“Mmmhmm,” Ana said, looking at me like she was unconvinced. “Any way, what do you think?” she asked.
“About what?”
She rolled he
r eyes and pointed to the mirror. “About how you look, dummy,” she said.
I looked at myself in the mirror and almost did a double take. I hardly recognized myself. Ana had curled my hair and piled it up on my head in little ringlets. My cheeks were tastefully rouged, and my blue eyes popped with the hint of shadow she’d expertly applied. Lastly, the swipe of cherry-red lipstick across my full lips made me look like a damn bombshell. I couldn’t deny it, I looked good.
“Damn Ana,” I said.
“I know, right?” she giggled. “Seriously, you’re going to raise so much money.”
I couldn’t help but think back to my little bet with Rhett. Whoever raised the most amount of money got to do whatever they wanted with the other for one night. I had to stop myself from imagining too much or I was going to get all hot and bothered all over again.
“Now, here is the dress I grabbed for you to wear,” Ana said, holding up a deep royal blue shift dress from my closet.
I was actually surprised that it was one of my more conservative dresses. When she’d told me that she’d volunteered me for the auction, I’d thoroughly expected Ana to grab the sluttiest dress I owned for the event. I was grateful that she hadn’t.
Once I was dressed, I looked myself over in the full-length mirror and couldn’t help but smile.
Oh yeah, I thought. This bet is as good as won.
CHAPTER 14
RHETT
I slept like shit. I tossed and turned all fucking night after the girls left the pool hall. My past was haunting me, conjuring up memories of Chanel and me back in high school. I could feel her touch against my skin and my lips on her neck. I could see her bright smile as she looked up at me, her eyes filled with joy. She used to look at me like I was her world, like I was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Her aquamarine eyes used to reflect the smile on my face whenever I was around her. She would shine brighter than the sun, and her smile would light up any room she walked into. She was shy, innocent by nature but a determined force to be reckoned with. She would give all of herself if it meant someone else could benefit from it, and it was that selfless nature that my teenage self had fallen in love with.
But my mind also kept conjuring that one fucking moment at prom when that girl had slid into the car instead of Chanel. I could see her face as clear as day. Her beady brown eyes and the braces on her teeth. Her pale skin and her dress that was two sizes too tight. Her makeup was bold, and her cheeks were round. I didn’t know her, and I didn’t find her attractive. But, apparently, I’d been drunk enough to fuck her.
I could remember Chanel’s face as she opened the car door and found us. The aching look in her eye as she saw another woman on top of me. Repeatedly, my mind replayed that moment. I tried looking at my surroundings to see if I could see anyone. I tried committing that girl’s face to memory to see if I could remember her at all from our graduating class. But she was foreign to me. I had no idea who the hell she had been.
All I did recognize was the pain and anguish alive behind Chanel’s eyes as she opened the door.
I wanted to talk to Chanel about what happened that night. I knew it was painful, conjuring those memories. I knew she would try to brush me off and backtrack, but I wanted a chance to redeem myself in her eyes. Even though we talked that first night on the ship, and even though I thought I had convinced her that I was sorrier than she could possibly know, she still didn’t quite trust me. Even now, I could see it in her eyes. When she wasn’t lusting after my body, she was staring at me with this dubious look like she didn’t know whether she should get too close.
It killed a part of me inside, and I wanted a chance to change that.
But I wasn’t sure if she was ready for something like that. For all I knew, I was a fling to her. We were still keeping things a secret even though the tension between us was growing. She had given me no indication she wanted to stop things, but as far as I knew, not even Ana knew what was going on. That told me everything I needed to know. If she wasn’t willing to tell her best friend about us, then whatever this was between us probably wasn’t going to go much of anywhere. Once we left the boat, she’d be done with me.
The more I sat there on my bed and stared out along the water passing us by, the more I wondered if that was what I wanted. I knew my former self wanted to reconcile and have things be okay, but was that what I wanted now, as a grown man with a heavy past and a future that was still undecided? I had the whole rest of my life ahead of me. What good did it do to dwell on the past? I could very well fuck Chanel, get her out of my system, and leave this cruise without ever feeling the need to reconcile a thing. I could save us both the heartache of dredging every ugly detail up and just keep my mouth shut. She was my past, and maybe that’s where she should stay, for both our sakes.
I felt trapped, and I knew how I was when I felt trapped. I tried to daydream my way out of it. I had never been captured as a SEAL, but I had rescued many people who had been held prisoner. The one thing they always told me was that their dreams got them through. They would imagine their loved ones, those they cherished and wanted to see again, and the hope they got from knowing they might see them again kept them alive.
I knew Chanel’s memory had kept me alive many times on the battlefield.
But if I ever felt cornered, I always tried to rationalize my way out of it. I always thought too much about things, and I drove myself crazy with it. So, I attributed my swirling mind to the fact that I was trapped on this boat at sea with a woman my body remembered and craved. That was all this was, a desperate need to get out of a cycle I’d created because I thought with my dick instead of my head. Once I got off this boat and went on with my life, none of this would matter anymore.
That was what I needed to do. I needed to keep my head on straight until I could get off this damn boat.
Tommy was still sleeping, and it was just past breakfast. I knew that I had that damn charity auction at lunch time and the only thing that kept me from outright refusing was the bet that Chanel and I had made. My dick twitched just thinking about it. If I won, I could do anything I wanted to her.
I groaned to myself though because I knew we needed to talk beforehand. The deeper I got with her on this trip, the more my heart wanted something once we were back on dry land. My head was spinning in a hundred different directions and I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin.
Knowing exactly what I needed, I threw on some workout clothes and headed out into the hall. I stopped by the breakfast area and grabbed a couple of bananas before heading out to find the gym. I needed to run. Running always helped to clear my head.
It was a decent gym. Nothing special for me. I was more of a free weights and squatting rack kind of guy, but they did have some open treadmills with a beautiful view. I hopped on one and ran six miles, working up a good sweat to justify the lazy pattern I had fallen into on the ship. I circled around to some of the weight machines I knew could challenge my muscles and pumped out some reps. It was nice to feel that burn again. It was a trustworthy sensation, something that happened every time I worked out. I could rely on that sensation. It helped to clear my mind and settle my soul as I worked through the tension I was holding in my body.