Read Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong for Free Online

picked clean by the robber crabs.’
    Well, that explained something. Honornodded up the beach. ‘The Malay word for that bend up there means “bosun’s grave”.’
    Rob turned and stared at the point where the shore disappeared around a bend. Ghosts of memory fairly flew around them.
    Finally Honor broke the silence. ‘And the
Emden?’
    ‘Just beyond the reef.’ He flicked his chin towards the flawless, rich blue ocean—so blue it seemed to become the sky somewhere off in the vast distance. ‘The Cocos people stripped her of anything they could use before she perished.’
    ‘She rusted away?’
    ‘She broke up and sank. She’s half reef herself now.’ He turned his eyes back to hers. ‘The coral got its revenge, ultimately.’
    She smiled at his poeticism. ‘It always does.’
    His eyes dropped to her smile briefly before turning back out to sea. Out to where she’d first seen him bobbing in his boat earlier today. Only a day? Why did it feel so much longer? They stood in silence and Honor let Rob have his thoughts. The sinking sun cast rich golden light over his tanned features, highlighting a straight nose and the symmetrical ridges of his cheekbones. She was suddenly inclined to draw out the experience, but the last place she wanted to be as the fiery sun set on thehorizon was standing on a tropical island with this … sea-god. There were just some fates you didn’t tempt. The glib charmer he’d treated her to so far today might not currently be present, but he probably wasn’t far away. He was just lost at sea in the glassy expression of Robert Dalton’s blue eyes.
    The thought bred a tiny chill and she curled her arms across her torso. A handful of the
Emden
crew may have been lucky enough to be plucked alive from the cruel waters of the Cocos Trench but the dark ocean was not always so merciful. Not everyone was given a second chance out there.
    Not everyone who got one wanted it. As the men who scrabbled ashore from the
Emden
discovered.
    ‘We should get back.’ Honor’s stiff tone brought the more familiar glaze to his features as he turned back to her. She instantly missed the passion she’d briefly seen there but was incapable of chasing off the shadows that suddenly surrounded her.
    He cast his eyes back out to the reef one last time and then followed her quietly back into the trees.
    Rob tossed and turned in
The Player’s
comfortable cabin for hours. He told himself it was because he was nervous that his boat wouldsink out from under him and not because he kept reliving flashes of the curve of Honor’s cheek or the smell of her ocean-washed hair. Or the seductive length of her tanned thigh.
    But, last time he checked, certain death didn’t harden his body so he had to assume it was the woman and not the threat of sinking to Davy Jones’s locker that was keeping him awake. Either way, the result was the same.
    He was going ashore.
    He sat up on the bunk and twisted sideways, well practised at not slamming his head on the low ceiling of
The Player’s
cabin. He’d spent many a night onboard at sea or in dock but he’d never brought anyone back to this cabin with him—real or otherwise. Honor, albeit in imaginary form, was the first woman to set foot inside this space.
    Damn her! His haven felt vaguely violated.
    Moonlight trailed a sparkling path over rolling ocean all the way to the horizon. Like the yellow brick road leading to Oz, except straight and sure. It occurred to him that, from the moon’s perspective, the golden pathway led straight to this island and to the golden woman inhabiting it. He turned towards shore and visualised her sleeping beneath her giant sunflower tent. Maybe he’d get to watch her sleep for a while. That wasn’t too creepy.
    Was it?
    He smiled and slipped into the drop-off, sucking in an agonised breath as the icy swell rushed into his board shorts. He was conscious, too, that sharks were always more active around reefs at night. The two effectively