Page 99 of Falling Overboard

I came out of the pantry and handed it to him, and the entire time I behaved as if the man had X-ray vision and bore personal witness to what had been going on between me and Hunter. I needed to calm down, to get a hold of myself, or I would raise his suspicion.

“The new owners are our next charter guests,” the captain said.

It was probably the one thing Captain Carl could have announced that would have brought me completely out of that fuzzy half world I was currently living in.

“The owners?” I repeated. Why hadn’t he told us sooner? There was so much to do.

Not that I’d been lax at my job, but if the new owners were coming, this ship had to be beyond perfection.

“I kept it from the crew because I didn’t want them to panic.” Understandable, given that that was exactly what I was doing now. Not to mention that the last time we’d had a VIP, the well-known crownprince and princess of a specific nation, Kai had spent the entire morning throwing up and Thomas had been so anxious he’d run a Jet Ski into the ship. The crew had nearly fallen apart on that trip.

I didn’t want that to happen again.

“I’ll let Thomas, François, and Andre know tomorrow morning,” Captain Carl added. “But I’m counting on you to get everyone prepared and make sure everything is perfect.”

No pressure. “I will.”

As I walked back to my cabin, I thought over not only what the captain had said but how close Hunter and I had come to being caught.

The owners arriving felt like some kind of sign. A reminder that I needed to be on my game and that wouldn’t happen if I was focusing all my attention on Hunter.

That kiss had been a mistake. The best one I’d ever made, but still a mistake.

When I got to the cabin, Hunter was already done with his shower. He had pants on, but no shirt, and was towel drying his hair.

I flashed back to that kiss and it made me feel weightless, like I was being shoved from the top deck into the ocean. Even the memory of it was better than almost anything else I’d ever experienced.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, sounding concerned.

His tone helped to strengthen me. We both needed our jobs. We couldn’t mess that up. “It’s fine. He wanted me to help him find something in the galley.”

“Good.” He studied me and I wondered what he saw. He inclined his head toward the shower. “Your turn.”

I had to avert my gaze from him while I gathered up my things because if I didn’t, I was absolutely going to launch myself at him and hang on tightly, like a baby koala.

After I’d locked the bathroom door, I undressed and stepped into the shower. When I turned the water on, I saw that it was already set to freezing.

Looked like I wasn’t the only one in need of a cold shower.

I finished up with everything I had to do in the bathroom, practicing the words I would say to him when I went back into the cabin.

When I came out he was standing next to the closet, waiting.

“I wasn’t sure if it was okay for me to be on your bed,” he said. The note of uncertainty in his voice was beyond endearing.

Was he regretting things now, too?

“We should talk,” I said. I made sure to lock the door and then I sat on my bunk. I patted the spot next to me so that he knew it was okay to join me.

His movements were hesitant, so unlike the confidence and surety he’d shown me just a few minutes ago.

Like he also knew we had crossed a line we shouldn’t have.

“I thought you might run away from me,” he said as he settled against the hull, one of us on either side of the porthole.

I blinked in surprise. Normally that was exactly what I would have done. I would have slept in a guest cabin or convinced Georgia to let me share her bunk. Relationships terrified me so much that I tried to avoid them at all costs.

But this time? It hadn’t even occurred to me. I knew I had to come and talk to him.

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