8. Chapter 8
Lucy
Ihave been kissed before. Obviously. I am a grown woman.
I have dated. I have had relationships. I have kissed men in parked cars, at the end of dates I wanted to continue and at the end of dates I wished had ended forty-five minutes earlier.
But I have never been kissed like that. Not on the bow of a yacht by a man who warned me first like he was both gentleman and threat.
Not while warm wind lifted my hair and dark water moved beneath us and his mouth made every bad decision I had ever made in my life seem like a useful training exercise.
I am still trying to recover when Bianca hooks her arm through mine and starts dragging me down the stairs. Not guiding. Dragging. With elegance, apparently, which feels like a skill rich women learn somewhere between horseback riding and knowing which fork is for fish.
“Careful,” I say, clutching the rail with my free hand. “I still have yacht legs.”
“You have perfectly fine legs,” Bianca says. “The dress is the issue.”
“Why is everyone in your family so violent toward satin?”
“Because satin knows what it did.”
Isabella follows behind us, light on her feet and far too delighted by my personal crisis. “Also, bridesmaid dresses are designed by people who secretly hate women.”
“That feels extreme,” I say, then glance down at the dress swishing around my knees. “All right, maybe not.”
Bianca makes a triumphant little sound. “See? Healing has begun.”
I glance over my shoulder before we turn the corner, and Luca is still there at the rail, watching. His jacket moves slightly in the breeze, his dark hair ruffled just enough to make him look less controlled than usual.
Luca’s eyes meet mine across the distance, and the world does that annoying soft-focus thing again.
My lips still feel warm. My body still remembers the pressure of his hand at my waist, the way he turned me toward him, the way he said I could say no and somehow made yes feel like the most dangerous word in the English language.
Then Isabella leans into my line of sight and whispers, “You look like you’re going to either faint or write poetry.”
“I do not write poetry.”
“So fainting, then.”
“I am not fainting.”
“Good,” Bianca says.
That snaps me back. “Bianca.”
“What?”
“I say this with all possible respect, because you may be the only person standing between me and whatever your family considers casual evening wear, but I am not a mannequin.”
“No.” She looks me over with bright, assessing eyes. “You’re better. Mannequins aren’t as funny as you.”
I lift one hand to my cheek, which is a mistake. Both sisters notice immediately.
Isabella gasps. “I adore her.”
“I’m beginning to feel like a stray cat someone found behind the restaurant.”
Bianca smiles. “Yes, but a valuable stray cat. The kind with unusual eyes that ends up owning a jewelry store.”
“I don’t think that’s a type of cat.”
“In Miami it is.”
Before I can respond to that, she opens a glossy white door and sweeps me into a room that smells faintly of perfume and the kind of wealth that probably has climate control preferences.
I stop just inside. “Oh.”
Bianca’s room is not a room. It is a floating boutique that appears to have been attacked by a very fashionable storm.
Clothes drape over the back of a cream sofa.
Shoes line the wall beneath a wide mirror.
Jewelry trays glitter on a vanity. There are garment bags hanging from hooks, scarves looped over a chair, and a half-empty glass of champagne sitting beside a lipstick the exact red of bad ideas.
Everything is chaotic. Everything is beautiful. Everything is probably insured.
“This,” Bianca announces, releasing my arm and striding toward a wardrobe, “is where we save you.”
“I didn’t know I required saving.”
Bianca points at me. “That right there is why we need to move quickly. The woman is drunk on champagne, ocean air, and my brother’s mouth.”
“I am not drunk on your brother’s mouth.”
Both sisters stare at me, and I hear the sentence after I say it. “I would like to leave this conversation.”
“You can’t,” Bianca says. “We’re at sea.”
I look toward the door. “That feels legally relevant.”
Isabella flops onto the cream sofa. “Don’t worry. If anyone asks, you came willingly.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
I stare at her.
She grins. “That’s what Luca says, right?”
Unfortunately, yes. And unfortunately, hearing his name makes the kiss replay in my mind with humiliating clarity. His hand at my cheek. His voice saying, I’m going to kiss you. My own ridiculous face lifting like a woman in a perfume commercial who has never once had to worry about rent.
I turn toward the nearest mirror and nearly startle at my reflection. My hair is wind-touched, my cheeks flushed, my lips slightly swollen. I look kissed. Not politely kissed. Not first-date doorway kissed. Kissed by a man who could make an entire coastline seem like background decoration.
Bianca appears beside my reflection, studying me with the focus of a surgeon and the enthusiasm of a woman about to do something expensive. “Oh, excellent.”
“What is excellent?”
“You already have the glow.”
“The glow?”
“The freshly kissed glow. We don’t have to fake it with highlighter.”
Isabella leans forward. “Can I tell Luca that?”
“No,” Bianca and I say together.
Isabella sighs. “Fine. But only because I’m building trust.”
Bianca opens a wardrobe door, then another, then another. I blink, staring at the impossible amount of clothing arranged inside the yacht as if the vessel is less a boat and more a department store with engines.
“How many closets does this room have?”
“It’s a yacht. Space is limited.”
I stare at the wall of dresses. “Is it?”
Bianca ignores me and begins pulling options with terrifying speed. Black. Gold. Deep blue. Something silver and barely there enough to qualify as jewelry with seams. Then she reaches for an emerald-green dress and pauses.
Isabella sits up. “That one.”
“I am being bullied by fashion.”
“You are being elevated.”
“I was doing fine at sea level.”
Bianca holds the green dress against me, ignoring every word. “This is the one.”
I look down, and oh no, it might be. The dress is simple in theory, which I am learning is how dangerous clothing gets away with things.
Deep emerald, soft fabric, elegant neckline, fitted through the waist without looking like it plans to cut off circulation.
It is not flashy. It is worse than flashy.
It is the kind of dress that whispers. The kind that implies the woman wearing it knows exactly what she is doing.
I do not know what I am doing. That seems like a problem.
Isabella points at the dress. “Wear it. If Luca survives, we’ll know he’s serious.”
I whip around. “Survives?”
Bianca presses the dress into my arms, then turns back toward the wardrobe and reaches into a drawer built so seamlessly into the wall I hadn’t even noticed it was there. “Also, I need to find you swimwear.”
I stare at her. “I’m sorry. You need to find me what?”
“Swimwear,” she says, as if she has announced napkins or a phone charger. “I have several new options. Trust me, I have a good eye.”
I look at Isabella. She nods like this is a normal thing for one woman to say to another after a surprise yacht abduction.
“Why,” I ask slowly, “would I need swimwear?”
Bianca glances over her shoulder. “Because we’re going to the Bahamas.”
The room goes silent. Or maybe I do. Maybe my soul leaves my body so completely that sound no longer applies to me.
“The Bahamas,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
“As in… the country?”
Isabella tilts her head. “Is there another one?”
Bianca pulls out two swimsuits and holds them up like my passport status is a minor detail. “Relax. It’s not far.”
“Not far?” I echo. “Bianca, I thought we were taking a short cruise. I thought short cruise meant we would circle something, admire moonlight, possibly pass a pelican, and return before anyone needed to involve customs.”
Isabella’s eyes brighten. “There might be pelicans.”
“That is not the part I’m focused on.”
Bianca waves one hand. “We won’t be gone long. Nonna likes to wake up near clear water when the family has something to celebrate.”
“What is the family celebrating?”
Both sisters look at me.
I point at myself. “No.”
Bianca smiles. “Not officially.”
“Unofficially is worse.”
Isabella leans forward. “You should see your face.”
“I should be calling someone.”
“Who?” Bianca asks.
“My cousin. My mother. The Coast Guard. Possibly my bank because I don’t know if international roaming is included in my phone plan.”
Bianca gives me a sympathetic look that is ruined by her amusement. “Sweetheart, Luca owns a communications company.”
“Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he? Does he also own the moon?”
“Not yet,” Isabella says.
I stare at her.
She shrugs. “Adriana would know.”
I close my eyes and inhale slowly. This is fine. This is normal. This is how all weddings go. First comes the ceremony, then the champagne, then the fake boyfriend, then the yacht kiss, then the accidental Bahamas.
When I open my eyes, Bianca is still holding up swimsuits.
One is black and elegant. One is deep blue with a tiny gold ring at the center that looks innocent until I imagine wearing it in front of Luca, at which point every thought in my head runs into a wall.
“No,” I say.
“To which one?”
“To the concept.”
Bianca laughs. “You’re adorable.”
“I am alarmed.”
“You can be both.”
Isabella rises from the sofa and comes closer, her expression softening in a way that catches me off guard. “Lucy, Luca won’t make you stay if you don’t want to. None of us will. If you truly want to go back, say so. The captain can turn around.”
I look between them, and for a second the comedy dips just enough for me to feel the truth beneath it. They are teasing me. Absolutely. Aggressively. But they are not trapping me. Luca gave me a choice before I boarded. Now his sisters are giving me one too.
Which somehow makes everything worse, because if they were villains, this would be easier.
I could object. I could storm out. I could say no to the emerald dress, no to the swimsuit, no to the Bahamas, no to Luca Moretti and his mouth and his careful way of giving me exits I don’t seem to want.
Instead, I look down at the dress in my arms. Then at the swimsuits.
I glance at the closed door, beyond which Luca is somewhere on this yacht, probably standing in perfect control of himself while I am being fashionisted to death by two women who treat international travel like a brunch location.
“I don’t even have my purse,” I say weakly.
Bianca brightens. “Sofia had it brought from the reception.”
“My purse is here?”
“Yes.”
“Of course it is.”
“And your phone.”
“My phone too?”
“Obviously.”
I exhale. “This family is alarmingly efficient.”
“Thank you,” Bianca says.
“That was not entirely praise.”
“We accept it anyway.”
I glance back at the emerald dress. “If I try this on, it does not mean I have agreed to the Bahamas.”
“Of course not,” Bianca says smoothly.
Isabella nods. “Trying on swimwear means that.”
I point at her. “You are not helping.”
“I rarely do.”
Bianca presses the dress more firmly into my arms. “Start with this. We’ll emotionally ambush you with the swimsuit afterward.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
“You’re welcome.”