‘Unfortunately so.’ It was clear from the irritability seeping from Chuck’s response that this man did not have the same standing as the elder one. ‘But let’s not talk shop tonight. We’ll do an island trip tomorrow maybe? Ore, you’re welcome to join, and then there might be a chance to have a chat with a couple of these rascals.’
Ore was relieved to have an out for this evening – she wasn’t sure how much longer she could handle the discomfort of all this male gazing. Maybe tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep, she might have reinforced her resilience, and have a decent idea of what questions to ask them.
‘That sounds perfect. Thanks, Chuck.’ Ore tried to keep the unease out of her tone. ‘I’m going to hit the hay, but I look forward to seeing you gentlemen tomorrow.’ That wasn’t exactly true, but they all smiled and nodded on cue. All apart from Claude, whose grey stare Ore could feel fixated on her.
‘Have the kitchen send some dinner to your room, anything you like,’ Chuck insisted. And then he added, ‘Sweet dreams.’ It was a strange thing for Chuck to say, and the way it elicited laughter from the men only made it stranger. After another nervous laugh in response, Ore had to stop herself from breaking into a jog as she retreated from the table and down the stairs. Food and sleep were the last things on her mind right now.
Back in the sanctuary of her cabin, Ore fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. She’d only been on board for forty-eight hours and she felt unmoored. She giggled to herself in the silence thinking of it, the manifestation of that metaphor, lost at sea, losing her footing on unstable ground. All of it was laughably on the nose.
After a moment, her brain kicked back into gear. She needed to make notes, before she forgot those names Chuck had reeled off, or that hushed phone call. She laid them out on the bed, and cross-referenced the names with the list of investors she’d made earlier.Richard Greenam, Gerry Porter, Ousman Alzahrani, Roger Aldertonwere all there, and she guessed thatFreddiemust be Frederik Dolph, but there was no one by the name of Claude. She’d have to ask for his surname tomorrow, but for now she wrote ‘on board’ for the other names, and a question mark by Claude’s.
She recalled Chuck’s phone call on the deck. She wrote down ‘clow-par-ten?’, circled it and then wrote ‘cloup-arten’ and underlined it. Her brain felt as confused as the words on the page, but it also felt calmer for not having to be their sole guardian.
It occurred to her that it might be wise to keep all her musings in a safe place. After scouring the room and finding no safe, she thought about stuffing the papers under her bed.And then what happens when the stewardess comes in?A silly idea. In the end she settled on placing them between the folds of her beach towel. In retrospect it had been a complete waste of luggage space anyway, as if a billionaire’s mega yacht wouldn’t provide her with its own supply of towels.
As she got ready for bed, her mind wandered to Daniel. That incident in the kitchen felt like a lifetime ago already, but if she concentrated she could remember the heat of his palm on her bare shoulder with freakish clarity. Not only the physical sensation, but the immediacy with which it had brought her back into her own body, lassoed her dissociated mind back into place.
And then later, when she’d snapped at him about Chuck, she hadn’t expected that wounded look. She also hadn’t expected to feel so guilty. Daniel was nice, but she barely knew the man.
She wondered if she fancied him, thinking back to meeting him. She had been struck by his good looks, and she had enjoyed charming him, as she did most men. On paper he was certainly a catch, if you set aside the fact that he was a potential source. There was the small matter of him being totally unavailable to her, in the sense that he lived thousands of miles away, at sea, but her dating track record might suggest that that hadn’t always been a deterrent.
But the problem was that she was wondering – usually she knew almost instantaneously if she would sleep with a man. That familiar fluttering in her stomach – she hadn’t felt it with Daniel. She must not then, she concluded, fancy him, and yet … here she was worrying she’d hurt his feelings.
It was just another puzzle for her mind to obsess over, and she had enough mysteries to solve on this boat. It was time to sleep. Tomorrow was another day, perhaps to get answers, but more likely to discover yet more questions.
