by Tara Sivec
What I’ve never seen before is a woman who could make my jaw drop and find it impossible to tear my eyes away from her photo and the information printed next to it.
Mackenzie Armstrong, late twenties, daughter to Mark Armstrong.
Graduated top of her class at NYU in graphic design, immediately went to work for her father and sits on the board of several of his charities. No dietary restrictions, and her special requests are to drive a jet ski and swim with dolphins.
Sits on the board for several charities is code for, “Doesn’t really have a job other than spending daddy’s money throwing fancy parties.”
Even knowing this information, I still can’t stop staring at her picture. Long dark hair with a few strands blowing across her face, light blue eyes the color of the ocean water outside, full, gorgeous lips and a dimple in one cheek as she smiles the biggest smile at whoever took the photo. Maybe I’m struck dumb because these guest bios usually contain professional headshots against boring photo studio backdrops, or stupid ass selfies people take in front of the mirror, like the ones the rest of the Armstrong clan used. This picture of Mackenzie Armstrong is candid and real and someone took it when she was mid-laugh, which lights up her entire face.
“These people have more money than God, so do your jobs, don’t fuck anything up, and hopefully we’ll get a nice tip at the end of the charter,” Captain Michael finishes, pushing himself up off the bench and exiting the room.
His words dump a bucket of cold water on my libido, and I shove the packet away from me in annoyance. Another snobby, entitled group of guests who can afford to throw away $200,000 a week to charter a yacht and who’ll treat the crew like shit, just like all the other guests I’ve encountered in the last four years.
There are a lot of rules in yachting, but nothing more sacred than the holy trinity—never go anywhere without your radio, never shit where you eat, and never, ever cross the line with a guest.
It’s not like it matters that one little photo of her made my dick hard. She’s still one of them, born with a silver spoon in her mouth and wouldn’t know anything about a hard day’s work if it smacked her in the face, and completely off limits.
Sliding out from behind the table, I leave Ashley and Marcel alone to discuss the menu, knowing the exact moment when Marcel reads that the guests are requesting a twelve course dinner for one night, each course to be brought out exactly fifteen minutes apart, with no seafood, red meat, or anything with the colors green or red in it. And that isn’t even the strangest request we’ve ever gotten on a charter.
“Va te faire enculer!” Marcel screams, pounding his fist against the top of the table as I hear Ashley try to calm him, and I move faster down the hall to go find Ben and Eddie.
Go fuck yourself. At least I know that string of words from Marcel, because he uses it the most and I made a point of Googling the translation a while back. I have a feeling Marcel and I will be using that phrase a lot over the next ten days.
Him, every time someone has a special food request, and me, every time I have to deal with the hot, but spoiled Mackenzie Armstrong and the rest of her highbrow family.
I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it, end of story. One pretty face isn’t going to distract me from my goals.
CHAPTER 2
Mackenzie
“Ugh, why is so hot? My skin is practically melting and it’s putting wrinkles in my Dolce and Gabbana sundress.”
I roll my eyes as I walk a safe distance down the dock behind my stepsister, Arianna. A safe distance is necessary because if I have to listen to her complain about one more thing on this trip, I’m going to rip the blonde hair extensions, she spent way too much money on, out of her head and toss them into the North Atlantic.
“Aren’t there any clouds in this Godforsaken place? A little shade would be nice,” Allyson, Arianna’s mother and my new stepmonster adds, hooking her elbow around her daughter’s so the two of them can form a human chain of twin, blonde hair extension misery.
I watch their perfect, fake hair swirl around their shoulders and down their backs when the ocean breeze moves through it, stare at their long, smooth and shiny legs fresh from yesterday’s wax at the most high-end spa on St. Thomas, and glare at the matching Hermès Birkin bags dangling off their elbows that aren’t linked together. As if going on this family vacation to celebrate the farce of a marriage between Allyson and my father wasn’t asinine enough, and something my father should not be wasting his money on after my most recent, eye-opening meeting with his corporate attorneys and accountants, Allyson and Arianna have spent every waking moment since we landed here two days ago spending an ungodly amount of money on clothing, shoes, jewelry, and purses.
Things they don’t need. Things they already have tucked away in their huge walk-in-closets back at my father’s house in New York, but insist are “So last season.” Things my father absolutely cannot afford right now.
“Just say the word and I’ll trip one of them. Maybe even add in a swift kick to the gut for good luck.”
I forget about my father’s money troubles for a few seconds when my best friend, Brooke Talbot, leans in and whispers in my ear as we get closer to the end of the dock where the luxury yacht Allyson insisted on chartering for ten days is docked. As soon as my father told me we’d all be going on their honeymoon together, I spent a week trying to convince him that it wasn’t a good idea for him to be spending so much money on a trip like this right now. It was seven days of me wasting my breath. My arguments and insistence that he cancel the trip fell on the deaf ears of a man who’d been single since my mother died when I was ten, and was currently blinded by love and wedded bliss.
Knowing there was nothing I could do to change my father’s mind, I relented and begrudgingly agreed to the trip, but only if I could bring Brooke. There is no way I’d survive this hellish experience if she weren’t by my side. Much to Allyson and Arianna’s horror, since they can’t stand my best friend, my father immediately agreed to my demands and insisted on paying Brooke’s way. I let him go right ahead and add Brooke to our travel arrangements, knowing full well Brooke would never let anyone pay her way for anything, not even my father who loves her like a second daughter and has known her since wet met on our first day of kindergarten. As soon as I told Brooke what we were doing and to cancel all of her plans for the next two weeks, she wrote my father a check for her share of the trip and I immediately deposited it into his account.
“Do Hermès bags sink? If the blonde bimbos fall into the water, would they work like flotation devices or drag them to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen or heard from again?” Brooke asks as we watch my father move between the two women and do his best to comfort them and get them to stop complaining about the heat for five minutes.
Considering it was Allyson’s idea to come to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and she downright threw a childish hissy fit, complete with foot stomping and screaming when my father suggested something a little less tropical, you’d think she would have realized it might be a little hot in the Caribbean in the middle of the fucking summer.
“Sadly, I believe leather floats. But considering I can see the bottom of the ocean from here and it’s probably not that deep, I don’t think there’s any chance of them drowning,” I inform Brooke as we get to the end of the dock and stare at the giant boat that will be our home for the next ten days.
Brooke whistles as she looks the vessel over and I can’t help but be impressed by it as well, even though I know how much it’s costing my father to privately charter this thing. No one really believes me when I tell them my father and I haven’t been spoiling ourselves with fancy vacations, multiple homes, foreign cars in every color, or anything else that people with more money than they know what to do with seem to do. Sure, my father has a ten thousand square foot apartment in New York’s Upper East Side, but it’s the one and only big thing he’s ever splurged on since my mom died and he sold his first app. For sixteen years we lived comfor
tably, but modestly, and didn’t spend money on unnecessary or extravagant things.
And then he met Allyson at a charity event a year ago. As much as I can’t stand the woman and her equally money-hungry daughter, I would never blame all of his current money problems on her if the accusations were unfounded. But I refuse to believe it’s a coincidence that my father’s wealth started to quickly disappear exactly a year ago, which has led to unpaid personal bills, unpaid business bills, and unpaid taxes, which has led to the IRS practically living at his office building, going over every piece of paper with a fine tooth comb.
Even though I don’t make an obscene amount of money working for my father, and what I do make wouldn’t even cover one percent of one tax bill, I still met with the head of payroll a month ago when my father was out of town on business. I told them I needed to stop drawing a salary for the time being. Even if my father wants to turn a blind eye to all of his problems, I can’t. I won’t let him lose the company he built from the ground up, out of the basement of the two-bedroom cottage he purchased with my mom after they first got married, where they would lie in bed at night dreaming about all the things they would buy when they weren’t living paycheck-to-paycheck, struggling to make ends meet.
Two crew members from the yacht walk across the gangway that connects it to the dock. My father introduces everyone to them, and one of them leads the way on board while the other one gets busy grabbing our luggage from the multiple carts my father had to pay a few locals to push down the dock since my evil stepsister and stepmonster couldn’t possibly condense their things into one suitcase, or leave any of the purchases they made back at the hotel since, “Have you seen the type of people who work here? You know they’d rob us blind the first chance they got.”
“Dibs on the one with the blond hair named Ben. You can have Eddie with the dark hair since I know you’re a sucker for men with dark hair,” Brooke whispers, winking at Eddie when we walk past him, causing him to blush a deep shade of red and drop one of the suitcases.
“That is a Louis Vuitton, limited edition, vintage trunk!” Arianna shouts, stopping halfway across the gangway to glare at Eddie. “If you scuff it, it’s coming out of your salary! Daddy, tell him to be careful with my luggage!”
I cringe when I hear her call my father daddy and swallow back the vomit rising up in my throat. She only calls him that when she wants something, knowing it makes my father melt like butter and agree to anything she asks.
Brooke and I wait at the end of the gangway for my father to rush back, pull a hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket and hand it to Eddie with a sheepish smile while he kindly requests for Eddie to be a little more careful.
Once Arianna is mollified and we can finally continue on our way, Brooke and I pull up the rear, all of us following behind Ben single-file across the gangway until we get to the wide, outside balcony that runs along the entire length of the ship and we spread out.
Ben and my father make small talk about the weather as they lead the way to the back of the ship, Allyson and Arianna mutter complaints about how we should have chartered a bigger yacht, and Brooke whispers in my ear about Ben’s fine ass and muscular arms busting out of his navy blue polo, using her hands to guesstimate the size of his penis. I can’t contain my laughter when she holds her hands at least three feet apart and wags her eyebrows up and down.
The two of us are still giggling like little girls and whispering under our breaths about the state of Ben’s supposed giant penis when we finally make it to the back of the ship and see the captain and the rest of the crew lined up next to him, all wearing the matching uniform of a navy blue polo on top, the guys wearing khaki shorts and the women wearing khaki skirts. As the captain introduces himself and goes down the line introducing his crew, my trailing giggles come to an abrupt halt and my jaw drops in the most unladylike fashion when he gets to the tall drink of water at the very end.
“And this our Bosun, Declan McGillis. He’s in charge of…”
I don’t hear another word Captain Michael says as he lists Declan’s job duties on the ship. I’m too busy staring at the man, who has to be over six feet tall, with a lean build and just enough muscle definition in his arms to prove he does a lot of heavy lifting. Declan stares straight ahead as the captain continues talking and my eyes trail across the cut of his pectoral muscles that I can see perfectly with the way his polo stretches tightly across his chest. His dark brown hair is shaved close to his head on the sides and stands up in messy spikes on top. A muscle ticks at the corner of his neatly shaven jaw as the captain lists all of the things Declan is responsible for and his green eyes remain unblinking and unmoving during all of it.
I realize I’m still standing here with my mouth open when Brooke’s elbow jabs me roughly in my side. I blink out of my lust-filled daze that was made even more potent when I noticed tattoos trailing down one of his arms. Yes, I’m one of those typical women who think guys are a hundred times hotter when they have tattoos. I’m a sucker for the bad boys and I’m not even ashamed to admit it.
Brooke’s elbow connects with my ribs again and I finally manage to tear my eyes away from the hot guy long enough to realize everyone is staring at me. Including him. Especially him.
While Allyson and Ariana look at me in annoyance with their hands on their hips, my father stares at me with an embarrassed, nervous smile. Brooke is outright laughing at me, and the crew just looks at me expectantly with matching smiles glued to their faces. He’s looking at me with one corner of his mouth tipped up in a smirk and a cocky look in his eyes.
“Mackenzie, the captain asked if you’d like to use the jet skis right after we take off, or if you’d rather relax and wait until we get to St. John tomorrow,” my father says, repeating what the captain must have said when I was busy ogling the smug bastard whose face is now back to being emotionless as he stares at a spot over my shoulder. I wonder if I imagined the smirk.
“Oh, um, tomorrow is fine. I don’t want you to go to any trouble. I’m sure you have a lot to do once we take off and get going,” I respond quickly, smiling at the captain.
“It’s no trouble at all. Declan and the rest of the crew are at your service twenty-four-seven, ready and willing to do whatever you need,” he reassures me.
My eyes glance back down the line to Declan when the captain says his name and I see that muscle ticking in his jaw again. His smooth, perfectly chiseled jaw that dreams are made of.
The captain dismisses everyone in the crew aside from a woman named Ashley, and excuses himself to head up to the bridge so he can begin getting the ship ready to leave the dock. I force myself not to stare at Declan when he walks around to the balcony on the opposite side of the ship and disappears around the corner.
Ashley motions for everyone to follow her as she leads us inside and gives a tour of the guest quarters, which are nicer than any hotel I’ve ever seen or stayed at. When we get to the bedrooms, Ariana immediately picks the second largest one next to the master suite, while Brooke grabs my arm and stops me from continuing behind everyone.
“You’ve got a little drool on your chin, need me to wipe it off?” she asks in a low voice, even though Ariana is currently complaining that she can’t possibly be expected to sleep in a bed with sheets that have anything less than an eight-hundred thread count. The high volume of her nasally whine drowns out every sound within a one-block radius.
“Kiss my ass, I don’t have drool on my chin,” I fire back, crossing my arms indignantly in front of me.
“Total bullshit, but I’ll let it slide for now. I’m going to assume you’d like to swap Eddie for Declan, considering I think you might have gotten pregnant just by looking at him,” she laughs.
“I’m not swapping anything or anyone. And like I told you when you suggested, multiple times, that a quick fling with a deckhand I’ll never see again after we leave this boat is the best way to take my mind off of my troubles, it’s not happening,” I remind her. “I’m not having sex with
some guy I just met that I’ll be stuck on a boat with for ten days. It’s bad enough I’ll be stranded out in the middle of the ocean with my new family, I don’t need the added misery of not being able to escape a one-night-stand.”
While Arianna continues to find things to complain about and my father and Allyson get settled in the master suite, Ashley leaves us to go check on our luggage. Brooke and I make our way down the hall to the smallest bedroom, which is still three times the size of my bedroom in my apartment in Manhattan.
“I get it, you’re not the one-night-stand kind of woman, but I’m just saying, there’s nothing like breaking out of your comfort zone, especially with that gorgeous specimen who couldn’t take his eyes off of you,” Brooke tells me as I poke my head into the bathroom before taking in the rest of the beautifully decorated room with its two king sized beds.
I don’t even have time to feel guilty about all the expensive furnishings and stress over the money my father didn’t bat an eye about spending because I’m too busy thinking about what Brooke just said. Even if I didn’t imagine the cocky, smug look on Declan’s face, the idea that he was staring at me just as much as I was staring at him is enough to set off a whole swarm of butterflies in my stomach.
As Brooke starts checking out the size of the dresser drawers and muttering a “Holy shit” when she opens the closet doors and sees how big it is, I press a hand to my stomach and remind myself that no matter how good looking the guy is, I am not having a fling with him or anyone else on this boat. I’ll suffer through the next ten days with a fake smile on my face for my father’s benefit, but there is no way I’m making things even more uncomfortable on this family vacation by screwing someone on the crew…no matter how lickable his jaw is or how much my fingers are still itching to trace over every inch of the tattoo on his muscular arm.
