Ten adorable mini sailors were currently ring-around-the rosie-ing using my choice vocabulary as their soundtrack. A little girl with braids walked up to Nina and tapped her hip.
“Is this boat on fire?” She pointed at me. “Because that mean man said the word ‘fire.’”
Nina spun to face her, then bent down so they were eye to eye. “Oh, no, Becca, not at all! He was just having a grown-up conversation that wasn’t for our ears. I guess Mr. Ashford didn’t know that these areverythin walls!” She rapped the glass and smiled at the child, then shot me an evil look. “We heard all sorts of silly things, didn’t we?”
Nina stood up and shook her head as the chaos continued to unfold.
“He said the f-word, he said the f-word!” a child chanted at the top of his voice, pointing at me with gleeful eyes. “He’s gonna be in time outforever!”
“I gotta call you back,” I said into the phone and hung up before he could answer. I fixed my gaze on Nina. “Why are youhere,” I pointed to the ground between us, “and not in the Kids’ Club? Our team worked hard to make sure that you have a facility stocked with everything you and the kids could require so that when you’re between activities you have somewhere to go. Somewhere that’snot here.”
Her expression slipped from cheerful child wrangler to a glare. “It’s quiet time for the little ones in the Club, and as you can see, this crew is anything but quiet. Since our baking activity is canceled,” she dialed up the glare, “we needed a Plan B, and we decided we should play Pictionary. Noah told us that there’s a whiteboard in this conference room, so we figured we could play here.”
Yes, Noah knew about the whiteboard. I’d offered to let him draw on it to entertain himself last week while I held a meeting to go over final details with some of my team, but he hadn’t shown much interest. He hadn’t shown interest in much of anything lately. I glanced at the group of kids and spotted my son alone, off to the side and looking small and quiet and sad, a marked contrast to the other kids who were bouncing off the walls like profanity-filled pinballs.
Fuck.
A younger boy walked over to Nina with his eyes wide. “My mom told me that the f-word is a swear and kids aren’t allowed to say swears. But all of them are saying it! Does that mean I can too?”
Yeah, I’d accidentally given our VIP kids a vocab lesson their parents might hate me for.
“No, absolutely not, Evan!” Nina replied quickly. “No oneshould say those kinds of words. They’re very naughty.”
She shot me yet another surly glare as the boy ran off to join the rest of the kids.
“What?” I demanded. “It’s not like I did it on purpose. No one was supposed to be around.”
“Well, I knocked on the door to warn you to keep your voice down,” she fired back at me. “But you were too busy absolutelyscreamingat the poor person who dared to get on your bad side.”
“Oh, you mean the supplier who is the very reason why these kids aren’t doing what they’re scheduled to be doing? If one of my business partners or any of my employees fuck up?—”
Nina dared to shush me, and I forced myself to ignore the way her pink mouth looked as she did it. She was so fucking gorgeous it was distracting. The dark, perfect ringlets that framed her face, the lush lips, and eyes that said just as much as that mouth of hers. She was wearing our standard-issue uniform for the Kids’ Club—a slim-fit white golf shirt with our logo on the pocket and khakis—but somehow, she made it look like couture.
In spite of myself, my eyes trailed down to check out her ass when she turned to answer a question, but after only a beat, I forced myself to look away.
No. Not now, anddefinitelynot her. I didn’t know her well, but I could already sense she was trouble.
“As I was saying, if someone makes a mistake,” I continued in a strained half whisper, “I expect them to own up to it, not give me a runaround. And I expect my employees to be able to pivot when necessary. Children going corporate is not an acceptable pivot, Miss Reyes.”
“Oh? And what should I be doing with the children since our carefully planned activity isn’t an option, hmm?” she shot back. “Please fill me in, because I think a couple of rounds of Pictionary until Captain is ready to give them their scheduled tour is a great way to pass the time.”
“On aluxurycruise?” I asked her. “That’s the best you could come up with? Not a project in the fully stocked craft room?”
The din from the kids went a few decibels softer, like they could sense a bigger storm brewing between us.
“Oh, so you didn’t hear about the issue with the floor?”
I massaged the bridge of my nose at the unexpected reveal. Not only was there was more bad news, but what was worse was that I knew nothing about it. Why hadn’t maintenance alerted me? And was this entire voyage going to be cursed? Because it sure as hell was off to a shitty start.
“What…issue?” I spat out.
“Housekeeping used the wrong kind of floor cleaner, and now it’s so sticky that it’s a hazard. They’re working on it.”
“Damn it,” I bellowed before I could stop myself.
“Language,” Nina hissed at me, then threw a worried glance at the kids as they all started giggling and covering their mouths in shock.
The laughter got louder, all the kids feeding off each other’s nervous energy, and I could sense we were seconds away from chaos. The combination of being on the giant boat and away from their parents was as potent as a mixture of Pixie Stix and soda.
