Chapter 16
‘It’s a good job I’m a bit pissed,’ Hannah said as she finished her dessert and slid her spoon onto the dish, her gaze lingering on him again. ‘Otherwise I’d never have plucked up the courage for any of this.’
Louis savoured the final mouthful of his dessert. The sensation of cold cherry sorbet alongside the final bite of chocolate was almost as good as the way Hannah was staring at him.
‘I’m not sure that’s true, but I’m very glad you are here,’ he said.
He smiled at the rest of the table, scraping back his chair as he excused himself.
‘I need to circulate for a bit, chat to the other guests. It’s protocol.
Don’t go anywhere,’ he said. He aimed the words at everyone on the table, but the last few were meant solely for Hannah.
He had to be satisfied with her grin, the lift in her eyebrows, as she watched him rounding the table and venturing out into the room.
As captain, he needed to speak to everyone at the dinner – as did the other officers present – and even though he was becoming more accustomed to the role, it still sat awkwardly. Especially tonight, when he wanted to spend all the available time with Hannah.
Once he had chatted with every table, he returned. Hannah was finishing a small cup of strong coffee and a conversation with Paton West as he retook his seat.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said.
‘You look like you’ve been doing this for years,’ she said.
‘I suppose I have been doing the glad-handing for a while, but obviously not as captain.’
‘I can’t picture you as anything else – you look so at home here, schmoozing with the important people. I feel like a fish out of water.’ She wrinkled her nose and began to laugh. ‘Get it? Fish… water… we’re on the ocean…’
‘You are hilarious,’ he replied, grinning. He leant closer. ‘The secret is to ask people about themselves – never fails – or quote stats about the ship. It’s not why I wanted to do this for a career, it’s just one part of the job, something I have to do.’
‘Why did you want to do this?’ she said, leaning forwards to meet the incline of his body, her face closer to his than ever before. ‘Be a captain, I mean.’
‘I love the ocean, love being on the open water. Always have. That’s the bottom line.’ He smiled again. ‘And I need to make a living, so it made sense…’
It wasn’t the whole truth; there were a whole load of other feelings and reasons swirled into the mix…
The need to prove himself, to push hard and keep pushing until he felt some sense of achievement, the desire to quash the feelings of disappointment he still felt from his competitive failures, the need to make it right for his mum, to make his father proud, somehow…
Maybe the desire to run away from it all…
The list went on at length and was way too private to discuss with someone he hardly knew.
Their hands brushed together on the table and he drew in a sudden breath, which he hoped he managed to disguise with a grin.
It suddenly felt incredibly important to tell her how beautiful she was, but Paton West took everyone’s attention, accidentally knocking over a half-filled cup of coffee.
Hannah leant into Louis to escape the path of the liquid, laughing as she bumped against him, unaware just how much he wanted her to stay put as she straightened and a waiter leapt into action to mop up the mess.
As the meal officially ended and guests began to disperse, Hannah stood, Louis scrambling to match her action, passing so close he could feel her breath and smell the soft floral notes of the fragrance she was wearing, mixed with strong black coffee.
‘I’m just going to go to the… Excuse me for a moment, would you?’
Hannah headed for the ladies’ room and Louis tucked in his own chair, glancing around at the remaining guests.
He made small talk with the shipping line owner’s cousin and her husband, accepting their congratulations on his captainship as they made to leave and then did his best to bury the way Hannah was making him feel as he waited for her to reappear.
Hannah was very grateful for the flat gladiator sandals she’d chosen as she picked her way across the Vivaldi and into the ladies’.
It felt as though the ship had suddenly entered rough seas, even though she knew it was nothing to do with the ocean.
It wasn’t as though she’d never been drunk before, but it had been a while since she’d drunk so much wine.
Ian tended to drink the lion’s share of a bottle if they were sharing one, telling her there was nothing more unappealing than a woman slurring her speech and falling around the place.
She supposed she’d just accepted his words.
And maybe, at this moment in time, she understood what he meant.
She tried to walk as normally as possible, but it took all her concentration.
The walk back across the seemingly undulating floor of the restaurant wasn’t much better, but a stumble had Louis offering her his arm as he suggested he walk her to the lifts.
‘I’m not drunk,’ she said as they waited at the lifts, frowning at the incongruity of her statement, having only shortly before admitted to him she was pissed. Glad in that moment there was nobody else around to hear her nonsense.
Louis stifled a laugh, but his expression didn’t change, didn’t become judgemental or condescending as the doors opened and she stepped into the space. ‘It’s not a problem.’
‘I don’t usually drink much, you see. But tonight…’
The lift doors began to close, and she hit the button to hold them open, willing him to join her in the space.
Louis stayed in the corridor. ‘Tonight…?’
‘Tonight, I wanted to be brave. I thought some booze might help me with that.’ She reached out, running the collar’s edge of his formal jacket between the tips of her fingers. ‘For example, I wouldn’t dare do this without all that champagne.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ His brows furrowed, and his voice lowered. ‘Why not?’
‘You might not want it, and then I would feel rejected. All over again. And I don’t think I could cope.’ She retracted her hand. ‘I don’t even know why I am doing any of this. I shouldn’t even be on this ship. God only knows what you’re thinking. I must be mad.’
‘You’re not mad, Hannah. A bit drunk, maybe, but not mad.’
As the doors threatened to close again, he hesitated, then took a large step into the space with her as the doors slid closed. He reached for her hand, placing it against his collar again.
‘I like it when you do that,’ he said, touching her cheek. ‘Don’t stop. And for the record, I think you are incredibly beautiful and I also think you know exactly what I’m thinking…’
Something happened in the base of Hannah’s stomach, and it wasn’t anything to do with the amount of booze she’d stacked away.
She wanted this man, hadn’t a memory in that moment of ever feeling this kind of longing with such intensity before.
And although some of her own lack of inhibitions might be down to the alcohol, the look in Louis’ eyes wasn’t.
That she wouldn’t have failed to recognise, even if he hadn’t made it completely obvious with his words, and it made her pulse quicken.
‘Come with me to my cabin,’ she whispered.
She pressed herself against him, stepping up onto her tiptoes to be closer still, and he tipped his face to meet hers, their lips touching and meshing with little in the way of preamble.
Sliding her arm around the back of his neck she kissed him hard, and his arms encircled her waist, fingers splaying as he held her tight.
They broke apart moments before the lift doors opened and Hannah knew she needed to get to her cabin, get them both to her room while this feeling was still so strong, while it still buzzed its way through her body.
Nothing else mattered. At the door, she fumbled in her bag, then almost dropped the keycard as she waved it at the lock and pushed the door open.
She giggled, then tripped over the non-existent sill at the base of the door.
Louis had hold of her, keeping her upright as they stumbled inside.
‘Shut the door,’ she said, sticking the keycard into the slot on the wall to illuminate the room with the lighting she’d chosen when she was getting ready earlier.
A bit brighter than ideal for the current mood, but she could soon dim some of the settings.
She threw her bag into a chair and turned back to face him, her smile wide, her fingers playing against the neckline of her dress. ‘I might need some help with this.’
Louis took a step back as the cabin door clicked shut, a strange expression crossing his gorgeous features.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’
He glanced around the room, the expression morphing into a frown as his gaze settled on her again. Her smile faded as he shook his head, the heat in her stomach cooling as she understood what he was thinking.
‘You’ve changed your mind,’ she said. ‘Realised you don’t fancy me after all…’
The headshake continued, and he stepped closer. ‘No. No, Hannah. That’s not it.’ He swallowed hard, looking around again.
‘What else could it be?’ She blew out her cheeks, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly nauseous. ‘You don’t want me. It’s fine.’
‘No, I do. More than you think. But not like this.’
‘Not like what?’
‘Not in the room where you were supposed to be enjoying your honeymoon with a man who isn’t me.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t want you to make a mistake, that’s all.’
‘Are you suggesting I’m not thinking straight?’ She stumbled a little, covering it adeptly by sinking onto the edge of the bed.
He grinned, but it had a sad tinge to it. ‘I’m suggesting it’s a possibility.’
Hannah shrugged. ‘I knew this would happen. A rejection was exactly what I didn’t need, so why did I push you into rejecting me? I’m so stupid.’
Louis slid onto the edge of the bed beside her. He tipped her face towards his, kissing her gently, his lips barely touching hers. The effect was ridiculously intense, and her stomach clenched.
‘This is not a rejection, Hannah Maynard,’ he said. ‘It’s just that this isn’t the right moment.’
‘Yes, it is. It’s the perfect moment.’ Hannah flopped back onto the bed.
Maybe she was more drunk than she realised as the room swam.
She reached for him, hand connecting with his thigh.
‘I wanted to take that stuffy jacket off you. I wanted to unbutton your shirt and pull it out of your trousers, and then I wanted to…’
‘Oh, Hannah, please don’t do this,’ he said, easing her hand from his leg before climbing to his feet. ‘I’m going to go now, before I make a very unwise decision, and I’ll see you tomorrow. OK?’
‘Not OK,’ she said, her words mumbled as the squishiness of the duvet swallowed the back half of her body sufficiently to make it pointless for her to try to get up.
She heard running water from the bathroom tap, then the clink of a glass being placed somewhere north of her head, maybe on one of the nightstands.
‘Definitely not OK,’ she whispered as someone dimmed the lights and closed the cabin door, leaving her all alone.