Mr. Right Now

by Kristina Knight

  Casey looked from January to Tyler, who was shaking his head no. Great. She could move. But where to? Casey couldn’t exactly track Mason down and ask if he’d mind a roomie.

  January continued. “I know this is a huge inconvenience, but there is simply nothing we can do. I have made notations in both of your files and the next time you sail with the Sweetheart Line, you’ll sail for free.” Before Casey could speak, January left the room.

  “I ged we’re stud, huh?”

  Stud. Ha! He was no stud. Cash was right, though. They were stuck together. At least for now. Casey wasn’t finished fighting for the private room she had booked.

  Tyler stood, moving to pick up the leather bag beside the bed. “I’b soddy. You cad hab the ded, I’ll sleeb on the cowjuh.” He pushed the bag with his foot, trying to see which direction it was moving while keeping his head tilted back. The bag was headed for the closet.

  Casey shook her head. She was being a jerk. Rooming with Tyler wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world, but it wasn’t the end of it, either. And if things did work out with Mason... No, not going there. If things didn’t work out with Mason, Casey would seclude herself and finish the damned book. She and Tyler would probably only see one another a couple of times each day. She wasn't attracted to him. It wasn't as if she would jump his bones while he slept on the tiny sofa.

  Mason’s were the only bones she was interested in jumping at the moment. She wondered if he’d found some other woman. She couldn’t blame him. Leaving him all hot and bothered was an idiotic move. Space. Yeesh. But she couldn’t leave Tyler alone just yet, either.

  “It’s okay.” Casey relented. She picked up his bag, moving a lamp to make room for it on a side table. “We’ll set up the ground rules later. Has the bleeding stopped?”

  Tyler nodded. “I think so.” He tossed the tissue in the trash and let his head rest in its usual place. He waited a few seconds, then patted his upper lip just under his nose. “No blood. That’s a good sign.”

  Without the tissue, he was much more attractive. His skin wasn’t so pasty; now that he had stopped bleeding, it was a nice peach color. Tyler obviously hadn’t been out in the sun much, but then what professional man spent their summer days outside? No late afternoon shadow on his cheeks, so she still wasn’t convinced he could grow a mustache, but that wasn’t so bad. Smooth skin wouldn’t irritate the sensitive skin on her chest.

  Like Mason, he was almost a version of her perfect fictional romantic hero.

  Oh, crap. Jane hadn’t... There was only one way to find out.

  “Are you...supposed to be here?” Casey couldn’t bring herself to ask if he was being paid.

  Tyler smiled, and reclined back on his elbow. “What do you mean?” He propped one leg against the back of the couch and stretched the other toward the floor.

  “I mean...” But how to ask Tyler, tissue-breathing, nose-bleeding Tyler if he was the escort without insulting him? Or would he be embarrassed? Were escorts proud of their jobs? “What do you do for a living?”

  Tyler smiled a semi-come-hither smile. It would have worked better without the remnant of tissue stuck to the corner of his mouth.

  “What do you want me to do?” Spoken like the male version of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

  She sat down hard on the edge of the bed. If Tyler was the escort, that meant Mason was just some guy. Some guy she’d just attacked in the elevator. Her face burned. He must think she was a real piece of work.

  Not that it mattered; her hopes for spending the next seven days turning Mason into Mr. Right Now for her pleasure and for the book were dashed.

  She doubted he would be interested in anything with Mr. Nosebleed on the couch. And even if he was, she wasn’t. She had a rule: one man at a time.

  “Are you in...” She grasped for the right word, finally choosing, “Sales?”

  Tyler shrugged. “More or less.”

  Sighing, Casey said, “We’ll get to that later.”

  Right after she killed Jane. How could she do this? Setting Casey up with a guy was one thing, making sure they were sharing a room was quite another. She was capable of getting her own men, thankyouverymuch, and deciding when to invite them in or leave them out in the cold.

  “For now, let’s just say I know why you’re here.” At his surprised expression, she placed a wry grin on her face. “Jane spilled everything before I checked in. But that doesn’t mean anything—” She waved her hand between them. –“Is going to happen between us.” She picked up the trash can filled with tissues. “Does this happen much?” Casey wasn’t sure if she meant the nosebleed or rooming with a client. Thankfully, he didn’t ask.

  Lounging against the sofa, Tyler said, “Hardly ever. It usually only kicks in when I’m in a dry climate. The last time I visited my folks in Arizona I practically needed a blood transfusion.”

  She watched out the window as the ship began to make a slow turn toward sparkling blue water. “But this is southern Florida. We’re on the ocean. It’s not dry here.”

  He shrugged. “I know. That’s why this is so weird.”

  A tiny giggle bubbled up from her chest, then grew to a full-blown belly laugh. Really, this was too much. First getting dumped, then that crazy headline in the paper and Jane’s revelation. She thought she found Mr. Right Now, and went so far as to attack him in the elevator, only Mr. Right Now wasn’t in the elevator. He was bleeding all over her bed. It was just her luck to get stuck with a nose-bleeding escort. A man now looking at her like she had grown two heads.

  Great, he thought she was nuts. Perfect.

  Two sharp raps on the door interrupted her thoughts. Motioning to him to stay on the couch, she walked to the door. Maybe January found a spare room. Or would invite Tyler to share her own cabin.

  Mason Drury lounged in the doorway. Thumbs tucked in his front pockets, shoulder supporting his weight against the jamb, legs crossed at the ankle. He looked like an Obsession ad.

  Double crap.

  She scooted forward a few more inches, pulling the door closed along with her. Angling her body so he—hopefully—couldn’t see around her to the warm male body on her couch, she smiled.

  “Mason. What a surprise.” Great line, Case. You must be a writer.

  “I decided six o’clock was too far away, and I wanted to see if you got that cell phone removed from your hand yet.”

  Holding out her hands, Casey asked, “As you can see, the surgery went fine.” The phone was once again buried in the bottom of her bag. She’d never answered the earlier call. It was probably just Jane reminding her to take a chance, and she was already doing that on her own.

  Mason pretended to examine her palms, his index finger tracing the life line and sending a shiver up her spine.

  She needed to get him out of here. Away from bloody tissues, and questions from a male escort. Or his questions about why she needed a male escort.

  Or her own questions about why Jane had started this whole crazy thing.

  Jerking her hands away from him, she blurted, “Let’s go get that drink.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here first?”

  “Doesn’t really matter. I’ll just get my bag,” she said, slipping back through the door and shutting in it his face.

  She looked from her bag to Tyler's questioning gaze. She grabbed a couple of tissues and pressed them in his hand. “I’ll be back and we can figure this all out.” Before he could reply, she escaped out the stateroom door.

  She took two steps down the hall before she realized Mason wasn’t following. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Sure. I just thought we might need to talk about this before we dive right in,” he said, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t usually do this kind of thing. I mean, we both have our reasons for being on this ship. I’m here for work, but that will be simpler if we...uh, talk first.”

  The world tilted and she flung her right hand against the wall to steady
herself. “Work?” The words came slowly from between her lips.

  His face darkened. Was that a blush?

  “Well, I mean we...we both know what this is about.” He stumbled over the words. “It can still be fun. I mean, I’m all about enjoying my work, but I usually lay down some ground rules. For both our protection.”

  Jane was dead. Absolutely. Positively. Dead.

  She set up this fiasco by hiring an escort, and now Casey had a nose-bleeding nerd in her room, and a blushing stud outside her door. Either could be her escort, and both of them were leading to nothing but trouble.

  Her cell phone buzzed inside her bag. Before Mason could stumble over his we-need-to-lay-down-some-groundrules-speech anymore, she held up her finger for silence and flipped open the phone.

  “There is big trouble, Casey. You’ve got to get off that boat.” Jane’s voice was bordering on hysterical. Casey had never heard her agent be anything but calm and supportive. This new Jane sent chills up and down her spine.

  “I can’t get off the boat, Jane. We’re already underway.” Had been for some time, because when Casey had gone inside to grab her purse, she’d seen only a shrinking Miami outside her window.

  “This is all my fault. I should have never suggested this. Should have just let you slink away and hide out in your apartment. The reporters would have gotten bored eventually. I could have brought you take out and we could have bashed stupid Nate.”

  Bam, bam, bam. Was Jane hammering her desk?

  “What’s going on Jane? We’ll handle it.” She smiled at Mason and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “Hey, we all have someone we have to take care of.”

  Mason jiggled his head and grinned back at her.

  Casey tried to decipher Mason’s attempt at sign language.

  He walked the fingers of his right hand across his left palm, asking if she wanted him to leave.

  No.

  Yes.

  Hell, she didn’t know. Shaking her head, she again focused on Jane, just in time for her world to explode.

  “There’s a reporter on board with you.”

  Casey fought down the bubble of panic rising in her throat. “But you’re the one that keeps telling me all press is good press.”

  “Not this kind,” Jane said.

  “What do you mean, not this kind of reporter?” Casey turned away from Mason and hissed the words into the phone. “You said we’d keep this quiet and I could have some time away from those vultures.”

  “Well, sweetie, that was the plan, but you know how these reporters can be. They get just a hint of a story and they’re flying off to Timbuktu. Or in your case, the Port of Miami and a cruise ship.”

  “You mean one of them followed me on board?” Taking a few steps farther away from Mason, Casey said, “Tell me this wasn’t part of your plan, Jane.”

  She heard the muffled sound of papers being rustled in the background.

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

  Casey tried to put steel into her voice while still whispering into the phone. “Tell me you didn’t set this whole thing up. That you didn’t set me up with a paid escort and then leak the whole thing to the press. Tell me you didn’t hope a reporter would follow me down here, hoping to catch a picture of Miss Romance’s latest fling. Tell me you didn’t hope my ‘new love’ would dim the rumors Nate started.”

  Silence came over the line.

  “Jane. Tell me you didn’t do this.”

  Another rustling of papers, and then Jane said, “Well, I had your best interests at heart. You know the motto. All press is good press. I thought you’d relax, have a good time, and by the time you got back everyone would have moved from the break-up to your next book. I didn’t leak your whereabouts, Case. Pinkie swear.”

  Casey dragged a deep breath of air into her lungs. Jane’s brilliant plan was backfiring all over the Caribbean. She should have signed up for that twelve-day trek with the dude ranch in Arizona. Turning to Mason, who was still loitering in the passage a few feet away, Casey pulled the cell phone from her ear and covered the mouthpiece.

  “This is going to take a few minutes. Can I meet you up on deck?”

  He tapped his watch and smiled. “Six o’clock. We have a date.” Then he disappeared into the elevator and she was alone. She huffed out a breath and put the phone back to her ear.

  “If you set this whole thing up, why all the dramatics? Why tell me there’s horrible news, that a reporter followed me if they’re just going to tell the story of my new and fake rebound relationship?”

  More silence greeted her question and she rubbed her free hand hard against her forehead. Just what was she missing?

  Finally, Jane said, “My sources tell me the paper isn’t just after your rebound guy. They don’t want your happy new romance. Ever since that headline from News Daily hit the stands, my phone has been ringing off the hook. Everyone wants the dirt on your break-up with Nate. They sent a real ace down there, some guy who busts politicians all the time. I couldn’t get his name, but he’s on board. You have to make this thing with the escort look really good.”

  Casey wanted to bang her head against the wall. Wanted to jump into one of the lifeboats and begin drifting aimlessly at sea. Pressing her right thumb and fingers to her temples she sighed at the last vestiges of control over her life slipping into the ocean.

  Damn Nate anyway.

  “Why can’t I just tell this reporter my side of the story? That Nate is leaking these stupid rumors out there and there’s no truth to them?”

  “Because this guy busts people on the front page for kicks. You can’t prove Nate is either leaking the rumors or that he’s lying about them. Your side of the story will sound like a pitiful attempt to bolster your own confidence. Add the escort to that and you’ll look like a desperate woman. Your readers want a confident, sexy, give-life-everything woman to give them advice. Not a woman who has to hire her lovers.”

  Casey wanted to scream. She hadn’t hired the escort. This was all Jane’s stupid idea. Why couldn’t she just stop the whole thing? Call it off with the escort? He’d still get a free cruise. Hell, she would make sure he still got paid. If she could just figure out who he was. Tyler or Mason. It had to be one of the men.

  The reporter could be anyone. She’d just watch her step and stay in her room as much as possible. Maybe she could even get Tyler and Mason to share her suite, and she could take Mason’s room. The reporter wouldn’t know to look for her there.

  “Tell me who the escort is.” She sighed. “I’ll take care of it. Stay in my room alone or something for the next week.”

  “That’s another problem,” Jane’s voice came weakly over the connection. “All I have is his Instant Messenger handle. The service is anonymous. Before you ask, he’s not responding to my messages at all.”

  “Look on the check you wrote. His name has to be somewhere.” She couldn’t take this drama. She wanted to go back to the suite and hide out for the next week. Only, Tyler was there. He’d want to talk about the situation. She couldn’t take any more talking. Not right now.

  “It was an electronic transfer. My account to his, and I only have the account numbers. No name. Probably for his protection.”

  “Do you at least know what he looks like? If he’s young, he should be easy to spot. Most everyone on board is over sixty.”

  “Sure.” Jane’s voice brightened at the prospect of helping her. “He’s your perfect man, just like in your books. Longish dark hair, green eyes. Strong jaw. Nice body.”

  Great. She just described Tyler. And Mason. Neither of whom had been forthcoming about their jobs. They talked in riddles. Either of them could be the escort. Her skin went clammy.

  Either of them could be the reporter.

  “And...well.” Jane’s voice was quiet over the cellular line. “He’s in your room. I, um, changed your booking.”

  Well, one question was answered. Tyler was the escort. Somehow that fact wasn’t as re
assuring as she had hoped.

  A dull throbbing started at the base of her neck. A week on a cruise should not have this much drama. Ever.

  “Jane, you couldn’t.” Her voice rose with each word.

  “I just wanted to make sure you had a good time, and—”

  “You could have booked a serial killer into my room—”

  Jane talked over her. “I knew if you were left alone, you’d stay holed up in that stateroom and work. You needed a break. Still need a break. And he’s not a serial killer. He comes very highly recommended.”

  As if that made a difference. Casey leaned against the passageway wall and then slid to the floor. She had made a fool of herself in front of the Cruise Director. No wonder they had no clue about how a strange man got into her room. It all made perfect sense, in a Jane sort of way.

  But if Tyler was the escort, that meant Mason was...what?

  “Do you know who the reporter is?”

  “Couldn’t get my source to tell me,” Jane said. The sound of shuffling papers was loud in the silence that followed. “I’m not even sure which paper sent him. All I got was the parent company name, and that group owns a handful of papers. And gossip rags.” The words were whispered into the phone.

  So Mason could be the reporter. Or he could just be some random guy on a love cruise. He didn’t seem like the reporter type. But then, Nate had never seemed like the gay type either.

  Holing up in her room was sounding better and better. If she could just get Tyler off her couch, and that wasn’t going to happen. Now that she knew Jane set this whole thing up, she couldn’t very well demand that he be moved.

  “I’m sorry, Casey. I’ve ruined this whole thing for you. You won’t be able to rest or work now.”

  Casey shook her head. Jane was well-meaning, but her delivery left a lot to be desired. If they hadn’t been friends since college, Casey would fire her. “I’ll deal with it. Who knows, maybe there’s a book in this whole fiasco after all. But Jane, if you ever do anything like this again, you’re fired. As my agent and my friend.” She disconnected before Jane could reply.