Page 65 of The Second Chance in the Mediterranean
“What the fuck, Marce? I would never do that. Can we just back up a bit, please?” Bewildered, Seb ran his fingers through his hair and tugged.
I pushed him away from me. “Sure, yes, back up.” I stood up and started to hunt for Seb’s clothes. “Let’s back way up. Back before we slept together.” I threw his shorts at him.
“Marce, you were the one who invited me in last night. I would never come stay without your permission.”
“Well, I was dumb.” My voice was rising, frustration building in me. How could I have put myself in the same position? “I said I didn’t want us to do this while Justin and Natasha were here. It was too risky, and now they know!”
“It wasn’t dumb.” Seb tried to grab my hand and stop my frantic search. I pulled away from him, the back of my legs hitting the bed and I slumped inelegantly against it.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“You aren’t going to lose your job over this.” He tried to placate me.
“Would you have said that last time?”
This question stalled him. “What?”
“Last time. Last time we had sex, back onOdyssey. Did you think that I wasn’t going to lose my job over it?”
“Wait.” Seb’s face was screwed up with confusion and he took a step back from me. “I don’t understand.”
“What part don’t you understand?”
“You...you quitOdyssey.”
“I did not.”
“Marce,Captain Carl told me you quit.”
“I didn’t quit. I was fired because I was ‘a distraction.’ But he said...he said other things too, about how the boat was coming out of the water and I was overqualified if there weren’t going to be charter guests. So, yeah, I was fired.”
“Well, I wasn’t fired. And honestly, I’ve never heard of anyone getting fired for sleeping with a fellow crew member for just one night.” He crouched down in front of me. “Honestly, Marce, he was just an ass.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and Seb slid down farther onto the floor to his knees, his hands coming to rest on either side of me on the mattress. I wanted to feel relief, to know that it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t deserve that treatment. But I couldn’t let go of the fear.
“Look.” He sighed. “We’ve been doing great, and even though it’s only been a few weeks, we should just see how this runs. We can’t take back what Justin knows, and neither he nor Dom are the type to rag things out. If we’re fired, we’re fired. But I really doubt it. This isn’t Carl, this isn’tOdyssey. We’re not even the same people we were back then.”
My fingers toyed with the hem of my shirt. “You might be right, but this is my dream job.” I looked over at Seb, and he was watching me. “It’s not worth risking.”
His eyes widened, and I steeled myself to keep going. “I really don’t want to lose this job, so I think we should call it quits before our relationship gets in the way. It may already be too late....” I trailed off and looked down at my lap.
“Marce, that’s not...I know you are kind of new to being a yachtie, but this can work, we can make it work.”
I gritted my teeth. “You can’t know that. We don’t even have a public relationship, so it’s, like...not real.”
My words were sharp, and he flinched.
“You’ve heard Dom talk about relationships between yachties. This isn’t going to work.” I set my chin, more stubborn now and ready to stand my ground. “I am here for this job.”
Seb stood up and paced away from me, the three steps it took to get to the other side of the room. He ran a hand through his hair and turned back. “Yachtie relationships work—we can get a couples job.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “How many couples have you worked with?”
“I don’t know. A few. What about that American couple? Bryce and what’s-her-name? We could get a job together like them.”
“I don’t want to leaveThemis.”
“Neither do I.”
