Page 11 of Devoured By You

I heaved the first one off the belt. “Jesus Christ Almighty. What have you got in here?”

She shrugged. “Shoes, clothes, emergency chocolate.”

The second suitcase was heavier than the first. “And in here?” I huffed, setting it beside the first one.

“My vibrators.”

Suppressing a bark of laughter, I ran my tongue along my lower lip. “What a shame they weren’t in your carry-on.”

“It is. A terrible tragedy.” Her eyes traveled over me, and she nibbled the corner of her mouth. “What would you have done if they had been?”

My dick stirred to life. This woman could make me break my cardinal rule of never returning for seconds. I didn’t do seconds, but fuck if Tilly wasn’t tempting me.

“I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

Was that a look of disappointment sweeping across her face? I checked my watch. Damn. Even if I was tempted, I didn’t have time.

“Can I offer you a ride anywhere?” Maybe we could do it in the back of my car.

“I’m meeting my friends. But thank you.”

“Oh.” Now I was the disappointed one. “Let me walk these out for you, at least.” I put my bag over my shoulder and extended the handles on her cases.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. I’ll send you the medical bills if I get a hernia.”

“You’re all heart,” she replied drolly.

A smile pulled at my lips. I would miss this woman more than I should for someone I’d only met nine hours ago. I wheeled her gargantuan luggage to the arrivals hall, and for the first time in my life, I couldn’t think of anything memorable to say. I’d have to let the sex do the talking for me.

I stuck out my hand. “It was nice to meet you, Jilly Tilly Rowe.”

As her palm touched mine, I had the urge to ask her to meet me for dinner tonight. Then I recalled that I already had plans with a business associate. Not to mention that would smash the “no second bites” of the cherry rule.

“And you, Blay No-Last-Name.”

“Ah. International man of mystery, remember?”

Her eyes softened, and she stood on tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “I’ll never forget.”

The warmth from her lips stayed with me during the entire ride out to the Port of Miami. Kingcaid’s newest addition to our cruise ship empire towered majestically above every other ship at the docks. My stomach flipped, the familiar worries crawling back now that my female companion wasn’t around to quash them.

One point five billion dollars of my family’s money rested on the success of this venture. The cruising business was cutthroat and unforgiving. There were tons of VIPs booked on this sailing, most notably Scarlett Rose, a Hollywood A-lister who’d recently divorced her longtime manager in a blaze of publicity. Scarlett alone had seventy million followers on social media, with an influence that spread far and wide. If she wasn’t happy with a single element of the service offering, she could sink this venture with one scathing tweet before it’d gotten off the ground.

To add to my stress, it was widely known that Scarlett was a royal pain in the ass, although her many fans were oblivious to the true woman beneath the public persona.

Every contract I’d signed from the moment I’d envisaged this project had given me sleepless nights and chest pains. It had to go well. If it didn’t… I couldn’t bear to let the thought fester. I’d rather throw myself overboard than disappoint my father.

Sometimes I wished I’d never pitched this idea to the board. I’d gotten a lot of pushback at the time, and even Dad had cautioned me against taking the plunge. But I’d battled on, and when it had come down to a split decision and I’d had the casting vote, I’d pushed the motion through. The exuberance of youth and my father’s faith in me to run a business he’d built from the ground up had driven me forward.

Looking back now, with the benefit of hindsight, I’d been an idiot. Most projects of this size had problems. Nothing this large ever went smoothly, but as we’d edged closer to the maiden voyage, the problems had kept mounting up, and my previously unshakable belief in my abilities had begun to waver.

There was a concept in business called the Peter Principle, which stated that, in a hierarchy, people rose to a level of respective incompetence. Translated: if you pushed hard enough, high enough, eventually you’d overreach, and fail spectacularly.

What if this project was beyond my capabilities? What if I, or someone on the wider team, had missed a crucial element? Given that I was the CEO, the buck stopped with me, so even if one of my team fucked up, I was ultimately responsible. I’d be the one to bring bad press to the family name if anything went wrong or if the customer satisfaction surveys weren’t at the target level of ninety-five percent or above.

My greatest fear was disappointing Dad and having him think he’d made a mistake putting me in charge of such a large business, a cornerstone to the Kingcaid Vacations brand. So far, I’d met his high expectations, but all I’d done was take over an already successful business with an established board in place. This cruise ship was my brainchild, though, my baby, and my reputation, and that of my family, rested on its success.

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