After five years adrift at sea with Lloyd Harding, I'd gone from a fresh-faced girl to a weathered sailor who reeked of salt.
But the first thing he did when he made captain was throw me off his ship.
"The sea's rough out there. I can't stand the thought of you suffering anymore."
I believed him. So I went from being at his side on the ship to waiting for him on shore.
Until I happened to scroll past a video some blogger posted.
On the deck, a pair of arms wrapped tight around a girl's slender waist.
The caption read, "No matter how rough the sea gets, someone's here to shield me from it."
I recognized those arms in an instant. The crescent scar on his forearm, left when a steel crate slammed into him on the ship five years ago.
Back then I'd laughed and said it looked like a little moon.
I clicked into her profile and watched every single video, every detail of them.
She never had to touch a drop of seawater. She was the flower he kept cupped in his palms and pampered.
I hauled rigging and patched decks, working through storms, the spare pair of hands shoved wherever the labor was needed.
I didn't call to confront him. I only clenched my calloused hands tighter.
Watching the ferry shrink into the distance, I opened my email and replied to the job offer waiting inside.
I'd waited from the sea to the shore. This time, at last, there was nothing left to wait for.
He wasn't the captain of my voyage. So I would set sail on my own.
——
"Why didn't you come down to the dock to meet me?"
Lloyd came in from outside, soaked through.
I glanced at the wind howling outside and answered offhandedly, "The rain was too heavy."
The double row of gold buttons on his uniform glinted until my eyes ached.
I just turned my head away and stopped looking at him.
He walked into the inner room, grabbed a towel, and rubbed himself down in a careless hurry.
He dug around in his pocket for a long while before pulling out a Maltese cross fridge magnet.
"I spent ages picking this out. You're going to love it."
In that moment, my heart went cold to the very bottom.
A mass-produced fridge magnet. You could buy one online.
But in that blogger's video, on her fair, delicate neck, she wore a gift he'd given her.
A hand-chiseled miniature Maltese cross silver anchor pendant. The kind you could only find at an artisan's shop in the back alleys of the old town.
So the distance between caring and going through the motions was just one souvenir wide.
He didn't look at how I reacted. He set the magnet on the table and turned to pack for his next voyage.
"Rosamund Powell, this combination won't work. Pick another one."
Lloyd frowned, an outfit he'd put together in his hand.
Years of habit. Before he set out to sea, I'd lay out his everyday clothes for him.
Looking at the outfit, no different from the ones I always picked, it took me a second to register what he meant.
"I want that custom shirt you had made for me."
His words made my heart skip a beat.
That handmade white shirt was the gift I'd saved up to have made when he was promoted to captain.
Normally he kept it carefully put away, only willing to wear it for important occasions.
And now he was taking it aboard the cruise.
"Is there a formal dinner on the ship?" I asked, feigning indifference.
His fingers kept sliding across his phone, firing off replies at lightning speed, brushing me off without looking up.
"No. There's a travel blogger coming aboard soon to shoot some promo. Want a decent outfit to look the part."
It was all crystal clear to me now.
I knew cruise rules better than anyone. In the guest areas, you couldn't wear personal clothes unless it was official business.
There was no way he didn't know that.
The only explanation was that he meant to save it for late at night, after the guests had cleared off the deck, to shoot with her alone.
My throat tightened. Swallowing the ache, I asked him.
"Is the shoot that important?"
"It's promotion. Besides, the young girl always thinks I dress too stuffy. That shirt makes me look younger."
