Hayden

Despite the heat and the rocking of the yacht, I couldn’t sleep. My plan had been to spend all night in the office working with advisors based in New York, who I’d selected because they had no public connection to Cannon. Then I’d thought I’d sleep in the day on deck. Working all night was fine. Sleeping all day wasn’t. Especially not today. I was due to hear from the lawyers, and I didn’t trust Wi-Fi, so I was having to go old school and have everything couriered to the boat in hard copy or on USB sticks.

I checked my watch, noting it was about half an hour since I’d seen Avery Walker. Right on cue, the main salon doors swished open. When she’d been cleaning my room, I’d found her so distracting that I’d had to leave the room. I’d been mesmerized by way her hands gripped the bed linen and found myself fantasying about pushing her onto the bed and my shoving her skirt up to her waist.

“Anything I can get you?” Avery asked as she came out onto the main deck. She made it sound as if she’d just happened to be passing by, but I’d been watching. She was always passing by every twenty to thirty minutes, catering to my every need. Her ponytail swished behind her as she came to a stop by my lounger. How would that ponytail feel wrapped around my hand?

I cleared my throat as I shook the fantasy of her out of my head. “Yes, actually.” Nine times out of ten there was nothing I wanted from her, but it was just coming up to noon and I needed her help.

She had an almost-permanent smile on her face, but it pulled a little wider, as if my asking for her help was what she wanted more than anything—that was bloody attractive. “What can I get you?”

“Well, first, I want to give you this,” I said, pulling out the preferences sheet from beneath my laptop.

She sank her teeth into her full bottom lip as she took the sheet from me and began to scan the papers I’d scrawled over. “This is really nice of you.”

It had taken some bollocks for her to ask me to fill this sheet in yesterday. She’d been trying to make her crew’s life easier, and my stay more enjoyable, but it would have been easier, less confrontational to have just stayed quiet. From our tour I could tell she was good at her job, but I hadn’t quite realized the care and compassion she had for her work and her colleagues. And I enjoyed that she’d called me out—and in such a charming way. She was all politeness on the outside but hinted at her core of steel. I had thought I was being helpful by not caring one way or another about the preferences sheet, but subtly she’d told me I was being anything but and that I had to let her and her crew do their jobs. She’d been confident and clear and my sheer admiration of her and the way I’d been handled meant I had to reward her and if I couldn’t fuck her, I could do what she’d asked and fill out the sheet.

“No inflatable banana,” I said, not being able to suppress a smile.

She giggled and heat grew in my belly. She had a beautiful laugh. “I thought you might skip that one.”

“I don’t avoid all fun if that’s what you think. But that’s a little too much.” Why did I care if she thought I didn’t like to have fun? I was here to work.

She nodded, smiling. “By the end of the trip, you never know what I might have talked you into.”

I raised my eyebrows. I was beginning to think she could persuade me to do a number of things that were against my own best judgement. I cleared my throat, trying to regain my focus. “I’d like you to go ashore and collect a package for me.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

Shit, her calling me sir shouldn’t be as arousing as I found it. “Please, it’s Hayden.” I shifted, sitting up on my lounger, trying to distract my dick. “There’s a patisserie on Lotissement Château Martin. I’d like you to pick up a cake.”

Her smile faded from her eyes but her full lips stayed in place. “No problem,” she said.

I pulled out a scrap of paper where I’d written down the name and address of the patisserie while on the phone to the lawyers last night.

“It’s only a short walk from the marina.” I beckoned her forward and she stepped toward me, closer than we’d been before. My face was level with her pussy and my eyes flickered up over her breasts to her face. Shit. Shit.

I stood abruptly and she took half a step away. I had to hold myself back from snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her against me. I didn’t know this woman. What was wrong with me? “Please be there no later than two. Someone will meet you and give you an envelope with some documents in it.”

“I think I should speak to Captain Moss. I mean—”

“It will be nothing but legal documents in the envelope along with a USB drive. I just don’t want to send or receive anything electronically.”

She nodded. “I understand, but I should just mention it to Captain Moss. It’s protocol if we’re picking up something from the shore.”

“Do you have a concern about my request?”

“I just need to run it by—”

“Tell me your concerns, or what the captain’s concerns might be and perhaps I can allay them. I’m going to be very disappointed if I can’t get a simple package delivered to me here. With no Wi-Fi, I’m having to rely much more on hard copy documents.”

“I understand and I’m sure it won’t be a problem. Leave it with me.”

Avery wasn’t being unreasonable. I was irritated because the documents I wanted her to collect were important, and I wanted her to know that I wouldn’t be asking her to do anything that wasn’t legitimate. “Just make sure you put the envelope in your handbag so no one outside sees you carrying it and walk out with the pastry.”

She took a breath as if she were going to speak. I understood why she wanted to question me, but I really had nothing to hide. She was trying to walk the tightrope between her duty to the captain and her duty to me and completely irrationally, I wanted her to trust me. To know that I wouldn’t do anything to compromise her. To want to do anything I asked.

I pushed my hands in my pockets to stop myself from reaching for her and providing her with some kind of physical reassurance. “Honestly, it’s just legal papers that I have to read. You can trust me.”

She could trust me. She was smart to be cautious, but she didn’t need to be cautious of me.

“Okay.” She checked her watch. “I’ll have to leave soon. Eric will have to take me, though. Can I tell Eric or am I pretending to buy you a cake?”

I smiled at her desire to do the right thing by me. Was it because it was me or because I was a guest? Obviously it was because I was a guest—one of hundreds she’d fulfilled requests for during her career.

“You’re just collecting some documents for me—this isn’t Mission Impossible.”

She glanced down at the piece of paper I’d given her. “I’d better get going then.” She turned to leave, but I reached out and caught her arm. She gasped and the sound sent a jolt of lust right to my cock. Her gaze slid from where we were joined to my eyes. She pressed her lips together as if she were stopping herself from saying something. I blinked, trying to fight off the attraction I was feeling.

“Thank you,” I said.

She nodded, then headed back through the sliding doors. I’d gotten used to her easy smile and professionalism far too quickly, felt comfortable with her far too easily. It was inexplicable. I was in a state where I was suspicious of everyone, questioning everything yet as Avery Walker disappeared, I imagined smoothing my palm down her naked back and whispering all my secrets to her.