Page 21 of Lair

Emmie shrugs, a grotesquely exaggerated gesture. “Oh, nothing. I was just surprised you’d let someone like her onboard. What with her foot fetish and all.”

I shut my eyes, ears burning. I will myself to sink into the teak deck. Disappear. Mrs. Colding flashes me a withering look, but Voper only dabs at his lips with a handkerchief. “Foot fetish? Do tell.”

Emmie luxuriates in my agony, eyes gloating. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Apparently, this little farm girl here has been dying to know what the rich life is like. My first day onboard I found her trying on my pumps. My Stuart Weitzman pumps.”

Mrs. Colding’s face is like a glacier imploding. Thea’s eyes are lowered. Voper’s, however, lift to my face now. His expression is inscrutable. “Is that right?”

Desperate, unprepared excuses bubble out of me. “Mr. Voper, I was just—”

“Being creepy? Snooping around?” Another half-shell clacks onto the table, and Emmie wipes her fingers on her gossamer pareo. “She always did obsess over me in high school. I guess she never outgrew it.” She dangles her champagne glass in one hand with bimboish elegance, leans back in her chair. “Only question is”—her gimlet eyes narrow at me—“do we really need someone that unprofessional onboard?”

Trembling silence. I can hardly breathe. I have one hand to my stomach, holding in the nerves. Thea looks like she’s about to bolt.

At last, Mrs. Colding rouses. “Mr. Voper, I take full responsibility—”

But Mr. Voper lifts a pale, tapered hand. His eyes, resting on me, glitter with amusement. “I think we can indulge a little curiosity, don’t you?”

Emmie’s jaw drops. Even through the dizzying lightheadedness that follows, I want to frame her expression. It. Is. Priceless.

“What?” She splutters. “She—she tried on my shoes. I’ve seen you fire a chef for not placing the garnish properly—”

Mr. Voper turns a mild eye on her. “Are you questioning my judgment?”

And that perfect jaw sucks up with a click. Goodbye.

I don’t know whether I want to cry, or faint, or burst out in laughter as Mr. Voper goes back to eating his steak.

I’m on eggshells for hours afterwards. I help clear breakfast, send linens to the laundry. The other stews take care to avoid me, whispering to each other as they pass. I’m a genuine sensation now, the only worthy topic of conversation: Aurora Strand, maritime melodrama.

Even Thea, it seems, has turned against me.

“Hey,” I say when I pass her with an armload of laundry. “I don’t know what you think, but I didn’t—”

“Uh-huh,” she mutters. And then, over her shoulder, “Whatever a girl needs to do to get ahead, right?”

My eyes sting with tears.

I’m doing dishes in the galley when Mrs. Colding walks in. I stiffen, waiting for the withering comment to come, but she merely presses her lips together. “Miss Gallagher requests to see you in her cabin,” she states and stalks away.

What? That’s it? Mrs. Colding doesn’t believe in a good old-fashioned keel-hauling?

But she stops, turns back. “I trust I need not point out how very thin the ice is you’re standing on, Miss Strand. If you screw up again and cannot make the guests happy...” And she leaves the sentence dangling, devastatingly, in the air.

Yeah. That’s more like it.

I knock and enter to find Emmie waiting on the edge of her huge fuckdoll bed, long legs crossed. She’s changed into a flowy cream pantsuit and oversized waist sash. A clear power move.

High-stakes high fashion on the high seas, here we go.

“Emmie,” I begin. “I’m sorry if—”

But Emmie holds a finger to her lips—“Shh”—and smiles a frozen smile behind it.

I gulp.

She rises up like a lanky statue of femininity and paces around me, carefully analyzing my face and body. My ass, my breasts (different sizes, natch), my height (five feet four inches, baby!), my dark hair. She shakes her head. “What does he see in you?”

My head juts forward like a vulture in confusion. “Who?”

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