He nodded. ‘These islands are famous for their resident Nurse Sharks. But it is safe to bathe there in the bay—though the rest of the island is not so safe,’ he warned. ‘Strong currents and sometimes angry seas can make bathing on any of the other little coves you see quite dangerous. Especially on the Atlantic side.’
As he turned them neatly to face in the opposite direction Annie gazed curiously down to where a thick tropical wood clustered around a hump in the centre of the island, at the bottom of which the house nestled against its lushly carpeted slope. On the other side of the hill sheer drops of craggy rock fell abruptly downwards to jagged inlets where the Atlantic tossed itself against them in foaming white crests.
This side of the little island was a stark contrast to the other softer, more gentle side that the house faced. It would be an unlucky sailor who came upon this island from that direction, she noted with a small shudder.
Then she gasped as they began to drop like a stone towards the ground. They landed gently, though, her sigh of relief bringing a mocking look from the man beside her before he turned his attention to shutting down the engine and going through some kind of mental checklist before he opened his door and jumped out.
He came around to help her, having to stoop low beneath the slowing blades and warning her to do the same as his hands circled her slender waist to assist her. Then they were running free, both bent almost double, Annie with a hand covering her eyes to stop the whirls of dust from blowing into them.
Pulling to a halt about ten yards away from the helicopter, he turned to watch as she dusted down her clothes with her hands. They’d landed on a natural plateau of rock not far away from the house. But, sand being sand, it had found its way up here, blown probably by the trade winds that acted like natural air-conditioning to most of these islands.
‘Come,’ he said when she’d concluded her tidy-up by brushing light fingertips over her hair and cheeks. ‘I will bring your luggage later. But now you must be in dire need of a drink.’
She was and didn’t demur, following him across a neatly kept lawn and up the few steps which took them into the lower veranda’s shade.
The two solid wood front doors stood open in welcome. He led the way into a deliciously cool entrance hall, where Annie paused to catch her breath and study with still slightly bewildered eyes the blatant luxury of Aubusson thrown down on top of richly polished wood.
For a mere hallway it was huge—as big as any other room in a house of this size. ‘Grand’ was the word that slid into her mind. Old masters with a nautical theme hung in heavy gold frames on plain, white-painted walls and a great staircase swept up from its central location to a galleried landing that seemed to form a circle around the whole upper floor.
A woman appeared from the back of the house. Short, thin and wiry, with greying hair swept away from a severe face, she was wearing all black. She greeted her employer with some words in what Annie half-recognised as Spanish, to which he replied in the same language, his voice seeming to grow more liquid, more sensually disturbing to Annie’s agitated mind.
‘Margarita,’ he informed Annie, watching as the two women exchanged shy, slightly stiff smiles. ‘Between them, she and her husband Pedro take care of everything here. If you will please come this way—’ he held out an arm in invitation ‘—Margarita will bring us some refreshment.’
As the woman bustled off towards the back of the house Annie followed her host across the hall and into a large, bright, sunny room with full-length French-style windows standing open to the gentle sea breeze.
Momentarily diverted, she moved over to look at the view, and stood transfixed by what she saw. Before her lay a dramatic mix of lush green lawns rolling down towards a crescent of silver sand, followed by the pale aquamarine shades of shallow waters deepening to rich gentian-blue. Several beautiful flame-trees with their branches laden with vivid red blooms were scattered around the grounds. The sun was hanging low—a deep golden globe shimmering in a melting turquoise sky.
And when she heard movement behind her she turned an enraptured smile to the man she found propped up against the closed door, mockery and arrogance in every line of his body as he stood there with one neat ankle crossed over the other, arms folded across his big chest.
‘Well, well,’ he drawled. ‘So the notorious Miss Lacey can still experience a childlike enchantment at something beautiful and unspoiled. Who would have thought it?’
Annie went still, her smile dying as she was suddenly assailed by a cold, dark sense of menace, his lazy masculine stance, his insolent expression and his deriding words all helping to remind her of something that she should have never let herself forget. Men were the enemy. And this particular man was no different.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded quietly.
‘Who am I?’ he repeated, the mockery hard and spiked. ‘Why, I am Adamas,’ he informed her lazily. ‘Loosely translated, it means diamond-hard—impenetrable. But in this case we shall call me a—rock,’ he decided. ‘A rock on which you, Annie Lacey, have just been neatly marooned.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘MAROONED.’ Annie frowned at him, trying to decide whether he was just attempting a very poor joke. But his face held no hint of humour, only a smile that sent the blood running cold through her veins.
Marooned, she repeated silently and slowly to herself. Abandoned. Isolated without resources. He had used the word quite deliberately.
It hit her then that this was no simple commission in which the great Adamas employed the notorious Annie Lacey to promote his priceless gems. She had been brought here under false pretences—brought here and isolated from the rest of the world by this man for some specific purpose of his own.
A sick sense of déjà vu washed over her, filling her eyes with unmistakable horror as Luis Alvarez’s hot face loomed up in her mind, and for a moment—a small moment—she lost control, face paling, breasts heaving, eyes haunted as they glanced around for somewhere to run.
‘Perfect,’ he drawled, making her blink at the soft-voiced sensuality that he managed to thread into the one simple word. ‘That look of maidenly panic must have taken hours of practice in front of your mirror to cultivate. Allow that gorgeous mouth to quiver just a little,’ he suggested, ‘and you will be well on the way to convincing me that the well-seasoned vamp is actually a terrified virgin.’
Margarita used that moment to knock on the door. He moved smoothly, loose-limbed and lazily controlled, to open the door and stand aside while his shyly smiling servant wheeled in a trolley laid out with coffee things and some daintily prepared sandwiches.
Annie watched, unable to so much as move a muscle as the other woman murmured in Spanish to her employer and he answered in deep casual replies. The trolley was wheeled over to stand beside a low table between two big, soft-cushioned sofas of a pale coral-pink. Then Margarita was leaving again, murmuring what must have been her thanks to her employer for holding the door for her.
‘Who are you really?’ Annie demanded once they were alone. ‘And will you kindly explain what this—stupid charade is all about?’
‘I am who I said I am,’ he replied with infuriating blandness. ‘I am Adamas. I told you no lies, Miss Lacey.’ Moving gracefully, he went over to the trolley then turned a questioning look at her. ‘Tea—coffee?’ he asked. ‘Margarita has prepared both.’
Impatiently Annie shook her head. She wanted nothing in this house until she got some answers. Nothing. ‘Is that supposed to make sense to me?’ she snapped out impatiently.