“Well, maybe I am foolish,” she agreed as she backed away from the dining chair Alexei had pulled out for her. “But I don’t want your money, and I’m sure you can find a better use for it.”
Thrusting it into her hand, he brought his face close. “What makes you think you’re better than everyone else, Amber?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she fired back. “That’s not how I think.”
“Then take the money,” he repeated.
“You take the money—” And shove it, she wanted to say, but she had a better idea. “Take that money and make sure it gets to the women you saved. Let them have a decent Christmas.”
“That’s all taken care of, as I’ve already told you.”
“Okay.” Taking the money from him, she laid it at the side of her place setting. “I haven’t earned this and I don’t want it, but there must be something those women need, or something for them in the future going forward.”
“Where are you going?” Alexei called after her. “Amber, come back here!”
She had started to run. When was she going to get it through her thick skull, that she would never mean more to Alexei than good sex? And she didn’t run back to her luxurious apartment on the upper deck of his superyacht but to her staff cabin in the bowels of the ship.
~o0o~
Would he ever understand women? He could guarantee a man would take the money, thank him, and that would be the end of it. But a woman? Oh no. A woman had to analyze and emote and suspect, and do all those things while looking as if he’d just insulted her. He had only wanted to pay Amber the money he owed her—a fair wage in his world—for putting up with him, if nothing else. He guessed the salary for a cub reporter at Hard News would be derisory, if they paid her at all. Maybe that had something to do with her outrage. But was it enough to make her run from him?
Amber had never run from anything in her life, as far as he could tell, so what was she running from now?
Descending to the lower deck, he noticed the lack of natural lighting and lousy air-con. There was no excuse. Cruise ships had virtual vistas on the inside cabins and air-con that worked. When was the last time he’d been down here?
He hammered on the door of her cabin. “Amber, let me in.”
“Go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her.
“Then, you can settle in for the night.”
He rested his brow against the door. “You don’t mean that.”
“Try me.”
He could kick the door in—
And piss her off even more?
He slid down the door and sat with his back resting against the smooth, cool wood, in a narrow corridor he must have been in once, if only when he inspected the ship when he first bought it. Now it could do with a refit. “Amber! I need you to open that door.” She’d be the one to organize a refit. Fuck it, she was probably the only one who could organize his life. “Amber!”
“Go away,” she repeated angrily.
“Let me in, or I’ll take the door from its hinges.”
“You’d use violence?” she exclaimed.
“I was thinking a screwdriver?”
There was a long silence, and then she opened the door. He felt wretched to see she’d been crying. Her hair was a mess, and her dress was rumpled. She looked adorable. “Can I come in?”
“Better if I come out,” she snapped tensely. “There isn’t room in here for two of us.”
“So I see,” he agreed, peering inside. “Looks as if we’ve got a major refit due down here. Maybe you could handle that for me?”
“Me?” She looked at him suspiciously. “If that’s your way of saying sorry—”