ROYAL ROCK(103)

She gave me a look. “And if I refuse?” she asked her dad.

“You won’t refuse,” he said sternly.

Clearly Jonathan was the type of man that wasn’t used to hearing the word “no.” And Claire wasn’t the type of daughter to put up a fight. She was little miss too-good, the perfect girl. No way she’d disappoint daddy dearest.

“Fine,” she said. “Whatever you want, Dad.”

He smiled. “Great. See, our family is getting along already.”

We went back to eating in silence, but inwardly I was laughing. Jonathan was totally oblivious to everything going on around him. I was trying to get in his daughter’s pants, my mother was a raging psychopath, and he was pushing everyone too hard. Meanwhile, Claire was too busy thinking about fucking me to really bother rebelling against her dad.

It was going to be a fun first few days, I guessed, out there on the boat. I had no clue what I’d really got myself into, but it couldn’t be any worse than my real job.





CLAIRE

I didn’t know anything about working on a stupid boat. I didn’t even like boats. They were floating death traps, and the only thing between you and the big stinking salty ocean water was some metal and wood. I had no interest in becoming a sailor.

But that was probably my dad’s intention. He wanted to throw me into some situation I wasn’t nearly prepared enough for just to teach me some kind of lesson. This time it was to teach me “Navy discipline,” or whatever that was supposed to be.

As far as I could tell, “Navy discipline” was code for Nathan sitting in the captain’s chair, drinking beers and telling me what to do.

“Grab that line,” he said, nodding his head. “Untie it so we can cast off.”

The boat wasn’t small by any means, though smaller than my dad’s yacht. The guy that usually ran the tour, an older man named Tommy, was busy setting up the clients while Nate and I started getting the boat into position.

Which basically meant I was doing all the work.

“You can help, you know,” I said to him.

“Nah. You need to learn the value of hard work.”

I gave him a look, and he was grinning ear to ear.

“Don’t start that,” I said.

“Just repeating what your dad said. I need to live up to his expectations.”

“You don’t care about his expectations. You just want to boss me around.”

He looked at me silently for a second. “You’re damn right I do.”

I sighed and finished untying the boat and then hopped up on deck. I wouldn’t have even known where to look just a few hours earlier, but luckily, Tommy gave us both a quick rundown on our duties and the boat itself. Nate mostly ignored him the whole time, of course, but I paid close enough attention that I felt pretty confident moving around.

The boat’s engine kicked to life, and Nate began to sail the boat out of the harbor, heading along our planned route. I climbed up the ladder and met him in the pilot’s room, sitting down in the copilot’s chair.

“How do you know where you’re going?”

He pointed at a little GPS screen. “There’s a route programmed in there. Any idiot could do this.”

“Fortunately we have the best idiot of all.”

“Keep that up and I’ll throw you overboard.”

“I’d love to see you try.”

He laughed and nodded down at where Tommy was making the customers put their life vests on. “What do you think of them?”

“The customers? They seem fine.”

“Bunch of rich assholes, if you ask me.”

“Everybody around here is a rich asshole, Nate.”

He grunted. “Yeah, except me.”

“No. You’re just an asshole.”

We rode in silence while Tommy gave the group his speech, something about the area’s history and other nautical facts. I didn’t care at all, and I was sure Nate would have fallen asleep if he’d had to listen, and so we drove the boat together in silence, heading along the preplanned route.

“How are things with your friend?” Nate asked suddenly.

“She’s fine. Haven’t really talked to her since we went out on the yacht.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That was a few days ago. Nothing wrong there?”

“No. She just got a job as a waitress at one of the bars in town, so she’s been busy.”

“Good for her. Probably shouldn’t be working at a bar, though.”

“She’s perfect for it.”

“She probably gets plenty of tips.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

I glared at him but didn’t say anything else, getting annoyed already. It’d barely been an hour and he was pushing my buttons hard.