Sitting up with a gasp, she sensed they’d hit rough waters. Waves splashed against the glass of her porthole and the boat rocked enough she was rolling on her bed.
How had she wound up in bed?
With a little sob, she threw off the covers and pushed to her feet.
Fear, Aunt Hildy would have said, was no excuse for panic. Viveka did not consider herself a brave person at all, but she had learned to look out for herself because no one else ever had. If this boat was about to capsize, she needed to be on deck wearing a life jacket to have a fighting chance at survival.
Holding the bulkhead as she went into the passageway, she stumbled to the main lounge. The lifeboat was on this deck, she recalled, but in the bow, on the far side of Mikolas’s suite. The porter had explained all the safety precautions, which had reassured her at the time. Now all she could think was that it was a stupid place to store life jackets.
* * *
Mikolas always slept lightly, but tonight he was on guard for more than old nightmares. He was expecting exactly what happened. The balcony in Viveka’s stateroom wasn’t the only thing alarmed. When she left her suite, the much more discreet internal security system caused his phone to vibrate.
He acknowledged the signal, then pushed to his feet and adjusted his shorts. That was another reason he’d been restless. He was hard. And he never wore clothes to bed. They were uncomfortable even when they weren’t twisted around his erection, but he’d anticipated rising at some point to deal with his guest so he had supposed he should wear something to bed.
He’d expected to find release with his guest, but when he’d gone to her room, she’d been fast asleep, curled up on the love seat like a child resisting bedtime, one hand pillowing her cheek. She hadn’t stirred when he’d carried her to the bed and tucked her in, leaving him sorely disappointed.
That obvious exhaustion, along with her pale skin and the slight frown between her brows, had plucked a bizarre reaction from him. Something like concern. That bothered him. He was impervious to emotional manipulations, but Viveka was under his skin—and she hadn’t even been awake and doing it deliberately.
He sighed with annoyance, moving into his office.
If a woman was going to wake him in the night, it ought to be for better reasons than this.
He had no doubt this private deck in the bow was her destination. He’d watched her talk to his porter extensively about the lifeboat and winch system while he’d sat here working earlier. He wasn’t surprised she was attempting to escape. He wasn’t even angry. He was disappointed. He hated repeating himself.
But there was an obdurate part of him that enjoyed how she challenged him. Hardly anyone stood up to him anymore.
Plus he was sexually frustrated enough to be pleased she was setting up a midnight confrontation. When he’d kissed her earlier, desire had clawed at his control with such savagery, he’d nearly abandoned one for the other and made love to her right there at the table.
His need to be in command of himself and everyone else had won out in the end. He’d pulled back from the brink, but it had taken more effort than he liked to admit.
“Come on,” he muttered, searching for her in the dim glow thrown by the running lights.
This was an addict’s reaction, he thought with self-contempt. His brain knew she was lethal, but the way she infused him with a sense of omnipotence was a greater lure. He didn’t care that he risked self-destruction. He still wanted her. He was counting the pulse beats until he could feel the rush of her hitting his system.
Where was she?
Not overboard again, surely.
The thought sent a disturbing punch into the middle of his chest. He didn’t know what had made him throw off his jacket and shoes and dive in after her today. It had been pure instinct. He’d shot out the emergency exit behind her, determined to hear why she had upended his plans, but he hadn’t been close enough to stop her tumble into the water.
His heart had jammed when he’d seen her knock into the side of the yacht, worried she was unconscious as she went under.
Pulling her and that whale of a gown to the surface had nearly been more than he could manage. He didn’t know what he would have done if the strength of survival hadn’t imbued him. Letting go of her hadn’t been an option. It wasn’t basic human decency that had made him dive into that water, but something far more powerful that refused, absolutely refused, to go back to the surface without her.