The Ruthless Gentleman

by Louise Bay

  I ignored his bluster. I knew he was good. But I wasn’t going to puff up his ego any more than it already was.

  “And you’ve taken the mobile devices from everyone on board?”

  The crew had not been pleased with my request. “Yes. But I thought we agreed I wasn’t hiding. That I should just act like I’m on holiday.”

  “Absolutely. It doesn’t matter if people know you’re on board. We just don’t want people to be able to record you. If crew have their phones on them, they can be hacked and used as listening devices.”

  I wasn’t sure anyone would go that far to bury me, but anything was possible when it came to James Cannon. “If you say so.”

  “What did you say to people at the office?” he asked.

  “I just said I was taking a working holiday. People asked about being able to contact me. I told them Anita would handle it all.” I had hoped I’d out the leaker when I told people and be able to get back to normal, but if I’d spoken to the mole, they’d not made it obvious. Although I’d been running my assistant’s reaction through my brain since I’d told her I’d be leaving. “Anita asked me if everything was okay. In the decade she’s worked for me, she’s never asked me a single personal question.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Just that everything was fine.” I hated how the situation I was in was making me doubt everyone around me, had me doubting myself and my judgment. I couldn’t wait to get started—buy Phoenix, have Landon find the leak and then get back to life as normal.

  “I’ll have her under surveillance so we’ll see if it was genuine concern or not. I’ve got taps on all the phones of your senior team—personal and work. And I’m going to analyze their finances, check out any suspicious deposits. And on your end, I have a team on the ground to see if anyone’s watching you. You’ll need to check for surveillance gear on the yacht. Do you have the RF device?”

  I pulled out the countersurveillance sweeper Landon had given me. “Yeah. But no one knows I’ve chartered this yacht—you arranged it, remember?”

  “Agreed. Just make sure you do a check where you’re working and sleeping, and don’t take any phone calls anywhere else.”

  I blew out a puff of air and locked the bedroom door. “Okay. I’ll do that before I unpack. And you’ll report to me daily on your progress on tracking down the leak?” Even if I did manage to acquire Phoenix, there was no point in resuming business as usual until whoever it was who was selling my corporate secrets was cut out of Wolf Enterprises like a disease.

  I could almost hear him rolling his eyes. “I might just keep that information to myself.”

  “Okay, whatever.” I twisted the venetian blinds, the room darkened and I picked up the torch Landon had given me along with the RF device.

  I depressed the button, creating a beam of light that illuminated the bed.

  “Make sure you do the inspection with the torch first. People skip that step but it can pick up things the more sophisticated stuff doesn’t,” Landon said. “You’re checking for the reflection of a camera lens or the blink of a recording device.”

  “I’m on it.” I moved through the room with the light, scanning the walls and the ceilings, even the blinds and the pictures.

  “And I’ll let you have more as soon as I do.”

  “I’m going to check this place for bugs and then get to work.”

  “And, you know, take advantage of the fucking yacht you’re on. Only for you could trouble end up looking like a luxury holiday for the rich and famous.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’d rather be back in the City.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Shut up and get to work.” I hung up and threw the phone on the bed as I worked my way around the room.

  My pulse steadied when my initial inspection found nothing. I checked the switches and sockets to see if any looked as if they’d been tampered with recently. I moved on to the smoke detector. Nothing. Apparently air fresheners and mobile phone chargers were often a prime place to put surveillance devices but nothing was plugged in where it shouldn’t be.

  I changed out of my suit and into a shirt and shorts. It would be the first time I worked a deal in casual clothes, or from a sun lounger, or while being served cold drinks by a woman as beautiful as Avery Walker. None of that mattered. Nothing and no one was going to distract me from saving my business and weeding out my hidden enemies.

  Five

  Avery

  The crew had gathered in the galley and their focus turned to me as I wandered in after showing Hayden Wolf down to his room. “He seems happy” was all I could say in response to their obvious anxiety about such an unusual charter. He’d seemed to relax a little when we were downstairs. My skin still tingled from where he’d touched me, as he tried to reassure me that I needn’t fuss. My family always told me off for fussing but guests normally enjoyed it. They paid for it, after all. “I’ll get him a drink when he’s finished unpacking.”

  “No fucking phones or computers, Avery,” Neill said.

  “Right,” I replied. There was nothing I could say. Neill and I had worked a few seasons together and he knew me well enough to know that I’d be pissed about the lack of phone, but I wasn’t about to lose it when August and Skylar were around. We needed to focus on the positive. “He might calm down after a couple of days. Otherwise, I’m sure the inconvenience will be reflected in our tip.” I would just have to go to shore regularly to call home.

  “Something’s off with this guy,” August said as she polished a wine glass to a high shine. “I mean, who comes aboard a yacht in a suit? Even if he did look hot as hell.”

  I stared at her and placed a finger over my mouth. We were in the galley, which was only a few feet away from the formal dining room. I could normally hear guest footsteps a mile away, but I was taking nothing for granted where Hayden Wolf was concerned.

  “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 hi
m 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.

  I whipped my head around to see Hayden Wolf de-suited, though I didn’t let my eyes take in whether he was every inch as hard bodied and bronzed as I’d imagined he might be. “Sorry, sir. What can I get you?” I was all business.

  “Is it possible to get some water? Tap is fine.”

  In my seven years in this business, no one had ever asked me for tap water. He could probably have had perfectly pure water from an arctic glacier flown in if he’d wanted. I found I kinda liked the idea of an unfussy guest. It would make a change. “Can I get you ice and lemon with that?”

  “However it comes,” he said and he turned and headed back toward the dining room. There was something compelling about him clearly having so much money but not expecting his every whim catered for. What had made him that way? Did he have a family that kept his feet on the ground or was it something else that made him . . . modest?

  “Wow, he’s so good looking,” August said. “And you were flirting with your ‘yes, sir’ and ‘can I get you lemon with that,’” she said in a ridiculous voice. “So why can’t I?”

  “I was not flirting. I was being polite. There’s a difference.” I reached for a highball from the cupboard above the counter. Had I been flirting? Not consciously, but I’d never had to worry about my reactions to a guest before. I’d have to watch myself with this guy. My friends had always teased me for having quirky taste in men, but I’d never liked traditionally handsome guys. I truly believed that what was on the inside shone through, which was why I couldn’t figure out why I’d found myself drawn to Hayden when he arrived. Maybe there was more to him than a pretty face and there was something deeper pulling me in.

  I took a step toward the sink and ran the tap, ensuring the water was cold. The boyfriends I’d had in high school had won me over with their sense of humor or passion. Hayden Wolf had me noticing him. It didn’t make any sense. I knew nothing about him and the little I had picked up left me with more questions than answers.

  After adding ice and a wedge of lemon, I took Hayden’s drink up to the sundeck where he had settled on one of the loungers with his laptop and a notepad.

  “Tap water, with ice and lemon,” I announced as I set his drink on the side table and then felt ridiculous. I wasn’t serving up a three-star Michelin meal.

  He pushed up his sunglasses and squinted at me, smirking. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Is there anything else you need?”

  His gaze flickered down to my mouth and back up to look at me. “I’m good, thanks.” He held my gaze a little too long and I looked away and over the water, facing the May breeze, hoping it would cool the blush I could feel creeping up my face.

  “It’s going to be a beautiful day. Let me or one of the deck crew know if you want a Jet Ski out or . . .” What was this guy going to do without any friends?

  I glanced back at him and he was still watching me, almost as if were analyzing me.

  “Thanks,” he said as he blinked and then pointed at his laptop. “I have plenty to do.”

  Crap, had I been interrupting him? “Of course.” I turned and left him to his mobile office.

  As I got into the main salon, Captain Moss was waiting for me. His hands in his pockets, he coaxed me over with a nod of his head.

  “I want you to check out the bedrooms if you get a chance when our guest’s not in them,” he said. “I want to make sure he’s not doing anything he shouldn’t be. You know I won’t stand for anything that might put my license at risk.”

  “You think we should be worried?”

  Captain Moss shrugged. “Some of his requests are unusual. We just need to take precautions. I’m not going to worry until I have reason.”

  I slid my hand over my key ring stored at my waist, my fingers finding the keys to his bedroom and office. “I’ll go now to do a refresh. He won’t have had the chance to get fully settled yet.”

  “Come find me when you’re done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Moss swept out and I headed back to the galley.

  “Can you make a start in the laundry room?” I asked August. “And, Skylar, please set the table for lunch and then find Mr. Wolf in about twenty minutes to see if he needs anything. I’m going to check the bedroom floor now that the suitcases are in.” We always refreshed towels, toilets and sinks after guests had freshened themselves up on arrival, so that’s what I’d do and then if he caught me, I’d just tell him there’d been a misunderstanding about the key situation.

  I headed toward the stairs, my heart thumping. It wasn’t as if I was doing anything wrong—the captain had asked me to check things over.

  Even if I didn’t find anything, I might get a clue as to why someone wealthy enough to charter a boat like this would happily drink tap water and didn’t bother to tell us his food or drink preferences. How someone that good looking could be in this Mediterranean paradise alone. Even if he was working, didn’t he want to have dinner with someone? I’d never come across rich men who didn’t have attractive girls happy to spend time with them.

  I grabbed a couple of clean towels and some cleaning wipes from the laundry room. As I got to the bottom floor I held my breath and listened up the stairs to see if anyone was coming. The distant sound of the dryers in the laundry room was the only thing I could make out.

  I pulled out my keys and unlocked
the door to the master suite. I glanced around and couldn’t see anything out of place. It looked like it had when I’d shown him into the room. Except, where was all his stuff? I opened the drawers by his bed. There were a couple of notebooks in the top and some old-fashioned manila files and a tablet in the bottom drawer. I shut the drawer and headed toward the closet. He’d unpacked and hung everything up neatly, including the suit he’d arrived in. I straightened out the hangers, an earthy, masculine smell winding itself around me. He seemed to have yacht-appropriate clothes, so I had no idea why he might have arrived in a suit, even if it did fit him as well as it did. Maybe he’d had a really early breakfast meeting? I checked the drawers and found nothing but his underwear. I lifted the suitcases that were stacked to one side but they seemed empty. After checking the bathroom and seeing nothing that would concern the captain, I swapped out the hand towels, wiped the sink and did a final scan of the room. There was a book by his bed. It wasn’t any request from Captain Moss that made me look closer. The Martian. An old photograph being used as a bookmark peeked out from the top. Intrigued, I slid my finger through the pages to reveal the entire picture, peering closer. It was a smiling family lined up with their arms around each other’s shoulders with some trees in the background. Two teenagers at one end of the picture then their parents. One of the boys was Hayden, his hair slightly floppier than he wore it now, his body a little less filled out but still handsome. He must have been eighteen or nineteen. The boy next to him, who must be his brother from the chin and the nose, wore a crew cut. I couldn’t help but smile at the happy scene. There was nothing cold or mysterious about the younger Hayden. Nothing private in his huge smile.

  I snapped my head around at a creak from the staircase and held my breath. August and Skylar knew they shouldn’t come down here. I replaced the book and scurried to the door to listen.