Chapter Forty-Six Hunter
Chapter Forty-Six
Hunter
Thomas had told me that Lucky had been fired. I couldn’t believe that it was true. Queasiness rolled around inside my stomach and my chest felt too tight. Panic and dread pumped through my veins. I didn’t understand.
I led Lucky into the back of the tender, away from everyone else. I needed answers. Her face had gone completely pale. “What happened?”
She couldn’t be leaving. I didn’t want to be here without her.
Her voice sounded numb. “The captain knows about us. And then Emilie told him that I was part of the list, trying to get points, and showed him a screenshot of texts between Georgia and me where we were joking about me being with you. Emilie took a picture of you and me together in the primary cabin.”
I wanted to punch something. “This is my fault. I told her I was going to talk to the captain about things she had done, and she must have gone to him as some kind of preemptive strike.”
She must have been planning to do this for a while. I’d dismissed her as harmless but she was some kind of criminal mastermind out to get Lucky.
How had I not seen this coming?
“Or she did it because you two were having some lovers’ spat,” she said angrily.
Now I was really confused. “What?”
“You kissed Emilie. You were cheating on me.”
Emilie had kissed me. Did Lucky really have so little faith in me? Did she think I was like every other guy she’d dated? I would never cheat on her. Ever.
And she was accusing me of doing just that.
When I didn’t answer she added, “I saw you two. On the monitors.”
What were the odds? That must have killed Lucky. It was bad enough that Emilie had pounced on me. I had immediately put a stop to it. I would have told Lucky about it after I’d spoken to the captain.
I understood how this would have crushed her, but a part of me was hurt that she didn’t trust me. Hadn’t even tried to talk to me about it. If I hadn’t been in this tender, she might have left the ship without saying a word to me.
Did I really mean so little to her? Had our situations been reversed, I never could have done that. “Emilie must have set me up.”
“You’re saying she knew I’d look up at the exact right moment and catch you?”
I knew how far-fetched that sounded but I didn’t know how else to explain it. “I have no idea what’s going on in that evil mind of hers. But I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me.”
Lucky made a sound of disbelief.
My heart hurt. “Do you really think I’m the kind of man who would tell you I love you and then turn around and cheat? I would never do that to you.”
She looked conflicted. Like she wanted to believe me but she couldn’t get past what she had seen. Or the part of her that expected to get hurt.
The part that had been waiting for me to screw up.
Lucky was pushing me away, not the other way around.
“Emilie told me that she didn’t think you’d be around for much longer and then said she thought we would be good together and then, without warning, kissed me. I immediately stopped her and said that I was going to report her to the captain. That’s why she went to him first.”
I wanted her to understand. To know what had really happened. I wanted to beg her not to do this. To not end things between us over a misunderstanding. But half the crew and all the guests stood behind us.
“Did you see me push her away?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“The captain should have fired me, too. I was on the other end of that kiss with you,” I said.
That seemed to spur her into speaking. “So that we can both be out of work? I don’t want that. I want you to keep your job.”
She still cared. She was angry and hurt and confused and so was I. But she still cared about me.
“What about your bakery?” I loved her too much to let her lose it, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop this. It was already done. I would call my parents and make them understand what had happened.
“My bakery was on the line the first time we kissed. It was stupid to think we could keep hiding it. Especially after you told everyone that we were dating.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish I could go back and undo that.”
There were so many things that I wished I could change.
“And if I can’t undo it, I’ll do the next best thing,” I said. “I’ll talk to the captain. I’ll talk to my parents. I’ll fix it.”
“If you do that, you’ll lose all credibility with your parents. You’re working hard to overcome their negative perceptions. You will wreck that.”
“I don’t care!”
But she did. “No.”
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to leave with her. To throw everything else away and just be with her. But what did I have to offer her? I didn’t have a job. Money of my own. I didn’t have a place where we could live or a way to support her. I couldn’t offer her anything that she needed.
I wasn’t good enough for her yet.
The tender was nearly to the pier. It was almost time for us to disembark.
“Do you believe me?” I asked. “I didn’t cheat on you. I wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she said.
We had to talk away from all these people.
“Stay in Portofino,” I said.
“What?”
“We need to talk this out and we can’t do it now. I have to go out with these tools and finish up this charter. But when it’s over we can meet up. I should have a couple of days off.”
“I—” I saw her hesitation. She wanted to believe me.
But she didn’t seem to know whether or not she could trust me.
And that destroyed me.
The boat pulled up to the dock and Pieter hopped out to tie off the lines and keep the tender in place. The crew helped the guests out and Thomas came over to grab Lucky’s suitcase and put it on the dock.
She went to climb out and I grabbed her by the wrist. “Please, Lucky.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
I hurried to catch up with her as she wheeled her suitcase down toward the street. “I’ll call. And text. I will come back here as soon as I can.”
She nodded and then went off in the opposite direction of the guests and the crew.
And as I watched her go, I was struck with a sick feeling like this was the last time I was going to see her.
I didn’t know where it came from but I wanted to run after her.
Lucky wouldn’t like that. She needed to sort things out and I would have to wait. I knew that she would find a way to leave without talking to me face-to-face. She was scared and running.
I didn’t know how to fix this. One of the things my therapist and I had talked a lot about was how, after Harper’s death, I didn’t want to let go of things, especially people. But that if I held on too tight, they would slip through my fingers. I would lose them anyway.
Now I knew exactly what she had meant. If I chased after Lucky, tried to force her to talk to me, I sensed that I would ruin any future we might have. I had to back off and give her the space she needed even if it killed me.
But there was a phone call I could make so that at least one of her dreams would come true.