Page 2 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
The next day, Bunny was down on her knees scrubbing the deck when their passenger arrived, the fast slap of his booted feet on the steps sending her head rearing up, fine blonde hair flying back from her face because she was hot and damp with perspiration in the humid afternoon heat.
Simply stunned by the vision of the man in front of her, she leant back and stared at the guy who had boarded. He was so off-the-scales magnificent that he might have stepped out of a Viking fantasy onscreen. Incredibly tall and broad, not to mention jaw-droppingly gorgeous. One look and her mouth ran dry and her brain seized up.
‘Could you just give me two minutes until I finish the deck?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘No,’ Sebastian responded succinctly as if he were still in his busy office. ‘You’re in a service industry and you should be aware that clients expect immediate attention.’
Even as her slender spine stiffened, Bunny smiled brightly at him. So, he was one ofthose, was he? Oh, joy, she thought, pained to the bone by that warning. ‘Thank you for the reminder, sir. Please come this way…’
‘Where’s the skipper?’ Sebastian scrutinised her, unimpressed. He had recognised the shellshocked, dazed look of feminine appreciation in her gaze for what it was and it had annoyed him. Not only had he not expected there to be a woman onboard, but he also didn’t want her looking at him likethat, flirting or hovering or aiming to impress. He got enough of that nonsense every day of the week and he wasn’t about to put up with it on a tiny boat where there were few places to escape unwelcome attention. The sooner any such notion of hers was nipped in the bud, the better.
On the other hand, she was surprisingly attractive in a girl-next-door way even if she wasn’t his type. Did he even have a type, though? She was naturally blonde, naturally everything he suspected. Cute little face, enormous green eyes the colour of fresh spring leaves, freckles on her small nose above a generous pink mouth. Ridiculously pretty but rather small and thin with modest curves. And cheeky, even if she was striving to hide the fact. Didn’t she know yet that her eyes blazed green fire when she was angry?
‘Skipper Reggie takes a nap mid-afternoon. I’m afraid I’m on service duty. I’ll show you to your cabin.’
Awkwardly wiping her hands on the back of her denim shorts, Bunny offered to take his bag. He frowned, spectacular dark eyes hardening. ‘Your hands are dirty.’
‘Are you willing to wait while I wash them?’
‘No, just lead the way. I’ll retain my luggage,’ Sebastian retorted curtly.
Charming, she thought grimly as she showed him to his cabin. It was the largest on board and benefited from private facilities but it was still pretty small and he was so very tall; he’d be lucky if he could stand upright any place but in the open air. Richie Rich, she labelled him, just dripping with condescension and gilded expectations that were unlikely to be met on a forty-odd-foot catamaran with a crew of two.
‘We usually have dinner at seven. I’ll bring it to you. Would you like a drink now or anything else?’
‘Water, please,’ he said flatly. ‘And…don’t speak to me unless you have to.’
Bunny nodded in tight-mouthed silence, spun on her heel and left him to it while she went to fetch the cold water. She was a minion, she realised wryly, and minions were not supposed to have a voice that was heard. Returning with the bottle of chilled water, she knocked on the door. He answered with a towel wrapped round his impressively lean waist and she stepped back immediately from that intimacy. Confronted by a masculine torso that was undeniably centrefold material, she was uncomfortable and she extended the bottle in silence, not bothering to speak since he had already told her that speech from her corner was undesirable.
She went back down to the galley to make a start on dinner. She heard male voices, registering that Reggie had emerged from his nap and was getting acquainted with his passenger. Steps moved overhead as the catamaran moved sleekly through the water. Reggie came down and took a couple of beers out of the fridge.
‘Sebastian’s okay,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘Very down to earth, no front to him. We’re getting on like a house on fire. Oh, remind me to post the change to our route. You’ll enjoy it. We’re heading somewhere rather remote and I haven’t been there in a few years. There’s a great fishing spot waiting for us. We’ll definitely have the barbecue up on deck that night.’
Bunny kept on smiling. No front to him?Sebastian?She gritted her teeth and when it was time she took the men’s meals up on deck and left them there to eat, discreetly ignoring Reggie’s suggestion that she join them. As she ate alone, she listened to the distant chatter and the laughter and thought that possibly Sebastian just didn’t like female crew members. Or maybe it was justher,herface,herpersonality, whatever, she thought, irritated that she was even thinking about such a thing. Life was too short for her to be that sensitive. What did it matter what a guy she would never see again thought of her? Everybody got on with Reggie though. Maybe she personally needed to work a little harder on that score, she thought next.
As usual she was up at dawn the next morning, taking care of all the little jobs that were hers before making breakfast. By seven she was knocking on Sebastian’s door with a tray.
‘Come in!’ he called.
One arm balancing the tray, with difficulty she got the door open and saw him sitting up bare-chested in the bed. Moving closer, her face hot at that amount of exposure to male nudity, she extended the tray to him. He grasped it one-handed, being better balanced and stronger than she was and then frowned down at the plate. ‘What is this gloop?’ he demanded.
‘It’s a Spanish omelette,’ she told him curtly on the way back out. ‘Reggie’s favourite. It’s always eggs for breakfast. If you prefer them prepared another way, let me know.’
‘Scrambled, plain,’ he specified.
In silence, Bunny nodded, her heart-shaped face flushed with annoyance, Sebastian noticed with growing amusement.
‘How did you get a nickname like Bunny?’ he asked out of sheer badness.
‘My family thought it was cute when I was a baby. It’s on my birth certificate,’ Bunny admitted with a stiff and decidedly grudging smile before she withdrew.
Sebastian grinned. She hated him and she couldn’t hide it… Mission accomplished: she would be staying out of his way all week. This was not the right moment to acknowledge that she had fabulous legs and a mouth made for, well, what a man usually hoped a woman’s mouth was made for. There was just something surprisingly sexy about her modest curves and prim, quiet movements. That had to be why he had a hard-on. Determined not to think about that weird glitch in his libido, he tucked into his first Spanish omelette and was surprised by how good it was. Possibly he owed her an apology.
Would he admit that? Probably not. A woman who couldn’t even give him a first glance without revealing her every reaction to him was not the kind of woman he bedded. Too young, too naïve, too…soft. And he didn’teverdo soft. As he had once learned to his cost, he reflected grimly, decent and honest intentions didn’t always win the best results. He had got burned, badly enough burned by Ariana to ensure that he never went near that type of woman again. If he was the kind of guy who believed in love, he might have felt differently, but Sebastian had never believed in love outside familial love. A parent could love a child, and a child could love a parent. While that might not have been his experience, he had seen enough of the world to accept that he had got the birth parents from hell.
Love between a man and a woman? Justno. He almost shuddered in disgust at the thought of being caught up in such a lie, such a cruel fabrication, coined to cover greed, lust, infidelity and ambition, all of which he had witnessed within his ownun-family circles. He wasn’t likely to ever be the kind of idiot who fell for that love fantasy with a woman. He was stronger than that, he knew better. He would be alone on his deathbed. Alone, he functioned better. Alone, he was happiest, hence his current solo voyage. When a woman asked him if he was a commitment-phobe, he just laughed because he was something worse than that. He had neverneededanyone else in his life, not even as a child, and he could not imagine ever wanting a woman beside him for anything other than occasional sex.
Having eaten and set the world to rights inside his head, Sebastian sprang out of bed and went for a shower. True, the boat was tiny, there was a woman on it and he kept on bashing his head on ceilings and in doorways not intended for anyone of his height, but Reggie had promised to share his favourite fishing spot with him today and Sebastian was looking forward to kicking back with a beer, a rod and good company. Something that reminded him of a long-lost past, something so far removed from his usual daily schedule that it beckoned like an idyllic dream…
