Read Devil and the Deep Sea for Free Online

belongings
    together, wrapped them in a towel to back up her beach story, and
    cycled down the quay.
    Apart from the fishermen preparing to embark, there were few
    people about. Samma bit her lip as she approached Allegra's
    gangplank. She wished she could have said goodbye to Mindy and
    the rest of her friends, but at the same time she was glad they
    weren't around to witness what she was doing.
    'Can I help you, ma'mselle?' At the top of the gangway, her path
    was blocked very definitely by a tall coloured man, with shoulders
    like a American quarter-back.
    She squared her shoulders, and said, with a coolness she was far
    from feeling, 'Would you tell Monsieur Delacroix that Samantha
    Briant would like to speak with him.'
    The man gave her a narrow-eyed look. 'Mist' Roche ain't seeing
    anyone right now, ma'mselle. You come back in an hour or two.'
    In an hour or two, her courage might have deserted her, she
    thought. She said with equal firmness, 'Please tell him I'm here, and
    I have some money for him.'
    It was partly true. The small roll of bills representing her savings
    reposed in the pocket of her faded yellow sundress.
    The man gave her another sceptical glance, and vanished. After a
    few minutes, he returned.
    'Come with me, please.'
    The companionway and the passage to the saloon were only too
    familiar, but she was led further along to another door, standing
    slightly ajar. The man tapped lightly on the woodwork, said, 'Your
    visitor, boss,' and disappeared back the way he'd come, leaving
    Samma nervously on her own.
    She pushed open the door, and walked in. It was a stateroom, the
    first glance told her, and furnished more luxuriously than any
    bedroom she'd ever been in on dry land.
    And in the sole berth—as wide as any double bed—was Roche
    Delacroix, propped up against pillows, a scatter of papers across
    the sheet which barely covered the lower half of his body, a tray of
    coffee and fruit on the fitment beside him.
    Samma took a step backwards. She said nervously, 'I'm sorry—I
    didn't realise. I'll wait outside until you're dressed.'
    'Then you will wait for some considerable time.' He didn't even look
    at her. His attention was fixed frowningly on the document he was
    scanning. 'Sit down.'
    Samma perched resentfully on the edge of a thickly padded
    armchair. Its silky upholstery matched the other drapes in the room,
    she noticed. She wasn't passionately interested in interior
    decoration, but anything was better than having to look at him.
    She thought working in the hotel would have inured her by now to
    encountering people in various stages of nudity, but none of their
    guests had ever exuded Roche Delacroix's brand of raw
    masculinity. Or perhaps it was the contrast between his deeply
    bronzed skin, and the white of the bed linen which made him look
    so flagrantly—undressed.
    The aroma of the coffee reached her beguilingly and, in spite of
    herself, her small straight nose twitched, her stomach reminding her
    that she'd eaten and drunk nothing yet that day.
    Nor, it appeared, was she to be offered anything— not even a slice
    of the mango he was eating with such open enjoyment.
    'So—Mademoiselle Briant,' he said at last, a note of faint derision in
    his voice. 'Why am I honoured by this early visit? Have you come
    to pay your stepfather's poker debts? I am surprised he could raise
    such a sum so quickly.'
    'Not—not exactly.' A combination of thirst and nerves had turned
    her mouth as dry as a desert.
    His brows lifted. 'What then?'
    She couldn't prevaricate, and she knew it. She said, 'I know you're
    leaving Cristoforo today. I came to ask you to—take me with you.'
    They were the hardest words she'd ever had to utter, and they were
    greeted by complete silence.
    He sat up, disposing his pillows more comfortably, and Samma
    averted her gaze in a hurry. When she glanced back, he was
    rearranging the sheet over his hips with cynical ostentation.
    'Why should I?' he asked baldly.
    'I need a