at his look. “Sorry, Dimitri. That sounds odd.”
“Ignoring your reluctance to use my first name, which I’m guaranteeing will disappear by the end of this cruise, why do you consider yourself so unattractive?”
Helen shrugged. “Oh, I know I’m not ugly or anything. But nor am I the stunning beauty you usually go out with.”
“And what if I disagree?”
Helen smiled, not realizing the sadness in her expression, and looked away. “You’re a very nice man.”
Dimitri laughed. “Helen, you’re probably the only person who would ever say that. No, I’m not nice. Nor do I ever want to be considered nice.”
She was stunned by that announcement. Dimitri? Not nice? Good grief, he was one of the nicest, gentlest men she’d ever met in her life. It was one of the many things she loved about him. “But you’re very nice to me.”
“Perhaps because I have an ulterior motive.”
She almost snorted her amusement at that comment. “What on earth could you want from me?” she laughed. “You already pay me an excellent salary.
Dimitri leaned forward and took her hand, pulling her out of her seat and leading her over to the railing. “I want to know the name of the man who convinced you that you aren’t beautiful,” he said. He moved so that her back was to the railing and one strong arm was on either side of her, caging her into an almost-embrace, trapping her there so she couldn’t get away.
Helen’s mind was whirling at his touch and she looked up into his handsome face. “Excuse me?” she asked.
“His name, Helen. You couldn’t have done this on your own.”
Helen stared, shocked. “No one did this to me. I’ve never really dated. Men don’t really come on to me,” she explained, a note of pain entering her voice. She had to look away, unable to hold his gaze. Admitting something like that to a man like him was difficult. She’d had one man in her life and yes, he’d said some horrible things. But she’d disregarded them, knowing what a jerk he was.
“Or maybe you just don’t realize that so many men are coming on to you,” he suggested, thinking of Jim and several others he’d seen watching Helen while she walked down the hallway recently.
Helen shook her head. “No, clearly, I’m not the femme fatale kind of woman.”
“I beg to differ,” he said softly and leaned forward, his lips gently brushing hers.
Helen’s heartbeat stopped at the first touch of his lips against hers, her eyes wide with shock as she watched him lift his head and look down at her, gauging her reaction.
It took her several seconds to get her brain to function again. When she was able to speak, she asked, “What was that for?”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
The look in his eyes was dark and intense and she wished she could understand what that meant. “Why?”
Dimitri sighed and rolled his eyes. “Because you’re gorgeous, and…” his answer was stopped as his cell phone interrupted them. Looking at the caller id, he swore under his breath and flipped open the phone. “Dave, this had better be good,” he said warningly.
Dimitri listened for a long moment but wouldn’t release Helen’s hands from his own. He nodded several times, then flipped it closed without a word. “We have to work. Sorry about this,” he said. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”
“I’ll help,” she said and followed him along the decking to the office built up with every conceivable electronic devise. Helen worked through several conference calls, taking notes, then typing them up and assigning action items to Dimitri’s various department heads. As she sat taking notes on the next conference call, she felt Dimitri’s hands against her shoulders, stiffening as he started rubbing the tense muscles. Not by word or tone did Dimitri reveal that he was doing so much more than working through the meeting. Helen, on the other hand, missed several possibly pertinent issues when his hands kneaded her tense muscles.
Leaning down, he whispered in her ear so the people on the conference call couldn’t hear, “Relax, Helen. I’m not going to bite,” he explained.
But Helen couldn’t relax. She was almost shivering with awareness of this man and his hands that trailed down her back as he paced the relatively large conference room behind her, or when he stopped and took the pins out of her hair, letting the brown curls fall down her back, then massaging the scalp himself. Once the meeting was over, he put a hand on either