She closed her eyes. She couldn’t possibly tell him that the sight of his near-naked body had been doing things to her equilibrium that she had wanted to wipe clean away. She shook her head.
‘Want me to carry you back to the lounger?’
‘I’ll w-walk.’
‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ he demurred. ‘Come here.’ And he rose to his feet and picked her up as easily as if she’d been made of feathers.
Catherine was not the type of woman who would normally expect to be picked up and carried by a man—indeed, she had never been the recipient of such strong-arm tactics before. The men she knew would consider it a sexist insult to behave in such a way! So was it?
No.
And no again.
She felt so helpless, but even in her demoralised state she recognised that it was a pleasurable helplessness. And the pleasure was enhanced by the sensation of his warm skin brushing and tingling against hers where their bodies touched. Like electricity. ‘Finn?’ she said weakly.
He looked down at her, feeling he could drown in those big green eyes, and then the word imprinted itself on his subconscious and he flinched. Drown. Sweet Lord—the woman could have drowned. A pain split right through him. ‘What is it?’ he whispered, laying her gently down on the sun-bed.
She pushed a damp lock of hair back from her face, and even that seemed to take every last bit of strength she had. But then it wasn’t just her near escape which was making her weak, it was something about the way the blue eyes had softened into a warm blaze.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered back, thinking how inadequate those two words were in view of what he had just done.
A smile lifted the corners of his mouth as some of the tension left him.
Some.
‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, his Irish accent edged with irresistible velvet. But he wished that she wouldn’t look at him that way. All wide-eyed and vulnerable, with the pale sand sugaring her skin, making him long to brush each grain away one by one, and her lips slightly parted, as if begging to be kissed. ‘Rest for a while, and then I’ll take you back up to the hotel.’
She nodded, feeling strangely bereft. She would have to pack. Organise herself. Mentally gear herself up for switching back into her role of cool, intrepid Catherine Walker—doyenne of Pizazz! magazine. Yet the soft, vulnerable Catherine who was gazing up into the strong, handsome face of her rescuer seemed infinitely more preferable at that moment.
Peter? prompted a voice in her head. Have you forgotten Peter so quickly and replaced him with a man you scarcely know? Bewitched by the caveman tactics of someone who just happened to have an aptitude for saving lives?
She licked her bottom lip and tasted salt. ‘You save a lot of lives, don’t you, Finn Delaney?’
Finn looked at her, his eyes narrowing as her remark caught him off-guard. ‘Meaning?’
She heard the element of caution which had crept into his voice. ‘I heard what you did for the son of Kirios Kollitsis.’
His face became shuttered. ‘You were discussing me? With whom?’
She felt on the defensive. ‘Only with Nico—the waiter. He happened to mention it.’
‘Well, he had no right to mention it—it happened a long time ago. It’s forgotten.’
But people didn’t forget things like that. Catherine knew that she would never forget what he had done even if she never saw him again—and she very probably wouldn’t. They were destined to be—to use that old cliché—ships that passed in the night, and, like all clichés, it was true.
He accompanied her back to the hotel, and she was glad of his supporting arm because her legs still felt wobbly. When he let her go, she missed that firm, warm contact.
‘What time are you leaving?’ he asked.
‘The taxi’s coming at three.’
He nodded. ‘Go and do your packing.’
Catherine was normally a neat and organised packer, but for once she was reckless—throwing her holiday clothes haphazardly into the suitcase as if she didn’t care whether she would ever wear them again. And she didn’t. For there was an ache in her heart which seemed to have nothing to do with Peter and she despised herself for her fickleness.
She told herself that of course a man like Finn Delaney would inspire a kind of wistful devotion in the heart of any normal female. That of course it would be doubled or tripled in intensity after what had just happened. He had acted the part of hero, and there were too few of those outside the pages of romantic fiction, she told herself wryly. That was all.
Nevertheless, she was disappointed to find the small foyer empty, save for Nico, who bade her his own wistful farewell.