What was she going to achieve in Stone Town?
‘How old were you when you met Brian, Emily?’ Zageo asked as they reached the wharf and began the long stroll to the end of it where an outboard motorboat was waiting to transport them back to the cruiser.
Her mind gratefully seized on the reference to the man who had been the love of her life, hauling out the memory of their first meeting and blowing it up to blot out her current confusion. ‘I was fourteen. His parents had just moved up to Cairns from the central coast of New South Wales and he came to my school that year.’
‘School? How old was he?’
She smiled at the surprise in Zageo’s voice. ‘Sixteen. Tall and blond and very hunky. All the girls instantly developed crushes on him.’
‘Did he play the field before choosing you?’
‘No. Brian played it very cool, not linking up with anyone, just chatting around, but every so often I’d catch him watching me and I knew I was the one he liked.’
‘The one he wanted,’ came the sardonic correction.
Emily bridled at Zageo’s personal slant on something he knew absolutely nothing about. ‘It wasn’t just the sex thing,’ she flashed at him resentfully. ‘Brian liked lots of things about me.’
‘What’s not to like?’
The slightly derisive retort was accompanied by a long sideways head to foot appraisal that shot Emily’s temperature sky-high.
‘I’m talking about the person I am inside,’ she declared fiercely. ‘Brian took the time to get to know me. He didn’t take one look and decide what I was, as you’ve done!’
The accusation raised one mocking black eyebrow. ‘On the contrary, despite what I’d call damning circumstances, I have continued to look at you, Emily, many times. And I am still gathering evidence as to your character.’
‘But you don’t care about it. You don’t really care,’ she hotly countered. ‘You would have taken me to bed in one of those bungalows back there if I’d said yes.’
‘You are not sixteen anymore, and sexual attraction does not wait upon niceties.’
‘But I do have a choice over whether to give into it or not.’
The look he gave her ruthlessly blasted any hope she might be nursing about holding out on that score. Emily shrivelled inside herself, wishing she hadn’t challenged him on it since they were on their way back to where a number of staterooms were readily available for intimate privacy. Not that he would stoop to raping her. He would disdain using force with a woman. But if he somehow trapped her into another kiss…
Extremely conscious of her vulnerability to his sexual magnetism, Emily kept her mouth firmly shut and her gaze averted from his as they rode in the outboard motorboat the island wharf to the air-conditioned cruiser. Zageo also remained silent but it was not a restful silence. The sense of purposeful power emanating from him had her nerves jangling and her mind skittering along wildly defensive lines.
At least he had agreed to take her to Stone Town.
Maybe Hannah would arrive any minute now.
Some action was needed to save her from this man and the sooner it came, the better.
CHAPTER NINE
ZAGEO maintained his darkly brooding silence until after they were served coffee in the saloon. Anxious to separate herself from any physical connection to the man who was now dominating her consciousness, Emily had seated herself in an armchair on one side of the low coffee table, but he sat opposite her, granting the relief of distance although there was no relief from the direct focus of his attention.
She listened to the powerful motors taking them back to Zanzibar, mentally urging them to make the trip as fast as possible. She was so wound up in willing the cruiser to speed them over the water, it came as a jolt when Zageo spoke.
‘So…tell me the history of your relationship with the man you married,’ he tersely invited.
The edge to his voice sounded suspiciously like jealousy, though Emily reasoned he simply didn’t like coming off poorly in any comparison. Regardless of his motivation for seeking more knowledge of Brian, she was only too eager to fill this dangerous time talking about her one and only love, recalling shared experiences which had nothing to do with sex.
Words tumbled out, describing how from being school sweethearts, she’d followed Brian into a career in the tourist industry which was a huge part of the economy in far north Queensland. They’d worked on dive boats, been proficient in all water sports, crewed on cruise ships that worked the coastline around the top end of Australia, sailed yachts from one place to another for the convenience of owners to walk onto at any given time.
‘When did you marry?’ Zageo asked somewhat critically, as though the timing of the wedding had some relevance to him.
‘When I was twenty-one and Brian twenty-three.’
‘A very young man,’ he muttered deprecatingly.
‘It was right for us!’ she insisted.
‘Marriage is about acquiring and sharing property, having children. What do you have to show for the five years you had together?’
‘Marriage is also about commitment to each other. We had a life of adventure…’
‘And that’s what you’re left with? Adventure? Falling into the company of a man like Jacques Arnault?’ Zageo remarked contemptuously. ‘Your husband made no provision for your future, no—’
‘He didn’t know he was going to die!’ she cut in, hating the criticism. ‘The plan was to wait until we were in our thirties before starting a family. After we’d been everywhere we wanted to go.’
‘Did it occur to you there is always another horizon?’
‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘Your Brian acted like a grown-up boy, still playing boys’ games with the convenience of a committed companion. What if it was not in his psyche to ever settle down and provide a family home?’
‘It’s people who make a family, not a place,’ she argued.
‘You would have dragged your children around the world with him?’
‘Why not? Experiencing the world is not a bad thing.’
‘You have no attachment to your home country? Your home city?’
‘Of course I do. It’s always good to go back there. It’s where my parents live. But Brian was my partner and wherever he went, I would have gone with him.’
Her vehemence on that point apparently gave Zageo pause for some reconsideration. His eyes narrowed and when he eventually made comment, it was laced with cynicism.