Page 44 of The Billionaire's Teacher

“I’m going below. I’m going to nap for twenty, maybe thirty minutes. But if something goes wrong, come get me. I’m serious.” I pinned him with a stern look. “I can sleep later if I need to.”

He nodded.

“If I’m not back up here in half an hour, come get me.” I waited for him to nod again. “All right.”

I hurried down the stairs.

In my cabin, I stretched out on the bed and closed my eyes. Exhaustion pulsed through every muscle of my body, but my brain wouldn’t quiet. I tried to turn the thoughts to prayers, but they came back to a series of steps and “what ifs.” I tried counting backwards from a hundred.

Nothing.

With a groan, I sat up and dug out the charts and my laptop. I carried them back up to the main deck.

“That wasn’t even ten minutes.” Wes tore his eyes away from the controls for a moment to frown at me.

“I know. Too much adrenaline, I guess. But you keep doing that. I’m going to work on a new course.” At least I hoped that was what I could do. A new course would mean there was an island nearby that we could shelter on. It’d be small. Probably private. But hopefully the owner would understand. Given the time of year, many of the privately owned islands would be deserted.

I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse.

Probably a mix of both.

“Tell me our current coordinates?” I glanced up at Wes.

He rattled off the numbers.

“Okay. We’re going to make for this island.” I tapped the tiny dot. “It’s private. I don’t know who owns it. Hopefully, they’re hospitable. Or not home.”

Wes nodded.

Good. At least he didn’t push for some other course of action. I could make an argument for staying the course and just running for Grenada. But there was no guarantee. And what I really didn’t want to do was end up in the lifeboat hoping for rescue. At least on an island there ought to be shelter and some sort of food.

I switched places with Wes and reprogrammed our course, turning the boat until we were underway. “It’s still going to be a couple of hours.”

A lot could go wrong in those hours. I bit my tongue to keep the words from coming out. He didn’t need to know that. Or, more realistically, he knew. He just didn’t need to hear it from me. I was the positive, reassuring one on the boat, apparently.

I handed the controls back to Wes and did what I could to get the radio working. It seemed like it was functional—but I wasn’t getting any response. There were plenty of reasons for that, some good. Others less so. I went ahead and sent an email with the details as well, in the hopes that once the satellites were cleared of the storm, it would send, and at least then someone would know where we were and reach out.

If all went well, the boat would be fine and we could wait out the storm, hop back aboard, and head for Grenada as planned.

“I think now I’m going to try for that nap. You all right?”

Wes shrugged. “I guess?”

“Wake me up if you need me.” A yawn cracked my jaw. “Or when we’re about twenty minutes from the island. You remember how to tell?”

His nod was hesitant.

I shot him what I hoped was a bolstering smile before descending to my cabin. This time, when I stretched out, sleep claimed me as soon as I closed my eyes.

“Um.”

I bolted awake. “What?”

“I don’t—you should come.”

I rubbed my eyes and the details of our situation came rushing back. “Are we close?”

“I think so. I see land, at least.” Wes started out of my cabin. “But it’s beeping and I don’t know why.”

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