Page 3 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
Bunny cleaned the galley, wondering how that oversized jerk on deck could imagine it was possible for her to provide more elaborate meals or choices in the minuscule space. When they took out a party of tourists, there was one basic lunch and that was that. She was no cordon bleu cook anyway.Gloop?And just assuming that Bunny was a nickname? Even though loads of people before Sebastian had assumed the same, she had got more than the drift of his meaning.
Itwasa horribly silly name and she had always been aware of it, even though her wretched family still rejoiced in it to the extent that it hadn’t seemed worth the hassle of renaming herself for university as she had once intended. How would she ever have brought friends home who knew her by another name? And, of course, she had brought friends home, even though she hadn’t wanted to, even though she would have loved to keep her new student life separate from her family. Finally, something for her and a little privacy, she had fondly believed.
But parents and big brothers who loved you interfered, needed to know, needed to be assured you were safe and she had gradually appreciated that that was the trade-off for all that love. And her family was always going to be like that, up there to their armpits inherbusiness. At uni, however, she had met enough other people from less stable and caring families and had slowly learned the lesson that she had been lucky, luckier than she had ever realised with her nearest and dearest. Those from dysfunctional backgrounds could take out their pain on you if you weren’t careful to avoid them, she conceded, her flushed face shadowing with bad memories she rarely took out. And she betted there was a bucketful of bad stuff behind Richie Rich with his Viking good looks and cold arrogance. He and she were complete opposites. Bunny liked everybody until they gave her reason to doubt them. Sebastian, it seemed, disliked them on sight.
Only not, clearly, Reggie, she acknowledged later that day, topping up the cool box with beers while the two men laughed and yarned over lazily dangling fishing rods. She was disconcerted, not having expected their passenger to be quite so relaxed with her boss. After all, there was nothing the least refined about Reggie, a hardworking seaman on the brink of retirement and at least twice Sebastian’s age. Had she misjudged him? Was it a clash of personalities? Had she said some triggering word that had set him off to be unpleasant? And why was itstillbothering her? He was some foreign rich guy, whom she would never see again after his week onboard ended.
Sebastian’s gaze lingered on Bunny’s struggle to cart up and organise a large barbecue. Every fibre of his being urged him to get up and help and his lean brown hands tightened into fists as he resisted the urge to behave like the gentleman he had been raised to be, but which hewasn’tin any shape or form. Any attention at all fed women of her ilk and encouraged them. True, she hadn’t looked even sidewise at him since he had warned her off and he couldn’t understand why that heartening reality was now setting his teeth on edge. It was as if there were a blank space where he was. She didn’t look, she didn’t speak, she didn’t even hang around when her boss tried to engage her.
‘She’d shout at you if you tried to help,’ Reggie told him without warning.
‘Sorry?’ For an instant, Sebastian was bewildered by that advice.
‘Saw you look at Bunny struggling with the barbecue and feel bad, just warning you she’d bite your nose off if she thought you were treating her as less than a man in the same job. She’s very tough and independent, not surprising with five brothers and an adoring family always round her,’ Reggie mused absently, stretching back into his comfy old seat on deck and reaching for his beer again. ‘Her mother is still sending hercarepackages every week even though she’s on the other side of the world. I’m scared to tell her that every week her father or one of her brothers calls me checking that she’s all right. They’re smothering her alive and she’s a good kid, hardworking, friendly, everything you could want on a boat like this…it’s a shame.’
Sebastian did not respond because he was a sympathy-free zone, having no experience whatsoever of family fussing over him, not a one of them, even Loukia, whom he had loved. Too late had his grandmother realised what his childhood had been like and he could only assume that guilt had influenced her groundbreaking decision not to challenge the trust set up by his grandfather, guilt that she hadn’t taken Sebastian in personally rather than palming him off on other family members. No doubt that was why he was now even richer than he had ever desired to be.
In his opinion, however, Reggie’s little spiel only warned him that Bunny was spoilt and likely a brat if there was the remotest chance of her being rude to a customer or her boss. But even while he was thinking that he was closely watching every move she made as she squatted down to try again to level the legs of the barbecue, bent over it, peachy bottom flexing, plump breasts bouncing under her tee shirt. Not an ounce of fat on her except where a man wanted it, he noted, his zip tightening yet again across his groin.
His reaction infuriated him. There was just something strange about her that attracted him and, of course, he wasn’t about to do anything about it, even as he saw the way the sunlight burnished her streaky blonde hair, the delicacy of her profile, the almost fairy-tale points of her ears. And what about what he was nowconvincedwas the far from innocent stretching and bending and flexing of that erotic body in his presence? A simple display of the goods, he reckoned impatiently.
‘How do your male customers take to her?’ Sebastian enquired silkily.
Reggie dealt him a startled glance. ‘Well, theydon’t, if you know what I mean. She doesn’t encourage that kind of thing. She’s a black belt in judo, as one of my over-friendly customers discovered last month. He was flat on his back and stuttering apologies by the time I came on them. Stupid drunk…!’ the older man completed, using some Indonesian word that evidently hit the spot for him but which Sebastian, who spoke several languages, didn’t recognise.
‘I reckon she’s too challenging for most young blokes…and then you’ve got her family to get past into the bargain,’ Reggie remarked, vaulting upright with lean vigour and crossing the deck to take charge of levelling the barbecue while Bunny stood by with folded arms and a stubborn, irritated look on her face.
Toochallenging? Sebastian concealed a smile, thinking that all he would have to do was snap his fingers and she’d drop into his hands like a ripe peach. Only he wasn’t thinking of doing that, was he? No way was he ruining his week off with any of that nonsense! Sex was always available to him wherever he was in the world. In any case, he had made her hate him now and it would require effort to lure her back and he never, ever made an effort with women because that only encouraged their delusions of being important to him. No, Sebastian had tried-and-trusted methods of handling women and he wasn’t planning to go off-piste any time soon.
Why the hell was that jerk always watching her? Bunny frowned down at the sizzling fish on the grill and swallowed hard. She was hot and she was tired because she had worked a long day. She shovelled her own meal on a plate and set it aside before carrying the men’s plates over to the table already furnished with a bowl of salad, quinoa laced with Indonesian spices and the fresh bread she baked every day.
‘You’re not joining usagain?’ Reggie queried in surprise as she walked away with her own plate.
‘No. Got a book waiting on me and maybe a swim afterwards,’ she muttered, shooting a reluctant glance back even as Sebastian, utter hypocrite that he was, pulled out the third chair at the table as if keen to welcome her.
She went down to the galley, which was even hotter and more airless, and ate with more haste than enjoyment. Then she remembered that she hadn’t changed the jerk’s bed or his towels and she sped back on deck to cover that necessity.
His cabin was a tip of discarded clothes. Did he have servants who usually picked up after him? She tidied up as best she could, gathering up an impossibly soft fancy sweater in beige and noticing that the label was Dior, momentarily drawing it to her cheek just to feel that incredible softness against her skin. It was probably cashmere and cost more than she had ever earned in a single year. The ridiculously evocative scent of his skin, citrusy, earthy,sexy, engulfed her. He smelled incredibly good.
Guiltily, she folded the garment up and put it back where she had found it, not wishing to be accused of snooping. She replaced the towels and cleaned the little bathroom quickly and efficiently, eager to escape even while she wondered why she had sniffed his jumper like some addict. She was embarrassed by that prompting and still questioning it when she emerged from the cabin again and ran slap bang into its occupant.
‘Bunny…what were you—?’
‘Cleaning and changing the linen. My job,’ Bunny told him with a fixed smile.
Actually, he hadn’t been challenging what she had been doing in his cabin. ‘I don’t need frills on this trip,’ he told her, faint colour darkening his high cheekbones as he met green eyes cold as charity and conceded that he might have gone a little overboard in his determination to keep her at a distance.
‘Changing beds and cleaning is the norm on this boat, sir. Usually there are six to eight passengers to look after, so one is nothing.’
‘But you’re already doing all the cooking…and other stuff,’ Sebastian reasoned, wondering why he was even talking to her, wondering why he sounded as though he was trying to apologise when he was a man who would require torture before admitting to being in the wrong. He had done too much apologising as a kid and an adolescent, striving to meet the expectations of others. Back then he had been too naïve to see that the combination of his great wealth and his sky-high IQ simply rubbed people up the wrong way. With his horrendous background and experiences, those same people had happily expected him to be a loser, a whiner and a waste of space and had thoroughly disliked him for becoming a winner instead.
‘That is my job…sir,’ Bunny added curtly.
Sebastian folded his arms. ‘I think we got off on the wrong foot. When I asked you not to speak to me, I didn’t mean that I wanted you to isolate yourself on a boat this size!’
‘No problem, sir,’ Bunny said woodenly, hating him with such a passion that it was a marvel he didn’t spontaneously combust in front of her. He didn’t know what he wanted from her, service or normal, friendly assistance, but he had been super quick and keen to banish any prospect of normality.
‘You’re being oversensitive,’ Sebastian informed her, stormy dark eyes flashing gold. ‘I’m trying to say that you don’t need to keep your distance from me. That day, I was in a mood.’
