Page 33 of Undercover Billionaire

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Kelsey rolled her eyes. ‘Duly noted. Now go.’

The door clicked shut behind Tiffany and Kelsey breathed a sigh of relief.Transition woman?Tiffany always did have a flare for the dramatic.

* * *

Ari didn’t know how he felt as he left his cabin at nine for breakfast. He’d woken alone but feeling good, feeling happy, and he couldn’t think why for a beat or two until the scent of Kelsey rose from his sheets and the taste of her lingered on his lips, and he remembered drifting to sleep with her by his side.

How long she’d stayed in his bed he didn’t know, but her body had been limp and heavy against his and he was sure she’d drifted off too. Two nights ago he’d been tense about her falling asleep and last night, it hadn’t even crossed his mind as his sated body had slipped into slumber.

He’d slept with another woman.And woken up with a smile on his face.

Which was confusing as fuck.

It wasn’t that he woke up crushingly sad and weighed down by helplessness any more. Even the boiling rage he’d felt in every cell of his body had passed. It was the absence of feeling that had haunted him for the last couple of years.

The numbness.

No joy or happiness. No excitement. No lightness or colour. No sadness or anger, either. Just him, flatlining his way through life. And then a girl – awoman– on a ship had put a cocktail umbrella in his whisky and he’d come alive.

Ari couldn’t deny it despite how much his heart demanded he do so. He’d actually laughed when he’d seen that pink umbrella sitting on his vanity unit this morning.Laughed. It’d been a long time since he’d laughed in the morning.

A vice clamped tight around his chest at the thought of things changing after so long. It made him edgy and jittery, and Ari shook his head and forced himself to concentrate on the day ahead. On why he was here. He had a full schedule, and letting himself be distracted by things he had no answers for wasn’t productive.

Today was a sea day as they steamed towards Santorini, which meant he had a full day on board to poke around the ship. First port of call was a visit to the ship hospital with a bogus gastro-intestinal complaint to see if quarantine protocols were being followed.

Ari assumed they weren’t being rigidly adhered to what with the recent outbreaks of norovirus on several of their cruises. Given how fast the virus spread and the elder demographic of their passengers, it was not an area where cruise ship companies could be lax.

After he’d been to the hospital, he’d check out the various activities run by the ship. There were several sessions of trivia and karaoke per day and a daily bingo game where some serious money could be won. There were a couple of lectures taking place in the theatre – one on the formation of the Greek islands by a geology lecturer and another about the gods and goddesses of Greek culture by a mythology professor. And a Martini-making class was happening in one of the bars.

In short, he had a big day.

No time to be mooning over cocktail umbrellas, sexy Australian waitresses and psychoanalysing what the fuck was happening.

* * *

After breakfast, he headed straight to the medical clinic. TheHellenic Spiritwas fitted with a state of the art mini hospital. Among other things there was an operating theatre, a fully equipped intensive care bed and a helipad on the top deck for medical evacs.

They should have been able to handle something as trivial – although just as potentially disastrous – as a gastro bug. Sadly, this was not the case as he reported his non-existent gastro symptoms right out of the norovirus handbook. Nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, diarrhoea.

It should have trigged the GE protocol Ari knew every ship had adopted. It didn’t.

Sure, the staff manning the clinic were brisk and efficient and professional, but their ‘recommendation’ that Ari rest in his cabin for the day, drink plenty of liquids and come back and see them tomorrow if he was still experiencing symptoms was not stringent enough.

It should have been a medical order.

He should have been placed into immediatemandatorycabin quarantine with a member of the medical team ringing him to check in every two hours during the day and every four hours overnight. Both for his welfare and to ensure he was adhering to the quarantine protocols and not being his own one-man Typhoid Mary band.

Much to Ari’s dismay, none of those things were insisted upon. Nor was he followed up during the day to ensure he’d been adhering to the recommendations. They had his phone number and had he not answered they should have gone to his cabin to confirm he was following the quarantine measures and check on his wellbeing. Discovering him not there should have resulted in him being paged through the ship’s PA system.

He was not. And Ari was not pleased.

The activities impressed him, however, and by and large, most of what he saw throughout the day cheered him. The staff had bought their A game and all the passengers seemed in fine spirits. He made a point to chat to random people throughout the day, gently enquiring as to their experiences on the ship, and they’d all been complimentary.

But that all ended at dinner. Once again, he’d been placed at an entirely different table from the previous night. This one was nowhere in line of sight of Kelsey’s section – a very good thing for his concentration. The food was its usual high quality and the waiter on the table – Prishna – restored Ari’s faith in the Oceanós training manual.

He appeared to be about the same age as Sameel but was polite, generous and efficient whilst treating everyone the same. There was no preferential treatment for the one American couple at the table – he treated all his customers as if they were kings and queens.

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