Chapter Twelve
POST-PRODUCTION CONFESSIONAL
CLOSE QUARTERS
PALMER HUGHES: BOSUN
Palmer watches footage, shakes head, runs hand over jaw.
PRODUCER
That second crew night out was a memorable one, huh?
PALMER
I mean… it didn’t feel like it then. We’d survived a charter being one stew down, the guests were happy, the tip was bigger than the last one… Everyone was drunk, yeah, but that’s what you do on a crew night out. You get wasted and forget about work for a while. It seemed fine at the time.
PRODUCER
And now?
PALMER
I’m surprised none of us saw the flashing neon sign warning us of what was to come.
PRODUCER
Do you think that night was significant, then?
Palmer laughs.
PALMER
I think it was the first crack in the dam, but none of us noticed the pressure building until the flood hit.
“How does it feel to not have your head in a toilet?” I teased Leah, looping my arm through hers in the back of the cab.
Drop-off day had gone swimmingly, the guests leaving with big smiles on their faces and big money in our hands.
Now, it was time for the crew to let loose and celebrate, and I was ready.
I’d managed to mostly avoid Finn the rest of the charter, acknowledging him only as necessary to get our jobs done. Dinner service was fine, breakfast was exactly as the guests ordered, and now I didn’t have to deal with him professionally until our preference sheet meeting tomorrow.
I needed the break from him most of all.
Of course, he was in the same freaking car with me at the moment, so the break wasn’t exactly all-encompassing.
“Ugh, I am still so mortified.” Leah groaned, burying her head in my chest as I smirked and pet her hair. “Second charter and I go down, leaving you and Bernard to fend for yourselves.”
“Thankfully, they had me!” Gisella piped in from the seat in front of us.
She was practically sitting in Finn’s lap, her lipstick stained on his cheek.
Finn didn’t look too happy about it. But then again, he didn’t look too happy period, so it likely had nothing to do with Gisella.
In fact, if I had to guess, that mood of his was more to do with our spat on the beach than anything else.
“But personally, I’m glad you’re feeling better.
I’m ready to get back on deck. Not that I don’t enjoy interior, but I want to be in the sunshine, not locked up doing laundry. ”
She tilted her head back as if she were sunbathing now, a wide smile on her face. When she opened her eyes again, she grinned down at Finn and nuzzled his nose.
I wrinkled mine, and Leah fought back a laugh as she sat up and tucked her hair behind one ear. “Yes, Gisella. We’re all very lucky you were able to fill in for me,” she said. “Can’t imagine what we would’ve done otherwise.”
Leah and I shared a look, me gripping onto her knee as I did my best not to roll my eyes. Leah could barely contain her smirk.
“No oysters tonight, yeah?” I said as we pulled up to the restaurant.
Leah grimaced. “Never again.”
Finn hadn’t said a word in the cab, brooding to himself and letting Gisella talk his ear off.
When we all started piling out of the cab, he stood at the door, helping Gisella out, then Leah, and finally extending a hand for mine.
I stared at it a beat too long, heat rushing up my spine at the sight of that scarred hand and all the memories it evoked for me.
Those tan fingers had once traced every inch of me, learning me like a map he wanted to know by heart.
Just the thought of sliding my palm against his again made my skin prickle, my breath hitching in my throat.
My fingers twitched toward his, heart thumping a little harder as I closed the distance — until another memory made me pause.
His words at the beach echoed in my mind, sharp as broken glass.
You weren’t there.
Like it was me who’d driven us into the ground instead of him.
Like it was me who was the bad guy for not turning my back on all my goals to follow him as he pursued his.
The reminder stung like dry ice to my skin, chasing away any warmth.
I acted as if I were going to let him help me, but at the last second, I pulled my hand back, flipped him off with a sweet smile instead, and hopped out on my own, brushing past him to catch up with Leah and Bernard.
“I need a drink immediately,” I declared, and I felt the determination to numb myself drowning out all the memories vying for my attention.
Bernard slung his arm around my shoulder with a grin. “Time for our first round of shots?”
Leah gagged and we all laughed.
Everyone except Finn.
I’d almost grown used to the cameras now, their presence feeling more normal than I ever thought it could.
All through dinner, I forgot about them, talking and laughing with the rest of the crew as we devoured each plate of food placed in front of us.
It almost felt like a normal yacht season, like I was on one of the many boats I’d worked, and it was a regular crew night out.
Until the conversation turned a direction I didn’t see coming, and those lenses felt like sunbeams through a magnifying glass trying to take me out like an unsuspecting ant.
I was content, sipping a delightfully dirty martini as I listened to Cameron tell us all about growing up in Edinburgh.
He was a self-declared mama’s boy with two younger brothers he helped care for.
It was sweet, listening to how he wanted to work his way up to captain and make it where his mom never had to work another day in her life.
That was something I loved about yachting — we worked together toward a common goal as a crew, but we were all from different backgrounds, different countries, with different reasons for being here and different dreams for the future.
“I told my mum that, one day, I’d buy her a house,” he finished, holding his glass up with a proud gleam in his eyes. “And that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
Bernard and Gisella lifted their glasses to his, the rest of us following suit.
I noticed Palmer wearing an appreciative smile, like he wanted to help Cameron as his bosun to achieve that dream.
When I glanced next to me, Leah had practically turned into a heart eye emoji.
I cocked a brow at her, but she flushed and waved me off.
“What about you, Em?” Eli asked, pinning me with a tipsy, crooked grin from where he sat across the table from me. “What’s your family like?”
I froze, drink hovering at my lips where I’d been about to take a sip. I finally managed to take one, slowly, smiling though my heart was already starting to race. “Oh, I don’t have a story to tell, really.”
“Come on,” Palmer chided. “Everyone has a story.”
It wasn’t warm enough to sweat, but I felt myself start to as all the eyes of the table fixated on me.
“Mine is pretty boring,” I said, hoping the laugh I gave with it would convince them to leave me be.
“Try us,” Leah said. Her smile was genuine, curious, and it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal for me to answer the question. They wanted to know about my family, just as most of them had already shared about their own.
But I was suddenly very aware of the cameras, of the fact that my father would watch this on television, and that I needed to be very careful with my words.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, my family is pretty normal, I guess.”
“Normal.” Bernard snorted. “Is there really such a thing?”
“My mom is a wonderful mom… quiet, but smart. She’s been a great partner to my father all her life and always made sure I was nurtured.
My dad…” I paused, my fingers tracing the stem of my martini glass.
“He’s a businessman. Real estate, mostly — but not the flashy kind you see on TV.
He’s more of a numbers guy. Commercial acquisitions, development deals, asset management. The whole nine.”
Bernard let out a low whistle. “Bloody hell, so you’re definitely not here for the money then, are ya?”
A few of them laughed, and I forced a smile, even though my stomach tightened like a fist wringing out a towel.
“Seriously,” Palmer added, nudging my elbow. “Are you like a trust fund baby?”
I shook my head. “Not even close. My father has always believed you should earn what you have. No handouts. No freebies. If you want something, you work your ass off for it.”
“Sounds like a proper hard-ass, your dad,” Cameron said.
I shook my head immediately, taking a long sip of my martini to buy myself some time to say the right words. I wondered if I’d say anything different if the cameras weren’t around, but knew in my heart I wouldn’t.
I was protective over my father, even if I struggled from his lack of affection.
“No, no, he just expects me to be great, you know? Like any parent, I guess. He wants me to make smart decisions, earn respect, make something of myself.”
The table grew eerily quiet.
“That’s a lot of pressure, Ember,” Gisella said softly. I winced under the soft empathy in her gaze, both surprised and annoyed by the presence of it. I didn’t want her pity, and yet something in me cracked at her words, like I was thankful someone said what I couldn’t.
“Well, all I know is he’s gotta be a proud papa bear,” Leah said, lifting her glass in the air like a cheers toward me. “Chief stew on a superyacht? On a hit reality show? Come on — you’re killing it.”
I used all the energy I had to smile at her, my throat tightening so fast I had to swallow hard to force it open again. I tried to speak — to agree, to say something witty and deflective — but nothing came out.
Because I knew my father wasn’t proud of me.
I wasn’t sure he ever would be, with the path I’d chosen.
No matter how hard I worked, no matter how many promotions I earned or how many charters I crushed or how much praise I got from captains and guests alike — I wasn’t sure I’d ever change his mind about my career and the value of it.
And suddenly, agreeing to be on this show in the hopes it would prove my worth to him felt na?vely silly.
The silence dragged a beat too long, my insides churning under the weight of it along with the alcohol buzzing through me. But then, from across the table, Finn cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, sliding into the conversation with that easy, charming smile of his. “I come from a long line of terrible cooks. Me ma could burn water if you gave her half a chance, and me da once made boxed mac and cheese with powdered sugar instead of flour for the roux.”
The table laughed, and just like that, all attention shifted to him.
“But my granny… God rest her soul. She could cook like no one I’ve ever met. Sunday dinners at her house were a religious experience, and then she moved in with us and brought that magic to our home every night.”
I snapped my gaze to him then, frowning, my heart thundering for a different reason now.
It’d taken him almost a month to tell me about his grandmother when we’d worked together on our last boat, longer than that to admit what she’d meant to him.
And even then, he was hesitant to talk too much about her.
It was too hard. It hurt too much. The wound was too fresh from her passing.
But he was doing it now, after only two charters, with a bunch of strangers.
Did he just feel more comfortable with them?
Or was he doing it to save me?
I knew it was the second, even if the smarter part of me didn’t want to latch onto that like it provided some kind of hope for something I knew would never exist again.
But the truth was, Finn knew my issues with my father intimately.
He knew the quiet resentment I held for my mother for never offering me anything else.
She was always so content to just let my father run the show, and he’d done so with an iron fist.
Finn knew that. He knew me.
And he saw me struggling. He saw what no one else did, that my hands were trembling and I desperately needed the attention off me.
So, he was doing what he could to make that happen.
The realization made me dizzy, my heart dancing in my rib cage even as my brain attempted to squash it with the heels of its boot.
“Gran taught me everything I know. Every dish I make, every recipe I write, it’s all a tribute to her,” he said. His voice was low, eyes a bit distant as he stared at the dark beer his hand was wrapped around.
Gisella covered his wrist, her brows tugging inward. “I didn’t know that.”
Finn tried to smile, but the lift of his lips fell quickly. “Not many people do.”
His eyes found mine, and the conversation spun off from there, but it was muted to my ears. It was like time had stepped its feet into quicksand and slugged to a stop around us.
I was still fuming from his words at the beach, but now, that anger was clouded by gratitude. I hoped he could see it even though I couldn’t say it. I hoped my silent thank you was loud enough for him to hear.
His expression softened just enough to let me know he understood, and my eyes stung.
Leah frowned from her seat beside me. “You okay, Em?”
I waved her off with a laugh, blinking the wetness from my eyes before any tears could form. “Yeah, girl. I’m just ready to dance.”
“Yes!” Bernard shouted, pushing up from his seat and throwing his napkin down like a gauntlet. “Let’s go. I’m ready to shake my arse.”
A chorus of cheers followed as Bernard did just that, hiking one leg up on his chair and giving us a little twerk. I let myself get swept up in the celebration, grateful for the distraction.
But as we left the restaurant and spilled into the night, I felt something precarious stirring inside me, like a distant roll of thunder warning of an impending storm.
I was just one little huff and puff of breath away from losing the balance I was barely holding onto.
And Finn might as well have been the big bad wolf.