Chapter 1 #2
Mistletoe dangles from his belt buckle.
Hell will freeze over before I’d ever drop to my knees to blow him underneath it.
The one thing sucking right now is that he hasn’t yet got the message that nothing could make me want to.
I’m not saying that I’m averse to kissing under mistletoe, or to getting into the Christmas spirit in boat-show bathrooms, just not with someone like him.
Adventurous is my type. Men afraid of nothing.
Big and brave does it for me, with bonus points if they can help me repair a boat still at risk of sinking.
Believe me, I’ve tried to make those repairs myself.
La Sylvie’s problems are beyond me. We both need a hero to come to our rescue or I’ll end up working for Dad forever.
Lito isn’t hero material, but he is determined. He snags my elbow again. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not letting you go yet. Not before we finish our little chat about your career.”
He waggles his eyebrows as well as his own camera, and moments like this are the only time I hate being a little on the short side. It means Lito gets to look down his snow-dusted nose at me. He leans in even closer, his breath scented with mulled wine and halitosis.
“One studio session with me could make you famous. All you need to do is ask me nicely. I’ll even sweeten the deal by giving you a discount on some party powder.
” He cocks a hairy lobe in my direction.
“Go on,” he says while I try to push past. “Whisper please into my ear, but use that sexy French accent that you fake for your YouTube channel.”
That stops me dead.
“You watch my channel?”
I don’t explain that there’s nothing fake about my accent or that it isn’t why viewers clicked subscribe in the hundreds of thousands. They did that to be part of the bigger story my GoPro used to show them.
“Of course I watch your channel. That’s how I know we’re the same kind of people.”
No, we are fucking not.
“You’re cutthroat, just like me.” Lito reminds me of another repair I need to add to Dad’s list—his laugh gurgles like the clogged drain in my galley. “You don’t hesitate to exploit people. Like the time you filmed a day-in-the-life video with your ex.”
“My what?”
“Your ex-boyfriend.” His lip curls, and I’d suggest he book a visit to a dental hygienist if he didn’t cut me off. “You know, the ex who starred in all those lifeboat rescue videos you uploaded a year or so ago.”
“You mean Reece Trelawney?” Reece and I were never a thing. I’ll always be grateful that he once fished me out of the sea, but my longest lasting relationship, and all of my love, is reserved for a boat, yet Lito reminds me of a video that almost proves him right.
“You recorded someone who used to be my assistant. Pretty little thing, but Jack kept turning down the photo shoots I offered him as well.” Lito is so offended it’s almost funny.
“He said it would be unprofessional while I was his employer.” That affront of his morphs into a smirk.
“Imagine my surprise when you videoed him being exactly that. Unprofessional. Right after he went to work with your ex.”
“Reece Trelawney isn’t my ex.”
Lito doesn’t listen, too busy recreating what I have to admit wasn’t my finest filmmaking moment.
“When Jack worked for me, he always looked such a loser whenever he concentrated. Like this.” His tongue tip almost reaches the end of his nose, his eyes crossing.
“You catching him in the act was superb. And getting to see all of that pathetic shock on his face when he saw your camera? All of that flaming embarrassment was vicious, darling. Delicious. I must have watched it a hundred times. No wonder it went viral.” Lito frowns. “Why did you take it down?”
He guesses my reason for me.
“Ah. Was it because your ex made you delist it? Or was it because Jack’s best friend threatened you? You know, one of Trelawney’s brothers. The one who hits people for his living. He threatened you like he once threatened me?”
“I’ve never met either of Reece’s brothers.” I did once glimpse his family from a distance and saw enough to know the men are all similar Cornish giants.
Lito sniffs. “Well, one of those Trelawneys is a complete thug. They don’t call him big, bad, and brutal for no reason. Can you believe that he said he’d end me if I ever went anywhere near Jack again?”
I smell a story. “Why?”
“No good reason.” Lito chuffs before admitting, “Jack must have exaggerated about a little misunderstanding we had in my studio darkroom. I guessed that Jack’s bestie threatened you too, and that was why you took down that video.
Shame. I used to watch it almost as much as the uploads where you got all wet while chasing pirates. ”
“You mean traffickers?” That’s who I chased before my boat almost sank between France and England like the hopes and dreams of the families they bled dry.
Lito’s hold on my elbow tightens. “Pirates. Traffickers. Same difference. It was exciting to watch your shirt get all wet and see-through. I’d always press pause for a longer look at your dark little nips. Those are the videos I watch over and over.”
Great. Now I feel queasy.
At least that gets me moving. I head off fast before one of my deadlines can reach its expiration.
Lito shouts after me. “You should still do a photo shoot with me.” He scuttles fast to grab my elbow for a third time just as a wicked Thames breeze ruffles my hair.
Instead, he snags a wavy tendril that I yank free so fast a few black strands still wind around his fingers.
“Never cut your hair,” he orders. “It’s the perfect contrast for that haughty profile of yours.
Softens all of your sharp lines and angles. ”
I’m not quick enough to avoid another touch of ashtray-scented fingers.
Or to miss that he’s avaricious. “I could make some serious money.” He quickly backpedals.
“For you, Valentin. For you. And all for an extremely reasonable percentage of your future earnings. Working with me could open a lot of doors for you.”
The beep of an alarm on my phone stops me from telling him I’d rather work with my father, which is really saying something.
Not that Dad’s a bad person—after all, he let my grand-mère raise me right up until she couldn’t.
Then he paid for that boarding school and enrolled me for back-to-back sailing courses to fill the school breaks when he was working.
I’m just saying that by the time I was fluent in English, we’d missed the boat on understanding each other. We still don’t.
That leaves me bleaker than I could have predicted.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Say something sexy to me in French first,” Lito croons. “Encourage me to make you famous.”
I give him a little of what he asked for. “Non, merci.” Just as quickly, I revert to English. “And I don’t need your help. I’m making my own fame, thanks.”
“How? You haven’t uploaded a new video in forever.”
I shouldn’t tell him how I plan to do it, but that wicked Thames breeze strips an answer from me. “I’ll win a filmmaking contest.” I’ve almost finished the entry that could score me a trophy engraved with my name and enough prize money to get me back to my true vocation.
Lito snorts. “Not with that piddly little GoPro of yours you won’t. And what would your contest entry even be about? Selling speedboats?”
Nope.
It’s about real-life heroes and villains. I’ve got plenty of footage of the latter. All I need is one more hero to follow before the submission cutoff. One more rescue made against all odds, but right now, my other deadline won’t wait any longer.
I set off running to where my own boat is all but hidden by more expensive vessels.
That’s where I check in on the reason for the timer set on my phone.
A duck laid this early Christmas present the day I arrived to set up for the show.
That duck paddled away without looking back once, leaving me with an unexpected Secret Santa gift of an egg to take care of.
I mean, I’m no wildfowl expert, but leaving something this fragile exposed to the elements didn’t seem right.
Taking it below decks to keep warm in my blankets at night, then returning it to its nest each morning with a hot water bottle in case its mother had a change of heart, seemed my only option.
Someone had to step in, right?
I do that again now by scooping up a baby-to-be that I’m pretty sure has been abandoned.
Shit. Almost completely cold again.
It’s a good thing my YouTube subscribers can’t see me holding this egg so carefully. It would ruin the cutthroat reputation Lito mentioned. So would how closely I clutch this fragile oval when someone bulky looms out of the wintry afternoon gloom.
His face is shadowed by a ball cap, and he’s the only witness to something else Lito wouldn’t believe, even if he’d watched it play out on my channel.
I’m worried.
Not for me.
And not because I can see that this stranger has curled fists. The moment a shout rings out from the other direction, I’m concerned for the contents of this eggshell.
“Valentin!” A sleety gust of wind carries Dad’s yell to me. “What have you got there?” He pounds along the mooring as loud as ever and as business focussed. “Put that bloody camera away.” He’s too far away to see what I do actually cradle. “I said, put it away.”
He’ll tell me that selling speedboats is more important than protecting something helpless. I know it.
Instinct has me shoving my hands behind me.
My fingers curl around a duckling-to-be that he’ll discover at any moment and no doubt think I’m a loser for wanting to keep safe. That outcome seems certain until I’m jostled hard from behind.
Warm hands close around mine. “Sorry, mate.” A stranger apologises as if our collision was accidental. He murmurs more quietly, “You can let go. I’ve got it.”
I’d think a stranger had staged a rescue mission if I didn’t glimpse a familiar profile.
Reece?
No.
This hero isn’t the star of my unfinished contest entry. I see that more clearly when he passes Dad and turns around to face me. His wild beard is another Trelawney difference that I get a better look at when he pauses to hold that egg up where mon père can’t see it.
He winks, and I’m surprised into smiling.
Into smiling?
I fucking beam, and my rescuer’s jaw drops. He almost stumbles, nearly dropping the egg, while looking about as shocked as his bestie once did in a video that went viral. Because that’s who just made a save for me, I think. The Trelawney brother who Lito described as big, bad, and brutal.
He isn’t the only one who falters.
Dad does too.
He stops in his tracks to return a smile he must have thought I’d aimed at him.
I’m instantly guilty for ever thinking him uncaring as he gives me a surprisingly sweet reminder of Christmases when we were pleased to see each other.
It’s so unexpected that my eyes sting. Or maybe that’s due to the bitter breeze I couldn’t risk leaving an egg out in for any longer.
By the time I blink them clear, someone who I’d bet my boat was one of Reece Trelawney’s brothers is gone, and Dad gets busy reminding me of a different deadline.
“You sell a boat by midnight for me, and I’ll bump repairing your old tub to the very top of my list.”
The wind must have blown the words after Reece’s brother—he mentions it when I next see him.
Which isn’t until hours later.
It’s fully dark outside when la Sylvie lurches in the water to warn me that someone heavy has stepped aboard her.
His knocks on her hatchway are louder than the music at the VIP party getting started across the marina.
I open that hatch, and there’s no doubt about the identity of who looms above me.
He’s determined. And fierce.
“Valentin Juno?”
I nod.
“You know who I am?”
I don’t have to guess now that I’ve had hours to google.
“You’re Calum Trelawney.” He’s definitely the protective best friend of someone I once accidentally exploited.
He’s also a pro sportsman, even if ice hockey is no big deal in Britain.
He’s massive in the US and exactly as violent as Lito suggested, which sets off a sudden flare of worry.
Not for me.
I worry for what he holds again between his thumb and finger. The egg looks even more fragile than the first day I found it. “You want this back?”
I nod. Don’t ask me why, but I do. I want it back so much that I nod again even harder.
He muscles his way down into my galley. Not that he makes deliberate contact with me—he doesn’t push or shove. I still scoot backwards until he rumbles, “You once made my best friend look stupid to your subscribers.”
I did. To all three hundred thousand of them.
Calum Trelawney muscles even closer to tell me what he wants the most this Christmas.
“Now make me look like an even bigger loser.”
He also confirms that he overheard plenty.
“Promise to do that, and I’ll order a speedboat by midnight.”