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Someone hands us champagne and we do a toast.
“To the love of my life,” I say before giving her another quick peck. We toast and drink our champagne.
Maybe it’s the bubbles of champagne going to my head, but I feel incredibly giddy. I want to dance around and giggle even as we talk to everyone.
The excitement in the air is palpable. I wish I could bottle it up and save it for later. I hope my real engagements ends up being this good. My hypothetical future engagement is still probably a long way away, but this was a hell of a dress rehearsal.
There’s no one else I would rather do this with. I have so much fun with Jess. She’s good at helping me pull this off, and, honestly, I just like her.
We’ve become fast friends over the past few days. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed someone else’s company this much. I’ll be sad when this is over.
I look around the room. As I suspected, Robin’s friends are out on land tonight. They have no reason to report back to my brother about what happened. I smile to myself.
This plan really was perfect. I really shouldn’t pat myself on the back so much, but I’m really pleased. I just hope the others take it as happiness with the engagement and not a scheme.
But, of course, there are always bumps in the road. I see Gail and Sarah in the corner of my eye. They’re sneering at us. Now that I look around the room again, not everyone looks as thrilled with this as I originally noticed.
Still, I won’t let them rain on my parade. Quite the opposite. Their annoyance only makes me enjoy these compliments from everyone else even more.
I hang onto Jess’s arm and smile as guests line up to tell us how cute we are. Alex walks over to us from the piano. In the hustle and bustle, I had nearly forgotten about him.
He tugs lightly at Jess’s clothes. Poor kid. He’s already bored of this.
Suddenly, Sandy Potts, Chief Purser on the ship, sweeps Alex up in his arms. Alex laughs at the sudden motion.
“Well, Captain, why don’t I show you around deck to meet your crew?” He asks?
Alex smiles and kicks his feet. He looks at Jess. “Can I please?” He asks.
Sandy leans in towards us. “I can watch Captain Alex here. You two should take some time alone together. Trust me, when you look back at this, you’ll be happy you did.”
A blush creeps over Jess’s cheeks. I smile. “That sounds great, Sandy.”
The timing couldn’t be more perfect. I was worried that the gold diggers were going to come over and try to cause a scene. Better to avoid conflict while we’re ahead.
I take Ashley’s hands and drag her away back to the suite. I make sure to throw a wink and a giggle at her while I do. Better to replace those fake engagement rumors with sex rumors.
We keep up appearances all the way back to the suite. When we get in, our smiles fade a bit, but they don’t disappear completely.
I suddenly feel very awkward.
“So,” I say. I have no plan for the rest of the sentence. The word hangs heavy in the air.
“So,” she says in response. We sit down on the bed but keep a respectful distance from one another.
I don
’t know about her, but now I’m thinking about what everyone else thinks we’re doing.
“You know they think we’re…” She begins. I laugh.
“Yeah. I know.”
I feel the familiar tingle between my legs. I cross my legs and squeeze my thighs together.
It feels so hard to look her in the eye. Even though we’ve just started our awkward conversation, I feel the tension between us. I want her so bad.
I curse her no sex rule. When I first saw her, I should have anticipated how difficult that would be to keep up. Still, I don’t want to betray her trust and make a move.
