I lifted my flute of sparkling grape juice to the crowd below me. I was on a balcony in the atrium, having finished my speech, knowing my glittering jumpsuit was set to its most content-ready effect with the wall of windows behind me framing the sunset. The better part of four thousand passengers were assembled below me and on the many balconies and staircases, and all of them had a phone in one hand, a custom cocktail or mocktail in the other, and all of them looked happy. My speech had gone perfectly, the music started just as we all tipped our glasses back, and when I took a discreet glance at my watch, we were perfectly on time. The guests would have thirty more minutes of libations and conversation before dinner and then the rest of the evening to explore. Exactly what I had on my planner, and my Miro, and my Notion.
So why did I feel like I was made of piano wire?
Oh, right, the note. The note for me. The note meant especially for me. My note.
I reminded myself that it was harmless and that the worst thing it represented was a blip in the schedule. And usually I would ignore it, but as I’d gotten ready for the welcoming ceremony, one word jumped out at me.
Skin.
You’ve got skin in the game.
This person couldn’t know about—no. They couldn’t know about my single greatest disaster! The most mortifying thing ever to have happened to Addison Hayes!
But if they did . . .
I had enough PR battles to fight. From comments calling me out about the carbon emissions of a cruise ship to the fact that the megachurch I’d gone to until I was twenty-three was currently in the throes of an FBI-level fraud investigation.
And then there wasAugust. With thesit-down.
My stomach bounced and then burst like a water balloon.
No, I had to find out what this person knew. I couldn’t handle professional ignominy on top of everything else this year. Ignominy was not in the plan, and ignominy definitely wasn’t on the kanban board.
I made it through dinner, an exclusive tour with a group of hand-chosen influencers, and managed to give Bailey stern instructions to meet me for the morning yoga class at seven. And then I feigned exhaustion to Krysta.
“I really better get to bed,” I said, setting down the sparkling grape juice I’d been nursing.
Krysta nodded and gestured for me to lead the way back to my room. Somehow, despite her full day of walking, glaring, and bodyguarding, Krysta’s suit was still perfectly uncreased and her hair above her undercut was still neatly in its bun, as if even her hair was afraid to disobey her.
She didn’t speak as we walked back to the room, and every time I glanced back at her, she had an expression that couldcharitably be calledfrostyand realistically calledI hate this place and everything that brought me here, but it looked good on her, I had to say. I kind of wondered what it would feel like to let my face show emotions beyond the Addison Hayes Approved Range of Feelings, but then immediately dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter what it would feel like. I’d never be able to do it, to be that person. It wasn’t what the brand was built on... and also, I generally didn’t feel too negatively about anything. Tomorrow was always another day, a fresh page in the planner with a new sheet of stickers. All you had to do was make it to the morning alarm and a brand-new start was yours for the taking.
It was strange having Krysta in the suite as I took a quick shower and pretended to get ready for bed. Of course, I’d shared a bathroom with people before, had planned on sharing it with Bailey for the duration of this trip, but I realized with some disorientation that I’d never had to navigate sharing a bathroom with someone who wasn’t family or who wasn’t already a friend. And when it came to hookups, well. I didn’t even stay for conversation afterward, much less staythe night.
As I watched Krysta emerge from the bathroom in a sports bra and low-hanging athletic shorts, arms and shoulders flexing as she toweled off her hair, I decided it was a good thing that I’d made a point to compartmentalize my sex life. Because walking past her—her skin still glistening with lingering damp from her shower, her breasts firm, and her nipples taut under her white sports bra—to do something as mundane as brush my teeth felt...
I didn’t even know how it felt. Exposing? Terrifying?
Illicitly thrilling?
And there was a moment when she slid behind me in the bathroom to hang her towel on the hook and her hip brushed mine that I became immediatelyuncompartmentalized. My skin hummed. My belly went liquid. I could smell the sharp, cleanscent of her bodywash and something almost woody underneath it, like cedar. I wanted to press my face into her neck and smell; I wanted her to slide her hand in my hair and hold me against her throat until I kissed it to her liking.
But when our eyes met in the mirror, I saw only that same cold, flat expression from before, the one that almost looked like disgust. And there was no iced tea here, no crowds, no ambient cruise ship goings-on. It was just me.
She was wearing that expression because of me.
Chapter Four
My skin stopped humming and started burning instead. A hot flush scalded my cheeks—a flush that I couldn’t even hide behind a red-blocking foundation because I’d already washed my face.
Okay, I had to get out of here. It was one thing to need to move Vibrator Night to tonight, but it was another to know that a hot mommy of a bodyguard literally found me repellant. It was a real boner-shrinker, and you know what? It shrank the boner of my self-esteem too.
Before I could finish brushing my teeth, she was gone, having put those long, muscled legs to good use to stalk off to her bedroom. I spat out my organic toothpaste, remembered to call my manager about that meeting with a toothpaste start-up—I’m coming for you, Tom’s of Maine—and swished my mouth with water. And then I surreptitiously sniffed my hair to make sure I’d rinsed out my conditioner and didn’t smell like an air freshener.
Nope. Fine. It must be my bubbly personality she was opposed to... or the fact that the faith-based media apparatusthat birthed my career was patently homophobic and she probably thought I was cut from the same bigoted cloth.
August.
Sit-down.
