Avoiding Mr Right by Sophie Weston

rest of the crew. As soon as he saw her, the proprietor finished his conversation and came over.
    ‘Don’t tell me,’ Christina said with forboding. ‘You’ve been having enquiries about me.’
    He looked surprised. ‘That’s a problem? I thought you wanted a job?’
    ‘Oh, I do,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’m getting paranoid. What have you got for me, Costa?’
    He grinned and flung his arms wide. ‘The job of a lifetime,’ he said.
     
    Three weeks later Christina toiled up the harbour steps, puffing under the burden of an enormous dustbin bag, and thought hard thoughts about Costa. Job of a lifetime, indeed. Well, she was working for royalty, or supposed to be. That must have been what Costa meant.
    All Christina could see was that the yacht was under-provided and seriously ill equipped. Well, she could have lived with that. She had done so before on other jobs. What she couldn’t bear was the poisonous atmosphere. It affected everyone, from the ragamuffin crew to the principal passenger’s seven-year-old daughter, Pru. Nobody helped anyone and they all threatened to tell tales to the Prince, who had chartered the boat.
    The Prince himself, perhaps wisely, had not so far put in an appearance. Instead he had installed his sister and her children and kept promising to join the boat at the next port. He was expected again today in this small Italian harbour but neither the children nor Christina thought he would turn up. The children minded. The Prince of Kholkhastan joined Costa and the cheapskate Captain Demetrius in Christina’s bad books.
    Christina heaved the garbage bag onto the top step. ‘I’m never going to let it get this heavy again before I dump it,’ she promised herself. She straightened, panting, and wiped her forehead before stooping to haul the thing along the dock.
    ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ rapped out a voice.
    Christina stopped dead. She did not believe it. This was fantasy, brought on by heat, exhaustion and sheer temper. Her heart thundered in her ears. She was so startled that if she had not still been holding onto the lumpish bag of rubbish she would probably have fallen back down the stone steps.
    She knew that voice. In spite of her best resolutions, she had been sleeping with it for weeks. Cautiously, she looked up.
    It was not heatstroke. It was not a hallucination.
    ‘ You! ’
    In some ways, heatstroke or hallucinations would have been easier to deal with.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped.
    She stood looking up at him, weeks of studied forgetfulness wiped out by the sheer physical shock of his presence. She had told herself that it had all been an illusion brought on by anger and brief panic when the bank had refused to let her have her money. She had told herself he was no different from anyone else: not a frightening, encompassing presence but an ordinary man, perfectly easy to deal with if you kept your head. And the intensity she had felt beating at her like a flame must have been her imagination. He was probably perfectly indifferent to her.
    Luc Henri smiled. His eyes were almost black. He looked tough, powerful and deeply sardonic. Not, thought Christina, recovering herself too late, in the least bit easy to deal with. Or indifferent.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ she said again, this time with something like accusation.
    Luc reached down. His fingers closed over hers, brooking no resistance.
    ‘At the moment it looks like dustbin duty,’ he said drily. It was the suave voice she remembered. This time it hovered on the edge of mockery. It made no difference. That voice had haunted her dreams.
    ‘I can manage,’ she muttered, horrified. This was no time to remember dreams that embarrassed her even when she was on her own. Now that she was face to face with the other participant, they were frankly appalling.
    Luc seemed unaware of her discomfort. He snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. That thing is obviously far too heavy for you. What on