Chapter 24 #2
“What the hell are you building?”
“An everything morsel.” She bites in. A fleck of something lands on her upper lip. She doesn’t notice, but it’s all I see, suddenly.
I want to brush it off.
Kiss it off, maybe.
She’s still talking—something about nuts—and I have no idea what she’s said because I’m watching her mouth. She licks her lip. The fleck disappears.
I pick up my wine. I need to get this back on track. What was my goal here?
The first course arrives. Two crew members, silent, synchronized. Plates set. Water refreshed. Flowers whisked away.
“Wait, why are they taking the flowers?”
“Flowers aren’t supposed to be here.”
Her lips part in surprise. “Are you being funny right now?”
“No.”
She watches them exit, as though affronted.
I say, “When you are a villain hosting a captive on your yacht, you can design the dinner however you please.”
She turns to me, eyes sparkling. “Are they going to be ripping them up in their monkishly silent kitchen area?”
“No. I’ll be making Annie walk the plank with them.”
Once again, her lips part in surprise—at the fact that I made a joke, maybe.
I take up my knife and fork. “Kelsey, are you embodying mystification?”
“Mister, if I was embodying mystification, you wouldn’t have to ask if I was embodying mystification.”
“Something to look forward to.”
She sniffs a little laugh, and something ripples in my chest.
God, what am I doing? I dig into my chicken.
“Hey, why do you have plain chicken and I have...” She gestures at the arrangement in front of her—seared scallops with a cherry glaze, microgreens, something with cheese and potatoes.
“I eat chicken on Monday.”
“Hold on. You had your chef prepare this amazing dish for me, and you’re just going with Monday chicken.”
“I suppose it would’ve been more efficient to have him prepare two of the scallops, but I prefer not to expend too much energy on the whole enterprise of eating.”
“The whole enterprise of eating? Maybe you should just get astronaut meal bars. Or like rabbit pellets.”
“Is that a menu request?”
“No way! I love this!” she says. “I’m sorry that you’re having something sad and thank you for taking such close notes at the wedding. I do appreciate the care with the menu, and I wish you were enjoying your meal as much as I am.”
“My meal is enjoyable in that I didn’t have to expend extra decision-making on it.”
“Captain,” she whispers, all wonder and smiles.
The sexy low register of her voice puts me back on the veranda, her weight shifting against me.
But none of that is on the table.
I focus on my chicken.
I don’t do entanglements. I’ve known since I was seven that love is the most convincing performance people stage. Her family is the most recent production, though they weren’t even trying.
But Kelsey ate it up. That’s how badly she wanted to believe it.
I need to tell her.
Dessert is served. To Kelsey, anyway. Some sort of torte, glossy with chocolate, topped by a single maraschino cherry and a swoosh of cream that looks like it was painted by a Renaissance artist.
She claps and beams at me. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I didn’t. The chef did.”
She frowns. “No dessert?”
“I don’t do dessert.”
“Of course you don’t,” she says, amusement dancing in her eyes.
“There’s no reason to.”
She lifts the cherry off the torte by its stem, studies it for a moment, then eats it with complete commitment.
“What about joy?”
“Eh,” I say, forcing my attention down to my phone. I notice a text there. It’s a text from Adrian:
I have a gift for you. I’m swinging by tomorrow night—just a quick in and out.
Just a quick in and out my ass.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“My brother is planning to stop by tomorrow night to give us an anniversary present.”
“Your brother that came with you to the wedding?”
“No, my other brother. Adrian.”
“You say that like it’s...ominous, somehow.”
“It is ominous. Adrian is serious. Deeply intelligent. Severe. Not at all easygoing like Russell.”
She blinks. “The man who runs a yacht like a military installation and banishes flowers from his sight is telling me his brother is the severe one?”
I glare at my phone. “Yes.”
“Are you worried he might try to eat your leftover Monday chicken?”
“I’m worried he’s going to see right through this charade. That’s why he’s coming. He doesn’t believe one bit of this anniversary-celebration cruise. He’s timed his arrival to swoop through just as we’d be sitting down for our celebratory anniversary dinner tomorrow night. That’s no coincidence.”
“What’s the problem? Set out a nice table, some candlelight, some flowers… Unless you had them all incinerated in a special flower incinerator.”
I scroll up and read my text to him to see what exactly I said.
I’ve set up an elaborate onboard celebration. I’ve pulled out all the stops.
Why did I say that? Since when would I arrange an elaborate celebration for anyone or anything?
“It needs to be elaborate. We’ll have to get supplies from shore.”
She smiles. “And you’ll need an awesome fake loving girlfriend for them to play the part.”
“I have an awesome fake loving girlfriend to play the part.”
She makes a big show of inspecting her nails. “I agreed to ride on your yacht and appear in pictures. I don’t recall agreeing to a live performance.”
“Change of plans,” I say.
She fixes me with a wide grin. “I suppose I could help you out, but we’ll need to change the terms of the deal.”
“Don’t tell me you want even more money.” Even as I say it, it sounds wrong for her.
She looks crestfallen. “No! I’m telling you that I will deliver on your anniversary dinner-slash-celebration atmosphere, which I am highly qualified to do, but I need to work with the crew directly—that’s what I’m asking for.
Not through McGillicuddy, and not through a text chain.
I need that talking ban fully relaxed. I need to collaborate with the chef about the menu, because we’re not going to have me with an anniversary dinner and you with whatever Tuesday robot food you eat. ”
“Fine.”
“And I want to work with Annie on making things look festive. And maybe one of the guys can help...I just need full communication with the crew, and for them not to be looking over their shoulders.”
“For the event only.”
“For the duration of my stay.”
I frown, regretting anew that I said I’d put together an elaborate dinner. Of course Adrian’s suspicious. “Fine.”
“I feel like we need a cake. A really good cake.”
I shrug, angry about this whole situation.
The idea that my brothers think they can force my hand like this and implicitly threaten my company? To force me into this charade?
It is enraging because all I’m doing is protecting them from things they’re better off not knowing.
Kelsey continues, “...what’s my vibe here? Am I the girlfriend who’s fun—brings you out of your shell, makes things a little unexpected, maybe slightly out of control in a great way? Or more the quietly elegant type, tasteful, everything beautiful but understated?”
She’s asking for acting directions now? When we’ve been playing the part all weekend? She’s been doing it expertly all weekend.
I stand. “Figure it out.”