credit for that. Just shrugged the sweater back on, and faced him. It was unbuttoned and the sides hung limp, so he was tempted, beyond tempted, to look down. To see for himself what had pressed so invitingly against his chest a few minutes ago.
Brand looked at her face. “Your bag, as requested. Nothing broken.”
She brought the edges of the sweater closer to her. “Thanks, I think.”
Akira smiled. Gestured to the bed. “Dump it there, would you? My shoulder still hurts from when you yanked me like that.”
He shrugged as he walked the thirty feet in and placed the bag on the corner of the four-poster. “It was either that or you take a dip in the Strait. Believe me you wouldn’t have enjoyed that.”
“I believe you.”
Now she sighed. Dropped down beside the bag and worked her boots off.
Brand didn’t know why the sight of her toes wriggling should clench his gut the way it did.
Trouble, he had to stay away from trouble.
She looked up at him then. “I wasn’t gracious when I thanked you before. Thank you.” The words were quiet. The eyes were turbulent.
He shrugged again. “Rumi’s in the next cabin. And your breakfast is --”
“I know. I was there, feasting on Eggs Benedict. They were a little too heavy for me. I prefer coffee and toast in the morning. And now that my jet lag is hitting; I think I need about a week’s sleep. I hate that about so much flying, don't you?” She yawned. A huge yawn she covered up as best as she could.
“You should sleep a little. The day’s going to be hectic. Your interview with Premier Delgado is at eleven am.” Brand was at the door by now.
He couldn't resist one last look at her. He looked at the edges of the sweater that contained her breasts. And couldn't resist that sharp hiss of breath that came with immediate arousal.
But she called out. “Wait.”
Brand waited. Looked enquiringly at her.
“I’m not sure of the protocol aboard yachts. Should I tip you? Or is this kind of service part of your job?” Akira frowned as she went to the sling purse she had deposited on the nightstand and opened it.
Brand grinned then. “Service’s part of the job. Thanks.”
“Well, it can’t be out of the goodness of your heart, can it?” she asked tartly.
Brand’s smile faded. “I don't know what a good heart would be. If you need anything, ring that little bell over there for room service. Good day, Miss Naik.” Then he closed the door behind him with no sound and was gone.
~~~~~~
No, Akira thought absently. He vanished. The door should have made a sound when one opened it. He’d opened it and stepped in like a shadow. Like a man who lived in shadows and stealth.
Akira dropped her travel-weary clothes, though they didn’t much look it. Grabbed the huge terry-cloth robe that hung in the closet and wrapped it around her. She padded on the rich layered carpet back to her bed. Debated about unpacking right now.
The ship swayed a little and Akira felt dizzy.
She had sea legs, just not great ones. And not when she was exhausted. So, she set out her little computer, kept the alarm on it for nine, which would give her about three hours snooze time.
Then she’d catch up with Rumi and breakfast before meeting the great Sebastian Delgado himself. She’d ask the premier about the gorgeous crew he’d hired, Akira thought as she climbed into bed. And laid her head on the pillow.
Brand was right. The Premier would expect her to be at her game-best and she would do no less for herself. Her eyes, nearly closed, shot open again.
How did he know about her interview with the premier? It had been arranged by the man’s security staff and Rumi. Was the crew gossiping?
Something else to ask Rumi about, she decided…. then her lashes fluttered closed. And she slipped into a deep dreamless sleep.
Until the explosion came.
Three
Brand put in an hour of weights training. He usually ran the length of the yacht about ten times to finish off his daily workout routine but he didn’t want to round the ship today. Not now.
Because she was sleeping somewhere on this ship.
When he was done, he went back to the nav cabin. Lucas and Murad were manning the controls. The radar sweep looked relatively clean. And the monitors were emitting regular noises.
“Nothing untoward, boss.” Murad grabbed one of the coffee mugs Brand had brought back with him. His men worked hard and without complaint. Because he worked shoulder-to-shoulder with them, they worked better.
The way he figured it, a little courtesy and heft bonuses went a long way in keeping someone alive and on your side.
“Good. And the guards? The perimeter has been swept, I hope.”
“Yup.” Lucas nodded. Worked a few buttons on a console and instantly three TV screens on one side of the huge navigational console filled with images from fly-on-the-wall CCTV cameras.
Brand pivoted his head, worked a few buttons on another part of the console and three more screens came to life.
He looked at the huge map which represented the whole of the Strait of Magellan and the land that surrounded it: Chile, Argentina. And there, wedged in between the rock and the hard place, was San Magellan. A harsh, tiny country that had been on nobody’s radar until six months ago.
Today, its ruler was going to announce if it would join the UN.
He looked at the spot marked X on the map, where they were moored. In the middle of bloody nowhere.
He could kill Delgado for putting him in this position. Instead, he jammed hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and said, “The plan for tonight. Run it by me again.”
“Sweep checks every fifteen minutes,” Murad began, “with the launch manned either by me or Markham. We stand guard when we bring in the guests.
Lucas does his tech and bug sweep remotely so that the eminent guests don't feel too violated. All firearms, of course, will be confiscated,” he ended, with sharp clarity.
“Good. Guards every ten feet on the fore, aft, and port-side. And patrols by you guys every thirty minutes on the clock from five pm. I don't want anything getting past us that we are not aware of. That we don't know,” Brand stated.
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