She was still shaking, but not because she was afraid of falling. This wasn’t fear, this was something darker, more urgent, and, as she looked up, she knew he was going to kiss her.

Not the way he’d kissed her before. This was not like that sweet, sensuous, barely there kiss.

He’d held her as he’d danced with her.

This was something else. This wasn’t that light, floating touch as they’d slowly circled Berkeley Square. This was searingly close, a hungry, insistent need…

For the space of one, two, three heartbeats pounding in her ears, her head did its best to fight the seductive call to surrender, but by then her body had made a bid for independence and, overriding thought, reason, she was kissing him back.

No holds barred. No fooling. Minutes earlier she’d felt as if she were flying; this was the real thing.

Diana didn’t want him to let her go. She wanted him to carry her down to that stateroom and put that incredible bed to the purpose for which it had been designed.

Maybe he would have.

Maybe, like her, he was beyond reason and in another moment they would have been beyond recall. Instead they were shocked back to reality by a sharp shower of cold water.

She jerked back, gasping for breath.

Zahir, damn him, laughed. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, ignoring the water running down his face, instead wiping the spray from her cheeks with his thumbs.

‘All right?’ she demanded, her hair dripping down the back of her neck and trickling down inside her blouse. ‘What kind of dumb question is that?’

‘The “are you all right?” dumb question?’ he offered.

‘Fine!’ she said. Beyond the fact that she’d temporarily lost her mind. That it had taken the equivalent of a bucket of cold water to bring her to her senses. ‘I’m absolutely fine, if you overlook the fact that I appear to be at sea!’

‘Oh, that…’

‘Yes, that! Come and look at my new toy, you said. You didn’t say anything about putting to sea!’

‘Alan’s idea,’ he said. ‘But running away to sea suddenly has a lot to commend it.’

She refused to answer that on the grounds that it might incriminate her.

‘I’m sorry if you had a fright. Are you very wet?’

‘Yes!’ she said crossly. Being jerked down from that kind of high would make anyone cross. Then, more truthfully, ‘No…’

‘Sure? You don’t want to stand around in wet clothes.’

How could she be sure of anything when she was standing this close to Zahir, her hands still clinging to his shoulders as if he were anchoring her to earth, his hands about her waist and everything in between…touching?

‘Any excuse to get me out of this uniform, huh?’

Yes, well, it was the obvious next move after that mind-blowing kiss. Especially when she was clutching at his shoulders so hard that she was screwing up the linen of his jacket.

‘You’ve got me,’ he said.

And it was those three little words that brought her back to earth, to reality. He was the one thing she hadn’t got. Not him. And she never would. Not for more than an hour or two.

That was too much like history repeating itself.

And slowly, very slowly, she loosened her fingers, doing her best to smooth the cloth over his shoulders. Except that linen didn’t smooth. Once wrinkled, it stayed wrinkled.

A bit like her life…

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed silently, only to discover that Zahir was still holding her.

Zahir was holding this girl he’d only just met, who was nothing like any girl he’d ever dated, had ever dreamed of dating, and for some reason he just couldn’t let go.

He just wanted to keep her this close, with her hands on his shoulders, his hands at her waist keeping her close. To sail away with her into the sunset…

Well, that was the fantasy that this yacht had been built for.

‘You can let go now,’ she said. ‘I won’t fall over.’

‘Really? Are you absolutely certain that you’ve got your sea-legs? Suppose there’s another big wave?’

‘Good point,’ she said, making a point of looking at her watch. ‘We’d better turn around and go back if I’m going to get you to London by six.’

He didn’t want to go anywhere. He wanted to stay here with Diana and, as she pulled away, he said, ‘Forget London. Tell me about the yacht.’

Diana swallowed.

What she really thought was that a yacht costing millions was a very clear demonstration of just how far out of her depth her heart had swum. Heading out to sea, but on its own and sinking fast.

‘Does it matter what I think?’

‘Would you want to spend your honeymoon on board her?’ he pressed.

‘She’s lovely,’ she said, putting on a big smile hoping that he wouldn’t notice that she’d avoided the question. Putting a safe distance between them as, trailing her fingers along the handrail, she walked along the deck. Away from him. Then, because she couldn’t help it, glancing back. He was standing just where she’d left him, his arm still extended, as if to keep her close. ‘Does she have a name?’ she asked. Anything to stop herself from going back.

‘Yes…’ He shook his head as if trying to think. ‘Yes. I’m calling her Star Gatherer.’

Star…

‘You just made that up!’ she declared without thinking and, as if she’d somehow released him, he joined her at the rail, leaning over it, looking down into the water. ‘I can see why, after last night, you might think so,’ he said.

‘No…’

Too late to deny it. ‘Yes, Diana. But in fact the name comes from the poem, Arab Love-Song.’ And he turned and leaned back against the rail, with the smile of a man who had just had everything he knew confirmed.

‘The Maiden of the Morn will soon/Through Heaven stray and sing,/Star gathering.’

‘Oh. That’s beautiful.’ Then, staring down into the water rushing past the side of the yacht, anywhere, rather than at him, ‘How will you get her home?’ she asked, seeking a subject less…incendiary. ‘To Ramal Hamrah? Will you take her there yourself?’

‘I wish I had that kind of time to spare. Unfortunately, at the moment the sky has first call on my time.’ Better. Safer, she thought, raising an eyebrow. ‘You might recall that I have an airline to get off the ground.’

‘A yacht, an airline? Tell me, Zahir, do you have a bit of a thing about transport?’

‘I’m in the travel business.’

‘Oh, right. Well, I suppose that would explain it.’

‘Jeff’s mustering a permanent crew for the yacht and they’ll bring her home. It’ll give them a chance to put her through her paces, get to know her quirks, on the way.’ Then, ‘If I offered you a trip to Ramal Hamrah in her would you be as quick to turn me down a second time?’

‘That depends. Would I have to share her with a bunch of freeloading journalists?’ Before he could answer, she said, ‘No, I’m kidding. I don’t have that kind of time either.’

But this time as she turned her wrist to check the time, he took her hand, stopping her. ‘We could always take her for a run across the Channel,’ he said.

‘The Channel? To France?’ she squeaked.

His thumb was stroking the back of her fingers. ‘We could have dinner in some little French café. I could take the train to Paris in the morning, while you return with the yacht.’

And the bit in between dinner and breakfast?

She couldn’t breathe. It shouldn’t be this hard to say no. If she just concentrated on that one word-morning. Remember that when morning came he’d be taking the fast train to Paris while her world would be in pieces.

Again.

And, on top of that, she wouldn’t have a job.

‘W-what about your dinner at the Mansion House?’ she stammered. ‘If I don’t get you back to London by six, James Pierce will call Sadie Redford and get me fired. He really doesn’t like me.’

‘I like you, that’s all that matters.’

‘Zahir…’

He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed the tips of her fingers. So sure of her…

‘No…’

Maybe it was the first time a woman had ever said ‘no’ to him, or maybe it was the undisguised anguish in her voice, but she now had his full attention.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but my evening is already spoken for.’

‘Your only task this evening is to drive me to the Mansion House.’

She shook her head. ‘Sadie has arranged for someone else to stand in for me.’

‘I don’t want someone else!’ She shook her head. ‘Are you telling me, Metcalfe, that you have a date?’

And that, Diana realised, was the answer. If he thought she was involved with someone, he’d stop this…whatever this was. Save her from herself. Because, heaven help her, hard as she was trying, she was finding it impossible…

‘Is that so unbelievable?’ she asked. ‘A minute ago you were inviting me to dinner in France.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ Then, eyes narrowed, ‘Tell me his name.’

‘Freddy,’ she said. How could she have been so lost in desire that the whole world had suddenly been filled with Zahir? Forgotten the child who was the centre of her world, who, she’d protected from the consequences of her own stupidity since the moment he had been conceived? ‘His name is Freddy.’

Zahir felt his gut contract.

For a moment he hadn’t believed her, had thought that she was clutching at the face-saving excuse he’d offered, protecting him as much as herself from the fallout of such an ill-considered venture. But one look at her face warned him that he was fooling himself.

She might have responded to his reckless kiss with all the passion at her command. She had certainly displayed all the signs of a woman betrayed when she’d thought he was involved with Lucy, but, whoever this Freddy was, he brought a whole new look to her face. A sweetness. A tenderness. Something that he’d fooled himself he’d seen when she’d looked up at him only moments before. When he’d had to force himself to say something stupid like ‘all right?’ to stop himself from picking her up and carrying her below, not as a choreographed move-the opening sequence in a slow dance that would lead inevitably to that inviting bed in the stateroom-but as the beginning of something rare, unexpected, precious.