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Ugh...murder.
The car filled with the scent of spun sugar again.
‘Something you need?’
He spoke without turning his eyes off the road ahead or prising the phone from his ear, but the twist of the mouth she’d just been admiring told her he was talking to her.
She’d meant to be subtle, glancing sideways, studying him in her periphery, yet apparently those lips were more magnetic than she realised because she was turned almost fully towards him. She snapped her gaze forward.
‘No. Just...um...’
Just obsessing on your body parts, Mr Grundy...
Just wondering how I could get you to smile again, sir...
‘We’re nearly at the boat launch,’ she fabricated. ‘Just wanted you to know.’
If he believed her, she couldn’t tell. He simply nodded, returned to his call and then took his sweet time finishing it.
Mila forced her mind back on the job.
‘This is the main road in and out of Coral Bay,’ she said as soon as he disconnected his call, turning her four-wheel drive at a cluster of towering solar panels that powered streetlights at the only intersection in the district. ‘It’s base camp for everyone wanting access to the southern part of the World Heritage area.’
To her, Coral Bay was a sweet, green little oasis existing in the middle of almost nowhere. No other town for two hundred kilometres in any direction. Just boundless, rust-coloured outback on one side and a quarter of a planet of ocean on the other.
Next stop, Africa.
Richard’s eyes narrowed as they entered town and he saw all the caravans, RVs, four-by-fours and tour buses parked all along the main street. ‘It’s thriving.’
His interest reminded her of a cartoon she’d seen once where a rumpled-suited businessman’s eyes had spun and rolled and turned into dollar signs. It was as if he was counting the potential.
‘It’s whale shark season. Come back in forty-degree February and it will be a ghost town. Summer is brutal up here.’
If he wanted to build some ritzy development, he might as well know it wasn’t going to be a year-round goldmine.
‘I guess that’s what air-conditioning is for,’ he murmured.
‘Until the power station goes down in a cyclone, then you’re on your own.’
His lips twisted, just slightly. ‘You’re not really selling the virtues of the region, you know.’
No. This wasn’t her job. This was personal. She forced herself back on a professional footing.
‘Did you want to stop in town? For something to eat, maybe? Snorkelling always makes me hungry.’
Plus, Coral Bay had the best bakery in the district, regardless of the fact it also had the only bakery in the district.
‘We’ll have lunch on the Portus,’ he said absently.
The Portus? Not one of the boats that frequented Coral Bay. She knew them all by sight. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might have access to a vessel from outside the region. Especially given he’d only called to make arrangements half an hour ago.
‘Okay—’ she shrugged, resigning herself to a long wait ‘—straight to Bill’s Bay, then.’
They parked up on arrival at the newly appointed mini-marina and wandered down to where three others launched boats for a midday run. Compared to the elaborate ‘tinnies’ of the locals, getting their hulls wet on the ramp, the white Zodiac idling at the end of the single pier immediately caught her attention.
‘There’s Damo.’ Rich raised a hand and the Zodiac’s skipper acknowledged it as they approached. ‘You look disappointed, Mila.’
Her gaze flew to his, not least because it was the first time he’d called her by her name. It eased off his lips like a perfectly cooked salmon folding off a knife.
‘I underestimated how long it was going to take us to get north,’ she said, flustered. ‘It’s okay; I’ll adjust the schedule.’
‘Were you expecting something with a bit more grunt?’
‘No.’ Yes.
‘I really didn’t know what to expect,’ she went on. ‘A boat is a boat, right? As long as it floats.’
He almost smiled then, but it was too twisted to truly earn the name. She cursed the missed moment. A tall man in the white version of her own shorts and shirt stood as they approached the end of the pier. He acknowledged Richard with a courteous nod, then offered her his arm aboard.
‘Miss?’
She declined his proffered hand—not just because she needed little help managing embarkation onto such a modest vessel, but also because she could do without the associated sounds that generally came with a stranger’s skin against hers.
The skipper was too professional to react. Richard, on the other hand, frowned at her dismissal of a man clearly doing him a favour.
Mila sighed. Okay, so he thought her rude. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had assumed the worst. And she wouldn’t be seeing him again after today, so what did it really matter?
The skipper wasted no time firing up the surprisingly throaty Zodiac and reversing them out of the marina and in between the markers that led bigger boats safely through the reef-riddled sanctuary zone towards more open waters. They ambled along at five knots and only opened up a little once they hit the recreation zone, where boating was less regulated. It took just a few minutes to navigate the passage that put them in open water, but the skipper didn’t throttle right up like she expected; instead he kept his speed down as they approached a much larger and infinitely more expensive catamaran idling just beyond the outer reef. The vessel she’d seen earlier, at Nancy’s Point. Slowing as they passed such a massive vessel seemed a back-to-front kind of courtesy, given the giant cat would barely feel their wake if they passed it at full speed. It was only as their little Zodiac swung around to reverse up to the catamaran that she saw the letters emblazoned on the big cat’s side.
Portus.
‘Did you think we were going all the way north in the tender?’ a soft voice came to her over the thrum of the slowly reversing motor.
‘Is this yours?’ she asked, gaping.
‘If she’s not, we’re getting an awfully accommodating reception for a couple of trespassers.’
‘So when you said you were “dropped off” at Nancy’s Point...?’
‘I didn’t mean in a car.’
With those simple words, his capacity to get his mystery development proposal through where others had failed increased by half in Mila’s mind. A man with the keys to a vessel like this in his pocket had to have at least a couple of politicians there too, right?
The tender’s skipper expertly reversed them backwards, right up to the stern of the Portus, where a set of steps came down each of the cat’s two hulls to the waterline. A dive platform at the bottom of each served as a disembarkation point and she could see where the tender would nest in snugly under its mother vessel when it wasn’t in use. Stepping off the back of the tender and onto the Portus was as easy as entering her house. Where the upward steps delivered them—to an outdoor area that would comfortably seat twelve—the vessel was trimmed out with timber and black leather against the boat’s white fibreglass. Not vinyl... Not hardy canvas like most of the boats she’d been on. This was leather—soft and smooth under her fingers as she placed a light hand on the top of one padded seat-back. The sensation was accompanied by a percussion of wind chimes, low and sonorous.
Who knew she found leather so soothing!
The colour scheme was conflicting, emotionally, even as it was perfect visually. The tranquillity of white, the sensuality of black. Brown usually made her feel sad, but this particularly rich, oiled tone struck her more specifically as...isolated.
But it was impossible not to also acknowledge the truth.
‘This is so beautiful, Richard.’
To her left, timber stairs spiralled up and out of view to the deck above.
‘It does the job,’ he said modestly, then pulled open two glass doors into the vessel’s gorgeous interior, revealing an expansive dining area and a galley twice as big as her own kitchen.
She just stared at him until he noticed her silence.
‘What?’
‘Surely, even in your world this vessel is something special,’ she said, standing firm on the threshold, as though she needed to get this resolved before entering. False humility was worse than an absence of it, and she had a blazing desire to have the truth from this man just once.
On principle.
‘What do you know about my world?’ he cast back easily over his shoulder, seemingly uncaring whether she followed him or not.
She clung to not and hugged the doorway.
‘You wouldn’t have bought the boat if you didn’t think it was special.’
He turned to face her. ‘It wouldn’t be seemly to boast about my own boat, Mila.’
‘It would be honest.’ And really, what was this whole vessel but big, mobile bragging rights? ‘Or is it just saying the words aloud that bothers you?’
He turned to face her, but she barrelled on without really knowing why it affected her so much. Maybe it had something to do with growing up on two small rural incomes. Or maybe it had something to do with starting to think they might be closer to equals, only to be faced with the leather and timber evidence very much to the contrary.
‘I’ll say it for you,’ she said from the doorway. ‘The Portus is amazing. You must be incredibly relaxed when you’re out on her.’ She glanced at the massive dining table. ‘And you must have some very happy friends.’
‘I don’t really bring friends out,’ he murmured, regarding her across the space between them.
‘Colleagues, then. Clients.’
He leaned back on the kitchen island and crossed his ankles. ‘Nope. I like silence when I’m out on the water.’
She snorted. ‘Good luck with that.’ He just stared at her. ‘I mean it’s never truly silent, is it?’
He frowned at her. ‘Isn’t it?’
No. Not in her experience.
She glanced around as the Portus’ massive engines thrummed into life and they began to move, killing any hope of silence for the time being. Although they weren’t nearly as loud as she’d expected. How much did a boat have to cost to get muted engines like that?
Richard didn’t invite her in again. Or insist. Or cajole. Instead, he leaned there, patience personified until she felt that her refusal to step inside was more than just ridiculous.
It was as unfriendly as people had always thought her to be.
But entering while he waited felt like too much of a concession in this mini battle of wills. She didn’t want to see the flare of triumph in his eyes. Her own shifted to the double fridge at the heart of the galley.
‘I guess lunch won’t be cheese sandwiches out of an Esky, then?’
The moment his regard left her to follow her glance, she stepped inside, crossing more than just a threshold. She stepped wholly into Richard’s fancy world.
He pulled the fridge doors wide. ‘It’s a platter. Crayfish. Tallegio. Salt and pepper squid. Salad Niçoise. Sourdough bread.’
She laughed. ‘I guess I was wrong, then. Cheese sandwich it is.’ Just fancier.
He turned his curiosity to her. ‘You don’t eat seafood?’
‘I can eat prawns if I have to. And molluscs. They don’t have a strong personality.’
That frown just seemed to be permanently fixed on his face. ‘But cray and squid do?’
Her heart warmed just thinking about them and it helped to loosen her bones just a little. ‘Very much so. Particularly crayfish. They’re quite...optimistic.’
He stared—for several bemused moments—clearly deciding between quirky and nuts. Both of which she’d had before with a lot less subtlety than he was demonstrating.
‘Is it going to bother you if I eat them?’
‘No. Something tells me I won’t be going hungry.’ She smiled and it was easier than she expected. ‘I have no strong feelings about cheese, either way.’
‘Unlucky for the Tallegio then,’ he murmured.
He pulled open a cabinet and revealed it as a small climate-controlled wine cellar. Room temperature on the left, frosty on the right. ‘Red or white?’ he asked.
‘Neither,’ she said regretfully. Just looking at the beading on the whites made her long for a dose of ocean spray. ‘I’m on the clock.’
‘Not right now you’re not,’ he pointed out. ‘For the next ninety minutes, we’re both in the capable hands of Captain Max Farrow, whose jurisdiction, under international maritime law, overrules your own.’
He lifted out one of the dewy bottles and waved it gently in her direction.
It was tempting to play at all this luxury just for a little while. To take a glass and curl up on one of those leather sofas, enjoy the associated wind chimes and act as if they weren’t basically complete strangers. To talk like normal people. To pretend. At all of it.
‘One glass, then,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
He poured and handed her a glass of white. The silent moments afterwards sang with discomfort.
‘Come on, I’ll give you a tour,’ he eventually offered.
He smiled but it didn’t ring true and it certainly didn’t set off the five-note harmony or the scent of candyfloss that the flash of perfect teeth previously had. He couldn’t be as nervous as she was, surely. Was he also conscious of how make-believe this all was?
Even if, for him, it wasn’t.
She stood. ‘Thank you, Richard.’
‘Rich,’ he insisted. ‘Please. Only my colleagues call me Richard.’
They were a good deal less than colleagues, but it would be impossible now to call him anything else without causing offence. More offence.
‘Please, Mila. I think you’ll like the Portus.’ Then, when she still didn’t move, he added, ‘As much as I do.’
That one admission... That one small truth wiggled right in under her ribs. Disarming her completely.
‘I would love to see more, Rich, thank you.’
The name felt awkward on her lips and yet somehow right at the same time. Clunky but...okay, as if it could wear in comfortably with use.
The tour didn’t take long, not because there wasn’t a lot to look at in every sumptuous space but because, despite its size, the Portus was, as it happened, mostly boat. As Rich showed her around she noted a jet ski securely stashed at the back, a sea kayak, water skis—everything a man could need to enjoy some time on the water. But she saw nothing to indicate that he enjoyed time in it.
‘No diving gear?’ she commented. ‘On a boat with not one but two dive decks?’
His pause was momentary. ‘Plenty to keep me busy above the surface,’ he said.
Something about that niggled in this new environment of truce between them. That little glimpse of vulnerability coming so close on the heels of some humble truth. But she didn’t need super-senses to know not to push it. She carried on the tour in comparative silence.
The Portus primarily comprised of three living areas: the aft deck lounge that she’d already seen, the indoor galley and the most incredibly functional bedroom space ever. It took up the whole bow, filling the front of the Portus with panoramic, all-seeing windows, below which wrapped fitted black cupboards. She trailed a finger along the spotless black surface, over the part that was set up as a workspace, complete with expensive camouflaged laptop, hip-height bookshelves, a disguised mini-bar and a perfectly made up king-sized bed positioned centrally in the space, complete with black pillow and quilt covers. The whole space screamed sensuality and not just because of all the black.
A steamy kind of heat billowed up from under Mila’s work shirt. It was way too easy to imagine Rich in here.
‘Where’s the widescreen TV?’ she asked, hunting for the final touch to the space that she knew had to be here somewhere.
Rich leaned next to the workspace. ‘I had it removed. When I’m in here it’s not to watch TV.’
She turned to face him. ‘Is that because this is an office first, or a bedroom first?’
The moments the words left her lips she tried to recapture them, horrified at her own boldness. It had to be the result of this all-consuming black making her skin tingle, but talking about a client’s bedroom habits with said client was not just inappropriate, it was utterly mortifying.
‘I’m so sorry...’ she said hurriedly.
Rich held up a hand and the smile finally returned, lighting up the luxurious space.
‘My own fault for having such a rock star bedroom,’ he joked. ‘I didn’t buy the Portus for this space, but I have to admit it’s pretty functional. Everything I need is close by. But who needs a TV when you have a wraparound view like this, right?’
She followed his easy wave out of the expansive windows. There was something just too...perfect about the image he created. And she just couldn’t see him sitting still long enough to enjoy a view.
‘You work when you’re on board, don’t you?’
Those coral-coloured lips twisted. ‘Maybe.’
Mila hunted around for a topic of discussion that would soak up some of the cotton candy suddenly swilling around the room. ‘Where do your crew sleep?’
The business of climbing down into one of the hulls, where a small bed space and washing facility were, gave her the time she needed to get her rogue senses back in order.
‘...comfortable enough for short trips,’ Rich was saying as she tuned back in.
‘What about long ones?’
He glanced out of the window. ‘WestCorp keeps me pretty much tethered to the city. This is shaping up to be the longest trip I’ve taken since I got her. Three days.’
Wow. Last of the big spenders.
‘Come on.’ He straightened, maybe seeing the judgement in that thought on her face. ‘Let’s finish the tour.’
The rest of the Portus consisted of a marble-clad en suite bathroom, appointed with the same kind of luxury as everywhere else, and then a trip back out to the aft deck and up a spiral staircase to the helm. Like everything else on the vessel, it was a wonder of compact efficiency. Buttons and LED panels and two screens with high-tech navigation and seafloor mapping and a bunch of other equipment she didn’t recognise. The Portus’ captain introduced himself but Mila stood back just far enough that a handshake would be awkward to ask for. She’d rather not insult a second man today. Maybe a third.
‘Two crew?’ she murmured. The vessel was large enough for it, but for just one passenger...?
‘It’s more efficient to run overnight. Tag-teaming the skippering. Get up from the city faster. I left the office at seven two nights ago and woke up here the next morning. Same deal tonight. I’ll leave before sunset and be back in Perth just in time for my personal trainer.’
Imagine having a boat like this and then rushing every moment you were on her. This gorgeous vessel suddenly became relegated to a water taxi. Despite the wealth and comfort around her, she found herself feeling particularly sorry for Richard Grundy.
Captain Farrow pressed a finger to his headset and spoke quietly, then he turned to Rich.
‘Lunch is served, sir.’
‘Thanks, Max.’
They backtracked and found the sumptuous spread and the remainder of the wine set out on the aft deck. The deckhand known as Damo lowered his head respectfully then jogged on tanned legs up the spiral stairs to the helm and was gone.
Rich indicated for her to sit.
The first thing she noticed was the absence of the promised crayfish. In its place were some pieces of chicken. The little kindness touched her even as she wondered exactly how and when he’d communicated the instruction. Clearly, his crew had a talent for operating invisibly.
‘This is amazing,’ she said, curling her bare legs under her on the soft leather. The deep strains of wind chimes flew out of the back of the boat and were overwhelmed in the wash, but they endured. Mila loaded her small plate with delicious morsels.
‘So how long have you worked for the Department?’ Rich asked, loading a piece of sourdough with pâté and goat’s cheese.
It wasn’t unusual for one of her tour clients to strike up a personal conversation; what was unusual was the ease with which she approached her answer.
She normally didn’t do chatty.
‘Six years. Until I was eighteen, I instructed snorkelers during the busy season and volunteered on conservation projects in the off-season.’
‘While most other teens were bagging groceries or flipping burgers after school?’
‘It’s different up here. Station work, hospitality or conservation. Those are our options. Or leaving, of course,’ she acknowledged. Plenty of young people chose that.
‘Waiting on people not your thing?’
She studied her food for a moment. ‘People aren’t really my thing, to be honest. I much prefer the solitude of the reef system.’
It was the perfect in if he wanted to call her on her interpersonal skills. Or lack of.
But he didn’t. ‘What about working on the Station? Not too many people out there, I wouldn’t have thought.’
‘I would have worked on Wardoo in a heartbeat,’ she admitted. ‘But jobs there are very competitive and the size of their crew gets smaller every year as the owners cut back and back.’ She looked out towards the vast rust-coloured land on their port side. ‘And back.’
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