Billionaire on Board (15 page)

Every female guest in the restaurant, except me, was a model. Or had been in younger days. I felt like a dwarf. 

I threw suspicious glances at all of them, suspecting them of having, well— of having been 'driven in the Bugatti' too. 

At least they could not have been driven in
my
Bug, because
my
Bug was a new one and the old one had moved in with Gus the yacht designer, where it probably continued its career as a bird-carrier. But still, I was provisionally jealous of them all.

We
did
have mussels but only I had the Pernod. Ryan had one glass of white wine and that was it (the Bug demands its sacrifices). I discovered he spoke excellent French and the longer I watched him eat his mussels, the more I wanted to go back to Myrtle and have him try his French on my mussel too. But until now he had done nothing to redeem himself. The Julia Roberts movie options lay wide open to him, but he had not chosen to bring any of them into action, hence I would refrain from bringing myself into action or from lying wide open to him respectively. 

I was not going to be his holiday plaything no matter how much I wanted to be. 

We arrived home at Myrtle's (as I put it) when it was already close to midnight.

There was still a lot of life at the waterfront but our part of the marina was calm. Dan came out to bring the Bugatti to bed while Ryan and I stood on the quay for a little longer.

"I won't be here tomorrow. I have to meet a business partner in Marseille. Dan's going to take me in the S Class. If you want to go anywhere, you can take the Bug. I'll tell the boys you may have it."

"Really? Wow, I'm honoured."

"Yes, but let Sam or Angelo help you drive it out."

"Sure, if I dare."

"I'm sure you will. It's well insured."

"You're not one of those guys who are panicky about their cars, huh?"

"I'm one of those guys who are panicky about their boats. You're treating Myrtle well, so I trust you."

"I like her very much. She's a gentle and loving creature."

"She is, isn't she?"

"Yes."

Five second silence. 

When did we last have one of those? There was the bland face too! Help!

Suddenly I was in his arms and he kissed me and I kissed him back. Only the sound of the garage trap closing six feet behind me rescued me.

I wrestled myself out of his embrace. 

"No. Don't. Leave me alone!" I stammered and fled across the gangway.

"Jude!" He came after me but I managed to close and lock the door to my cabin before he had reached me.

He knocked. "Darling, please, you can't mean it, I know you want it too, please let me in, I'm going crazy."

"Go away!" I pleaded.

"No."

"Go away!"

He did.

Five

When I woke the next morning, after a terrible night in which I had twice stopped myself on my way to the door, Ryan was already gone.

Marguerita informed me he had left very early and was not to be expected until 8 or 9 pm, when we would leave for Porto Cervo directly.

As always, I found my breakfast on the upper deck, only this time the Bug's key rested next to my egg on top of a hand-scribbled note from Ryan. 'Sorry about last night. It won't happen again. Have fun with the Bug. R."

I was genuinely stressed by the decision whether I should dare to drive the Bug or not. In the end I decided to give it a try.

Angelo came down personally to oversee my transfer to land.

"Don't worry, the car will do it all for you. It's a pleasing little pussycat."

"Okay, so I only take my foot off the brakes, no throttle?"

"Right! We don't want to shoot a hole into Prince Al-Assan's yacht!" 

The "Beauty of the Oceans" was a brand new ultra-speed yacht, berthed on the opposite side of Myrtle.

"Great!" 

I managed to get the Bug off the Myrtle without destroying any sheik's property and gently - but nervously - drove it towards the main road. I softly tipped the throttle and it flew away with me when I turned into traffic. I shrieked with bliss and spent the next hours driving back and forth on the coastal road, stopping from time to time to take pictures of myself and the Bug which I sent to Tina, Lilly and my parents by email. I even sent one to Ryan's phone but it did not say whether it had gone through or not. I got so bold, I connected the board system to my phone. I played "Voyage Voyage" and I felt like a goddess. 

But the concentration of controlling the vehicle and the pure excitement of driving such a fantastic car took its toll on me. After three hours and a half, I was exhausted and I took the Bug back to the marina and drove it up the ramp.

"Are you both without scratches?"

"So, so. I rammed the Emir of Qatar's Koenigsegg twice or thrice but nothing of importance has been destroyed, really."

Angelo threw his head back and laughed uproariously. — His employer's girlfriend's jokes were so much funnier than any other's, I can tell you. I was the nicest and funniest person in all of Christendom if Ryan's crew was to be asked. 

They could of course not know I was
not
his girlfriend.

I missed him terribly.

I went back to my deckchair to work on my thesis but I could not stop thinking about how he had kissed me the night before and how he had smelled and how badly, how dreadfully I wanted him. I went into a severe debate with myself, asking myself if it was really worth the hassle of refusing him, if I did not protect my dignity a trifle too persistently.

"This can't go on…" I sighed. I had to find some relief, somehow. I had not even dared to touch myself anymore for fear it would make me lose my resolve. But at the moment he was not around and I could not fall from grace.

I inconspicuously walked towards the suites (as if anybody I could have encountered would otherwise have stopped me and said: "Hey! Are you going to masturbate?")

I reached my cabin door but then I had a different idea. Housekeeping was done, there was no danger of detection… I scurried down the corridor to the master's suite and pushed the door nob. 

The door opened. I quickly flitted through and closed it behind me.

The bedroom was separated from the living-room area and it basically consisted of one giant bed. I went in. 

I had been right, the room had been serviced. They only changed the sheets every two days and they had done it the day before so I was in luck. 

With a loud moan I climbed into the bed and inhaled the scent. 

To my great pleasure I found one of Ryan's t-shirts in there. I took hold of it and buried my face in it. 

I imagined how he would kiss me and touch me and how he would undress me and how we would lie together in this bed, naked and entangled, how he would be on top of me, how he would enter me, the way his breathing would come harder, the way he moved inside of me, the way he would sound when he was about to come, the way he drew in the air when he did, what he would say to me, he'd say— 

"What the hell are you doing? Are you having it off with yourself? With my t-shirt?"

He stood in the door.

I was too appalled to say anything. I stared at him. 

He stared at me.

"So this is how you do it," he hissed. 

He took a step closer and stood directly above me. He was furious. "So you
do
want me, don't you?"

Well, I could not deny it in my position, could I? But I decided to pout a little. I could not speak anyway.

"Tell me, Poppy Jude, do you want me to fuck you?"

I looked at him and I saw no more use, I wanted it and I nodded.

"Say it. Say, "Yes, Ryan, I want you to fuck me."

"Yes, Ryan, I want you to fuck me."

He did not move, he simply continued to stare.

"You know what," he finally spat, "why don't you just fuck yourself? You're obviously good at it." 

He stormed out of the room and shut the door with a bang.

Five seconds later he was back.

"Come here."

Six

"Why are you back so early?" I asked, ten minutes later.

He let go of me and got out of bed to march into the bathroom.

"The guy called when I had almost reached Marseille. His daughter broke a finger and he needed to take her to hospital, so we turned around." He was still angry, I could hear it in his voice.

"I understand."

He came back out. "Can I say something, Jude? You really need to take the chip off your shoulder, thinking every man on this planet has nothing in mind but to sleep with you. You're not irresistible, for God's sake."

I turned onto my side, away from him. "How good of you to say so."

"No, Judy, wait, that sounded wrong," he rejoined me in bed and turned me back over. "You certainly are to me, but it's not the only thing to like about you, that's what I wanted to say. You're clever and funny and you're kind. Not to me, but in general. You
are
very tempting but it's not the only reason I—" he wavered. 

Oh my God, I thought, was this the Julia Roberts movie moment? My chest was instantly in a cramp! 

"— wanted you to come."

No, it was not.

"Ah," I said bitterly. "Don't worry, I come all the time with you, we certainly don't have a problem there."

"Don't twist my words, you know exactly what I mean." He sat with his back against the pillows and scowled. 

I scowled too. 

Then I realised, if anybody was to say anything remotely reminiscent of a Julia Roberts movie, it would have to be me. I would have to take the plunge. 

I sat up too. 

"Ryan," I croaked, "don't you understand? I just don't want to get hurt!"

His mouth twitched. "What makes you think I'd want to hurt you?"

"I don't think you'd want to do it, I only think it'll happen! You fly off in two weeks!"

He scowled some more until he had fully grasped what I had said. His eyes found mine and they grew and grew and grew.

"What makes you think I'm not afraid of the same thing?" he asked thickly. His hand was in my hair and he kissed me very tenderly. "Judy, I'm so terribly afraid of falling in love with you."

I kissed him back, but with more urgency. "Don't be."

His arms went around me and he bore me down onto the pillows. "I'll try."

Seven

I was torn from the most blissful, exhausted, post-I-don't-know-how-many-times-coital, post-love-declaration slumber by an ear-splitting, high-frequency alarm.

Fire, the ship was on fire! We were sinking, we were all going to die!

I vaulted out of bed. Every muscle in my body was injected with adrenaline.

Then I saw a red light by the bedside. It was the satellite phone!

Ryan woke up and picked up the receiver. "What the fuck? — Oh, Shiro. Right, sorry, I don't know where it is, I think the sound is off. Alright, I'll plug in."

"GAAAAH!" I stomped out of the bedroom and out of the suite, naked as I was, what did I care, and bounced through the corridor into my own cabin where I threw myself onto my bed and drew the cover over my head.

Ryan crawled in in the early hours of the morning and folded himself around me. "Sorry, Buttercup…" 

I woke to the voices of the crew who were mooring Myrtle to her berth in Porto Cervo. Ryan must have crawled out the way he had come, but I had not noticed his departure. 

I checked my phone for messages: Mum and Dad. Tina. Somebody wanting to book a city tour for the next day. Sorry, yachting in the Med! 

Time: 10.45

I looked out of the window. 

Porto Cervo was an artificial town, designed in the seventies, by jet-setters for jet-setters. The buildings were all of the same adobe colouring and I thought it looked more like an American mall than a mediterranean idyll, but the blue sky, the green hills and the turquoise water of Sardinia made up for it with a vengeance. 

The marina was still half empty because the Italian summer had only just begun but in August it would be crowded to the last pole.

I put on one of my five bikinis for a morning dive in the pool — I mean, honestly, who does plain ol' showers anymore? 

I found my lover and his laptop flopping about in the vicinity of the breakfast table and I threw a few droplets at him. The temperature had already gone up and he wore nothing but his navy blue trunks. My, he looked good.

He picked up a towel and held it out to me but when I stood right in front of him, he decided to do the job himself. He wrapped me into it and pulled me close. "
Hola, guapa…
" 

"
Hola, señor.
"

"Watch out, the computer."

"Put it away before you start feeling me up."

"Sit and eat, Grouchy."

I complied and nestled down in a chair. I put my legs up on Ryan's lap and he absentmindedly fumbled my feet while he read his emails.

When I was halfway through my bowl of café au lait he put the laptop away.

"We'll have guests tonight."

"We?"

"Well,
I
. But I'd be very happy if you could be there. Mark and Patricia. They're bringing their kids. Two, I believe."

"Finally, I get to meet some of your friends, I was getting worried, you know."

"Hm. He manages a hedge fund and he wants me to loan him some money, I think."

"Right. Am I supposed to play Lady of the Myrtle?"

"You're supposed to eat, drink and be merry."

"I will."

"Thank you."

I took hold of a croissant and poured myself some orange juice. "Aren't the hedge fund managers the ones who rob the grannies?"

"I think those are called burglars."

"Ha ha."

"After dinner we can go to my sister's party, that is, you're invited to come if you choose to."

"Where?"

"On the Sirius Black. She's at the end of the pier, over there." He pointed towards the waterfront. I turned my head.