All Night Long

by Melissa MacNeal

  “While we must maintain our schedule,” he continued quietly, gazing into eyes as deep and green as a primeval forest, “we will do everything possible to contact Mr. Fletcher and instruct him on how to meet us at the next port of call. This probably seems terribly inconvenient—”

  The ship lurched, pulling away from the pier. Lola gasped, shifting to keep her balance—or was it because DeSilva had grasped her shoulders to steady her? She couldn’t decide if his mustache belonged on Don Quixote or Zorro, but she wanted to keep him talking so that low, Spanish accent would caress her ear again. So she could watch his lips move.

  “—but I assure you that the staff of the Aphrodite will do all in our power to put your vacation back on track,” he continued. He glanced at the crewmen securing the exits, and at the passengers in the hallway impatiently awaiting the glass elevators.

  “This way, please,” he said, gesturing around the corner, toward double doors painted the same beige as the walls. “If you can describe Mr. Fletcher for me—if his cruise documents are in your stateroom—this will expedite finding him onshore. And it will prevent the local authorities from detaining him, if he’s fallen ill and doesn’t have his passport with him.”

  Cruise documents? Passport? It would serve Dennis right if the cops hauled him in! But then, his soul mate wouldn’t have required a photo I.D., would she?

  The doors slid open, and Lola stepped into a staff elevator, which was very plain, compared to those glitzy glass ones for the passengers. She hugged the back wall, feeling the cool stainless steel through her silk robe. When she shivered, her nipples seemed determined to show off, just when she needed to behave herself. She’d been in such a hurry to get back at Dennis, and now this robe she’d thrown on in the heat of the moment had probably made her the talk of the boys in white.

  Her escort pushed the 7 button. He smiled like he was trying not to notice what she wasn’t wearing, even though the fit of his zipper hinted otherwise.

  This ride might become extremely…intimate, if Mr. DeSilva took two steps toward her. His eyes were soft and sympathetic, like a golden retriever’s, and with his hair feathered back from his suntanned face, rakishly brushing the top of his collar, he looked like anything but a security agent.

  But if he was escorting her to her room, to see Dennis’s cruise docs…Lord, were they even there? DeSilva had probably heard her sob story from the Filipino at the monitor, so the little lie she’d set into motion to get Fletch’s departure time would unravel pretty fast if she didn’t—

  “Are you all right, Miss Wright?”

  “Please—call me Lola,” she blurted, suddenly undone by this man’s debonair kindness. Cop or not, he seemed sincerely concerned about her predicament. “I—I’m just upset. Thank you for asking.”

  “Understandably so. You’re quite welcome.”

  You’re quite welcome. How long since she’d heard that phrase? These days people said “no problem!”—as though her thanking them was one.

  When the elevator stopped on the Promenade level, she walked ahead of him nervously, SeaKey in hand. Lola felt like a little girl being herded to the office for lying to the teacher. Or for not wearing panties to school. The nuns would’ve fainted—or gotten out the paddle—at that sin!

  “I’ll wait right here. Take your time,” DeSilva said as she slid the key card into the lock.

  “Ah. So it was only my fantasy that you’d come into my room,” she quipped, and then her cheeks flared with embarrassment. “I’m so—that was inexcusably rude, to—”

  Rio sucked in his breath. Here in the dimmed lights of the corridor, with her ivory face flushed and her robe clinging to curves that called out to his hands, it was a fantasy he certainly shared. He looked through her open door to rein in his runaway thoughts, and then grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Wait! Someone’s been in here, rifling through your room! You’d better stay right here while I check for an intruder.”

  Pulse pounding—from the thought of intruders, and from the heat of his skin through her robe—Lola grabbed the door jamb as Rio stepped into her stateroom.

  “Anybody here?” he demanded, throwing open the bathroom door. He was bristling with business now—not a burly man, but not one she’d want to get crossways with, either. Rio DeSilva’s angles looked sharp enough to slice like a saber.

  As she peeked in after him, Lola let out a long sigh. With Fletch’s undershirts and socks strewn everywhere, the place did look ransacked. And when DeSilva leaned down to pick up a crumpled piece of paper, she knew she had to come clean.

  Lola stepped inside. Leaned against the door to close it. “I have a confession,” she breathed.

  Rio’s heart skipped a couple of beats. He felt like anything but a priest. Lola’s robe had fallen open again, enough to tease him with her pale pink cleavage…round and firm and sweet. His tongue flicked the roof of his mouth, wondering how those painted points would feel—and taste.

  He cleared his throat. This was an adult cruise, yes—the fantasy Captain Skandalis alluded to in his welcome spiel—but he was strictly forbidden to be in a passenger’s room while she was in it, too.

  “Yes? I’m listening,” he replied. He was uncrumpling the paper he’d picked up out of sheer habit—searching for clues, about a possible intruder or Dennis Fletcher’s situation, he would say if the captain quizzed him about this breach of behavior.

  “That story about Dennis going ashore to—and maybe being too sick to come back?”

  Lola hated it that her eyes were tearing up over the way Fletch had jerked her strings, but dammit she’d loved the guy! Or thought she did.

  “Well, I made it up. He—he left me that note you’re holding, saying he—he’s found a woman with a seaside villa—and—well, I got pissed off and threw his clothes out of the drawers!”

  Rio stopped fidgeting with the note. “So you went down to the gangplank area, to see if you could chase after him?” Dressed like that? he almost added.

  Lola sighed, yanking the lapels of her robe together. “I was so—so irked that he’d taken off with somebody, when we were supposed to get…married tomorrow….”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  It was the merest whisper, yet it carried the weight of his concern: the key that opened the innermost room of her heart. A room Dennis had never known, or cared, how to reach. Lola slumped, letting her hair fall like a curtain so DeSilva wouldn’t see how ugly her face got when she bawled.

  “Please excuse me, I—”

  “There is no excuse for the shabby way he’s treated you,” Rio stated, more fervently than he had a right to. Lola couldn’t know yet just how true that was. Every nerve ending in his body warned him to step away, to get himself out of her room and out from under her spell while there was still time.

  Her shoulders shuddered pathetically when she tried not to cry. To keep from pulling her into his arms, Rio skimmed the note.

  —found my true soul mate—someone who won’t—boss me around—have the last word—get better acquainted at her seaside villa—

  The lying bastard deserved to rot in jail for this! DeSilva looked up from the note before Lola could catch him reading it, and took inspiration from the small safe in the open closet.

  “Is his passport—any sort of identification—still here?” he asked in his most official-sounding voice. “It will help the authorities process him. Or help you, if you need to—what’s wrong, Lola?”

  She opened the safe, surprised it hadn’t been locked, and then frantically yanked the drawers open below it.

  “My cell phone’s gone! I put it in this top drawer when I came back to take my—and my purse!”

  My Camels! The bastard took my only pack of—

  She scanned the room, her gaze raking the top of the TV, the corner desk and its open shelves, the glass-top coffee table, and the upholstered love seat. “I brought it back from shopping onshore, after lunch, and I put it—if that bastard took—he’s got my credit card
s! My checkbook’s in there—and so is my passport!”

  Fletch knew damn well I’d get crazy if he took my security smokes!

  Rio’s jaw clenched as he watched her desperately search every inch of the stateroom, her expression growing more alarmed by the second. As well it should! Here on board her SeaKey was all she needed, but stepping ashore in any Caribbean port without identification was risky. Not to mention the predicament it would put her in when she went through Customs on her way home.

  “Why on earth did he have to take my—it’s not like he’s hurting for money, but God! My cell had all my clients’ numbers, and my appointments, and—”

  Lola stopped rummaging around the bed’s comforter and pillows, engulfed in a deep chill. Ah, jeez, now she was shaking like a junkie, just at the thought that he stole her—

  “What is it? What else has he taken?” Rio stepped toward her, determined not to touch her because just recalling her soft skin and the fresh scent of that bare body had him reeling.

  “Cigarettes,” she finally mewed. Then she screwed up her face, which was already blotchy from crying. “I—I quit, dammit! For good this time! But I carried around one single pack of Camels, still wrapped. With strapping tape around it to remind me not to open them, no matter how jittery and desperate and bitchy I got!”

  Lola cast another miserable, futile glance around the ransacked room. “I had them in my purse this morning, when we were shopping onshore!” she rasped. “He must’ve—”

  Her insides twisted into a tight knot. She held herself, knowing it made her look like a nympho going into withdrawal, but things were suddenly a whole lot worse than Dennis’s note had led her to believe. What he’d said about his new soul mate was humiliating enough, but what he hadn’t said was that he’d ripped her off, big time, when he jilted her!

  “After we got back on board, he went to the casino while I took a shower,” she breathed, shaking her head forlornly. “He had to’ve come to the room…figuring I wouldn’t hear him with the water running. And it matches up with the time that security guy at the gangplank gave me.”

  Rio sighed heavily. Gave in to the urge to touch her, just letting his hands rest on her shoulders to reassure her.

  She was shaking like a scared rabbit. Frightened out of her mind, on top of being upset because the man she was to marry had backed out on her so crassly. Betrayed her in ways they had yet to discover, if he had access to her clients and her plastic.

  “We’d better report this immediately,” he suggested.

  Lola nodded, wanting to cry and vomit and curl up in a ball. Hoping someone would tell her this mess had been straightened out—that Fletch had played one of his colossal jokes on her, and was on his way upstairs now to smooth things over.

  But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? Fletch had never truly been hers, and she was paying now for refusing to see that.

  “You’re right,” she sighed. “Let’s go.”

  3

  “This is Clive Kingsley, our concierge,” Rio said as he escorted Lola behind a counter and into a small, colorful office.

  The man at the glossy walnut desk, stood up with a debonair grin. “So pleased to be of service! And how may I assist you, Miss—”

  “Miss Wright has just discovered that her purse, cell phone, and cruise documents are gone,” the security agent filled him in. “Not to mention her passport. And we suspect her fiancé—”

  “Ex-fiancé,” Lola muttered.

  “—Dennis Fletcher, has taken them ashore and not returned to the ship,” DeSilva finished pointedly.

  “Well, isn’t that nasty?” Kingsley exclaimed with a horrified expression.

  His face softened when he looked at her, and the way he’d said nah-sty, with a British accent that flowed like hot fudge, would’ve sounded utterly delicious if she weren’t in such a pinch.

  “But rest assured, Ms. Wright, we will get to the bottom of this! Mr. DeSilva here is the best security man sailing today, and the Aphrodite is equipped with cutting-edge technology.”

  “Perhaps you could file the report and notify the credit card offices of this theft,” the agent went on, “while I check out a few other details.”

  “Most certainly,” Kingsley said with a crisp nod. “Put out my sign as you leave, please, so we’ll have no interruptions. This is far more important than passengers wanting to book shore excursions or sign up for ballroom dance lessons. Shall we?”

  The concierge, so dapper in his navy blue suit, gestured toward a doorway behind her. Feeling indecently underdressed, Lola preceded him into a cozy little sanctum decorated in brilliant jewel tones, where a flat-screen computer hummed quietly.

  “Now, sit yourself down, my dear, and we’ll get you squared away so quickly you’ll still catch the captain’s champagne reception before dinner. Just let me bring up your account…and you’re in which stateroom again, please?”

  “7010. Promenade deck.” She tried not to slump dejectedly, but the sleek wooden chair was so slick her silk robe gave her no traction. Gripping the edges of the seat, she thought about how ready she’d been to attend that gala reception—before this thing with Dennis came up, that is.

  “And you would be Miss Lola Wright of Portland, Oregon, sharing the stateroom with Mr. Dennis Fletcher—”

  Kingsley clicked through some screens and then glanced at her. “And you don’t have a single shred of identification, darling?”

  Lola swallowed hard. Here again, under different circumstances she’d find Clive Kingsley’s baritone voice and dark, curly hair most alluring. His blue eyes glimmered with sympathy and perhaps even…interest.

  “Not a shred,” she echoed. “The best I can figure, Dennis came up from—supposedly—the ship’s casino while I was in the shower. Stole my purse, my phone, my passport—”

  “We’ll get him for that!”

  “—and left me a note about finding his true soul mate, if you can believe that! Some woman with a seaside villa on Aruba!” she continued, fueled by her anger. “And this on the evening before we were to get married tomorrow, at sea!”

  “Oh, and the ceremony is lovely!” Clive cut in, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “Our chef, Alphonse, outdoes himself on the ten-tiered cake—and the champagne punch cascades as a waterfall into an ice sculpture of a couple frolicking nude in a jacuzzi. This is an adult cruise, and we make every opportunity to keep our guests in the mood—”

  Kingsley squinted slightly, and then slipped on a trendy little pair of reading glasses that hung around his neck. “Oh, my. My, my, my.”

  Lola stiffened, straining to see the computer screen. But the concierge, whether to reduce the glare or protect her from what he saw, tilted the screen with a flick of his finger.

  “What?”

  Kingsley sighed and sat back. “I’ve brought up the various charges to the credit card with which you booked your cruise, dear. The account is in your name, correct?”

  She nodded, getting that sick feeling again. “And?”

  “It seems numerous charges have already been made to the ship’s bars and boutiques on Mr. Fletcher’s SeaKey—”

  Lola cringed. They’d only been aboard for a day and a half! And she certainly hadn’t received any gifts from the fabulous shops here! What the hell had he bought? And what had he done with all that stuff?

  “—so I’m wondering, since you mentioned he was in the casino—”

  “How hard did he hit the ATM before he ditched me?”

  Clive Kingsley’s face was a study in utter dejection. “I don’t show that information here, but I’d better find out. Excuse me while I make a call.”

  Nodding, Lola pretended to study the array of appliquéd fabric montages depicting Caribbean street scenes. The vivid colors and textures played with her eyes, and she wished she were in the mood to appreciate such unique artwork. But who could possibly enjoy a vacation that had turned into the cruise from hell when her fiancé filched her plastic?

  God, b
ut I need a smoke!

  Lola scootched back upright in the slick chair, while trying to keep her legs together and her boobs from falling out of her robe. A nicotine fit would be the pièce de résistance, far as impressing this courtly concierge. He was probably working so urgently just so he could get her out of his office.

  Indeed, Mr. Kingsley’s low grunts into the phone, and the way he scribbled figures on a miniature legal pad, appeared anything but encouraging. Lola blinked rapidly and looked away, trying not to embarrass herself further.

  Kingsley hung up. Did the math with quick, efficient strokes of his gold-plated fountain pen before focusing doleful blue eyes on her. “If it’s any consolation, dear girl, you’re better off without this—”

  “What? Just tell me, already!”

  “Mr. Fletcher’s casino ATM withdrawals total more than ten thousand—”

  “Holy shit! My credit limit’s only—”

  “Yes, I’m afraid we’ve got a problem there, too.” He handed her the little legal pad and a sleek black pen promoting the Aphrodite. “You’d best list all the credit cards you were carrying, while I call their hotlines, so you can report them as stolen.”

  Dazed, Lola jotted down all the Visas and Discovers and American Expresses she could recall, ready to kick herself because some of them were accounts for Well Suited. Ordinarily she left those cards at home as a security precaution, but she’d hoped to do some buying on this trip—find novel Caribbean accessories and clothing designs her upper-crust clients would pay top dollar for.

  If Dennis had accessed those accounts—

  But dammit, as her financial advisor, he didn’t even need her plastic to do that! He had her account numbers. Knew her business inside out, as far as her finances went. Including her credit limits.

  “Thank you,” she wheezed when Kingsley handed her the phone.

  He was genteel enough to leave the office and shut the door, but his gesture didn’t save much of her dignity. There was damn little of it left.