My stomach twists in embarrassment as I think of Pepe, my threadbare stuffed hippo, sitting at the top of my suitcase.
“She really doesn’t need to—“ I protest, but Harry’s already moving. He takes my hand and pulls me to the left side of the tinted glass wall.
“Open sesame!”
I gasp as he waves his hand in front of him and a door panel on motion sensors slides open to admit us. Inside, the Vela Bianca’s main salon unfolds like the pages of a magazine. The room is three times the size of my apartment, its ceilings vaulted to make room for the ridiculously ornate chandelier that illuminates the dark marble floors.I’m not in a movie, I repeat to myself over and over.This is really happening.But it’s hard to believe the scene before me is anything but a dream. Cream leather sofas angle around a large round table that looks out to the sea beyond, and a wet bar fit for 007 himself takes up the rear. But instead of James Bond, Jules’s soon-to-be brother-in-law sits languidly on one of the leather barstools, a double scotch I can smell from here balanced in his hand. Next to him is a slim, handsome Asian man in a white linen jacket.
“Nice of you to greet our guest, Matthew,” Harry snaps at him as he walks me through the living room. “Or can’t you be bothered to pry yourself from the bar?”
“Pleasure,”he says, easily conveying that it’s anythingbut.He’s good-looking in a morally-questionable frat boy kind of way: tall with dark eyes, muscular shoulders, and curly dark blonde hair that I’d bet took longer for him to style than it did for me to drive here. He’s definitely more Jules’s usual type than Harry is, if only because he reeks of bad decisions. Or maybe it’s just whiskey and expensive cologne.
Matthew sticks out his hand lazily at the same time I go in for a hug, resulting in an awkward near-boob punch that makes me wince in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” I try to cover, “Don’t have my sea legs yet. I’ve never been on a boat this big before.”
Matthew’s lips flatten out into some sort of disapproving grimace.
“I would never have guessed,” he says sarcastically.
“Ignore him,” the man in the linen jacket tells me. “He gets crabby when he flies.”
From what I’ve heard from Jules, Matthew’s crabby anytime he’s not stone drunk. I hold out my hand to shake the stranger’s, but he grabs it and kisses it before I get the chance.
“Steven Xin,” he says, “Best friend and official Matthew handler.”
I chuckle, instantly relieved that I’m not the only non-Warren on this trip.
“Nice to meet you, Steven.”
“Steven and Matthew have been best friends since the ninth grade,” Harry tells me. “His father’s on the board at Warren.”
“I hope you’ll forgive me for crashing the family trip,” Steven says conspiratorially. “But don’t worry, you won’t have to share your room.”
I smile. Something tells me we’re not going to be short on space.
“You’ll find Matthew is much easier to handle with a chaperone,” Harry tells me as he ushers us past a mahogany spiral staircase and into a hallway lined with shelves of ornate vases and leather-bound books. “But don’t take his attitude personally. He’ll warm up after a few days.”
In three years of wrangling co-eds, I’ve dealt with enough spoilt freshman to know exactly what to expect from a guy like Matthew. Let’s just say I’m not holding my breath for him to ‘warm up.’ But his friend Steven seems nice enough—unnecessary hand kiss notwithstanding.
“The Vela Bianca was made by Giancarlo Ravelli,” Harry says once we reach a large window that looks out onto the dock below. “He’s an Italian designer. It’s extremely efficient as yachts go—we’re able to operate with a very small crew, as you can see. My parents didn’t want anything too garish.”
Seven people is asmall crew?Clearly Harry and I have different understandings of the word garish.
“My dad had it commissioned for my mom’s sixtieth birthday,” he continues. “Really a present for himself, of course, but we all certainly enjoy it. There’s no other ship like it in the world.”
“Probably because it ate them all,” I mumble to myself. I only realize I’ve said it out loud when Harry shoots me a questioning look.
“What was that?”
“I said, the design is really impressive!”
We move through a grand office into a stateroom that can only be described as opulent. A blown glass headboard in the shape of Aphrodite’s half-shell cradles a bed that puts California kings to shame. Floor-to-ceiling windows span the whole room and give the effect of sleeping on top of the sea. And above the bed, dwarfed by the gaudy clam-shell, is an impressionist painting of a rowboat on an amber sea.
I gasp.
“Is that a?—“
“Monet?” Harry finishes for me. “I don’t care for this one much myself, but Jules says I’m a heathen. You wouldn’t believe what this thing’s insured for!”
