Secret Intentions

by Caitlyn Nicholas

  “Zani!” Corbin swore and took the boat in a tight turn.

  “Sorry.” She rested her head on the deck for a second, regaining her composure, and caught the buoy perfectly on their second pass.

  The young man looked at the boat in appreciation. “It’s a Lagoon 440. I’ve read about these,” he said to Corbin as he stepped aboard the boat to help with any bags they might have. Zani barely heard them as they fell into conversation. Instead she gazed toward the hotel jetty where the familiar figure of Roger Holmwood stood. Used to thinking on her feet, for once she found herself coming up with nothing, nothing except a vague sense of impending doom.

  In a daze, she let the young man help her aboard the runabout.

  “Is something the matter?” muttered Corbin, looking at her curiously. “You’ve gone really white.”

  “No,” she said vaguely. He didn’t look convinced.

  “A Lagoon 440. I’ve read about those,” Roger called as the young man driving the boat expertly steered it into the jetty. “Hi, I’m Roger, managing director of the Holmwood. Here for lunch?” Then he spotted Zani. “Zani darling, what are you doing here? Thought you were up to your eyeballs with work? Sarah will be thrilled to see you. She has news.”

  He swooped and kissed her on the cheek.

  “You know this gentleman?” asked Corbin, his face devoid of expression and his tone neutral. Zani decided her panicked brain was only imagining that tension ran through him like a bowsprit in a force nine gale.

  “Um. Corbin, this is Roger Holmwood, um, Roger, this is Corbin de Villiers, my boss at work.”

  “Your what? But I…”

  “I’m starving,” interjected Zani, cutting Roger off. He stared at her in surprise, but he’d run an expensive and exclusive hotel for long enough to know when to stop asking questions.

  He walked with them to the hotel’s restaurant and seated them at a cozy table, next to the roaring fire and beside a window that overlooked the small harbour. A gracious host, he collected their coats and discussed satellite navigation systems with Corbin.

  Zani glanced around the restaurant, at the fire, the thick limestone walls, the stunning views. The place exuded smug opulence. It could not have been more romantic.

  “I’ll go and find Sarah.” Roger took his leave with a questioning glance at Zani. She wished he wouldn’t go.

  She eyed Corbin warily. He appeared to be simmering.

  “Did you not think to tell me that you knew people here? Or is it supposed to be some sort of secret?”

  “You know I have no secrets from you,” said Zani with a vapid smile in a half-hearted attempt at flirting.

  “Do yourself a favour and quit acting a brainless idiot,” he snapped.

  “I’m sorry, is there some sort of problem?” She was all injured innocence with a hint of sarcasm. Attack or defend? Truth? More lies? Her mind felt like jelly. Her instincts told her to just keep stalling. But Corbin didn’t look like he was going to fall for stalling for very much longer.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me, Zani. Nothing about you makes sense. I don’t like to be taken for a fool.” His anger was tempered by disappointment, which made Zani want to crawl away and hide under a rock. She tried to focus on her reasons for being there—her father, the leaks—but suddenly nothing seemed important enough to justify inviting Corbin’s derision.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Why would I want to keep secrets from you?” She kept to the innocent tack, clinging to denial. After all, she hadn’t actually lied to him. Well, today, anyway.

  “I have no idea, but I suspect you are.”

  Zani opened her mouth to respond when, to her profound relief, they were interrupted.

  “Zani!” Sarah wove her way between the tables and plonked herself into a chair with her usual familiarity. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? We haven’t seen you since the wedding.” Sarah turned to Corbin. “She was the most beautiful bridesmaid, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t,” murmured Corbin, exuding a restrained fury that Sarah seemed oblivious to.

  Zani shifted in her seat. The situation was getting ridiculous. “I didn’t, er, I wasn’t sure I’d be coming here.”

  “No?” Sarah looked intrigued. “Who is your divine friend?” Corbin, who’d been looking like he’d been carved of granite, mellowed slightly under Sarah’s laser-beam charm.

  “My boss,” said Zani.

  “A friend,” said Corbin. Sarah raised an eyebrow.

  “Roger said you had some news?” Zani grasped for any other topic of conversation.

  “Pregnant. I’m having a baby.”

  “Sarah, that’s wonderful.” Zani leant forward and grasped her friend’s hand, with genuine happiness.

  “Hmph. Well all I want to do is be sick everywhere, a small problem considering that I spend all day in the kitchen and I’m going to miss the whole of next season’s racing.” Sarah beamed.

  Zani laughed. Roger and Sarah had been planning to start a family as soon as they were married. Sarah chatted for a while longer, telling them both more than they’d ever imagined about the early stages of pregnancy.

  “I mean it’s no wonder I feel so tired. Right now I’m growing fingernails and eyeballs and elbows…” she gushed. One of the waitresses appeared and murmured to Sarah that she was needed back in the kitchen.

  “I’ll send you out some lunch. The paella is amazing today, though I expect you’ll want some frites with that.” She smiled at Corbin, gently teasing him about his country’s obsession with chips. He smiled back good naturedly.

  “Talk soon.” She gave Zani an extremely unsubtle “tell me everything later” look then bid them farewell.

  Zani did not immediately turn back to Corbin, but instead gazed moodily out onto the little harbour and the Solent beyond. The wind had strengthened and the tops of the waves farther out to sea were turning white. She wished they were back out on the boat. Back working together in quiet camaraderie. There’d been a peacefulness, a sense of rightness then. Harmony. She’d never felt such harmony in the company of a man. She sadly wondered if they’d ever have a chance to recapture it.

  “Penny for them?” asked Corbin quite gently. His earlier anger had faded.

  “It’s nothing.” Zani didn’t turn from the window. Perhaps if she didn’t look him in the eye then he wouldn’t ask her if she was hiding anything from him again.

  “It’s hard sometimes when good friends reach milestones that we have not yet come to. Makes us think that somehow we’re missing something,” he said.

  Zani was surprised at his sympathy. He thought she was pensive because of Sarah’s news. She suspected that he willfully misunderstood her mood, but it was kind just the same. He didn’t want to fight any more than she did. She tried to relax.

  “I’m happy for Sarah. This is what she always wanted. We lived together in London when she was studying to be a chef, and we would always talk about the future. Hers always included kids.”

  “And what about your future, Zani? What did it include?”

  “Oh, I was too involved with design school to think about kids…” she answered automatically, then trailed off, waiting for the explosion.

  “Design school?” asked Corbin tightly. “A designer, and yet a personal assistant. How curious.” His sarcasm was scalding. A gust of wind rattled the window, and they both glanced up. The clouds, which had been a thin grey line on the horizon, were now boiling toward them, filling up half of the sky.

  Sarah arrived with their lunch. The restaurant was busy, so she went quickly back to the kitchen. Zani picked up a fork and toyed with her paella. She didn’t feel hungry.

  “So tell me about design school,” said Corbin evenly. Anyone listening would have thought he made polite conversation, but Zani knew better. She could think of nothing to say to explain her current situation that wouldn’t entail a whole new swathe of lies. Before she’d become embroiled in this fiasco of her father’s, she couldn’
t think of the last time she’d lied to anyone, she was becoming very tired of constantly lying to Corbin. In a moment of resentment she decided she couldn’t be bothered to make up some elaborate tale to explain why a boat designer was working as a PA.

  This was all her father’s fault.

  “Nothing to say?” There was an edge to his voice that accentuated his accent. “I strongly suggest you tell me what’s going on, Zani.”

  His bullying tone was the last straw.

  “I need to go.” She chucked down her napkin and rose to leave. “I’ll get a ferry back to the mainland.”

  “Wait.” Corbin reached up and grabbed her wrist with some force.

  “Let go.” Zani tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip.

  “No.”

  “You are making a scene,” she snarled, tugging at her arm and glancing around the restaurant.

  “I don’t care. You will sit down and tell me what is going on.” Simmering with fury but unable to see another graceful way out of the situation, Zani slowly sat.

  “I hardly think you’re one to talk, after all, what about Pix…” began Zani, deciding attack was the best form of defence.

  Corbin’s mobile phone rang, and he swore softly. “Wait, please. I need to take this.” Zani nodded. After all, she could hardly run for the door without further entertaining the other diners.

  She watched him as he talked on the phone. He’d wandered away from the restaurant to the hotel lobby, but, Zani noted sourly, had positioned himself between her and the front door. Snapping the phone shut, he returned to the table. “We must leave. Now. I am required back at the office.”

  “I’m not going back with you.”

  “You are.”

  “No.”

  “Zani, I have to get back fast. Something has happened. I can’t sail the boat back on my own.”

  “Of course you can. You said it yourself, that boat can sail itself. Anyway, what happened at the office?”

  A squall of rain hit the window, silencing them both for a second.

  “I don’t think you’re going to be going anywhere,” said Zani dubiously as another gust rattled the window and the boats moored at the far end of the harbour began to disappear into a murky haze.

  “Nonsense.”

  Zani felt her hackles rise. Why did men always disregard her opinion? “Well, suit yourself, but I’m telling you it’s going to be dark again in a few hours. The sun sets by half past four at this time of year. Even if it was clear weather you’d need a good two hours to get back. In this you don’t have a chance before it gets dark, and only a fool would be sailing in foul weather in the dark.”

  “Well, it looks like I am going to be a fool.”

  “Gadgets aren’t going to get you through this, and you need gadgets to sail that boat solo,” she insisted.

  “Nonsense.” Corbin dismissed her again. Frustration churned in the pit of Zani’s stomach. She knew she was right. She’d sailed these waters for years. Getting the boat back to the mainland in these conditions was going to be hell.

  “Look, the ferry will have shut down. Nothing is moving off this island until tomorrow, so you may as well accept it and book yourself a room.”

  Corbin shrugged with infuriating arrogance. “Suit yourself, I’m leaving now.” He tossed some money on the table and headed for the door. Zani could have happily flung a chair through the window, but settled for a moment of contemplative teeth grinding instead. Muttering swear words, she followed him, refusing to meet the eyes of the other diners who were agog over their heated exchange.

  Roger had stopped Corbin at the hotel reception.

  “Surely you aren’t going back in this? I just looked up the shipping forecast, they reckon it’s going to be a force seven gale, if not eight. Two people nearly drowned around here in the last force eight.” He tried to persuade Corbin as Zani caught up.

  “I have to go. Emergency at work,” replied Corbin.

  “Bad enough to go out in this?” Roger couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice.

  Corbin sighed. “Some petit tas de merde has been running Internet porn sites off the company servers. He will be arrested. I need to get back.”

  “Who? Who?” said Zani like a demented owl.

  “Phil Thorpe.”

  “That horrid IT guy…”

  “Oh, know him, do you? Why am I not surprised?” asked Corbin so acidly that he earned himself a reproachful look from the eternally urbane Roger.

  Zani had had enough.

  “Of course I know him, he fixed my computer—” she snapped. Roger glanced around for a means of escape. “—and as I am here to help you sail your stupid boat back so you don’t get your arrogant French arse drowned, I would suggest you try to find a modicum of courtesy, or perhaps even a word of thanks.”

  She stopped abruptly, waiting for his reaction, and then was unsure whether to be angry or dismayed when Corbin laughed.

  “Oh, Zani. I have never met such a confusing and infuriating woman. You are so beautiful when you are angry. But I’ll be all right without your help. Stay here with your friends.” Zani was about to launch into a tirade about patronising Frenchmen when Roger quietly interjected.

  “Take her with you. You’d be an idiot not to. She’s one of the best sailors around and knows these waters better than anyone.”

  “Bon. It is arranged, then.”

  Wind taken out of her sails, Zani wondered what had happened.

  “Don’t waste any more time, the weather is only going to get worse. I’ll get Terry to take you back to the boat,” said Roger, handing them their coats.

  “Take care,” he murmured to Zani. “It’s nasty out there. The shipping forecast is pretty grim.”

  “Yeah, this weather wasn’t supposed to arrive until early tomorrow, but we’ll be fine. I’ve survived worse. Love to Sarah.”

  Secret Intentions

  Chapter Six

  Standing up on the flying bridge, Zani steered the boat out of the protection of the harbour whilst Corbin checked that the hatches were sealed and the boat secure. Adrenaline surged through her. The sea was a menacing brown-grey and churned like a washing machine. White plumes topped the large, choppy waves.

  Corbin had suspended hostilities and gave her a confident grin when he joined her on the bridge.

  “We’ve got the wind behind us and a following sea. With the storm jib and trysail, we just need to heave to, steer down the waves and watch for pitch-poling. It’s not going to be that bad,” Zani shouted over the wind.

  “Go below,” he shouted back. They’d left the protection of the harbour, and he ducked his head as a wave broke against the side of the boat, drenching them both. “You’ll freeze.” He tried to take the helm from her.

  Zani, trying very hard not to be offended, considered her reply. How best to persuade Corbin that she would be staying up on the bridge and steering the boat, regardless of the disgusting weather?

  “No,” she yelled back at him.

  Another wave soaked them, and Zani swore, swinging the boat around so that the wind was behind them and the boat travelled in the same direction as the waves. She had to steer carefully so that when the craft surfed down one wave it wouldn’t smack into the back of the next, usually called pitch-poling.

  “We’re going to overshoot Hill Head harbour,” shouted Zani. “We can’t tack in this weather; it’s too dangerous. If we were side-on to these waves they’d flip us over. We’re going to have to go in a straight line until we hit the mainland. I reckon that’ll take us near to the Lee-on-the-Solent Sailing Club. We can put in there, it’s the best I can do.”

  “Go below, I can handle this,” insisted Corbin.

  “No,” yelled Zani again. “I spend three months of the year on boats. I’ve the experience to get us through this. You’ve got to trust me.” She dropped the games and the artifice, forgot everything that had gone before and looked at him steadily. The howl of the storm receded as their eyes met,
and an unspoken agreement passed between them. A stinging burst of rain hit Zani, making her flinch, snapping her attention back to the boat.

  “What do you need me to do?” he asked.

  “Just back me up.”

  He nodded.

  She gripped the wheel and felt the boat toss and buck beneath her. It was bitterly cold, and her all-weather jacket had started to let icy dribbles down her neck. The wind screamed across the water, making the fore and aft stays sing and groan as they struggled to hold the mast upright. Concentrating, feeling her way, following her instincts, Zani steered the boat toward the shore. “Fun, huh?” she shouted to Corbin.

  “This was a mistake,” he yelled back.

  “There’s no going back now…” she said, more to herself than to him.

  She swung the boat around a little, trying to ease them toward Hill Head. As they caught the wind the boat shot forward. For a moment one of the hulls lifted out of the water.

  “Whoo-hoo,” she howled.

  “Zani!” Corbin didn’t look happy.

  “Guess we’re going to end up at Lee after all.” She swung the boat back so that the wind was behind them again. They coasted up and down the huge waves at breakneck speed.

  “You really know what you’re doing, don’t you?” Corbin conceded.

  Unused to praise and ill-equipped to handle it when it arrived, Zani barely acknowledged the statement. “Well, three national titles says I do,” she muttered quickly. “Go and check the weather forecast.”

  Corbin was back at her side within moments. “There’s a mayday going out on the radio.”

  “Boat in trouble. Poor buggers. The rescue helicopter will be with them in no time.”

  “Can we do something? They sounded terrified.”

  “Corbin, we can barely steer as it is. Even if we could get to them we can’t get them aboard in this; we’d cause more problems,” she said as gently as she could over the force seven gale.

  The thin grey light had started to fade, but the storm continued relentlessly. Cold and tired, Zani was deeply relieved to see the grey outline of the mainland. They were surprisingly close. The poor visibility had kept land shrouded in murk until the last minute.