Page 22 of Falling Overboard

“More rules?”

“More rules,” I confirmed.

“It doesn’t allow for a lot of spontaneity.”

I finished my task and went over to the bar and started grabbing bottles of alcohol and crystal tumblers. “Spontaneity is overrated.”

He came over and leaned against the bar like he was a cowboy in the Old West. “Romance comes from spontaneity.”

I uncorked the rosé that Mrs. Carmine had asked for and tried to ignore the effect his words had on me. “It’s important on a yacht for things to be orderly and precise.”

“The basket of junk you keep in the cabinet under the sink says otherwise.”

“My personal space is a different story,” I said as I finished pouring. I had a lot of products, like moisturizers and serums and cleansers and toners, and not quite enough space to keep them organized.

Not that I would keep them organized, but it seemed like a convenient excuse.

“I noticed.”

Why had he noticed? I’d never had a man make any kind of remark about my slovenly ways. To be fair, I’d never shared living space with a man before.

It didn’t seem to bother him—he said it more like he thought it was adorable that I was a neat freak in public while being a private slob.

While I reminded myself that I wasn’t allowed to have that fluttery feeling I was currently experiencing, my body was making a very convincing counterargument about why some rules should be ignored.

It’s not just that he’s hot. Which he is. Like, surface-of-the-sun hot,my body said.He’s funny and nice and you know that usually the universe doesn’t give with both hands.

Which was true. Thinking of Hunter being nice reminded me of our first interaction. I reached into my skort pocket and got his handkerchief and handed it to him.

“Here. And thank you.”

He took it from me and put it into the pocket of his shorts. “You could have just left this in our cabin.”

I should not have had a thrill that he called the cabin ours. It was ours. That was just a statement of fact.

But when Hunter said it? It made me feel like I was a part of something with him. “I don’t get why you have a handkerchief. How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” he said. “And you?”

“Twenty-four. And we are both too young to be carrying something like that around.”

He grinned at me. “It’s a good thing to do because you never know when a beautiful woman might need one.”

I nearly knocked over the wineglasses I had just set on the serving tray.

Thomas entered the main salon and his gaze immediately landed on Hunter. “There you are. Stop chatting up Lucky and get those suitcases downstairs. The captain will make anchor and I’ll need your help assembling the floating deck.”

“Sure thing,” Hunter said and went back over to the luggage. Thomas stepped out onto the deck and my brain was still scrambling as it tried to parse out precisely what Hunter may or may not have meant with his statement. Did that mean he thought I was beautiful? Or did he mean he might need it for a future encounter with an unknown beautiful woman?

And I couldn’t even go and talk to Georgia about it because I knew she was interested in him. Would she see it as a betrayal? Friends weren’t always easy to come by on superyachts. She was the first friend I’d made over the last year and I didn’t want to lose her.

She already knows you’re attracted to him,that insistent voice inside me said.She would probably back off if you told her that you were interested.

But what would be the point?

Captain Carl strode through the main salon and nodded to me before passing into the dining room on his way to the bridge. I put a hand over my stomach. What if he’d been in here just a couple minutes earlier? If he had seen Hunter and me together, what would he have thought? Would he have disciplined us?

It was like a cosmic reminder that nothing could happen with Hunter even if we both wanted it.

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