Shackled by Diamonds

by Julia James

  Their boat stopped, its churning wake at the rear subsiding to a mere idling. The noise of the rotors increased proportionately, but not enough to drown the amplified voice directed at them—not from the helicopter now, but from the police craft hovering threateningly across the cruiser’s starboard bow.

  The man on the stern deck shouted something harshly to the man holding her. Anna was jerked forward, forced to go towards the open stern deck.

  As she emerged into the brightness she suddenly felt something hard and cold jammed under her ear.

  It was the barrel of a gun.

  This far out to sea the water was cold as Leo slipped silently into its depths. He ignored it. Blocked out everything except the icy purpose that filled him. Had filled him ever since his blood had run cold when the villa’s security head had told him that three gunmen had been holding the house staff at gunpoint, threatening to kill them, and that Anna had been abducted the moment he’d driven off, leaving her at the villa.

  The hour that had passed since then had been a living nightmare. The police had been scrambled, but Leo had refused to stay ashore. He and two of his security people had piled into the fastest motor boat he possessed, and headed off in pursuit. A car had been abandoned at the jetty in the next village along the coast, and the villagers there had reported seeing three men drag a young white woman aboard a gleaming cruiser moored, untypically, at the fishermen’s jetty. It had left in a roaring wake, heading south.

  Cold had drenched through him. This island was one of the safest in the Caribbean—the government extremely protective of its citizens and tourists—especially their very rich ones. So Leo had allowed his personal security at the villa to be minimal.

  Too minimal.

  Christos—just who the hell had Anna got herself involved with? Who had taken her? And why? The gunmen had been Middle Eastern. That was all his staff had been able to tell him. They had spoken only English. The boat they were using, however, was registered to a South American country.

  Drugs? Was that what Anna was involved with? God, he’d known she was a criminal, but stealing priceless jewellery was a world away from drug-running.

  Or was it? The criminal underworld was a sick mirror image of the business world—making money out of anything and everything.

  Why had his Anna been taken?

  He pushed the question from him. It was irrelevant now. Everything was irrelevant except what he was doing. The helicopter-induced swell was running against him, chopping the water and slowing him down, but at least it meant that for the few moments when he had to surface for air he was hidden. The police boat had stopped the cruiser in its tracks, and that and the hovering helicopter were taking all the gunmen’s attention.

  Getting aboard amidships, well away from the stern deck and the trimmed but still deadly propeller, took all his strength. For a moment he crouched, breathing heavily, just inside the ship’s rail, hidden by the bulk of the upper cabin. Then, slowly, he moved.

  The man at the wheel was holding the boat as steady as he could in the buffeting from the helicopter, at which he was gazing upwards balefully, as well as keeping his eyes on the police gunmen trained on him from the boat all but grazing his starboard bow. He never even heard Leo in the din.

  Cautiously, Leo started to climb up onto the roof of the cabin, sliding along it on his belly. He twisted his head sideways, shaking it warningly at the police on board the boat. Not by a movement or a gesture did they reveal they had seen him. The booming voice from the megaphone was still ordering the gunmen to hand their prisoner over. Somewhere, dimly, he could hear their leader shouting his sneering defiance, telling the police helicopter that if they fired the girl would be dead first. The backs of all three of them were towards Leo, but he could see, with a sick coldness inside him, the gun jammed under Anna’s ear. He also saw, with a rage that seared through him like a white heat, that they’d stripped her to the waist.

  Silently, like death, he dropped down onto the rear deck.

  In a blur, Anna saw the figure drop. For a second terror screamed in her, and then somewhere, in a synapse deep in her brain, she realised who it was.

  It was Leo.

  Leo—dropping down, pummelling into the man holding the gun to her throat, knocking him to the deck. Anna screamed. And then, from nowhere, she acted. Every muscle in her body went limp and she sagged forward.

  Fire shot through her shoulders as they took the full weight of her body, but she didn’t care. The change in weight distribution had unbalanced her captor. She hooked her foot around his ankle and, every muscle tensing again, she jerked. He went flying down, almost taking her with him, but at the last moment he released her to try and stop himself hitting the deck. She was on him in a second. Her arms would not work, but her legs would, and she laid in to him, kicking viciously anywhere and everywhere she could to keep him down.

  Then, suddenly, she was swept up. Before she could even struggle again she registered that it was Leo—Leo bundling her over the side guardrail of the deck into the waiting arms of one of his security people in the power boat that had come alongside. She heard Leo yell something, and the boat veered off.

  ‘Leo!’ She screamed his name, but it could not be heard above the roaring engine.

  The police helicopter had shifted, shadowing over the yacht, and she could see two marksmen taking aim from the interior. The swoop of the rotors was ploughing the sea into a frenzy.

  The gunman had staggered to his feet, lifting his gun while backing Leo into the cabin, taking aim from the rocking platform. Even through the deafening noise she heard the crack of gunshots, saw Leo launching himself sideways, downwards. Then there were more shots. The police marksmen had shot the gunman and the man was reeling, falling in hideous slow motion, backwards over the churning propellers.

  She twisted her head away, hearing yet more shots.

  Then no more.

  ‘Leo,’ she moaned, ‘Oh, God, Leo…’

  He was lying motionless, face down on the rocking, jerking deck, and she could see blood staining his shirt. Horror drenched through her.

  Leo was dead. He had died saving her.

  Grief tore at her like a ravening wolf. Eating her alive.

  Then, into the horror, she heard the voice of Leo’s security man.

  ‘I think I just saw his hand move!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ANNA sat in the waiting room. It was cool. Overhead, a fan rotated slowly. Even with painkillers her wrenched arms and shoulders ached. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything.

  Only one thing occupied her entire being.

  Leo.

  She stared at the clock. How long had he been in Theatre? She didn’t know. Knew only that no one was saying reassuring things to her. No one was telling her it was going to be all right.

  No one was telling her he was going to live.

  My fault. My fault. My fault.

  The words tolled through her.

  Over and over again.

  As she waited, and prayed.

  There had been only one other thing she had done since the doctor had discharged her. She had begged the favour of a call to the UK. Across the ocean she had spoken to Jenny, warning her to lie low, that the man who had got her pregnant was prepared to kill for her.

  She went on staring at the clock.

  My fault. My fault. My fault.

  The doors opened. A doctor came out in Theatre garb. He came up to Anna, loosening his mask. His face was grave.

  Her throat had a noose around it.

  The surgeon looked at her a moment. Then a tired smile formed on his mouth.

  ‘You’ve got a very tough man there. I’ve patched him together again, but he needs a reward for all his heroics. Make sure you’re there when he surfaces. He deserves a beautiful woman to wake up to.’

  Anna burst into tears.

  Leo was so pale.

  His face like marble.

  He hardly seemed to be breathing, and y
et the low rise and fall of his bandaged chest told her that he was alive. Blessedly, blessedly alive.

  Gratitude flooded through her.

  And more, so much more than gratitude.

  Shakily, she sat down on a chair and pulled it closer to him. His hands lay on either side of him, inert, pale.

  She slid her fingers around the hand nearest her.

  Living flesh.

  Slowly she lowered her cheek to his hand.

  It was wet with tears.

  How long she sat there, she did not know. Nurses looked in every now and then—sometimes at her, sometimes to check Leo. The night wore on, and still she sat there, his hand clasped tight in hers, never letting him go.

  The dawn came, fingers of pale light stealing into the room. A nurse came to check him again, bringing coffee and sandwiches for Anna.

  ‘His pulse is stronger,’ she told her. ‘He’ll be back with us very soon.’ She glanced down at where Anna was holding his hand. ‘Don’t you let go, now. He knows, you know. You hang on in there.’ She gave a last smile. ‘Now, drink this coffee while it’s hot. And eat.’

  She glided out.

  Anna went on holding on.

  Does he know? Does he know I’m here?

  And, if he did, was she helping or harming?

  Tears started in her eyes again.

  He came for me. He risked his life and came for me. He thinks I stole from him, he thinks me a thief, but he came for me. After everything I said to him…he came for me, to save me.

  Her heart swelled with emotion. Emotion so strong it frightened her. Her vision was blurred, so blurred, so it was the infinitesimally slight movement of his hand that she first registered. She caught her breath, her heart squeezing. She wiped her eyes hurriedly with her free hand. The tears just welled again. But this time she saw him move, saw his eyelids lift, saw him gaze without vision for a moment and then, as if his eyes were bearing great weights, they cleared, and moved.

  To her.

  For a moment there was nothing in his eyes. Nothing at all.

  Her heart was crushed. Just crushed.

  Slowly, feeling as if a stake were being plunged into her heart, she started to draw her fingers away.

  He seized them back with lightning reaction, crushing them, not letting her go.

  His eyelids drooped again.

  ‘Anna,’ he said. The word was a sigh, faint and low.

  His eyes sank shut.

  He slid back into sleep.

  But at his mouth Anna saw a faint, relaxing curve.

  Later still, she was packed off back to the villa, driven by one of Leo’s staff. They were all so nice to her, so kind. She wanted to shout at them, tell them it was her fault—all her fault. But the maids bore her off, got her under a shower, fed her and put her to bed.

  But not in her own bed. In Leo’s.

  She slept, hugging his pillow.

  It had his scent on it.

  And her tears.

  When she arrived back at the hospital it was to learn that Leo had already surfaced into full consciousness, then gone back to sleep again. His vital signs were good, his natural physical strength boosting his body’s healing powers.

  ‘He’ll wake again quite soon,’ the nurse told her. ‘You make sure you’re there when he does. And don’t cry, dear. He’s going to be fine, you know.’

  The admonition was in vain. Anna took one look at Leo’s sleeping form, his pale face, his bandaged chest, and started crying again.

  Emotion filled her. Filled her and filled her. Welling up and spilling over—just like her tears.

  Her heart squeezed.

  Oh, Leo, she cried silently. Leo!

  She sat down, trembling beside him, and gazed at him, her lips murmuring endlessly.

  Eyes anguished.

  Heart fuller than it had ever been in her life.

  Full with love for Leo Makarios.

  Leo was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, because Anna was crying. She was crying, and saying she was sorry—so sorry, so sorry.

  So it must be a dream.

  Anna never said sorry.

  She stole his Levantsky rubies, and she never said sorry.

  She got him achingly aroused and then threw him out of her bedroom, and she never said sorry.

  She shouted harassment at him, and never said sorry.

  She accused him of criminal blackmail, and she never said sorry.

  She called sex with him sordid, and never said sorry.

  Worst of all, she got herself abducted by psychos and he had to go after her and save her and get shot to pieces.

  But she was saying sorry now. He could hear her.

  His eyes opened.

  It wasn’t a dream.

  Anna Delane was sitting by his bed, her face blotched with crying, and she was saying, ‘I’m sorry, Leo. I’m just so sorry.’

  Then she saw his eyes open, and fell silent in mid ‘sorry’.

  For one long, endless moment he saw her mouth quiver, as though she were trying to control something.

  Then she burst into renewed noisy tears.

  Leo just stared.

  Her green eyes were smeared, lashes clogged, cheeks runnelled, colour blotchy, and her nose was red.

  She looked awful.

  She looked the most precious sight in the world to him.

  He reached for her hand. It was twisting with her other hand in her lap. There was a soggy wet tissue in their clutch. He dropped it disgustedly on the floor and took her hand, lifting it back on the bed. It felt ludicrously heavy.

  But it felt the most precious thing in the world to him.

  He was insane, he knew. She was a thief, a hypocrite, a cussed, unrepentant, shameless, uncooperating, accusatory damn woman, with more attitude than Genghis Khan, and she could make him angrier than he’d ever felt about a woman before. But when he’d seen her standing there, forcibly stripped to the waist, that scum jamming a gun under her ear, he’d felt a rage that he had never known in his life.

  No one, no one was going to do that to her and live.

  Even if it meant he ended up like a damn sieve, full of bullet holes!

  With supreme effort he yanked her hand closer to him, possessively.

  ‘Theos, but you’re trouble, yineka mou,’ he said, his voice slurring with tiredness.

  Her storm of weeping increased. He watched with heavy-lidded eyes he could hardly keep open.

  Well, he thought wonderingly, you see something new every day. Anna Delane, crying. His beautiful Anna, crying.

  He squeezed her fingers. He wanted to haul her down on him and hold her so tight she’d never storm off again—ever. But he hadn’t got the strength right now. So he just squeezed her fingers instead.

  It made her cry more.

  ‘Oh, God, Leo, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. All my fault.’

  He hazed a faint smile. Anna Delane, apologising at last. It was a good feeling.

  Irrelevant now, but still good.

  ‘You came after me. You thought me a thief, and I said all those horrible things to you, and you still came after me. You saved my life—and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. And I’m so glad, so incredibly grateful, that you’re alive.’

  Leo went on watching her. He still couldn’t get over hardboiled Anna Delane bawling her eyes out for him.

  It was doing the strangest thing to him. The damnedest thing.

  He decided to hell with his stitches, and yanked her down to him.

  It cut the apologising out instantly.

  ‘Leo! Oh, my God—your wounds.’

  She was trying to struggle up from where he’d pulled her to him. He wasn’t having that. He definitely wasn’t having that. She wasn’t getting away from him.

  ‘Hold still. I’m not letting you go.’

  ‘But I’m hurting you!’

  ‘Quiet,’ ordered Leo.

  He lifted his free hand and brought it round to cup her cheek. His thumb grazed her tear-wet
cheek.

  ‘Tears for me?’ he said wonderingly. ‘Anna Delane, crying over me?’

  ‘Of course I’m crying! I owe you my life,’ she wailed. ‘And you nearly got killed for my sake. You nearly got killed. And I feel so bad. I thought you were just a spoilt, arrogant bastard who believed he could help himself to me because I was a model, that you just wanted a quick lay because you thought I was cheap and easy—and then you got sex from me by threatening me with jail, because I had to let you think I was a thief, and you didn’t see anything wrong with getting sex that way, and I hated you for that, and I hated you even more because you made me forget that was why you were having sex with me, and that made me even angrier with you—that you could make me so stupid over you, wanting a man who was treating me like that—and so I hated you even more, and I was horrible to you—as horrible as I could be—and then you went and came after me when those sicko goons got me, and they would have killed me, and tortured me and you saved me and nearly got killed—you nearly got killed—and I thought you were dead. Oh, God, I thought you were dead, Leo, and it was… It just made everything else seem pointless and stupid, and I didn’t care if you were spoilt and arrogant, because I just wanted you to be alive. I just desperately, desperately wanted you to be alive…’

  Her voice choked off.

  ‘I just wanted you to be alive,’ Anna whispered. ‘And I’m sorry—so sorry, Leo.’

  Leo was staring at her. He’d stopped listening to her saying sorry because the novelty was over—now she was just getting in a state. Besides, it was out of character for Anna. Something else she’d said, however, was not. He forced his gradually un-fogging brain to remember what it was.

  Then it came to him.

  ‘What do you mean, spoilt and arrogant?’ he demanded.