Man Overboard

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Brady

Day 2

Lyle Gartner was an asshat.

Arrogant. Self-centered. Insensitive. Grandiose. Manipulative. Unsympathetic. Opinionated. Hypocritical.

I’d known him forever; we practically grew up together. I’d been able to overlook his character flaws because 1) it wasn’t his fault (he was raised to be a jerk) and 2) it never directly impacted me.

He crossed the line when he betrayed Gillian.

She was devastated when I told her he was abandoning her at the altar, er, Lito Deck. Even after I let her read his text for herself, she remained shell-shocked. In a daze, she’d dragged herself up the stairs to the master suite and locked herself in. I checked on her a few times but decided not to knock when I heard her crying.

It was noon, which meant she’d been locked up in the bridal suite for almost twenty-four hours. Time to force the issue. She needed to eat, and in my opinion, fresh air was the perfect antidote for everything.

Plus, I had a nightmare that she jumped over the railing and drowned her broken heart in the Atlantic Ocean. Kind of like that scene in Titantic where Rose is about to leap and Jack talks her down.

Then they fall in love.

Yes, it was a short-lived affair because he died when the ship sunk, so I’ll stop drawing comparisons, but the important similarity between me and Jack is that we both fell for women betrothed to other men.

Men who were asshats and didn’t deserve them

“Gillian.” I knocked lightly on the door, but there was only silence. I waited a minute and rapped louder. “Gilliam. It’s Brady. I’m worried about you.”

Still, no answer. The heavy sense of doom I woke up with returned like a weight on my chest making it hard to breathe. I tried the door, expecting it to be locked, but the handle turned easily. I poked my head into the room, the quiet even more ominous. The sheets and comforter were a rumpled mess, pillows scattered on the floor around the humongous bed.

“Gillian?” A quick check revealed an empty suite. There were damp towels on the marble tile in the bathroom and her suitcase had been riffled, leading me to assume she’d showered and ventured out.

The Infinity Voyager was a giant luxury liner, but she had to be somewhere on the ship. I hoped it wouldn’t take hours to find her, but I didn’t have a clue where to start looking. There was a guidebook to the different amenities on the bar in the suite’s living room, so I grabbed it, shoved my sunglasses in place, locked up, and began a systematic search.

I found Gillian two hours later in the Opulent Oasis Martini Bar. She sat on a stool at the end of the glowing onyx bar top, a row of empty fountain glasses in front of her. I counted four, not including the half-full drink in front of her.

“There you are!” I slid onto the empty seat next to her. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Found me in the last place you looked, right?” Her cackle turned into a huge belch.

“I’ve been worried about you.” I made eye contact with the bartender and raised my brows, eyes moving between him and the empty glasses.

“Frozen Mudslides,” he replied discreetly.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Dunno.” She slurped loudly on the straw, drawing disapproving looks from the other bar patrons.

“Long enough, I think.” I pushed the glass away, gesturing for the bartender to remove all of them. “Have you eaten anything?”

“Yep.” She grinned and swayed in her seat. “Oreo cookies and marsh-chino cherries.”

“Drink garnishes do not count as solid food.”

“Isn’t there a buffet?” Bleary-eyed, she scanned the martini bar’s opulent décor. “I have a craving for a double-bacon cheeseburger and sweet potato fries.” She belched again. “But no more chocolate shakes.”

“I’m taking you back to our room.” I curved an arm around her waist and steadied her as she found her footing. “We’ll order room service.”

“I don wan room serves.” She made a clumsy attempt to push me away, lost her balance, and fell into my arms. “Oopsie!”

She giggled, not bothering to stand upright. I swept her up in my arms, ignoring the whispered censure working its way through the room.

“Let’s go, Gilly.” Pablo hurried ahead of me to open the plate-glass door, and I strode down the hallway, plush carpeting muffling my footsteps.

She wound her arms around my neck, buried her nose in my hair, and inhaled. “Mmm, you smell good. Hmm, I thought you’d smell like dirt.”

Dirt?

God, how drunk was she? I thought frozen cocktails were mostly ice cream.

She continued nuzzling my neck, startling me when she nipped my earlobe. Her sexy groans attracted amused looks from an older couple we passed, and I heard the woman mutter something about newlyweds. Her partner chuckled and did something that made her gasp in surprise.

“Gillian, stop.” As much as I wanted this woman writhing in my arms, I didn’t want it like this. She was toasted, rebounding, and in no condition to make decisions. She’d have enough regrets when the hangover hit and she remembered Lyle’s betrayal.

“’S my honeymoon,” she mumbled. “S’pposed to be my fan’asy weddin’.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“I’m nobody’s swee’heart.” She clung to my shoulders, her mood shifting from drunken glee to heartbroken sorrow. She began crying, little hiccupping sobs that became full-blown howls. “Bas’ard! Motherhumper bas’ard! S’pposed to marry me ’nd he’s in Vegas with my skinny bes’ frien’.”

Oh boy, this was getting messy fast. I stepped up my pace, grateful the elevator was empty, and scanned the security card to open the door to the penthouse suite.

“I don’ feel good.” She stiffened in my arms. “Gonna be sick.”

I took the stairs two at a time, sliding into the spacious walk-in shower and jacking on the water seconds before Gillian spewed ice cream, chocolate syrup, and three kinds of liquor down the front of both of us.