Chapter 29
ISAAC
This had absolutely not been my idea. When Jasmine had mentioned a Nile cruise, I’d thought we were going on a boat, not a floating palace, which was how she’d convinced me to come, but here we were.
I had invited Joseph to come along with me, at Jasmine’s request, and he and I were standing in a suite the size of a department store.
Huge windows looked out over the river. The floors and finishings were polished wood. It even had a sunken sitting area nestled near the large balcony and marble countertops in the bathroom. Neither Joseph nor I said a word as we took it all in.
“Are you sure we got on the right ship?” He swallowed hard before he wandered to the windows. “I’ve been watching these luxury cruise liners float past the city my whole life and I’ve never even been near one. It kind of feels like this is a mistake.”
“It’s Jasmine,” I said as an explanation. “I doubt it’s the wrong ship or the wrong suite.”
“It’s not,” Zara said, speaking up from the doorway as she swept into the room.
I glanced at her over my shoulder. Joseph flushed slightly when she brushed past him, and while I almost smiled, I wasn’t in a position to judge.
Zara was as much a natural beauty as Jasmine, with thick black hair, dark eyes glittering with gold, and the kind of bone structure that could slay a man from ten feet away.
If I hadn’t already known Jasmine, there was no doubt Zara would’ve been capable of making me blush too, but as far as I was concerned, she didn’t hold a candle. I had no trouble at all looking away from her.
Even so, I saw in my periphery when she spun in a slow circle as if she was appraising the place. Her lips curved in an approving smile. “The sitting area is a nice touch. I detest when hotels expect you to sit on your bed.”
“Anything but that,” I agreed dryly. “Seriously, though. Are you sure we’re on the right ship?”
“Oh, I’m sure.” She tossed her thick ponytail over her shoulder, following Joseph toward the windows. “Look at that view. Isn’t it to die for? I swear, people are always acting like the Thames and the Nile are the same, but they’re just not. All rivers were not created equal.”
Joseph blinked at her a few times, eventually just shaking his head and crossing the room again. When he reached the bedroom, I heard another door opening before he called out. “Isaac?”
“Yeah.”
“I found another room.”
I frowned. “Is it the adjoining one?”
“Well, it’s adjoining this one, but I think it’s actually part of the suite. I don’t think it’s supposed to be the room next door.”
“It’s the walk-in closet,” Zara said as if it should’ve been obvious. She giggled and gave him a smile that suggested she thought he was adorable. “Jasmine Saad does not travel light, darling. Neither do I. We need the space.”
He nodded thoughtfully, coming over to me with his hands in his pockets and a puzzled expression on her face. “I’ve lived my entire adult life telling myself ketchup counts as a vegetable just to justify spending money on a condiment, and now I’m here?”
“It does count as a vegetable when you’re desperate,” I said. “I almost feel guilty just for being here.”
“Same.”
Zara drifted into the bedroom with strides as smooth as if she was being carried on a cloud. “Oh, there’s a fruit basket. How sweet!”
“Don’t touch it,” Joseph said suddenly.
“Why?” she asked, popping her head back out again. “The fruit is fine. It looks gorgeous, actually.”
“Yeah, but I don’t trust complimentary fruit. A single grape probably costs as much as my monthly rent. What if you eat it and they add it to our?—”
Joseph cut himself off when Jasmine walked in, wearing flowy, linen pants, a cut-off T-shirt, and oversized sunglasses perched on top of her head. I’d last seen her less than twenty-four hours ago, but she still managed to knock the air out of my lungs just by existing.
“I take it you’ve never done one of these cruises before?” Jasmine said with a tiny, knowing smile as she glanced at Joseph on her way into the room. “You can eat the fruit. It really is complimentary, but you can’t have the fruit in this suite, because it’s mine.”
“It’s your fruit?” he asked.
She sighed. “It’s my suite. You guys are next door and Zara is in another suite just down the hall. I’m pretty sure we’ll all have our own fruit.”
“Good to know,” he said lamely, then turned to me. “We’re roommates. Do you want to go check it out?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Jasmine walked toward the balcony doors and pushed them open, letting in a warm breeze from the river. “Before you go, start thinking about what you’d like to do or see while we’re on the cruise.”
I frowned. “Don’t these things usually come with a set itinerary?”
She turned to smile at me over her shoulder. “Usually, yes, but it’s the off-season and it’s not a full cruise either, which means that we get to pick our stops.”
“The summer is the off-season?” I asked, beyond confused. “Are you sure?”
She laughed. “This late in the summer? Yes, and I’m sure.”
“Okay, then.” I held her gaze for another beat before she winked and turned back toward the river. “We’re going to go check out our room, but we’ll meet you at dinner.”
“See you there.” She stepped out onto the balcony, strode over to the railing, and slid her sunglasses over her eyes again.
Zara raced out to join her. The two girls sank into loungers while Joseph and I exchanged a glance and left. I pulled out the keycard I’d been given when we’d been shown to the suite, swiped it across the reader, and pushed open the door to the room that was apparently ours.
While it wasn’t exactly the same as Jasmine’s suite, it was still one of the nicest places I’d stayed in at least a decade. We had our own massive windows, two queen-sized beds, and enough space between them to lie down vertically and extend our arms.
Also like the suite, we had marble in the bathroom, a giant fruit basket, and a little sitting area. Basically, the only difference was that the bedroom wasn’t separate.
“You know what I don’t understand?” Joseph asked as he shut the door behind himself.
I twisted to look at him. “There’s only one thing?”
He laughed. “Today? Yes.”
“Okay, what’s that?”
“Why are we here?” he asked, his eyes wide as he looked around the room. “If Jasmine Saad wanted to go on a cruise with her girlfriend, she didn’t have to invite us along.”
I shrugged. “I think she feels responsible for us losing the bid. She probably wanted to cheer us up.”
“Why?” He frowned. “I barely know her. Why would she care about cheering me up?”
“Because she’s Jasmine Saad, and once a Saad woman sets her mind on something, it happens. She was there when you brought over the model. I think she knows how bummed we were about it, so she made it her mission to lift our spirits.”
He finally walked deeper into the room, letting out a low whistle between his teeth. “For a guy who was just supposed to be a contractor for her father’s company, you seem pretty close to her.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time together recently. That’s all.”
That definitely wasn’t all, but I’d accepted that my feelings for her weren’t rational.
Joseph had hit the nail on the head when he’d said I was supposed to have been nothing more than her father’s contractor and now I wasn’t even that.
Joseph had also seen me kiss Jasmine, so he didn’t have to be a mind reader to know something was going on between us.
By all rights, I should’ve been getting ready to go back to Chicago. My bags had been all packed. But instead, I was on a cruise with the man’s daughter.
It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
“Dinner!” Zara sang through the door after a quick, loud knock. “If you boys take too long, I’m deciding what we all have for dessert.”
Joseph shot me a horrified look. “We cannot let that happen. I’ve heard of the food on these ships and it’s supposed to be incredible.”
“So let’s go.”
He nodded and threw the door open to race into the hallway after her. She let out a surprised squeal, then laughed and took off running with Joseph only a few yards behind her.
I followed them, but at a much more leisurely pace, too busy trying to decide if I was absolutely nuts for coming to even realize where we were going until we reached the top deck.
I blinked and found myself standing in the middle of a place that looked like it belonged in a travel magazine, and that finally crashed me back into the present.
White linen covered the tables. Lamp-oil candles flickered in the middle and twinkle lights had been strung overhead. An honest-to-goodness chef prepared dinner in an open kitchen while the sun drifted lower over Cairo. The city skyline was already fading as we glided across the water.
Zara and Joseph had already joined Jasmine at a table, both still breathing a little hard from their race as they argued. She was staring at him wide-eyed when I reached them, looking like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“No, I’m telling you, there’s no universe in which pineapple belongs on pizza.”
“There are many universes,” he countered. “I’ve personally visited several and pineapple belongs on pizza in every last one of them.”
I took the empty seat next to Jasmine, who was watching the two of them with an amused smile. Every so often, she’d toss another log onto the fire just to watch their debate ignite. “What about banana? That’s worse on a pizza than pineapple, right?”
Zara nodded enthusiastically, but Joseph shook his head, and as their bickering ramped up another notch, she chuckled.
Once again, my breath caught when she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
It was ridiculous how any ordinary little movement she made could steal the air right from my lungs. I was so screwed when it came to her.
Yeah, I’m in so far over my head that I can’t even see reason anymore.
The truth was that I’d changed after spending all this time with her. I wasn’t the same guy I’d been even just a month ago and the knowledge terrified me. Every instinct I had told me she was slipping through my fingers like grains of sand in the Sahara.
I was losing her, and it felt like the tighter I was trying to hold on, the faster it was happening.