A lot of jostling, the feeling of being cradled through a stampede, and then everything receded into blissful darkness.
Church bells were chiming when I woke. No, wait. It was my teeth. And my bones. Every time the blood rushed through my veins, it hit my nerves like a hammer striking a bell. I moaned and retreated under the covers. I had a vague recollection of loud music, red sequins, cigarette ash…
Oh shit.
Kostas.
I sat up and immediately regretted it. My head throbbed with the worst hangover in history.Myhistory. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and cast a bleary glance around the room. Alex was gone. His bunk bed was made up, neat and tight. The absence of windows made it difficult to guess what time it was.
I crawled into the bathroom and turned on the light, cringing at my reflection. My eyes were a lattice of blood-red vessels. Mascara clumped my lashes together when I blinked. My bra strap had slid down my shoulder, and I was still wearing the dress from last night. I thanked Alex silently for not helping me into something more comfortable while I was passed out.
My first hangover, I thought.Not a fan. It felt like all the bad decisions I ever made were having a reunion in my head.
I showered and slipped into a T-shirt and shorts. After unsuccessfully googlinghangover cures(because I kept typinghangover curse), I made my way upstairs, heavy limbed and deflated over my disastrous date with Nikos. When the elevator doors opened, I shrank back from the sun like a vampire. Thank God for sunglasses. I slipped them on and tried again.
The boat was oddly quiet. No one in the salon. No one on the deck. No guests. No crew members. My first thought was everyone had abandoned me after my night of debauchery. I was Roman Catholic, raised in an Indian family. Guilt and the fear of punishment were my childhood companions. We still played seesaw—I liked to test how far I could go without tipping them over. Mostly, they kicked my butt around the playground of life.
After failing to locate someone who could point me in the direction of the nearest aspirin, I stumbled into the galley. Alex was working with his back turned to me, earbuds in place, oblivious to my inspection. You look at a man differently after he’s rescued you. You either resent him, because you’re an independent woman and he made you feel like you needed rescuing. Or you romanticize him, because you’re an independent woman and he made you feel like you needed rescuing. Hopefully, you don’t puke on his shoes in either of those scenarios.
I was leaning more toward romanticizing him, conjuring up the scene in The Bodyguard, where Kevin Costner carries Whitney Houston out of the club, booting and throat-chopping everyone out of the way. Though I doubted Kevin Costner’s spanakopita rose as spectacularly as Alex’s. Alex pulled a tray of the little pies out of the oven. His mitts were shaped like sharks, with teeth facing out, so it looked like they were taking a bite off what they were holding.
He pulled off his earbuds when he saw me. “It’s alive.”
“It feels like death.” I plopped down on the nearest stool.
“It needs water.” He poured me a glass and slid it my way.
I didn’t stop until I had drained all of it. My mouth felt like someone had rubbed it with sandpaper.
“You want some masala chai?” Alex put loose black tea and milk in a saucepan. Then he started adding spices—cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger. Since when did cardamom pods crack open soloudly?
“You know how to make masala chai?” I asked.
“When I was training at the CIA, my mentor was Indian. He taught me masala chai. Also, mango pickle,chaat papri,chevda, parath—”
“The CIA? You trained at the CIA?”
Alex refilled my water and held it out like a bribe. “You can’t share that information. It’s top secret. I’m working undercover as we speak.”
“You’re working undercover?” I was repeating everything he said, but I couldn’t help it. To say I was gobsmacked would be putting it mildly. I chugged down another glass of water. “What kind of undercover assignment?”
“Well…” Alex leaned closer, elbows on the counter. “The Papadakis family—Thomas and his parents? They’re involved in all kinds of shady stuff. We’ve been trying to bust them for years. They’re all coming for the wedding—a Who’s Who of Greek Mafia. No better time to round them up. All the kingpins, including Nikos.”
“Nikos?” My three-thumbed ticket to happily-ever-after was in themob? “What does he have to do with it?”
“Nikos funnels all the dirty money through his clubs.”
“What? That’s just… Wait, does Isabelle know?” The pounding in my head got louder. “I have to tell her.”
“You can’t tell anyone. You’ll jeopardize the whole operation.”
Alex poured the masala chai in a mug, pulled out a stool, and regarded me with his cinnamon eyes. I held my head in my hands to keep it from toppling over with the weight of all the things I just learned. It also explained why Alex said my name with all the right inflections. His mentor at the CIA had been Indian.
“Moti?” Alex pushed the sugar bowl toward me.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to know.
“In the culinary world, CIA stands for the Culinary Institute of America.”
