Page 41 of Revenge Honeymoon

Whoops. Had Ruby said that out loud?

The tequila hit her with a bang.

Whoa.

“My friend’s fiancé left her at the altar. So she invited me on the cruise to exact revenge on him.” The words tumbled out without hardly a thought. “A honeymoon cruise without a honeymoon.”

Oh no.

What did she just say?

“Wow,” the young woman said. “What a scumbag.” She touched Emily on the arm. “Please let her know how sorry I am.”

“Thanks.” Emily’s throat felt as if it were closing up. What did she and her big drunk mouth just do?

As the woman moved on to the next set of empty glasses, Ruby arrived with two more mega margaritas. “What was that about?”

Emily’s gaze followed the server, who knew her best friend’s most terrible secret, while she scooped up used napkins and shot glasses around the pool deck. “Um, nothing. Just asking if we needed more towels.”

She hid her mouth behind her hand.

This was bad. Very bad. Extremely bad.

The server approached another of the ship’s staff, a man in a suit jacket with a more formal appearance. The young woman and he spoke for a few minutes before the server nodded and pointed across the deck at Emily and Ruby. The man raised a brow and took some notes on a clipboard.

Emily had a funny feeling in her stomach.

“A toast to the bride and bride.” Ruby plopped on the lounge chair and raised her very full glass to the sky. “Cheers!”

* * *

Max wiped the sweat off his brow as he went belowdecks to look for Sylvia. He’d completed his assignment on the pool deck, spent a good hour sorting through the photos, and selected the best ones to share. He’d saved the photos of Ruby and the accidental photos of Emily in a separate folder on his laptop. It didn’t feel right to include his new friends with the other pictures.

Especially the Emily photos.

For a fleeting moment he’d considered deleting them. But for some reason he held onto the photos of the funny, yet cute, Emily.

Because of that bikini?

Damn.

Did she have any idea what her body in that swimsuit did to every man with a pulse on the pool deck?

He shook his head to clear his mind of the dirty ideas he had developing...such wrong dirty ideas. Mostly because he’d just met the woman after a nasty split with Penny.

Did he really need to jump into another relationship? Emily could be a cruise connection and a fun distraction until they arrived back in Tampa. But he liked her too much to wreck their little friendly threesome. The cruise lasted ten days. Couldn’t he set aside any sexual thoughts and find a way to enjoy their burgeoning friendship? Was he really incapable of reining in his sexual side?

No, he was not.

A bad break-up didn’t absolve him of treating a woman the way she deserved to be treated: as a person, not a sex object. Emily was worth his time. She was funny and normal and even a little bit awkward, which made her even cuter. Plus, when he put his own foot in his mouth, which he was very capable of doing, he felt a little less stupid.

At the bottom of the stairs he ran into a ship employee he recognized from last night’s honeymoon photo shoot. “Debbie?”

The average-looking blonde wearing pink lip gloss and too much mascara gave him the once over. “Do I know you?” Her mouth turned up in a smile.

That smile gave him the confidence to ask even the stupidest questions. Easier to seek out women to find answers than men. Women tended to be happy to help. Men? Not so much, he’d found in recent years.

He scanned the hall in both directions. “I’m looking for the crew lounge?” Maybe they’d have some signs?

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