I walk her to one of the bedrooms. Inside is a wardrobe filled with spare clothes.
"Jesus, it's even bigger than I thought," she mumbles.
"Even the smallest spaces can be manipulated to look big," I say.
"I'm a little sick of being manipulated today, actually," she replies bitterly.
I let her words hang in the air for a moment as I peruse the options hanging in the wardrobe. "I'm assuming you're talking about the man you were supposed to marry," I say casually, pulling out a simple white dress.
It activates a sense memory the moment I touch it. The cotton between my fingers as I shove her away from me. The feeling of her pulse, warm and frantic, underneath my-
No. I ruthlessly yank myself back to the present.
"Dane," Jessa fills in, distracting me. "That's my fiancé's name. Ex-fiancé, rather."
I push the white dress aside and opt for another, less practical option. One that doesn't trigger an unwanted rush of things I've spent a long time suppressing.
The blue slip dress in my hand will do just fine for this little kotyonok.
"I walked in on him with my maid of honor."
I shake my head in disgust. "Could he get any more cliché?"
"Right? It would be laughable if it wasn't so devastating."
"Is it devastating, though?"
She seems confused by the question. "What do you mean? Of course it is. I was supposed to marry the man."
"And now, you don't have to spend the rest of your life tied to a cheater," I point out. "Or with a shitty friend."
"Yeah, but there's an alternative scenario I thought I had locked up," she says, her piercing eyes fixed on me now. "One where my fiancé isn't a cheating bastard and my best friend isn't a backstabbing bitch."
"That's not the reality you're living, though. No matter how much you try to fight it."
She sighs. "No, I suppose not."
I hand her the blue dress. She accepts it mutely, but the moment she actually studies it, her eyebrows knit together.
"This is beautiful."
Yeah. That was probably her one redeeming quality. The woman who bought this had good taste.
"It should fit. It's just something to wear underneath your chef's whites," I tell her.
She eyes the dress skeptically. "Is it really okay if I wear this?"
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"Doesn't it belong to someone?"
I turn towards the door so that she won't see the black expression that flickers across my face. "Not anymore."
Then, without bothering to wait for an answer, I stride out of the room, leaving Jessa stranded behind me.
* * *
The moment I get above deck, Yulian is in my face, a shit-eating grin on his face. "She's pretty."
"Did you take care of Anatoly?" I ask.
Yulian smiles. "He just disembarked. He wasn't too thrilled, but when I handed him the paycheck he didn't earn, he got over it."
"Money usually has that effect."
"I've informed the kitchen staff of the change in command, too," Yulian adds.
"Good."
I walk towards the cockpit. Yulian trails behind me. "Can she even cook?"
"We'll find out, won't we?"
"Jesus, bro," he says with a laugh. "This is a lot of effort to go to for a quick lay."
"Who said anything about sex?" I ask.
He arches an eyebrow. "Why else would you offer that hot mess a job? Especially tonight when there's business to be conducted. Anatoly may not be the prettiest to look at, but the man knows how to be discreet."
"She's here to cook," I point out. "She doesn't need to know anything more about what happens onboard."
"She doesn't look stupid, sobrat."
No, she does not. I've noticed that, too.
"She'll be below deck the whole time," I say dismissively. "And at the end of the night-"
"Oh, you don't need to tell me what's going to happen at the end of the night." Yulian interrupts me with a suggestive smile. "Just for the record, I don't disapprove. It's about time you quit moping around like a kicked dog and did something for yourself."
I roll my eyes and push him aside. Laughing, he heads below deck to take care of the last minute chores before we push off. When the captain comes down to ask me if we're ready, I give him the goahead.
The engines fire up. Water churns, white and relentless at the tail of the boat. I take a seat on the bow and gaze out at the horizon.
Darkness paints the sky as the sun disappears. In a little while, a smaller vessel will bring the Meninsky clan out to meet The Medusa in international waters. But until then, I've got two hours of sky and sea.
And an erection that I can't seem to get rid of.
3
JESSA
"He's a looker, ain't he?"
I give a start of surprise and turn to the petite brunette in the kitchen with me. I've already forgotten her name, but she's looking at me with a little bit of amusement and a lot of understanding.
"I don't know what you mean," I answer lamely. It takes more willpower than I'd like to admit to keep from looking back towards the kitchen's long rectangular windows. We're below deck, but the windows open out across the floor of the yacht's upper deck, enough for me to see glimpses of what -or rather, who-I'm trying not to gawk at.
"It's okay," she laughs, not buying my lies for a second. "I've been there myself. I don't blame you for looking."
"I'm just intrigued, is all," I say as I blush hot. "He's... strange."
"That's not the word I would use to describe him," she says. She picks up a knife and starts dicing onions for the soup I'm preparing.
"What word would you use?"
"Dreamy," she says with a giggle that betrays her age.
She can't be more than twenty or twenty-one. Young enough that she can lust after Anton without stopping to consider whether that kind of thing is a good idea.
I smile. "I'm just here to cook."
"And I'm here to chop vegetables and carry dishes," she retorts. "But a little eye candy never hurt anyone."
"Which one are you talking about?" another girl chimes in. "The hot younger brother or the even hotter older brother?"
She's maybe a decade my senior. A chatty blonde with a mischievous smile and sharp eyes. I've forgotten her name, too. My brain is a little flustered right now, for more than one reason.
"You know Anton is more my type," the brunette says. "He's taller and he's lean but still muscly, you know? Also, he's got those gray eyes. To die for."
The blonde snorts. "You're a sucker for the whole 'dark and broody' thing."
"And? What's wrong with that?"
"It's the quiet ones you've got to watch out for."
I should probably remove myself from the chatter. Just find a quiet corner to put my head down and work. But the truth is that, deep down, another part of me wants to be here, soaking up every little tidbit I can about the broody older brother who seems to have every woman on land and sea alike eating out of the palm of his hand.
"Not necessarily," I hear myself saying. "My fiancé wasn't quiet at all. In fact, he was the life of the party. And he turned out to be a complete dirtbag."
Their eyes fall on me and I wonder why I spoke at all.
"Well, it's not, like, an absolute rule," the blonde mumbles awkwardly.
The brunette is more direct. "What did he do?"
"He cheated," I answer, mostly because I feel the need to say it out loud. "With my best friend. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's been cheating consistently for as long as we've been together."
"Jesus... when did you find out?"
