The Sheikh's Forbidden Jewel

Part 6- Chapter 5

Georgina clung to her seat with both hands. The fear in her ashen face pulled at Idriss's conscience. She wasn't acting, anguish knotted every muscle in her lush body.

"Georgina, come on, stop making that face. You can't be that scared of boats."

Her reply came through clenched teeth.

"Yes, I can."

Another importune memory: a girl with tousled red hair, plunging head first into the waves from a high rock, laughing at his anxiety. He slowed the speedboat down, even though the sea lay as flat as a mirror.

"What happened to you, Georgina? You used to be a risk-taker."

She emitted a sound halfway between a chuckle and a groan.

"You shouldn't ask what happened, but who."

Idriss's hands tightened on the wheel. Who had hurt her?

"Tell me," he said.

And because he wanted to give her time, and space, to talk, he veered away from the distant shape of Lobiera, and followed the coast instead. Georgina didn't appear to notice the change of course.

"I was seventeen, out on a yacht," she said, no higher than a murmur. "With some girls from my boarding school, their brothers, cousins... There was this boy I liked. Really liked."

The invisible blade turned inside his stomach. Why? Of course she'd had boyfriends in the past twenty years.

She might have one now.

The blade sliced higher. He hadn't even asked if she had anyone in her life. Just because she wasn't interested in marriage didn't mean she didn't have a lover.

It mattered so much to him, far too much. He stamped on the thought.

"Then what happened?" he asked.

She stared at the bottom of the boat.

"The sea was very choppy, and I'd drunk champagne for the first time. I was sick, all over that boy I fancied."

She shuddered a little.

"They laughed, all of them, laughed and laughed. Then they threw me overboard."

Idriss almost collided with a buoy, jerked the wheel away just in time. For a second he wondered if he'd heard right.

"They tried to drown you? For throwing up?"

The ghost of a smile floated on her pale lips.

"They knew I could swim, fortunately we weren't too far from the shore. It still took me half an hour to get back."

If only he'd been there, to defend her, support her as she battled the waves. Anger tore through him.

"Would it have made a difference to them if you'd been further out to sea? Far enough to get into real trouble? Would it have made a difference if you'd been a poor swimmer, or too drunk to swim?"

She peered at him, her eyes troubled.

"I'm not sure."

He fixed his gaze on the waves, but remained acutely aware of her. Her body curled up on the seat. Her ragged breathing.

"Since then, I've been frightened on boats," she said in a whisper. "And scared of throwing up. Of embarrassing myself in public."

Idriss held out his hand.

"Get up."

She did, with as much caution as if she were walking a tightrope. And wasn't that what she'd been doing these past few hours? What he'd made her do? No matter what her intentions were, he didn't want her scared or humiliated. He wanted her bold and free, just as she used to be.