Page 14 of Sinful Escape

“Oh, come on. How bad can it be?” He locked the bus and fell in at my side.

Considering Roman was Italian, and Italians were known for their exceptional coffee, I was surprised he was willing to even try it. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I glanced up into his eyes, and at that very moment, a ray of sunlight caught in his irises. My breath froze at their unusual color. Like liquid honey when it was poured, raw and pure, from a beehive.

Roman frowned. “What?”

I snapped my gaze away. “Nothing.”

“You’ve got a lot of nothing going on.”

I huffed. “You don’t know the half of it.”

As we made our way upstairs, I debated over whether or not to send Zali my description of Roman’s eyes.

Zali had made the mistake of falling pregnant in a boozy one-night stand with a passenger during one of our cruises. She’d been living with that mistake ever since. When she’d left her hometown of Yates City, Illinois, she was a fun-loving twenty-two-year-old, ready to take on the world. She returned home a year later, five months pregnant, to discover her mother’s dementia had deteriorated so much that she needed full-time care.

Whenever I thought I was having a bad day, I pictured Zali and what she went through day in, day out.

Zali hadn’t lost her spunk though, and she was always saying that she was living vicariously through me. By the time I’d reached the top of the stairs, I’d decided that I would tell her all about Roman. It was the least I could do to cheer her up.

The American boys were at the front of the coffee line when we arrived upstairs, and the only redhead amongst the hundred or so passengers milling around waved us over. “Can we buy you a coffee?”

I blinked at him. Most of the time, guests wanted me or my driver to shout them drinks. “Thanks, Warren, that’d be lovely.”

“Wow, how’d you remember my name?” Warren’s gaze bounced from my eyes to my cleavage and back up again.

Roman nudged his shoulder to mine. “Daisy has a photographic memory.”

I spun to him, my jaw ajar. “How the . . .?”

He shrugged. “Bruce told me.”

“Really?” Warren actually met my gaze. “That’s cool.”

I faked a smile. My photographic memory came in handy with remembering my passenger names and unique details about all the places we visited around Europe. It was my superpower and a major weapon in my tour-guide arsenal. But it also meant I could recall exact details about things I’d rather forget. Like how stunning William’s eyes had looked when he’d fallen at my feet crying his eyes out on the 13th of February 2016. Some things I’d like to unremember if that was such a thing.

What my father told me on my fourteenth birthday would be at the very top of that list.

As I eyeballed the dried-out carrot cake in the display case, I willed my brain to swat away that memory.

Our coffee order arrived, and while two of the guys went to the front viewing platform, Roman and I followed the remaining three to a table by the window. Roman indicated for me to sit first and I wriggled into the booth with the delicacy of a herd of stampeding rhinos.

“Where’re you guys from?” Roman asked when we were all seated. He was obviously comfortable striking up a conversation with strangers. Not me. I’d rather cartwheel up a sandy beach. And with my mammoth mountains, cartwheeling was not without pain.

Besides, I’ve learned more than a few secrets by keeping quiet. Maybe that was another one of my superpowers. Secret-diviner extraordinaire.

Who was I kidding? If I was that good at unearthing secrets, I wouldn’t have wasted seven years of my life with William.

“We’re all from San Francisco,” Mike spoke on behalf of the threesome.

After a sip of his coffee, which didn’t produce the scowl I was expecting, Roman put his cup down. “What brings you to Europe?”

“Brett’s getting married later this year.” Mike pulled a face that implied Brett’s impending nuptials was akin to plucking one’s eyes out with a fork. “So, we thought we’d give him a chance to escape before he’s shackled for life.”

Brett punched Mike’s arm. “You’re just jealous. You can’t even hang onto a woman for more than a month.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.” Mike, positioned across the table, looked right at me. No, it was more than just a look. His eyes were slowly removing my clothing, piece by piece. My insides curled, and I couldn’t decide if my vagina was shriveling up or limbering up.

Mike was at the top of the sex-on-a-stick totem pole. Strong chiseled jaw. Sexy dimples nestled amongst his styled three-day growth. Sun-kissed, shaggy blond hair that curled in reckless waves, like he’d just ridden in on a surfboard. Throw in his stunning sapphire eyes and easy charm, and he’d have a horny woman’s wet panties sliding off their legs in no time.

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