SAM
What the hell is she doing in there?
He’d only popped below deck during lunch to put his phone on charge before their afternoon trip.
He was curious when he saw the door to Rory and Talia’s cabin – the cabin next to his – was slightly open.
And he was even more curious when he’d heard shuffling sounds coming from inside.
He knew the stewardesses couldn’t be in there – Johanna was clearing up after lunch, and Michaela was apparently still in the crew cabins, not well enough to work.
His intrigue had deepened a hundred times when he crept towards the crack in the doorway, and saw Lucy in there, scanning a notebook, then flipping the page and reading the next one, over and over again.
Before he could decide whether or not to announce himself, he heard footsteps on the spiral staircase; someone else was coming below deck. Imagine if Rory catches her in the act. Now, that would make for an interesting scene.
Quietly Sam backed away and slipped into his cabin, pulling the door almost closed. He listened as the footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs, and then heard Mark’s voice from the corridor, loud and confused: ‘What the hell are you doing in here?’
Busted. Clearly, whatever Lucy was up to, Mark knew nothing about it.
Sam strained to hear the conversation between them that followed, but only made out a few words here and there: sales figures …
breakfast … can’t find them. So she was claiming this was just a bit of work admin.
Careful not to make a sound, he watched as they slipped past his door, Lucy’s head bowed, and walked along the corridor and up the stairs.
Sam stayed where he was for a few minutes.
After their footsteps had faded, he sat quietly on his bed, trying to make sense of what he’d just seen.
What was Lucy up to? He’d been wary enough already, mystified as he was by her presence here.
Now, seeing her sneaking into the boss’s cabin, clearly on the hunt for something, his confusion had become downright suspicion.
One thing’s for sure: I’m not going to find out what she was doing by sitting in my cabin on my own.
He made his way back upstairs and across the main deck to the stern.
The group were gathered on the swim platform there, preparing for the visit to the marae – everyone was applying sun cream and checking their water bottles were filled.
As he approached them, his foot stung uncomfortably – the cut on his sole had touched a small puddle of seawater. Christ. It really fucking hurts.
‘Ah, shit. Listen, guys – I think I’m going to have to sit this one out. This foot’s still giving me grief. Much as I’d love to join, I’ll only slow everyone down.’
Disappointment tinged his voice. Noah tried to comfort him: ‘Sorry you’re not up to it, mate,’ as Eleni flashed him a sympathetic smile.
Sam looked at the floor, embarrassed. He hated feeling like an invalid.
He wanted to join in, hike to see the marae, swim in the sea.
This was bucket list stuff he was missing out on – he was spending this trip of a lifetime holed up on a boat.
But at least it was the Lusso – there were worse places he could be confined to hobble around.
Once they’d all climbed into the tender with Noah, Sam watched as the small boat made its way to shore. With them gone, the air seemed to abruptly change; he could breathe more deeply.
Maybe it’ll be a relief to have some space from all the couples.
Being around them all the time – it hurt.
It made Sam miss Claire. And swirling among the sadness was the hot, eviscerating fury he felt towards the man who’d caused them to break up in the first place.
The same man he was now sharing a living space with: Rory.
It was starting to do his head in, the rage and the pain and the injustice. He’d been all right back home, hanging out with his mates for the past couple of weeks every time he felt lonely, nursing his sorrows in too many pints of Guinness.
But here, he couldn’t stop thinking about his ex and how they’d ended; he kept playing it over and over. The ultimatum she’d given him – telling him to stop pursuing his ambitions, asking him to potentially fuck up the career he’d been building for over a decade.
No. There’s no coming back from that. No relationship was worth that, was it? She made the right choice ending it, if that’s really what she’d wanted.
Sam caught sight of Johanna at the stern of the upper deck and called up to her for a cold beer. Once she’d brought it down to him, he wandered over to the edge of the swim platform, where Kai was hosing down the floor.
‘You okay with me joining you here for a bit?’ Sam asked, lifting his bottle.
Kai smiled. ‘Of course. As long as you’re not planning to try to help. I’m a bit too busy to train up a newbie.’
Sam made the sign of a cross on his chest. ‘I swear I wouldn’t dream of it, fella.’ He settled himself on the edge of the swim platform and let his legs dangle over the side. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how long have you been doing this – working on luxury yachts?’
‘This is my third season now.’
Sam nodded. ‘And you enjoy it?’
‘I love it – it’s my dream job, honestly.’
‘I bet. You get to travel the world, sail the high seas … and you must see some pretty wild stuff sometimes too.’
Kai grinned. ‘Define wild.’
‘Ah, you know. Scandals. Secrets. Drama. It’s got to be a bit like that reality TV show – you know the one?’
The deckhand snorted. ‘Ah, I know it. But honestly, it’s mostly drunk bankers vomiting in the hot tub. Though we do catch the occasional husband sneaking around behind his wife’s back.’
Sam laughed, leaning back on his hands. ‘Now, that’s more like it. I bet you’ve got some good stories.’
‘Oh, we do,’ Kai said, nodding. ‘We’re just trained to keep them to ourselves.’ He tapped a finger to his nose; Sam laughed. Then he tilted his head, studying the gleam of a dome camera mounted at the edge of the garage.
‘You’ve got cameras everywhere on the boat, haven’t you? For security?’
‘Yeah,’ said Kai. ‘Well, except below deck. We had them upgraded recently, so now there’s even sound on some of them.’
Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘So technically you can see – and hear – pretty much anything that happens on board?’
Kai shrugged. ‘Well, only the captain and first officer have the logins. We don’t look unless something’s gone pretty badly wrong. And that doesn’t happen often.’
‘Ah, sure,’ Sam said. ‘That makes sense.’
‘Why do you ask?’ said Kai curiously. ‘Are you trying not to get caught on camera?’
Sam laughed in response, then looked away and back out at the water.
Noah was approaching the swim platform now in the tender, having dropped his passengers at the beach.
Sam watched as he steered the boat to a gentle stop at the side of the Lusso and, with Kai’s help, attached it to the superyacht’s stern with a towing line.
‘You boys been all good?’ Noah asked as he clambered on board, nodding at Sam.
‘Ah, yeah,’ said Sam. ‘Kai’s been keeping me company. Filling me in on all the crew gossip.’
‘I should hope not,’ said Noah, raising his eyebrows as he glanced at Kai.
‘I’m just kidding,’ said Sam quickly. ‘I’ve actually been pestering him for the juicy details of what it’s like working on the Lusso. He’s been nothing but a total professional.’
‘I see. Come on then, spill. Have you been pouring your heart out about Johanna again, mate?’ Noah gave Kai a playful thump on the arm. Kai looked embarrassed for a second, then grinned.
‘I hadn’t said a word.’
‘It’s true,’ said Sam, holding up his hands. ‘We didn’t even get onto the subject of women.’
‘You didn’t? Well, there’s still time to change that. There’s some stunners on this charter, all right,’ said Noah. ‘And I’m not just talking about the crew.’
Sam nodded. ‘Yeah. Talia’s something special, isn’t she?’
Kai looked surprised. ‘The primary’s wife?’
‘Uh-huh. I know she’s older, but she’s … you know, classy. A cut above.’
Noah laughed. ‘A cut above her husband, you mean?’
Is it that obvious I can’t stand Rory? Sam shrugged. ‘I didn’t say that, did I?’
Kai chuckled. ‘Of course not.’
Sam took another swig of his beer. He was talking too much, he knew that.
But the easy banter was comforting – it was like he was chatting to the lads back home.
He missed that, needed it more than he’d realized.
It was easy; he didn’t have to think about everything he said before he said it.
He didn’t have to measure his words, like he did around his colleagues and his boss.
‘I can’t figure out why she’s still with him, honestly,’ he said.
‘Maybe she likes the money,’ offered Kai.
‘Or maybe she just doesn’t know she could do better,’ said Noah, giving Sam a meaningful look.
Sam laughed off his words, but deep down he agreed. Talia could do better. So much better. ‘Did you hear any of the stories he was telling last night?’
‘Who?’ asked Noah. ‘Mr Ashworth?’ Sam nodded. ‘Nah. Dinner and drinks are the stews’ domain. Why, what was he saying?’
Sam rolled his eyes, and repeated one of the embarrassing anecdotes Rory had taken it upon himself to share last night.
He’d overheard his boss recounting to Nick a viral video about a woman on a London Underground platform.
Rory had been making an animated gesture of grabbing something with his hands, and the anecdote ended with ‘the woman with the tits stepped back, but the guy was talking about a passenger with actual juicy melons’, before Rory dissolved into laughter.
‘Gross,’ said Kai, when Sam finished. Sam nodded; his flesh had crawled when he heard it, and it crawled again now.
For the first few years he’d worked for him, Sam just accepted this was Rory: an embarrassing drunk with an outdated sense of humour, stuck in the days before MeToo was a thing. It irked him, but he didn’t think about it too much.
These days, though, it was hitting differently.
That story was exactly the kind of thing Claire had complained to Sam about after she’d met Rory at the awards night a few months back.
At the time, he’d not wanted to hear his girlfriend’s point of view – he couldn’t.
He’d tried to explain that it was just harmless banter from an old-fashioned fella – a man of his time.
That all the ways Rory supported women at work, all his generosity towards his colleagues, more than made up for the times he said stupid things.
That his outdated chat merited an eye-roll, and nothing more.
But Claire hadn’t agreed. She’d been convinced that if Rory behaved like that in public, he’d be doing far worse behind closed doors – in meeting rooms and during one-to-ones.
They’d fought about it. Sam thought it was a massive overreaction; he couldn’t understand why they were disagreeing about something so fucking trivial, something that had nothing to do with their relationship.
He’d changed his mind soon after, when he realized that she’d been right and he’d been wrong.
Because, it turned out, Claire wasn’t the only woman to warn Sam about Rory.