440 A.M. — Tuesday, September 11
OLIVER
“Coffee?” Indira held a mug up to Oliver as soon as he entered the tiny staff room below deck.
Captain Ben, who was seated at the table, dipping a piece of a pastry into his espresso cup, looking relaxed (as always), smiled up at him. Oliver forced the corners of his lips up, and wished them both good morning, his voice gruff.
He took the coffee from Indira. “Thank you. I’m going to need about a dozen of these today. It was nearly two by the time I got everything ready for today.” He had a sip, then sat down. “I should’ve cut the line before that idiot could pull that fish onto the boat.”
“You couldn’t have known this would happen,” Indira said, setting a plate of pastries and fruit in front of him.
“I had a bad feeling about it,” Oliver answered.
The captain wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Not your fault. Besides, if it wasn’t the fish, it would be something else. Expecting a yacht owner to be reasonable is like expecting a robin to lay an ostrich egg. They can only do that which they are capable of doing.”
“Doesn’t make it fun,” Oliver answered.
“We’re not being paid to have a good time. We’re paid to give them one,” Ben told him.
“The important thing is that you’re ready to go as soon as Mr. Bishop wakes up,” Indira said. “Eat up. You’ll need energy.”
“You’re too good to me, Indira.” He yawned.
“No, we’re a good team, and you’ve got the worse job this week.”
“It’s not so bad,” he said, plucking a green grape from its stem. “Besides, in a few short days, they’ll be back home and I’ll have The Winds all to myself again.”
“Yes, you’ll be back to your very charmed life,” Ben told him. “But first, the air conditioning system needs to be looked at before you leave. It’s not getting as cold as Mr. Bishop likes it, and with this heat wave, we need it running perfectly.”
Shit. A problem with the air conditioning was not what Oliver needed right now.
If Bishop noticed, he’d accuse Oliver of failing to keep up with the yacht’s maintenance, when the truth was, the HVAC system was too small for a vessel this large and was always in danger of breaking.
“I’ll eat fast then go check the coils. They’re probably icing up. ”
His stomach growled as he swallowed his first bite of croissant filled with custard.
Oliver had been too exhausted to bother eating supper the night before and he knew that this was his best chance at a meal for the day.
Wiping his mouth with a paper napkin (the staff got paper, not linen), Oliver sighed.
“You all right?” Indira asked. “You’re not your usual chipper self this morning.”
“Just tired.” He was lying. The truth was he had been feeling sick about how his night out with Charlotte ended two nights earlier.
His mind returned to that awful moment when he had to admit he wasn’t able to perform.
The humiliation of it was still raw, and her suggestion of stealing a Viagra from her boss made it so much worse.
He was still embarrassed (what guy wouldn’t be?) but more than that, the thought of her opening herself up to that smug bastard, Dawson, was more than he could handle.
There she was—a beautiful, fun, smart woman, letting herself be used by a slimy old cheater.
Oliver would never understand how someone like her couldn’t see she could do so much better.
And he’d screwed it all up by getting too high.
Oliver knew instinctively that she would’ve taken his inability to seal the deal personally.
American girls were like that—forever blaming themselves for failings that belonged elsewhere, whereas a European woman would have shrugged the whole thing off.
He was desperate to get her alone so he could reassure her and see if he could get another chance to show her how he really felt.
But that wasn’t likely to happen if he was out on that damn speedboat waiting for a miracle that wasn’t going to come. Statistically, there was no way Bishop would win the fragile rich man’s fishing derby, which meant Oliver would go another day without getting Charlotte alone.
The captain stood. “I’ll go relieve Enzo for the day. If you need help with the air conditioner, radio him before he goes to bed.”
Oliver waved off the idea. “That’s okay. There’s a trick to it.”
“All right.” Ben turned to Indira. “Is everything else set for today?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Good, good,” Ben told her, opening the door. “Everything will be fine. Even a bad day at sea is better than a good one on land.”
As soon as he left, Indira shook her head at Oliver. In a low tone, she said, “That’s because he’s never been on the receiving end of one of Mr. Bishop’s tantrums.”
Oliver nodded, a sense of dread coming over him. He shoved another bite into his mouth, knocked back the rest of his coffee, then got up to go fix the air conditioner. “Can you pack the food for our excursion? I need to be down on the lower deck on time.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
“Thank you. I owe you for all of this,” he said.
Opening the drawer that held playing cards and dice for Yahtzee, he pulled out a pen and ripped out a page from the small pad they used to keep score.
Then he quickly scrawled a note for Charlotte.
He stuffed it into the pocket of his shorts and left the staff room, then rushed up the stairs and slipped it under her door.
As he hurried back down to the mechanical room, he waited to feel a sense of relief.
But it didn’t come, and he knew that the only way he was going to feel better was by having a face-to-face conversation with Charlotte.
He needed to see the look in her eyes and have her feel his sincerity.
He cared about her. Even though they’d only spent a few hours together.
What happened to her mattered to him and he’d be damned if he’d sit by and watch her get hurt.