Again, perhaps it’s cruel to be so blunt, but I don’t want her assuming that this is anything more than it is. Once this yacht is back in the marina, I plan on sending her back to her life.
What’s left of it, that is.
“I suppose you’re right about that,” she mutters to herself.
“Do you feel guilty?” I ask.
She looks surprised by the question. “Not in the slightest.”
I smile. “Good.”
Suddenly, I hear Yulian clear his throat and turn to see him walking towards us. He looks mildly surprised to see the two of us fully dressed. Then he notices Jessa’s chef’s jacket discarded to one side of the bow and grins knowingly.
“Sorry to interrupt this intimate little rendezvous, but we just caught boat lights,” he tells me.
I nod and get to my feet. Jessa follows suit. “What does that mean?”
“I have some colleagues coming on board to discuss business. Their vessel is approaching.”
“Oh,” she says. Then she seems to realize that that’s her cue. “You’re going to want dinner.”
“That would ensure your check at the end of the night.”
She gives me an embarrassed smile. “Right. Okay, um, I’ll just be… going then.”
She walks around me and then picks up the pace as she passes Yulian. The fucker does not take his eyes off her as she moves past him. As surreptitiously as she can, she grabs her chef’s coat on the way out.
The moment she’s gone, Yulian turns to me. “You lucky fuck.”
“Where’s Lev?”
Yulian ignores me. “How was she?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Ooh, so it was good? I had a feeling.”
“Is the oval room ready?” I ask curtly.
Yulian gives me a long-suffering sigh. “You’re no fun. You haven’t been since Mari—” He stops short when he notices my dagger-like expression. “Yes, Anton, the room is ready.”
“Send them down when they arrive,” I order.
I storm past him impatiently and head to the oval room below deck. I have to resist the urge to stop by the kitchen just so that I can sneak in another glance at her.
My fascination with Jessa should have waned after the fuck. That’s always the pattern.
But instead, I find myself even more intrigued by her.
The oval room is cozy, but it’s functionally arranged with two sofas facing each other around a central table. The layout promotes a sense of equality, even ground… despite the fact that that’s never actually the case.
I sit down in the middle of one of the sofas and lay my second phone face down on the glass-topped center table. A few minutes later, the door opens and Lev walks in, leading three men.
Two are familiar to me. One is new.
I already know that Lev will have frisked all three of them, but I still give them the once-over. “Colleague” is a fickle term in my line of work.
So is “work.”