Cinderella: Hired by the Prince

But a man like Ramon wouldn’t have to pay, she thought, her mind flashing to the nubile young backpackers she knew would jump at the chance to be crew to Ramon. They’d probably jump at the chance to be anything else. So why did he want her?

Did he have a thing for older women?

She stared into the mirror and what she saw there almost made her smile. It’d be a kinky man who’d desire her like she was. Her hair was still flour-streaked from the day. She’d been working in a hot kitchen and she’d been washing up over steaming sinks. She didn’t have a spot of make-up on, and her nose was shiny. Very shiny.

Her clothes were ancient and nondescript and her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. Oh, she had plenty of time for sleep, but where was sleep when you needed it? She’d stopped taking the pills her doctor prescribed. She was trying desperately to move on, but how?

‘What better way than to take a chance?’ she whispered to her image. ‘Charlie’s going to be unbearable to work with now. And Ramon’s gorgeous and he seems really nice. His boat’s fabulous. He’s not going to chain me to the galley, I’m sure of it.’ She even managed a smile at that. ‘If he does, I won’t be able to help him with the sails. He’d have to unchain me a couple of times a day at least. And I’d be at sea. At sea!’

So maybe…maybe…

Her heart and head were doing battle but her heart was suddenly in the ascendancy. It was trying to convince her it could be sensible as well.

Wait, she told herself severely. She ran a bath and wallowed and let her mind drift. Pros and cons. Pros and cons.

If it didn’t work, she could get off the boat at New Zealand.

He’d demand his money back.

So? She’d then owe money to Ramon instead of to Charlie, and there’d be no threat to Cathy’s apartment. The debt would be hers and hers alone.

That felt okay. Sensible, even. She felt a prickle of pure excitement as she closed her eyes and sank as deep as she could into the warm water. To sail away with Ramon…

Her eyes flew open. She’d been stupid once. One gorgeous sailor, and…Matty.

So I’m not that stupid, she told herself. I can take precautions before I go.

Before she went? This wasn’t turning out to be a relaxing bath. She sat bolt upright in the bath and thought, what am I thinking?

She was definitely thinking of going.

‘You told him where to go to find deckies,’ she said out loud. ‘He’ll have asked someone else by now.’

No!

‘So get up, get dressed and go down to that boat. Right now, before you chicken out and change your mind.

‘You’re nuts.

‘So what can happen that’s worse than being stuck here?’ she told herself and got out of the bath and saw her very pink body in the mirror. Pink? The sight was somehow a surprise.

For the last two years she’d been feeling grey. She’d been concentrating on simply putting one foot after another, and sometimes even that was an effort.

And now…suddenly she felt pink.

‘So go down to the docks, knock on the hatch of Ramon’s wonderful boat and say-yes, please, I want to come with you, even if you are a white slave trader, even if I may be doing the stupidest thing of my life. Jumping from the frying pan into the fire? Maybe, but, crazy or not, I want to jump,’ she told the mirror.

And she would.

‘You’re a fool,’ she told her reflection, and her reflection agreed.

‘Yes, but you’re not a grey fool. Just do it.’

What crazy impulse had him offering a woman passage on his boat? A needy woman. A woman who looked as if she might cling.

She was right, he needed a couple of deckies, kids who’d enjoy the voyage and head off into the unknown as soon as he reached the next port. Then he could find more.

But he was tired of kids. He’d been starting to think he’d prefer to sail alone, only Marquita wasn’t a yacht to sail by himself. She was big and old-fashioned and her sails were heavy and complicated. In good weather one man might manage her, but Ramon didn’t head into good weather. He didn’t look for storms but he didn’t shy away from them either.

The trip back around the Horn would be long and tough, and he’d hardly make it before he was due to return to Bangladesh. He’d been looking forward to the challenge, but at the same time not looking forward to the complications crew could bring.

The episode in the cafe this morning had made him act on impulse. The woman-Jenny-looked light years from the kids he generally employed. She looked warm and homely and mature. She also looked as if she might have a sense of humour and, what was more, she could cook.

He could make a rather stodgy form of paella. He could cook a steak. Often the kids he employed couldn’t even do that.

He was ever so slightly over paella.

Which was why the taste of Jenny’s muffins, the cosiness of her cafe, the look of her with a smudge of flour over her left ear, had him throwing caution to the winds and offering her a job. And then, when he’d realised just where that bully of a boss had her, he’d thrown in paying off her loan for good measure.

Sensible? No. She’d looked at him as if she suspected him of buying her for his harem, and he didn’t blame her.

It was just as well she hadn’t accepted, he told himself. Move on.

It was time to eat. Maybe he could go out to one of the dockside hotels.

He didn’t feel like it. His encounter with Jenny had left him feeling strangely flat-as if he’d seen something he wanted but he couldn’t have it.

That made him sound like his Uncle Ivan, he thought ruefully. Ivan, Crown Prince of Cepheus, arrogance personified.

Why was he thinking of Ivan now? He was really off balance.

He gave himself a fast mental shake and forced himself to go back to considering dinner. Even if he didn’t go out to eat he should eat fresh food while in port. He retrieved steak, a tomato and lettuce from the refrigerator. A representation of the height of his culinary skill.

Dinner. Then bed?

Or he could wander up to the yacht club and check the noticeboard for deckies. The sooner he found a crew, the sooner he could leave, and suddenly he was eager to leave.

Why had the woman disturbed him? She had nothing to do with him. He didn’t need to regard Jenny’s refusal as a loss.

‘Hello?’

For a moment he thought he was imagining things, but his black mood lifted, just like that, as he abandoned his steak and made his way swiftly up to the deck.

He wasn’t imagining things. Jenny was on the jetty, looking almost as he’d last seen her but cleaner. She was still in her battered coat and jeans, but the flour was gone and her curls were damp from washing.

She looked nervous.

‘Jenny,’ he said and he couldn’t disguise the pleasure in his voice. Nor did he want to. Something inside him was very pleased to see her again. Extremely pleased.

‘I just… I just came out for a walk,’ she said.

‘Great,’ he said.

‘Charlie was arrested for drink-driving.’

‘Really?’

‘That wouldn’t have anything to do with you?’

‘Who, me?’ he demanded, innocence personified. ‘Would you like to come on board?’

‘I…yes,’ she said, and stepped quickly onto the deck as if she was afraid he might rescind his invitation. And