Page 14 of Fighting Fate
“Thanks,” Rosie said sincerely, before leaving him lurking beside a building and hurrying down the gangplank.
Jill was on the dock, of course, smile firmly in place as she greeted guests and ushered them aboard the boat. The smile slipped as she saw Rosie, her eyes widening, before she made a frantic gesture to one of her assistants to take over and grabbed Rosie’s wrist.
“Your date!” she hissed, almost dragging Rosie over to the far side of the transom. “Are you on your way back? Where is he?”
“Coming in a minute so it’s not blatantly obvious we’re together. Keep your voice down?” Rosie pleaded, and Jill nodded at once.
“I won’t give you away, but I’m dying to know what he looks like! Point him out?”
“Oh, you can’t miss him,” Rosie said dryly, watching Adam ambling along the dock, joining the arriving holidaymakers. He pulled his boat transfer ticket from his pocket to show Jill’s assistant, who waved him on board.
Jill looked right past Adam, Rosie noticed with amusement.
“Where?” Jill demanded eagerly.
“He literally just walked right past you and had to duck his head to avoid hitting it on the door,” Rosie told her.
Jill turned to stare at Adam, just making his way towards the front of the boat, and then back to Rosie with an expression of pure disbelief on her face. It was so comical Rosie started laughing.
“That. That… gorgeous hunk of beef is your rebound date?” Jill finally said, and Rosie couldn’t stop laughing long enough to answer, so she just nodded helplessly.
“Holy shit, girl,” Jill breathed. “Fuck what anyone says. Who’s gonna report you, anyway? You go get some. You earned it.” And she shoved Rosie firmly in the back, urging her after Adam.
Adam looked up in surprise as Rosie slipped into the vacant seat beside him. “Hey,” he said with a broad smile. “Change of plans?”
“Change of attitude,” Rosie corrected.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Fuck ‘em all.”
CHAPTER SIX
STARTLED when Rosie declared her change of heart, Adam nonetheless gave her an approving nod.
“That’s the spirit. Don’t let the bastards get you down, eh?”
“Yup.” She took his hand this time, threading her small fingers into his and then leaning her head against his shoulder.
Surprised but encouraged, Adam turned his head down towards hers, breathing in the fragrance of her brown curls. Salt air, he thought, clean and fresh, and coconut, and a tang of something a little sharper he couldn’t place. Complicated and surprising, like Rosie herself.
He wanted to kiss her, quite a lot in fact, but the chattering crowd of tourists excited to be heading to the resort for the start of their holidays stopped him, that and the suspicion it might be a step too far for Rosie.
Instead, he settled back into the seat for the ride back to the island, listening with half an ear to the excited chatter all around them, hearing the calm instructions from the young woman who walked to the front of the boat and asked everyone to take their seats in a clear, carrying voice before conducting a succinct safety briefing.
The pretty Chinese woman grinned at Rosie once she’d finished, giving Adam a thorough look-over and a nod before taking herself off to the back of the boat.
Rosie had flushed pink, he saw when he glanced over at her. “Good friend of yours?” he asked quietly. The two young women had to be about the same age.
“My roomie, Jill,” Rosie said. “My best friend,” she admitted after a couple of beats.
And confidant, Adam interpreted silently. “You share a room?” he asked out loud, thinking that had to be tough to maintain any privacy.
“A cabin. Two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchenette and living area. It’s cozy but nice. We don’t work the same hours, so we’re not in each other’s pockets,” Rosie added. “Jill’s the guest relations manager, and I’m staff manager, so we have quite different spheres of responsibility.”
“I’d think you’re both in senior enough roles to merit private living quarters,” Adam commented.
“I’m sure we could if we really wanted, but there are only a limited quantity of private staff cabins. We tend to leave them for the couples, and we’ve been sharing a long time.” She thought about it. “Must be nearly seven years, wow, that’s a long time! We were both only assistants when we started.”