Page 99 of No One Aboard
Tia had still never worn them.
She shut the box and set it back in place, then listened at the door. Rylan’s sniffling had smoothed into deep breathing. He was asleep.
How could he sleep after seeing what lay stacked inside the chart house bilge? Did he trust their family so readily he believed without a doubt he was safe?
Tia stepped back.
They had promised to leave the ship together, but that was before Rylan showed his loyalty to their parents instead of to her. She had wanted to see the world with him, but Rylan was never one who could handle an adventure anyway. Why should she save him again like she had a thousand times before?
If he loved the Cameron legacy so much, he could inherit it alone.
Tia plunged her hand into her pocket and fished out her mother’s lipstick. Only an hour ago she had planned on wearing it for her birthday tomorrow, planned on leaving the shape of her lips on Nico’s cheek. Now, it would serve as a warning. A goodbye.
Let Rylan save himself this time.
Tia slipped on her brother’s raincoat, which was hanging on a shower hook, and uncapped the stick.
Her face in the mirror was, as always, half hidden by her long, dark hair. Her cheeks were sun-kissed, her nose freckled from hours on deck.
Tia leaned over the cold counter and touched the lipstick to the glass.
Chapter 48
Lila Logan Cameron
Call sign: Cassiopeia
Day 10 at Sea
Lila locked herself inside the primary suite’s bathroom. Her husband steered the ship overhead, leaving her to move aboutThe Old Eileenon her own.
Lila grazed her fingers over the golden bathtub faucet. The floor beneath her slanted, a victim to the storm that sang outside. Was that storm killing Alejandro at this very moment? Or was he already dead?
She switched on the water, watched it stream into the porcelain tub. As the bath filled, she drifted to the porthole and unlatched it. Rain daggered its way inside the room. Lila reached past the length of her silk robe sleeve and found a bottle of bath oil on the sink counter: English Pear and Freesia. She unscrewed the cap and poured the entire thing into the tub. She wanted to reek of it.
The bathwater sloshed over the lip of the tub and spread its fingers across the ivory tiles. It seeped underneath the door. Lila lifted one foot over the tub. The movement nearly sent her toppling with the motion of the ship, but she sank into the water without bothering to shed her robe. Once submerged, nothing could touch her. The silk swirled—rendered almost ethereal beneath the surface. Lila let her head slip underwater.
When Francis first asked her out and she’d said no, he had returned months later driving a Porsche. Alejandro had been with him again. He was always with him. And though Francis seemed to tire of Lila once he won her, Alejandro remained in awe.
Was Lila only desirable when she was out of reach?
She screamed underwater, the sound disembodied from her.
Lila’s face broke the surface, and she reached her long arm to the counter where she found her pack of cigarettes and lighter. She smoked in the bath in the storm, the perfume of oils intoxicating enough to make her believe she was liquid herself.
Lila blew smoke through peony lips and let it skitter like water striders over the surface. Alejandro had looked Francis in the eye and vowed his undying loyalty. He’d said it to the wrong person.
Now he was dead or would be within the hour.
She floated, unblinking, in a veil of milk-white smoke and moonlight hair that dripped diamonds down her shoulder blades.
Maybe his loyalty hadn’t been so cut-and-dried after all. She’d know for certain when the clock struck twelve.
Thirty-five minutes to go.
The Old Eileenhit a large swell without warning, and bathwater cascaded over the sides, flooding the bathroom floor even more. Lila braced herself on the sides of the tub, beads of rainwater falling onto her nose and cheekbones.
She inhaled enough smoke to cloud her doubts for good, then dragged herself out of the bathtub. The silk robe hugged her body in a downward curve, longing to plunge her back from where she had come. Her breasts and hips bloomed beneath the fabric, threadbare centimeters from being exposed.
