Page 11 of Knot for Sale

I’d achieved a level of success in the industry over the past couple of years that meant I didn’t have to deal with as many of the fashion world’s bigots and perverts as I used to. When I’d stepped off the bus as a wet-behind-the-ears pup from Tennessee, it had only been sheer luck that had kept me out of serious trouble. Well... luck, and being six-foot-one with bigger muscles than most omegas sported.

Thanks, Mom.

Thanks, Dad.

Not.

I’d scrubbed my ‘aw, shucks’ accent and reinvented myself from the ground up. The life I’d built for myself in New York was so much better than what I would have had to look forward to back home in Murfreesboro. There was no space for a pansexual omega in my beta parents’ strict Christian household. They’d never expected—much less asked for—a throwback son. Though maybe if I’d been an alpha, it would have been all right.

Maybe my mother wouldn’t have made the doctors put me on growth hormones so I wouldn’t be ‘stunted.’ Maybe they wouldn’t have insisted I try to pass as a beta—a blatantly round and rainbow-colored peg in a drab, square hole.

When I rebelled, they disowned me. And to some extent, I’d been shoving their noses in it ever since. It amused me to think of some old biddy from the First Baptist Church thrusting a catalogue or lifestyle magazine under Mom’s nose with my face smiling out at her from the pages.

‘Oh, Darla, isn’t that your little Elijah? My, how he’s grown!’

Sometimes, you took your victories where you could get them. So, I’d eschewed pheromone suppressors and had natural heats with alpha packs I didn’t know... and now, apparently, I jetted to Greece to party on superyachts with rich assholes. Because why not? Life was short, and physical beauty was transitory. Might as well make the most of both while I had them.

And, of course, I was worried about Em.

I didn’t advertise my past, but I didn’t exactly keep it a secret, either. By contrast, Em was locked down tighter than Fort Knox. She was from London. She was hiding as a beta. That was it—the sum total of everything I knew about her background... and I’d had to guess about the second part.

Though I now knew a third thing about her. She’d obviously never been on a gigantic fuck-off superyacht before. Of course,neither had I. Both of us were gaping like fools as a steward led us on board, and we were both trying unsuccessfully to hide it.

You can take the boy out of the Tennessee sticks, but apparently you can’t take the Tennessee sticks out of the boy.

I snapped my jaw shut and shot Em a sidelong glance. She met it with a wide-eyed expression that clearly said, ‘Is this place for real?’

Even living in New York, I sometimes forgot how rich some people could get, if they were greedy and ruthless enough. I’d researched the ship—mostly for shits and giggles—after learning the name from my agent. TheTitania. Two hundred seventy-three feet long, a top speed of twenty knots, with a cruising range of seventy-five hundred nautical miles. She could accommodate twenty-four guests and twenty-one crew members, with a gross tonnage of one thousand seven hundred and twelve GT—all of which put her firmly in the top five percent of privately owned vessels.

None of that had prepared me for the reality of what a hundred million dollars could buy a person. That had allegedly been the yacht’s price tag, and for that hefty sum, the builder had delivered a vision in exotic wood, shining metal, and state-of-the-art Scandinavian design with a flair for the artistic.

“Please follow me down to B-deck,” said the steward. “I’m afraid you’ll be sharing a stateroom due to the large number of guests.”

“Roomies for life,” I quipped, and Em shot me a wry look in reply.

We trekked past a lounge area arranged around a twelve-person glass-bottomed hot tub. It was already occupied by a handful of lanky, scantily clad women—some of whom shot us assessing glances as we walked by. As far as they were concerned, we were the competition. It was a stereotype to saythat models were a catty bunch, but clichés became clichés for a reason.

There was a lot of money at stake on this yacht, and even the losers had the potential to score a rich sugar daddy if they played their cards right.

Personally, I was more interested in the free drinks and the break from New York weather. That, and making sure Em stayed out of trouble. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d told her she wasn’t taking care of her health. I knew the look of an omega who was treading close to the ledge. I’d been there myself.

At best, this excursion could be a chance for her to unwind in ridiculously posh surroundings while netting a lucrative modeling contract at the end of the week. At worst, it could be barely one step up from working a street corner.

‘No offense,’she’d said, with the air of someone who had experience in the concept of sex as a business transaction,‘but you don’t really know that much about me.’

I wondered, for about the hundredth time, what her story was.

We headed down the grand, teak-inlaid staircase located at the center of the ship, alighting on the B-deck. Light shimmered down from above, filtered through the clear bottom of the hot tub on the top deck. The shifting sunlight illuminated a swimming pool filled with crystal clear water. Unlike the hot tub, it was currently unoccupied. Beyond it, we passed through another lounge area, past another fully stocked bar, and then a small movie theater.

Eventually, an elegantly decorated hallway led us to a series of guest rooms. The steward indicated the correct door and opened it for us. “I’ll see that the rest of your luggage is delivered shortly,” he said, handing each of us an electronic key card. “Please make yourselves comfortable and enjoy the amenities. Dinner will be at seven p.m. on the top deck.”

With a quick bow, he left us to it.

Em let her carry-on fall to the floor and flopped onto the edge of one of the matching beds, taking in the inlaid agate wall separating the sleeping area from the marble-tiled bathroom. “This place is insane. Seriously, who has this much money?”

“Oil sheiks, weapons dealers, tech magnates, possibly some royal families,” I said, testing my own mattress before settling onto it gingerly. “But if it makes you feel better, the lingerie people are almost certainly leasing it from the real owners. So, it’s only costing them—I dunno—maybe ten million dollars instead of one hundred million.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief,” she quipped. “I thought they might be rich or something.”

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