“No, everything fine,” she shrugged, “just running a bit late today. Thanks for the muffin.”
As she stood, waiting for the notoriously slow elevator, she felt guilt prick at her again. She needed to be careful. Satish would be furious if he found out she was speaking to Brad, but she had a feeling that even sweet, easy-going Claire wouldn’t approve. Perhaps that should worry her more than it did.
32
Mysterious
As Brad prepared to head outside for lunch, he thanked his lucky stars for Judge Lester Butler. It was Lester who had offered him the use of the yacht when he’d found out Brad had this big deal going down with Scott Soldano. Scott would be lining Judge Lester's pockets with a thick wad of US dollars by the time Brad had finished this deal. Scott was a techie millennial millionaire—the perfect client for Brad. He had tons and tons of money he had no time to spend, because he was too busy working every minute of every day making more. When it came to money, the only thing Scott cared about was that the US government didn't get their paws on it, and that was where Brad came in.
He was a fixer. He had spent years nurturing the relationships required to get these little rich boys new identities, as well as set up complicated new corporate structures to transfer funds all over the world, until they became virtually untraceable, landing in big, fat accounts in the Bahamas. Of course, the Bahamas had a reciprocal tax reporting deal with the IRS, so he had to do some fancy footwork over here, not the least of which was passing wads of cash to the right people who could make sure certain connections to certain bank accounts were never made. Brad was making a lot of people rich, Lester Butler included.
Scott was going to make a lot of people very wealthy, if Brad could finalize this deal. He had been working all morning, although temporarily distracted by the lovely Nandita, and now he was starving. He remembered he should spend some time with that Maureen chick to avoid raising suspicions amongst the crew, so he had invited her to lunch today. He couldn’t very well ignore her for two weeks, and anyway, why should he? She was cute enough to add to his roster, although he would eventually have to make a decision between her and Ginny, or he would have a war on his hands.
He had been surprised and taken aback when Maureen had agreed to come on this trip. He’d thought he’d made himself dead obvious that his invitation had been for Nandita alone, but he couldn’t very well rescind the invite in front of dumbo Tod and blow his good-guy cover. Anyway, it would be handy to have Maureen around to make his presence look more normal. What kind of bachelor spends two weeks on a docked yacht all by himself?
He was just about to leave the cabin when his phone rang. It was Sylvia, an executive assistant at the Bank of the Bahamas, who had the amazing ability to get her hands on any information Brad needed, as well as pass on the gossip and rumors she never missed. She was his eyes and ears. She was also an enthusiastic stress reliever; whenever he felt the itch, she was happy to be his sweetie.
“Look out for Myron Symonette,” she practically whispered.
“Who?”
“Myron Symonette. He’s a local guy, just arrived in Nassau from Grand Bahama a year or so ago. His family is big in the shipping business, but he thinks he’s some kind of financial genius. He was just in to see the boss and it sounds like he’s planning on honing in on some of your customers. He heard about Scott. He don’t like no foreigners coming in here to take the other foreigner’s money.”
“Makes sense.” Brad rolled his eyes. This was the last thing he needed.
“Yeah, well, just wanted to let you know. He knows you. You may get a visit.”
“Thanks, darling. Later.”
Okay this is weird, he thought. How did anyone know about Scott? If there was anyone good at keeping secrets, it was people like him, who did it for a living. He had been careful to create an iron-clad vault of secrecy around Scott’s identity for exactly this reason. Did he have a mole somewhere in his network? He would need an eagle eye over the next few weeks, so this deal wouldn’t get swiped. Not only would that be bad for his bank account, but it would also be bad for his health. There were a lot of people depending on this sweet, little commission coming in before Christmas, and those people weren’t exactly non-violent. He had seen evidence of their disappointment before, and he didn’t want that disappointment directed toward him. He felt a flicker of fear in his chest. Calm down, Brad. You’re iron-clad.
“Hi, Brad.” Maureen was sitting in a deeply-cushioned deck chair, waiting for him. She looked quite luscious in a mini-skirt and sexy top. Nice cleavage. “Are you okay?”
Did he not look okay? That damn phone call had thrown him off. “Yeah, I’m great!” He sat down next to her and grabbed immediately for the champagne bucket—a drink would calm him down. “Are you having a good time?”
“Yes, I am, thank you. Thanks so much for inviting me.”
“No problem. It’s great to have company." He took a swig of his champagne before remembering to pour one for her. Was she safe? Who was she, anyway? "Although, I think we need to get to know each other a little better, don’t you?”
Maureen was about to speak, but then she paused. He waited. “I don’t think you really want to know me, do you?”
“I don’t?” What a weird thing to say. Was she pissed that he didn’t come back yesterday?
“Well, I’m not an open book, you know. You’ll have to do some work to find out my secrets.” Her voice shook a little, and she fidgeted in her seat.
“Okay,” Brad was confused, but his interest was piqued. He handed her a glass of champagne and decided to play along. “Why don’t you tell me one of your smaller secrets to get me started? That way, I’ll have something to work with.”
“Why don’t you tell me one of your secrets first? You know, we probably have a lot in common.” She gave him a pained smile, and it looked as though she was trying to send some sort of message with her eyes. She looked a little desperate, to be honest. Where was this going?
“Sure. Well, uh… in college, I cheated on a major exam. I'd been too busy playing football to study, and if I failed the exam, they were going to suspend me from the team, so the coach used his own money to buy me the answers a few days before.” He was immensely proud of that moment. The coach had come to his off-campus apartment and shared a scotch with him, telling him that he was the only player he had ever shared a drink with. Brad had realized he was so valuable to the team that the coach was even willing to risk his career to keep him playing. It was a highlight of his college days.
Maureen looked deflated. She took a large gulp of champagne and immediately launched into a coughing fit. Brad watched as she turned alarmingly red, and he reached over to pat her back gently.
“Wrong hole,” she said, and stood to pace the deck as her coughing slowed. Finally, she headed back to the table just as Joe came out with a huge platter. He looked at Maureen with concern and asked if she was okay. She nodded and he placed the platter in the middle of the beautifully laid table. The platter was overflowing with an array of Bahamian specialties: conch fritters, fresh conch salad, grouper dripping with lemon sauce, and of course, the ubiquitous peas and rice.
“Dig in, but give me a secret first. You started it.”
Maureen avoided Brad’s gaze and started shoveling food onto her plate at a frantic pace. He watched, amused, as the conch fritters rolled to the edge and onto the deck. “Sorry,” she said. “Okay, secrets. Okay. Well…” she put down her plate, sat up straight, and thrust her chest forward suggestively. Was she drunk? “I think my secrets are too dangerous for you to know right now. You’ll just have to keep me around to find out what I’ve got.”
“Okay… I can do that, I guess.” He lifted a fork of peas and rice to his mouth, but paused as she blushed a funny purple color. It didn’t look normal to him. “Maureen, are you feeling alright?”
“Mmhmm. I’m just thinking.” She stared right at him and then tossed her hair back with a dramatic fling, causing more conc
h fritters to roll off her plate. She leaned down, casually picked them up, and placed them back on the tray. He looked her in surprise, and she quickly sat back up again. “Sorry, I don’t want Joe to have to clean up after me.”
“Maybe you should lie down for a bit after lunch. The Bahamian sun can be quite overwhelming, if you aren’t used to it.”
She blushed that sickly purple color again and suddenly stood. Her hands shook as she put down her plate, and he looked around for Joe, in case she was going to faint. “You know, you’re right,” she said, “I do feel a bit off. I think I’ll head back to my cabin now.”
She turned so quickly that she bumped into the deck chair and bashed her ankle. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, but she didn’t swear. Joe rushed over to help and she brushed him away. She stood there for a few minutes, blowing gasping breaths through her pursed lips and looking determined. She then stood tall and started to walk away.
Just as she was about to enter the cabin through the glass doors, she looked over her shoulder at Brad and winked. “I’ll see you later. We have a lot to talk about, and I have a lot to tell you. I think you know what that is.” She tossed her hair again and disappeared into the ship.
Brad looked around in confusion. What had just happened? He caught Joe’s eye and he gave him a small shrug before going back inside. What did she mean they had a lot to talk about? Did she know something?
The first mate, Stephen, emerged from inside and started to help Joe clear the table. "I guess you guys don't know each other that well, huh?"
What the hell? Stephen was trying to act so nonchalant, throwing the question out as casually as possible, but Brad could tell when someone was invested in an answer. What was going on here?
"We know each other just fine, thanks. The sun must have gone to her head today. She's very close to me, in fact." Brad wasn't sure why he said that, but it seemed like the right answer under the circumstances. He didn't know why she was so weird, but he wasn't going to let on to anyone else that he was worried. There was a mole somewhere, and it could be anyone. He felt so paranoid right now. He needed to get back to his cabin and call Sylvia to see if she had heard anything else.
Was Maureen the mole? How could she be? She was Tod’s friend from Hoboken. What had Tod called her? Mousy Maureen? How could Mousy Maureen possibly know anything about what was going on? Brad, however, had been around the block long enough to know that coincidences were rarely coincidences. It was strange that he had just finished that phone call with Sylvia and then met a girl as mysterious as Maureen. What was she after? Did she want money?
Brad decided he was going to have to spend a little more time with Maureen than planned. Paying attention to her would mean pissing off sweet, little Ginny, but it couldn’t be helped. There might be a ticking time bomb on this yacht, and Brad needed to make sure it didn’t explode.
33
Just Maureen
“Miss Maureen? Mommee?” Joe had been knocking at her door persistently for about six minutes now, but Maureen had not yet been able to control her tears long enough to open it. “Please, Miss, open the door.”
She crumpled up the last of her snotty tissues, and dropped them in the wastebasket on top of the other twenty. She would ask Joe where she could dump it later. “Come in,” she said.
“Miss Maureen, you alright?” Joe walked to where she sat on her bed and stood over her, his hand hovering above her shoulder, but not quite touching it.
“It’s okay, Joe. You can sit.” He sat on the bed next to her and laid his massive hand on her shoulder. She felt instantly calmer. It was like he had magic in his skin. “I looked like a right idiot, didn’t I?” She laughed and reached down to rub her throbbing ankle. Joe laughed, too.
“Well, you were real confusing, Mummee? Do you not like Mr. Brad?”
Maureen avoided the question. “Why do you call me Mummee?”
Joe smiled at her. “It’s a Haitian term of respect. I try to remember Miss Maureen instead, but I’ve been saying, Mummee, my whole life, so it just comes out.”
“No, it’s okay. I like it. You can also call me Mo, if you’d like?” Maureen looked at Joe hopefully, but he just gave her his soft smile again.
“I like Miss Maureen. Mo is not a good name for you. Now, tell me, do you not like Mr. Brad?”
She thought she had avoided having to answer that. “The problem is that I like him too much. At least, I think I do.” She flashed back to the evening outside Sally’s flat when she had first bumped into him. It had felt like destiny. “I was trying to be mysterious, Joe. I’ve, um, heard that men like girls who are mysterious.”
Joe laughed out loud again. “Men like girls who are themselves, Mommee. How are they supposed to know if you are the one for them if they don’t know who you are? I met my wife when I was thirteen years old. She showed me exactly who she was, and I knew she was the one for me right away. Now we have five babies.”
“You have five children?” Maureen thought to herself how lucky those kids were to have this soothing, giant of a man as their daddy. “Where are they?”
“They are in Haiti, but I see them every few months when I go home.”
“Every few months?” Maureen was aghast. That was awful. She bet he missed them like mad.
“Every few months is a lot more than others who work abroad,” he said. “I have a very good boss who is also a good friend. He makes sure I never have to wait too long to see my babies.”
Maureen felt decidedly weepy and opened a new tissue packet, just in case. “Yes, Captain Don seems like a very nice man.”
Joe looked at her quietly for a few minutes and said, “Yes, Captain Don is a very nice man. Now, why don’t you tell me what you are doing on this boat? This is your first time on a yacht, isn’t it?”
Maureen looked at his kind face and decided she needed a friend. “You won’t tell anyone?”
“I know how to keep a secret. Joe won’t tell a soul.”
“Well,” Maureen wasn’t quite sure where to begin, so she just let it out, “I was dumped by my boyfriend, which wasn’t a surprise, since I get dumped pretty often. I decided to use that as a catalyst to change my personality, be brave, and ask for a new job at work. Only, then I heard I was about to get fired, which turned out not to be true, but by the time I found out, it was too late and I had already pretty much screwed up my chances. At least, I thought I had.
“My friend Sally helped me realize all of my problems come from the fact that I am so mousy and shy and that I needed to become Magnificent Mo to change everything. That’s when I met Brad, and I thought that, if I could convince him I was Magnificent Mo, he might like me and marry me, and then I could have any job I wanted and have his babies and be exciting and live an entirely different life. He invited all of us here and I’m the only who could come, so I did… and it’s not going very well.”
"Why do you think that shy is bad, Miss Maureen? It just means the right man will have to work a little harder to find the real you."
Maureen scoffed. "Men don't seem to want to hang around long enough to find that out, Joe."
He smiled at her sadly. "The right man will."
She was irritated. This was not what she wanted to hear right now. She was here to change her life, and she couldn't change her life if she didn't change her personality. It was exactly what her brother had told her throughout her childhood: no one was interested in a wallflower.
She shrugged Joe's hand off her shoulder. "Well, maybe Brad is that man. How do I know? I just got here."
Joe stood and shook his head slowly. “You were right the first time: Brad does not like shy, quiet girls. He wants girls who have empty heads and willing bodies. You, Miss Maureen, are not Brad’s kind of girl.”
“Exactly my point!” Maureen raised a pointed finger in the air. “Don't you see, Joe? That's why I need to be Magnificent Mo!” She stood and headed to the mirror to survey the damage and get herself back together. “It may not have gone well
today, but I just need to practice a little bit more, that’s all.”
“If you say so, Mummee.” He shook his head again and left the cabin, closing the door quietly behind him.
34
Hijacked
“You’re kidding me, Don. You just told me I need to keep away from her and now you tell me I have to spend the day with her?” Stephen was standing in the cockpit with the door firmly locked, trying to keep his voice down. He had to admit that the idea of spending the day with Maureen made him smile inside, even after that weird performance with Brad and his claim that they were close.
“Well, I’m certainly not going to send Marshall with her, am I? I don’t trust the boys or Ginny to keep her away for long enough, and I need Joe here. He’s the only one who knows what’s really going on, plus I might need his size. I’ve heard bad things about this Myron guy.”
“Who is he, anyway? How do you know he’s coming to the boat?”
“Look, Stephen, you know I can’t tell you everything. It’s for your own safety. Just know that I have reliable sources, and they go beyond Lester Butler. The word is out that Brad is taking away Bahamian business and there are a lot of very dangerous guys out here who won’t let that happen. Myron is an upstart, but we don’t know how connected he is. It’s important that we learn as much as we can from this meeting without any distractions. There’s no point in taking Henderson out if we don’t get to the rotting roots of this scam.”
“Okay.” Stephen looked out over the impossibly blue water and the view of the glamorous hotel in front of him.
Some said Atlantis—the hotel rooms, casinos, and parks—was gaudy, but he could still remember being mesmerized by the TV commercials when he was a teenager. Back then, the otherworldly, tropical images had represented escape, and he had felt the same the first time he had seen them in person. He knew that every person within five miles of him right now was probably escaping something. They were escaping their stress on the slides in the water park or outdoor bars, escaping their worries at the blackjack tables, or just escaping the boredom of everyday life by bringing their family to paradise. He knew what he was trying to escape from, but what about Maureen? He realized he really wanted to find out.
Unstoppable: A Sweet Romance (Jersey Girls Book 2) Page 12