Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“What?” she whispered. “You’ve got to admit he’s weird. Hot, but weird.”
“He’s just British,” Skylar said. “Right?” She turned to me for confirmation. “They’re all a bit stuffy, but let me tell you, they can normally drink like they’re going for gold at the liquor Olympics.”
“Husband material?” August asked Skylar.
“Maybe. I mean he’s off-the-charts hot. And he’s rich so that’s two out of three,” Skylar replied.
“He’s not husband material,” I interrupted. “Because he’s a guest. And that trumps any list of husband qualities.”
“Skylar wants a rich, good-looking husband who isn’t an asshole. The guy’s not going to live on the yacht. Surely guests are fair game once the charter’s over,” August said.
“No one should even be thinking of guests in that way,” I interjected. “Let’s focus on the job.” I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince them or me. “Speaking of the job, he did tell me he liked whiskey.” I tried to catch Neill’s eye as he pulled vegetables from the refrigerator.
He’d been in a bad mood since the captain announced that Hayden Wolf wasn’t going to be filling in a preferences sheet setting out what he liked in terms of food, drink and activities, and I thought the news that Hayden liked to drink would cheer him up.
“Did he say anything about food?” Neill asked.
“Just that he sometimes like steak and sometimes fish.”
Neill rolled his eyes and went back to sorting through the vegetables that were on the counter in front of him.
“I get the impression he’s not fussy,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Neill muttered. No doubt he’d had food sent back too many times to believe any guest on a yacht wasn’t fussy.
“We’ll figure it out.” I was totally bullshitting. Usually the preferences sheet gave a lot away about how demanding or fussy guests were going to be. Some ran to fifty pages. Others were just ten but in seven years of yachting I’d never been without one completely. “I’ll ask him again when I get him a drink later.”
“Ask him to fill in the freaking preferences sheet,” Eric chimed in. “He clearly thinks he’s too good to do paperwork and expects us to read his mind.”
Crew tempers always flared during a season—it was inevitable living and working in such close quarters and being under so much pressure to please demanding guests. Yachting could make a jerk out of Jesus. But we were usually a few charters in before signs of strain began to show. We hadn’t even started yet and I was already wondering how I could last the next five months.
“And I don’t get why we couldn’t pick him up at the marina. Why did he come in from an obscure harbor? Is he Batman or something?” Eric asked.
“The privacy thing, I guess,” I replied. They were being unfair to our new guest. I’d had people come in on tenders before.
“Yeah, but only allowing you and the captain on the bedroom floor is one thing, but did you know that we can’t have provisions delivered to the yacht? Not fresh vegetables or flowers or anything?” Neill sliced into an onion as he spoke. “We have to get someone to collect it every time.”
“Really?” I asked. That was unusual. “Even though we’re going to be moored offshore for the entire eight weeks of this charter?”
I cringed as I spoke and Neill started to laugh. I shouldn’t have brought it up because Eric had been mad as hell when he learned that we wouldn’t be going into dock for eight weeks, and I didn’t want to aggravate him. He and his team were going to have to do overnight shifts on anchor watch to ensure the anchor didn’t drag and we didn’t crash into anything.
Eric just muttered and folded his arms.
It really wasn’t a great way to start a season.
“We’ll loosen him up.” August grinned and I shot her a look. I’d gotten used to sizing new crew members up quickly. August was clearly a girl who liked to have fun. I just hoped she understood where the line was.
“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “No touching. No thinking about him in the wrong way. Doesn’t mean I can’t flirt a little though, right? I mean we want a good tip, don’t we?”
August and Skylar were complete opposites, but both beautiful. August had boobs I would die for, raven black hair and a very loud voice. Skylar, on the other hand, was calmer with nearly white-blonde hair, a button nose and a wide smile. I’d seen pictures of her Norwegian family taped up on the wall by her bed and they were all impossibly good looking.
“I think we just need to concentrate on service rather than flirting,” I said.
“Maybe flirting is part of the service,” August said, and she and Skylar laughed.
“Excuse me,” a male voice interrupted.