Page 43 of The Awful Truth

The captain wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Not your fault. Besides, if it wasn’t the fish, it would be something else. Expecting a yacht owner to be reasonable is like expecting a robin to lay an ostrich egg. They can only do that which they are capable of doing.”

“Doesn’t make it fun,” Oliver answered.

“We’re not being paid to have a good time. We’re paid to give them one,” Ben told him.

“The important thing is that you’re ready to go as soon as Mr. Bishop wakes up,” Indira said. “Eat up. You’ll need energy.”

“You’re too good to me, Indira.” He yawned.

“No, we’re a good team, and you’ve got the worse job this week.”

“It’s not so bad,” he said, plucking a green grape from its stem. “Besides, in a few short days, they’ll be back home and I’ll have The Winds all to myself again.”

“Yes, you’ll be back to your very charmed life,” Ben told him. “But first, the air conditioning system needs to be looked at before you leave. It’s not getting as cold as Mr. Bishop likes it, and with this heat wave, we need it running perfectly.”

Shit. A problem with the air conditioning was not what Oliver needed right now. If Bishop noticed, he’d accuse Oliver of failing to keep up with the yacht’s maintenance, when the truth was, the HVAC system was too small for a vessel this large and was always in danger of breaking. “I’ll eat fast then go check the coils. They’re probably icing up.”

His stomach growled as he swallowed his first bite of croissant filled with custard. Oliver had been too exhausted to bother eating supper the night before and he knew that this was his best chance at a meal for the day. Wiping his mouth with a paper napkin (the staff got paper, not linen), Oliver sighed.

“You all right?” Indira asked. “You’re not your usual chipper self this morning.”

“Just tired.” He was lying. The truth was he had been feeling sick about how his night out with Charlotte ended two nights earlier. His mind returned to that awful moment when he had to admit he wasn’t able to perform. The humiliation of it was still raw, and her suggestion of stealing a Viagra from her boss made it so much worse. He was still embarrassed (what guy wouldn’t be?) but more than that, the thought of her opening herself up to that smug bastard, Dawson, was more than he could handle. There she was—a beautiful, fun, smart woman, letting herself be used by a slimy old cheater. Oliver would never understand how someone like her couldn’t see she could do so much better.

And he’d screwed it all up by getting too high. Oliver knew instinctively that she would’ve taken his inability to seal the deal personally. American girls were like that—forever blaming themselves for failings that belonged elsewhere, whereas a European woman would have shrugged the whole thing off. He was desperate to get her alone so he could reassure her and see if he could get another chance to show her how he really felt.

But that wasn’t likely to happen if he was out on that damn speedboat waiting for a miracle that wasn’t going to come. Statistically, there was no way Bishop would win the fragile rich man’s fishing derby, which meant Oliver would go another day without getting Charlotte alone.

The captain stood. “I’ll go relieve Enzo for the day. If you need help with the air conditioner, radio him before he goes to bed.”

Oliver waved off the idea. “That’s okay. There’s a trick to it.”

“All right.” Ben turned to Indira. “Is everything else set for today?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Good, good,” Ben told her, opening the door. “Everything will be fine. Even a bad day at sea is better than a good one on land.”

As soon as he left, Indira shook her head at Oliver. In a low tone, she said, “That’s because he’s never been on the receiving end of one of Mr. Bishop’s tantrums.”

Oliver nodded, a sense of dread coming over him. He shoved another bite into his mouth, knocked back the rest of his coffee, then got up to go fix the air conditioner. “Can you pack the food for our excursion? I need to be down on the lower deck on time.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Thank you. I owe you for all of this,” he said. Opening the drawer that held playing cards and dice for Yahtzee, he pulled out a pen and ripped out a page from the small pad they used to keep score. Then he quickly scrawled a note for Charlotte. He stuffed it into the pocket of his shorts and left the staff room, then rushed up the stairs and slipped it under her door.

As he hurried back down to the mechanical room, he waited to feel a sense of relief. But it didn’t come, and he knew that the only way he was going to feel better was by having a face-to-face conversation with Charlotte. He needed to see the look in her eyes and have her feel his sincerity. He cared about her. Even though they’d only spent a few hours together. What happened to her mattered to him and he’d be damned if he’d sit by and watch her get hurt.

4:55 A.M.

MERCY

Mercy woke to a light tap on the door to their suite. It was Travis’s breakfast. She glanced at the clock, only to see it was not quite 5 a.m. She quickly calculated the time back home (10 o’clock the night before). Theoretically, the kids would be asleep by now, and normally, she’d be just snuggling herself into bed to read. She felt a horrible pang, wishing she were right down the hall from her children instead of trapped on the sea thousands of miles away with a bunch of strangers.

Realizing her husband would be angry if she didn’t wake him for his fishing trip, she got up and pushed the button to lift the automatic blackout blinds just enough for the first hint of the day’s sun to light her way to the door. She tiptoed across the tile floor in her bare feet to bring in the tray, listening to her husband snore and snort before he stopped breathing for a second. Each time he did it, she held her own breath, and some tiny voice deep down in the trenches of her mind would say, Maybe that’s the last one, and she’d be momentarily filled with relief. Then he’d take a giant inhale, and the relief would be replaced by equal parts guilt for wanting him dead and disappointment that he was alive. She had told him once that he might want to go to one of those sleep clinics. He responded by asking if she really thought he would ever wear one of those stupid masks, following the question with, “Come on, now, give your pretty head a shake.”

There would have been a time—in the very early days of their marriage—that she would have tried to convince him that he was cutting his days short. After all, he had swooped in and saved her in the worst moment of her entire life, and for that she would be forever indebted. If Travis hadn’t come along at exactly the right time, she would be in prison right now, instead of on a luxury yacht. And here she was, wishing she was at home with children she would see in a few days, when she could be wasting away in a tiny cell until she was a very old woman with no children at all. It was a thought that brought her a deep sense of shame and she chastised herself. How dare she be so ungrateful? She had everything any woman could ever want, and instead of enjoying her time on this gorgeous yacht, she was feeling sorry for herself because she had to get up early. Travis had given her this life—every luxury was available to her, their children would have every advantage, opportunities she could only dream of as a young girl. So, he could be a hard man. So what? You don’t get to be where he was in life without being tough. His expectations of her were high because what he provided was extraordinary, and only an extraordinary wife would do for a man like him.

But the truth was, deep down, in a spot in her heart that she refused to acknowledge, her once-shiny feelings for him were tarnished. Mercy couldn’t help but feel as though his chivalry had slowly been replaced by something that felt a lot more like control. Most days, Mercy didn’t question it. She couldn’t. She never stopped long enough to ask herself if she was happy. Because that would prove to be ultimately useless. Instead, she reminded herself of what her life could be like and focused on their children. And having the three of them to dote on and worry about made it easy to forget about herself. To forget she once had a glamorous life all on her own—gracing magazine covers and movie posters and drawing big crowds to theaters around the world. All of that seemed like a far-off dream now, something that happened to some other woman she vaguely knew.