“We require forty-eight hours’ notice for group cancellations,” the guest services manager, Quinn, said once Ona took a tentative sip of the champagne. Not that she didn’t still need a drink—she so did—champagne just wasn’t what she had in mind. “You reserved seventeen cabins, ma’am. Eight spa suites and nine of our most ideal staterooms. As much as our cruise line would like to issue a refund, it’s simply against our policies.”
“This isn’t a cut-and-dry cancellation request,” Ona clarified.
“Are you no longer interested in traveling to the Bahamas?”
“Yes, of course we are.”
“Then, please understand I’m having trouble understanding the nature of your complaint.”
“The nature of the complaint is I didn’t reserve seventeen cabins on The Lure. I reserved The Lore, one of your standard ships. I’m traveling with sixteen of my high school classmates. About half of them come with significant others.”
“This ship is known to be instrumental in helping singles explore their sexuality and for rejuvenating couples’ relationships.”
“Wh-what? No, we were in glee club together. We sing and dance. I mean, we used to, in high school. The point is we’re not interested in exploring sexuality or rejuvenating anything.” Ona stalled, tasting the lie flavoring her protests. She was interested in exploring her sexuality—particularly Nicholas Callaghan’s role in it. “This isn’t the ship I reserved. In fact, some of the guests in my party find the idea of this ship to be off-putting.”
“Miss Tracy, our records indicate that you electronically signed a confirmation document that names The Lure as your cruise liner of choice. I’ll print you a copy.”
Oh, damn it, it was her fault. With two strikingly different ships bearing similar names, she reasoned it was an honest and understandable mistake. Yet— “I can’t believe that the costs of a weeklong Bahamas cruise on The Lore are the same as they’d be on this ship.”
Quinn presented the confirmation form, adding, “I’ll take that to mean the discounted group rate was generously affordable at the time that you booked the reservations. As this isn’t a Stewart-Russ error and policies prohibit us from refunding canceled reservations on such short notice, would you and your guests reconsider joining us? Boarding is open, but won’t remain open for much longer.”
“Wait—could we be switched to a different ship?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. The itineraries are already in place.”
“What about my itineraries?”
“Assuming you mean Nassau shore excursions and a ballroom reservation for Friday night? It’s all here. I expect you’ll immensely enjoy our shipboard pianist and four-piece orchestra.” She began typing on her keyboard, then swept up a tablet. “In light of the confusion, our company has prepared a disclosure agreement that we’d like each member of your party to sign, should you decide to board. This is an adults-only ship and it’s important that everyone understand some of the, er, special features.”
“Such as?”
“The main deck is clothing optional. The Lure offers sexually oriented workshops and events. There’s a boudoir photographer. Features along those lines.” She hastened to add, “We ensure our guests safety. Recording devices are prohibited in the workshops and electronic devices discouraged on the clothing-optional deck. The ship is secured with discreet specialists. And also along the lines of safety, we value our guests’ health and employ board-certified physicians and a pharmacy.”
“What don’t you offer?”
“Pet care. No animals allowed.”
Ona nearly confessed she wasn’t offended by the restriction, since she was sadly allergic to anything with fur. But she wouldn’t let The Lure’s glamor nor allergy-sufferer-friendly environment seduce her.
“My colleagues will be happy to assist in the check-in process, but the disclosures must be signed prior to boarding.”
“One of our tenors became a corporate attorney.” Ona threw it out there, thinking of wheelchair-bound Rajon Sneed, one of two black guys in glee club and one of five black guys in their class. Technically he was a disability rights advocate, but he swam in the right ponds and she wanted to know how this unflappable manager would respond to the soft threat.
“Please, encourage your attorney to review the document carefully. Our attorney is easily accessible. Perhaps they’d like to compare notes.”
“Ha.” Damn it again. It didn’t seem conceivable that she’d made this blunder, but all the facts indicated the blame rested on her own ineptness and negligence.
“So either we board this ship or cancel our trip to the Bahamas and lose the money that the Philadelphia Academy of Arts and Culture invested?”
“Stewart-Russ supports you in whichever option you choose.”
Obviously. Stewart-Russ wouldn’t lose any funds in the transaction and wouldn’t be held responsible for the scandal of a prestigious private school’s glee club being reunited on a sex-themed cruise ship.
Ona returned to the pier and called on her dusty acting techniques to optimistically persuade her classmates to consider herding onto the ship. “None of us live in Florida,” she reasoned. “We all traveled this far to go to the Bahamas together. I accept full responsibility, and I’m sorry, but this is our ship. It’s a spectacular craft and this trip is going to be whatever we make of it.”
Regan Waltz huffed and murmured something to those in her vicinity. “PAAC won’t be pleased about this. Imagine what people will say.”
“Let PAAC be displeased after the trip. If this is a reunion, then let it be a legitimate remember-when, just-like-old-times event, all right?” Ona’s gaze touched the faces she remembered from her adolescence. “Remember all those nights I led you around Philly? You trusted me to show you something different—some adventure. Trust me this time.”
Collectively, they hesitated.
“I’ve never seen a ship decorated with platinum before I walked aboard The Lure. I wouldn’t want to travel to the Bahamas in anything but the best.”
Regan’s head cocked to the side, for a moment resembling a curious dog. “Platinum?”
“Crystal staircases. Champagne readily available. Things to never let you forget for a second that this is a vacation. I came to Miami for a vacation and to reconnect with the club. If we can all agree on that, I say we board before the ship departs without us.”
“I can do that,” Nicholas said, and Ona was proud of herself for refraining from melting on the pier or blurting how much she’d like him to pry open her pinhole dress.
The others began trickling toward the ship and Ona hung back, apologizing profusely and bargaining with a higher power that she’d be forever grateful if she never had to grovel to these people again. They were her peers, but carried arrogance and superiority. They brushed past her as though traveling by luxury ship was a favor to her. She could respect that some weren’t comfortable with the prospects of erotic workshops and seeing nudity on deck or in a sauna, but participation wasn’t mandatory and there was Nassau and its treasures to look forward to.
As the last few of her former classmates strode past, she said, “Can we get a head count? We’re not all here. Where’s Matthew Grillo?”
Regan glanced at Ona, her expression hollow, but she didn’t stop walking. “Matty Grillo’s dead.”
Chapter 2
Her friend—her best friend from high school—was dead?
Ona grabbed a handful of Regan’s fluttery Prada sleeve. “Are you messing with me?”
“No, Ona. Get out your phone and fact-check. Matty died about ten days ago.”
“You and I spoke last Monday. Why didn’t you tell me about him then? He was my best friend from those days.”
“The subject didn’t come up in conversation. Everyone else knew. Guess you just w
eren’t part of the loop—sorry. Besides, I didn’t know you and Matty were like that. There was gossip about the two of you in high school, but what did I care if he was boffing a Fishtown girl?” Regan jiggled her arm free, tossed a look to the man behind her. “Cole, tell her the depressing details. I want to see what an erotic-themed ship’s definition of a stateroom is.”
Cole Stanwyck, who’d been the class ass with a bad case of grabby hands, removed his sunglasses but didn’t dare prop them on his head and ruin his gel-spiked hair. “Stilts Tracy. Long time.”
Not long enough... “Long time since anyone called me Stilts.”
“I can fix that for you.”
“I didn’t say I missed the nickname. Just making the observation that lately I’ve been around people who don’t feel the need to incessantly make me feel ashamed of my height. What do you know about Matty?”
“He crashed his bush plane in Alaska. It was quick. He didn’t suffer.”
“You’re lying, Cole.” Ona had stopped moving, but when he reached out to urge her along, she jerked. She hadn’t wanted his hands on her in high school, and she didn’t want them on her now. “If you’d kept your sunglasses on, I wouldn’t see the lie in your baby blues.”
“All right, then. The details I heard are this. Matty’s plane was in pieces and so was he. It was up in flames before it blew, so he suffered like a son of a bitch.”
“Oh, God. Matty...”
“I’m sorry he went out that way. But I didn’t like Matty,” Cole said darkly.
Who didn’t like Matty Grillo? He was luminous, considerate, a straight-up smart-ass and one hell of a man.
Cole fell into queue behind her, and his breath on her ear had her body tensing violently—as it had when she was twelve and a Kensington crackhead had mugged her at gunpoint in broad daylight, and when she’d ended up alone with Cole in a music practice room at PAAC senior year. He couldn’t see past the silver spoon up his butt, couldn’t comprehend that white or black, rich or poor, no meant no. A violin upside his head had changed his attitude quick, and they hadn’t seen each other in a decade, but his presence made her feel leerier than she’d suspected it would.
“Why didn’t you like him?” Ona asked, shadowing the person in front of her just to dodge Cole’s closeness.
“Because of you. What you had going on with him. You were wasting your time with him in high school, letting him pop you sophomore year and doing him when you could’ve been with me. He thought he could fly planes and wound up sprinkled across some Alaskan village. I’ve created three megasuccessful apps, own several million-dollar sports cars, and a private jet brought me to Miami. I’m at the top of my game. Think about joining me at the top.”
Ona didn’t want to be at the top of anything with Cole. The realization that he hadn’t matured or grown out of his sleazy, self-important ways, and that she would be facing seven days at sea with him was depressing. Matty wouldn’t be here to make Nicholas jealous or shield her from Cole. “No, thanks.”
“Join me for a drink, then. What cabin are you in? I’ll bring you what you like.” When she shuddered, he asked, “What was that?”
I dry-heaved. It’s a reflex—happens when smarmy men repulse me.
“Good for you that you’ve been living well, Cole, but I wasn’t interested in high school and I’m not interested now. I hope you can respect that. Another thing—I loved Matty and I’m hurt that he’s gone, so if you could also respect his memory, I’m sure a lot of us would appreciate that.”
Cole put on his sunglasses. “You don’t have to spend reunion crying over him when I’m here to make it better. Or were you and Matty planning on having a reunion of your own?”
“It’s not your right to know—” Ona scrambled to think quickly as the person in front of her finished checking in. Knowing that Ona was depending on Matty, Cole would circle her relentlessly. He’d make it a game—a hunt. “But I’ll tell you anyway. I’m here with someone. Matty was a friend and I’ll miss him, but I already have a man who’ll help me deal with it.”
The words were as genuine as a Manhattan street vendor’s twenty-dollar Gucci handbags, but she’d been lying from the moment she presented herself as a capable professional event planner. It was harsh enough that she’d spend reunion devastated by her friend’s death and that it’d occurred to none of her other classmates or PAAC to notify her.
Hadn’t everyone known that she couldn’t have been Most Likely to Succeed without Matty Grillo giving her the friendship she’d needed to endure years in an academy full of cutthroat schemers and old-money rich kids whom she’d tried tirelessly to copycat? Even as she respected them, she despised them. And even as she despised them, she wanted to be one of them. Because she hated being the unique one, the something new that PAAC paraded about as though she were some diversity ticket. Unlike the black males at PAAC, she wasn’t from money and was socially classified as at-risk. At risk for teen pregnancy and drug use and poor academic achievement and petty crimes—the same vexations several of her PAAC peers had met.
But “at-risk” Ona hadn’t been one of them. She’d been obsessively careful about sex, had never used drugs, had kept up her grades and lived within the boundaries of the law. She’d been good, safe, and was now blindsided that being good and safe landed her here, facing a weeklong Bahamas cruise on an erotic ship with a group of people who didn’t care about her enough to tell her that her friend’s plane had crashed.
As Matty’s best friend, she should’ve known about his tragedy. But...as his best friend, she should’ve been in his life during the ten years between graduation and a glee club call list phone conversation. They’d laughed, made stupid plans, and she’d thought they had picked up where they’d left off as if a decade had been no more than a blink. But the truth was they’d dropped the ball on their friendship, and she was left behind to mourn that, as well.
On board, Ona lost Cole as she put her sunglasses in her cross-body handbag and tipped a shipboard valet to take her luggage to her stateroom while she toured The Lure. Assuming most of her party would be eager to scope out their quarters—spa suites for the couples and staterooms for the singles—she figured she had a swell chance of reprieve from them and their complaints if she veered off elsewhere.
The place was more fascinating than a museum, more alluring than satisfaction. The staff wore silk and the air smelled like temptation.
Taking the first staircase, she ascended leisurely and allowed others to pass her because time no longer seemed to matter. Her feet were used to touching crumbling sidewalks, not steps made of crushed crystal. What wasn’t dipped in gold was brushed with diamonds. With its black velvet ropes, erotic art, lustrous floors and blindingly magnificent chandeliers, and featuring entire rooms dedicated to everything from dancing to cigars to mediation to gambling, this ship was far more opulent than Stewart-Russ’s standard cruise liners.
It was heaven for sinners, and not something the Philadelphia Academy of Arts and Culture would have approved of for its final cohort of glee club members. Ona and her classmates had sung with symphony accompaniment and at church charity functions, performed with celebrities and at Carnegie Hall, yet the club had been cut the summer after their graduation as investors shifted their interests to the school’s athletics department. Glee club reunions weren’t tradition at PAAC, but for sentimental reasons the school had created a treasury fund for the onetime event. A onetime event that Ona had turned into a mistake.
The most splendid mistake she’d ever make.
For seven days she wouldn’t have to face PAAC. For seven days she wouldn’t have to house-sit for her parents, who now filled their time experiencing great American wonders such as the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore. Seven days for seven capital sins, and The Lure promised to offer them all. For seven wicked, hedonistic days, she could be a successful, dare-thirsty, risk-hungry vers
ion of Ona Tracy.
At the top of the stairs, Ona ventured toward the gold-plated sign that indicated the upper deck. She could relax and watch the water for a while or sit someplace and check her email.
A doorman pushed open the door for her.
Nudity. In the pool, occupying almost every chaise longue, lining the safety walls, were naked men and women of various ages, ethnicities, heights and body types.
“Can I assist you?” the doorman asked, when she’d stood frozen in the entryway a moment too long. “Are you looking for a dressing room?”
“An undressing room, you mean?” she muttered. “Uh, no, thank you. I thought clothing optional suggested that some people might choose the clothing option.”
“The lower deck best suits guests who want to keep their secrets to themselves,” he said, but the slip of his gaze down her body revealed his regret that she was the lower deck type.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, lurching back. “Sorry—really. It’s just that nudity’s new for me. Strangers’ nudity. Publicly, out in the open. And as exhausting as this day has been for me, it’s still too early in the afternoon for so much penis and vajayjay.” Ona’s sigh rode out on a frustrated growl. “I don’t say vajayjay.”
“You just did. Twice.”
Please, don’t exert yourself being so helpful. “Are there any other naked watering holes on this ship? I’m here on a private school reunion and I’d like to lessen the impact of culture shock on the others if at all possible, you get me?”
Chuckling, he said, “The staff has been informed about your group. Use your discretion when visiting this deck and any closed doors marked VIP. Everything else should be tame.”
“Tame tame or erotic-cruise tame?”
“The latter.”
Ona’s shoulders dropped. “Oh, hell.”
“Ma’am? It’s not my place, but this is your trip as much as it is theirs. The Lure encourages guests to have a personal experience. Now that you’re on board, what would you like?”
Blissful Summer: Make You Mine AgainUnraveled Page 10
