Just before she reached the companionway steps, Bronwyn caught up and grabbed one of her arms. When Rania swung around, off-balance, she seriously contemplated taking the bitch down. The thought must have registered on her face, because Bronwyn took a hasty step back.
“You know, this photo shoot can go one of two ways,” Bronwyn said. “I can spin it that you’re his new one-and-only, met on a romantic cruise, blah, blah, blah. Or… he’s the loneliest, most eligible bachelor in the world, nursing a broken heart. It’s up to you.”
Rania glanced over the woman’s shoulder to see if Moj had any idea of what she was saying. From the smug smile on his face, it was obvious he was onboard with the latest craziness and expected Rania to fall in step.
With that, Moj’s evil PR bitch spun on her heel, her flip-flops squeaking on the polished wood deck as she sped back to Moj as if her life depended on it. At least her paychecks did.
Rania had to suck in a deep breath to keep her composure and make sure she didn’t take out the little twit herself. After she could think clearly again, she padded softly back down the companionway into the depths of the Bonnie Blue.
Once below, Rania strode blindly toward the engine room’s neatly hidden door next to the navigation center. She’d bury herself in work, forget about what might have been, and give Moj a wide berth so that he could get on with his life.
She didn’t see the arms reaching out to stop her until too late and stumbled into one of Tommy’s bear hugs.
“Come here, girl,” he said with a rough grumble, and let her bury her head against his shoulder for a few moments. After a while, he held her out at arm’s length and took a long look into her eyes. “You never cry, do you?”
“Absolutely not,” she said.
“Still tryin’ to prove somethin’ to your dad? Or yourself?” he asked.
She shook her head hard, but couldn’t choke out the words she wanted to toss back at him. She didn’t need to prove anything, and her dad, of all people, had never expected perfection. But deep down, she knew Tommy was right.
She’d craved her father’s approval and affection all her life. She’d tried to make it up to him that her mother had died young. That she was the only child he’d ever have, and she wasn’t the son she knew he’d wished for.
Without a sound, Devin Manning crept up behind them and gave her a look that did not bode well. He had something to say, and knowing Manning, whatever came out of his mouth would be nonsense. She was not in the mood for nonsense.
He beckoned for her to follow him into the crew galley. Tommy gave her a wave and disappeared toward the companionway to the top deck.
When she fell in behind Devin, he shifted a hip against the gleaming counter and gave her a superior look.
“You are laboring under a misapprehension,” he said, without any preliminaries. “You think there are only two choices — black or white. But me, I’m used to dealing in many, many shades of …”
Rania cut him off with a swift slash of her index finger to her throat.
“Get to the point, Mr. Manning, or I swear I’ll take you out myself,” she said. “Say what you have to say, and then leave me alone. I’m having a really bad day, and you’re making it worse. Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Ah, a woman after my own heart,” he said. “You know what you want, and you settle for nothing less.”
Rania got in his face. “This is your last warning,” she said with a snarl.
He swayed out of her range of swing and said, “I just think you should know Mr. Johnston has engaged me to find another deserted island somewhere in the world, a neutral ground as it were, where the two of you can be together out of the glare of public life.” He raised both arms in a gesture of surrender when she bent toward him again.
“Why would you tell me this now, when he hasn’t said a word about it to me?” she demanded.
“We’re still looking,” Manning protested. “These things take time, and he wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Why would he do such a thing without consulting me?” she asked, a hurt tone creeping into her voice.
“To be honest,” Manning said, “he is a very conflicted man right now. He wants to be with you, but he’s afraid to let go of the life of celebrity he’s come to enjoy.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “We men are inferior creatures and not as quick to switch emotional gears as you women. Quite frankly, we’re just not as strong.”
Rania sucked in a sharp breath. Maybe she’d misjudged Moj. After all, she had no idea what celebrity would do to her. Maybe she’d give up a normal life like he had for the devotion of thousands of fans. Maybe he was suffering as much as she was over the impossible choices they were facing.
“He wants you at the photo shoot tonight on the Anse Georgette,” Manning said. “We both know it’s dangerous, but it would be an olive branch you could extend to him. I’d consider going. But first, you had a phone call earlier.”
Manning interrupted her thoughts to hand her the satellite phone she thought she’d misplaced. He’d picked it up from the table where she’d had breakfast with the rest of the crew that morning. The message light was blinking.
She checked her recent call log and recognized the number.
What could Global Security want with her now?
* * *
Moj leaned back against a cool granite outcropping on the beach and took a deep swallow of a crisp, chilled Chardonnay. He was beginning to wind down from all the emotional pyrotechnics of the day.
Bronwyn had orchestrated a full buffet on tables under palm trees and next to the signature rock formations littering the beach. Torches flickered above the ivory-colored linens. The aqua-blue waves frothed as they crashed across the white sand under an azure sky dim with twilight. Ignoring the beauty, his PR Nazi was still ordering camera people and models around like a general on a battlefield even though the photo shoot was over. The first day, at least.
Like Moj, Val Kendrick had skipped the food and went straight for the wine. She eyed him and took barely perceptible sips from her wineglass, looking as if she hadn’t had a square meal in days.
He’d always found Val attractive, but he was surprised to realize he’d become accustomed to Rania’s voluptuous curves. And Val seemed so vapid, so fake. Yet the way she kept winding the end of her long sweep of dark hair around one of her fingers was beginning to wake up little pings of need somewhere in the vicinity of his gut. No, he couldn’t go there. He had to fix things with Rania. He wasn’t about to give in to Val’s flirting.
His feelings troubled him. How could he have loved someone as much as he’d loved Rania that night in the middle of the ocean and now let himself take in pulsing sex vibes from another woman? The three glasses of wine he’d downed to wipe out the memories of the earlier ugly scene with Rania and Bronwyn had probably bent his pathways of logic a little. He should’ve stuck with the Pellegrino.
And then there was Bronwyn. She was relentless. She battered away with her own bent logic. He needed to project the image of a successful music producer, she said. A deliriously happy music producer enjoying the fantasies regular folks could only dream about. That included being seen with celebrity supermodels like Val. Just that year, she’d dizzied millions of men as the cover girl for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
And despite her empty smiles and emptier words, he could imagine them together. His hand instinctively reached for the necklace where he had kept his wedding rings since Fiona passed.
They were still gone, and things with Rania were rocky. Hell, maybe they were over. If that was the case, he and Val could get a room at the nearby Lemuria Resort, make a big deal about it. Being seen with Val Kendrick could only help his career. Cloude would benefit too as the jilted lover.
As suddenly as the forbidden thought popped into his head only to be discarded, Val made it easy for him. She moved in fast and locked her lips with his, drinking deeply. But there was no passion, no joy. He might as well have be
en kissing a Moray eel.
Just as he shifted into “what the hell” mode, he glanced through Val’s curtain of dark hair, and there was Rania, standing on the sunset-drenched white sand. Rania in the intense last light of the day, looking like a scary Egyptian goddess he remembered from a mythology class he once took. Her rage supposedly caused droughts.
Maybe Rania wasn’t capable of scorching the planet, but the look on her face gave him so much dry-mouthed terror he couldn’t summon enough moisture to spit.
* * *
Rania froze in her long walk along the beach toward the photo shoot. She’d been so intent on reaching the milling group of people about a hundred yards on down the sugary sand, she’d almost missed something so hard to process, her mind argued with her eyes.
Another woman would have kept on walking. Another woman might have broken down into tears and run back to where she anchored the shore launch. But Rania was not like other women. She waded in, shouting at Moj all the way.
The decision to join him at the photo shoot and give the crazy celebrity thing one more try had been the hardest decision of her life. She’d made herself more vulnerable than she’d ever been, and for what? In the few hours she’d been struggling with her heart, he’d not only found another woman, but a woman who looked enough like Rania to pass as her sister.
Rania’s temper flared like a sunspot, and later she would be hard-pressed to remember exactly what she’d said or what she’d done.
However, she did remember a few high points. Like taking down the philandering model, Val someone-something-who cares, onto the sand and rubbing her face in it. She also recalled clearly the look on Moj’s face when he pulled her off the skinny bitch.
And then there was the grand finale.
“I never want to see you or hear your name again as long as I live,” she’d shouted back at him while fleeing down the beach toward the Bonnie Blue’s launch.
Her life was over. She’d attacked Moj’s date. Captain Lindsay would have to fire her. Thank Allah she had the Global Security gig to fall back on.
The problem of her fake Egyptian husband faded in comparison to her current disaster. He had no jurisdiction over her unless she returned to Egypt. And that was never going to happen. She’d burned all her bridges. The only person left she cared about was her father, and they could meet anywhere in the world.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
April 27, Aboard the Bonnie Blue
Anchored Off Praslin Island, The Seychelles
Moj stalked around the Bonnie Blue’s spacious master suite.
Breathing hard and scowling, he wished he had more shit to pack. He liked throwing his clothes onto the bed and then slamming them into his small Hulme suitcase. Fuck Rania, fuck Bronwyn, and fuck the paparazzi. What good was winning at the music game when the grand prize was such a pain in the ass?
How many musicians and producers were working day and night right now to make it, wishing they were him? Countless. Most would die nameless. Right then?
He envied them. His whole life had become one big PR strategy to make sure he stayed in the spotlight, no matter the cost.
Moj made a fist and drew back his hand. He was going to punch a hole in the boat and then go down to the bottom of Praslin’s shoreline in his cabin. He’d end it all in one blast of frustrated fury.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice said behind him.
He turned to see Cloude standing there in her bikini. She was slicked up in a special sauce of sunscreen and cocoa butter. “Why shouldn’t I?” he growled.
She rolled her eyes. “You really want to break your hand? And this wonderful boat has done nothing to you. Don’t take your anger out on her.” She glanced at his suitcase on the bed. “So, it’s true. You are calling off the cruise. Goodbye, Rania, goodbye vacation.
“Well, you can go, but I’m not done yet. You booked the Bonnie Blue all the way through to Mauritius and back, and I plan on staying onboard and see if I can snag me a mercenary.”
“Good luck with that.” Moj paused, softening. “You’re not going to sing something about me and Rania? I’m surprised.”
Cloude sank a fist onto her hip. “Break-up songs? Please, too easy. There are millions, all the same, and all so different, just like break-ups. But since you asked, while I’m partial to the oldies but goodies, Neil Sedaka’s ‘Breaking Up is Hard To Do,’ for example, for this occasion I’ll go for ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ as performed by Gotye and Kimbra.”
She belted out the chorus.
The lyrics stung, but Moj didn’t show an ounce of emotion.
“You’re like a musical time machine crossed with Wikipedia. You went from 1962 to 2011. I’m impressed.”
“So why are you leaving? What’s going on? Catch me up, Moj. I don’t want to read about it on HuffPo’s Entertainment webpage.”
“Not much to say. Rania and I are over, over and done. She showed up at the photo shoot, and it turned into a nightmare, for her, for me, for everyone.
“It’s the same thing, over and over. Rania can’t handle the attention. Fiona knew the game and played it with me. Not sure I’m ever going to find a normal woman who would do the same. Maybe I should return Madonna’s calls. She’s not afraid of the spotlight.”
“The material girl? Never, but Moj… ” Cloude’s voice dropped. “If you run, then Rania really will be just somebody you used to know. Can you live with that?”
Moj crossed to a porthole and stared out at the sunlight on the Indian Ocean.
“No,” he said. “It’s too late to fix things with Rania. This vacation was a mistake. I’m better when I just work. So that’s what I’m gonna do. Live in my studio, stay in the mix, and forget about her and everything else. The press will just love that I cheated on you, and we’ll be a big thing. It will keep me relevant, and it’ll boost your career. Everyone wins.”
“You don’t look like someone who has won anything,” Cloude whispered.
He grabbed his suitcase and pressed past her.
Cloude sang a bit of Abba’s “Winner Takes It All.”
Right then, Moj had never felt more like a loser.
“So how are you getting back to civilization?” Cloude asked.
Moj stopped. He couldn’t face her eyes.
“Tommy’s taking me ashore in the launch. Then I have a plane waiting, commuter thing to take me over to the main island. In Mahé, Greg is bringing around my private jet and then off to Paris. I figure I’ll hang with Moby for a few days, and then get my ass back to Tampa and fuck the rest of the world.”
“Can’t do that anymore,” Cloude said. “After Rania, you can’t go back, you can never go back. Like in ‘The Boys of Summer,’ Don Henley’s 1984 classic.”
Bitch. How come she was so wise beyond her years? At that point, he could use some ditzy pop star, and Cloude was anything but.
“Watch me.” He slammed the door on his way out.
* * *
Tommy pushed through the portal to the engine room.
Rania turned. From the look on his face, she knew what was up.
“So you’ve come to do Lindsay’s dirty work?”
The old guy sighed. “I volunteered for this particular suicide mission. Yeah, you’re fired. Now, if you have to hit me, stay away from my moneymaker.” He grinned and gestured to his face.
Rania wasn’t in a joking mood.
“I knew Lindsay couldn’t keep me after this recent incident with Moj. I’m already packed. However, I wanted to ensure the engines were running perfectly before I left. I have another gig lined up. Global Security is sending a helicopter to the airport here on Praslin to pick me up.”
Rania replaced a panel and twisted the screws back into place. The call from her former employer had come at the perfect time. Yes, she was a little reticent about returning to her life as a bodyguard, but it was better than being unemployed.
Tommy frowned. “All fixed up. Everything in its place. The cat has landed on
its feet.”
“Her feet,” Rania murmured. “And yes, I have.”
He leaned against the doorway into the engine room, blocking her way out. Otherwise, she would’ve fled. Leaving the Bonnie Blue was going to be hard enough without a heart-to-heart chat with the first mate.
“Rania, I don’t get it. We hired you on, and you were cooler than a cucumber plant in the Arctic Circle. And yet, you got yourself fired. What happened?”
“Moj happened.” The response seemed sufficient for Rania, but Tommy obviously needed more. “You already take him to shore?”
Tommy nodded. “Yep. Guess you’re next. First you have to answer my question.”
“What question?” she asked, feigning confusion.
Tommy played along. “Moj is a tough guy, but how could he break you like he did? I still don’t understand. Before he showed up, you were an invulnerable badass. Nothing cracked your coconut. Then you tossed his satellite phone overboard and sorry to say, you completely lost your shit.” Tommy winced. “Uh, probably shouldn’t have said that last part.”
Rania laughed. “You are very blunt, Mr. Fisher.” She sobered then. “In the end, I forgot a very important part of my training. I failed to assess Moj’s threat level. I knew my feelings for him were dangerous, but I truly believed I would be able to control myself.”
Tommy let her talk, and it felt good to get everything out into the open, so she continued.
“As a girl growing up in Egypt, I’d watch movies or read stories about women falling in love. I always thought it was so silly. They would make irrational decisions based on their feelings, and I thought all of it was preposterous. My grandmother would agree with me. She said wifely duties had nothing to do with romance. A woman should be strong and never fail at self-sacrifice.”
Rania smiled wistfully at the memories. “Those notions seem so unreal now, like they belong to someone else’s life.” She raised her eyes to meet Tommy’s. “Now I understand the dangers of romance, and I swear, I will never fall in love again.”
“That’s sad,” Tommy said in a hushed voice. “I held my wife when she died. My ugly mug was the last thing she saw, and when I told her I loved her, those were the last words she’d ever hear. That was tragic, maybe, but we’d lived and loved hard. We got more than our fair share.
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