Page 35 of Why Cruise

“There’s nothing to rethink,” he retorted. “I want his name. You want his dick. He’ll give in. He could fuck everyone on this ship and he still won’t make enough money. If it comes down to my bite or life in prison, the choice is easy.”

A chill ran down my spine. They were blackmailing someone into joining their pack? That was seriously messed up.

Leaning against the wall, I tried to catch my breath and slow my racing thoughts.Get a grip, Mackenzie, I told myself sternly.You can’t spend your whole life terrified of alphas.

It was quiet for a long while. I decided to risk it and peeked around the corner. The hall was empty now.

I took a deep breath and hoped this was the right way to our room.

Justice

Fuck me. That panic of having lost your phone swept over me as I patted my pockets for the thousandth time today. I still could not fully accept Daisy had actually taken away all my devices. The tour bus rumbled beneath my feet as I boarded, automatically noting the emergency exit at the rear before following Theo down the aisle.

“Justice!” A voice hit a pitch that made my jaw clench. “You simply must sit with us. I’m Rose. We met by the pool?”

Theo edged into the bench seat to the left but was yanked to the right by Rose’s minion. Sarah maybe? This conveniently left the seat empty for Rose to claim.

“Oh, you don’t mind, do you?” She smiled at Theo with too many teeth. “We have so many questions about Justice’s business ventures.”

Right. Because that’s exactly what I wanted to talk about on my forced vacation.

“I actually…” I started, but Theo was already sliding into the seat across from me.

“It’s fine,” he mumbled.

I dropped into the seat next to Rose, who immediately pressed against my side. Her scent was thick and artificial, like she’d doused herself in cologne. Unusual for an omega. They tended to want to amplify their natural perfume. I rubbed the tip of my nose.

“We’ve all been Googling you nonstop, the second we heard you were on the ship,” Rose said, like that was an impressive feat. Theo snorted and took out his phone.

My fingers itched watching Theo. I could tell he had a spreadsheet up, but I couldn’t read it from this distance. There was something so utterly charming about an omega using a spreadsheet while on vacation.

“And your company.” Rose leaned closer, her aura pressing against mine like an eager puppy. “The article said something about digital disruption? That sounds fascinating.”

The women around me all threw up tech buzz words with no understanding of what they were talking about. They weren’t dumb by any means, just uninformed and stretching their knowledge base to try to impress me. Typical and boring.

I made a noncommittal noise, my attention drawn to Theo. His phone was plugged into one of those cheap portable chargers, the kind that promise “fast charging” but usually just fry your battery.

“That charger’s going to kill your phone,” I said, cutting off Rose’s story about whatever article she’d skimmed. “Use airplane mode right now if you’re trying to save battery.”

Theo glanced at his screen with obvious reluctance. Whatever spreadsheet he had open clearly mattered to him.

“I can show you how to make it available offline,” I offered. “Cache the website too, so you can still reference everything.”

“I don’t know how to do that.” His voice was soft, barely carrying over the excited chatter of the women.

“May I?” I held out my hand.

He hesitated for just a second before passing over his phone. Our fingers brushed, and something electric shot through me. I forced myself to focus on the screen, quickly navigating through the settings.

“There,” I said, lingering as I handed it back. Our fingers touched again, and this time, neither of us pulled away immediately. “All set.”

Rose tugged at my sleeve. “As I was saying about the article.”

The omegas chattered away. My mouth formed words, something about market projections and digital infrastructure, blah blah blah, but my attention kept drifting to Theo. I caught myself watching his fingers move across the screen.

Someone asked about quarterly earnings and I wanted to tell them all to fuck off, to stop pretending they gave a shit about tech when they clearly didn’t understand the first thing about it. But Theo glanced up, catching my eye, and I swallowed the acid response building in my throat. For once in my life, I didn’t want to be that asshole CEO who thought he was better than everyone else. Even if I was.

“Is it true you used to date Aria?” Rose cooed, playing with her pearls. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

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