Page 47 of Knot for Sale

My name reached me an instant before the deep-woods scent of oakmoss and petrichor. I whirled, my lower back impacting the railing with bruising force. The deck lights illuminated Gabriel Rosencranz, crypto billionaire, pausing in mid-step with his hand raised as though to settle a wild animal.

“Easy, there. We went to a fair amount of trouble to get you here. I’d rather not have you fall overboard in the middle of the Aegean.” He let his hand fall, looking almost as out of his depth as I felt.

An ugly bark of laughter wrenched free of my throat—the kind of noise that would have any modeling agent worth their salt tearing up my contract and running for the hills. It wasn’t asanekind of laugh.

I choked it back before it could turn into real hysterics, feeling as though it burned my esophagus on the way down. “IsEmma okay?” I asked, my voice high and thready andwrong. “I shouldn’t... I shouldn’t have...”

I shouldn’t have left her alone with you.

Yeah, maybe that part didn’t need to be said aloud.

A frown creased Gabriel’s pale brows. “I’m not sure ‘okay’ really applies to the situation. But she didn’t panic when you left. Apparently, Curran has hidden depths he’s been keeping quiet. Who knew?”

“He seems nice,” I forced out.

Gabriel blinked. “That... is another adjective I have difficulty applying to the subject at hand.”

I was clutching the railing behind me so hard that my fingers hurt. Focusing hard, I peeled them free one by one and turned to look out across the water again. “If he’s a serial killer on his days off, this would be a really bad time to drop that information on me.”

There was a pausejustlong enough to be worrying, and then Gabriel approached the rail to mirror my pose from a couple of feet away, contemplating the starlight glinting off the swells as theCalliopeskimmed past them.

“No. He’s not a serial killer. He’s a bodyguard,” said the alpha. “I’d be dead a few times over if not for him, and sometimes the job isn’t pretty.”

I digested that. Or rather, I stared blankly toward the horizon while my brain made soft gibbering noises in the background.How was any of this real?

“I gather this isn’t at all what you expected of this cruise,” Gabriel said, in the understatement of the century.

I managed to catch the insane laughter before it escaped this time, and the sound I made was more of a ridiculous, honking cough.

“Yeah. Little bit.” I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart in demonstration.

“You were roommates in New York?” Gabriel said. “I’m not certain many roommates would step up the way you have for her.”

I rested my elbows on the rail and lowered my face into my hands, scrubbing roughly at the smooth skin. This experience was going to put worry lines at the corners of my eyes, wasn’t it? I’d have wrinkles at the age of twenty-three, and I’d never be able to get work again.

Straightening abruptly, I let my hands fall to hang limp above the passing water. “I don’t know how this happened. Every time I make a decision, it seems like the only reasonable choice, and... and...” I gestured around us. “Somehow, here we are.”

“Like boiling a frog,” Gabriel murmured.

I scowled at him, not appreciating the way my sympathetic nervous system was backing away from the cliff in the presence of his soothing alpha scent. Alone, I could handle his pheromones. It was all three of them together that—

I shook my head sharply, derailing the thought before it could take form.

“Boiling a frog?” I echoed.

“They say if you try to throw a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put it in tepid water and raise the temperature slowly enough, it won’t.” He huffed. “Scientific nonsense, of course. If you throw a frog in boiling water, it will die immediately. Whereas if you raise the temperature slowly, it will jump out as soon as it gets too warm. But for some god-forsaken reason, that’s the way the metaphor goes.”

I stared at him.

He let out another frustrated breath. “My point is, you made a series of decisions, none of which seemed individually life-altering, only to find that the end result leaves you essentially acting as pack for Emma.” His voice lowered to a mutter. “I’m somewhat familiar with the feeling, believe it or not.”

I was speechless for a moment as the truth of that sank in.

“I... yeah. I guess I did.” I hesitated. “Am.”

Gabriel nodded absently. “So, my earlier question stands. Are you all right?”

I swallowed and licked my lips. “No. But... maybe, yes?”

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