that. I can’t … I can’t afford to think that.” Xavier’s warning to protect my heart came back to me. “I’ll be disappointed. And I shouldn’t be. I have a life to go back to. This can’t be more.”
She reached out and took my hand again. “Keep an open mind, yeah? And maybe an open heart?”
“It’s too open already. This relationship feels like juggling with newly sharpened knives.”
“And I take it you’re not a good juggler.”
“No shit.” I took another larger drink of ginger tea. My stomach was feeling better already.
“All right. Well, I’ll leave you to relax. I’m going to pack a few things up and call ahead to get a hotel room. A whole day off tomorrow where I know no one and have nothing to do? I’m salivating.”
“Do you all go and stay in the same hotel when you have time off the boat?”
“Not if I can help it. Besides, Rod and Chef both know people in Calvi I think, so I’m sure they’ll get themselves sorted. We should be there in a couple of hours.”
We stood and I gave her a hug. “Thank you,” I said. “Enjoy your time off. And be safe.”
“Always.”
After Andrea left, I partially unpacked and finished my cup. I didn’t want to assume I’d be spending the whole night with Xavier. And even if I did, I wasn’t planning on hanging out amongst his dead wife’s things. Just the thought that her memories surrounded him up there was enough to make me wonder for the millionth time what the hell I was doing. Despite the rocking, I decided to take a quick a shower, shaved everywhere that needed it, debated my bikini area and decided the risk of messing up, cutting myself, or ingrown hairs in the wrong place was guidance enough to simply neaten things up.
The boat lurched suddenly, then fell, my stomach hollowing to zero gravity. I crashed against the shower wall and slipped across the fiber glass. I caught myself on the sink, but not before I left a razor cut on my thigh. The plastic razor clattered to the floor, along with everything on the counter. I belatedly registered the sound of things in the room falling, my suitcase I’d left on the edge of the bed. Probably the tea cup. Just how big of a wave had we encountered and would there be another? My stomach tightened in fear and then rebelled. Shit.
I heaved, just making it to the toilet bowl before retching up my insides.
Naked, wet, and shivering, my stomach emptied, my eyes watering and throat burning. Reaching up, I grabbed a white fluffy towel, pulling it down to cover myself as I sat back, trying to catch my breath. My heart pounded. My toiletries bag had fallen beside me. I weakly squirted some toothpaste on my brush and reached behind me for water from the still running shower. I cleaned my mouth as best I could to get rid of the taste and spat in the toilet again and flushed it.
Ah shit. This was no good. I’d taken the nausea bracelet off to shower, and it now lay beside me on the floor. I pathetically worked it back on. I’d vomited up my strength it seemed. I leaned my head back on the shower stall and closed my eyes, my body feeling weak. The boat rocked again and my equilibrium went with it. I groaned, willing myself not to vomit again. There was nothing left.
“Josephine?”
I cracked an eye just as Xavier came barreling around the corner of the bathroom. “Merde!” he yelled. Then he was on me, trying to pick me up.
“I’m okay,” I protested weakly.
He babbled in French, turning the shower off, and in a display of super human strength managed to pick me up off the bathroom floor, slippery and wet and tangled in a towel. And underneath naked. Very naked.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Embarrassment crawled over my skin as he lay me down against the pillows on the bed with jerky panicked movements.
His hands raced over me. Then indicated the blood on the towel. “You’re bleeding. Where are you hurt?”
I grabbed at the towel and tried to keep myself covered. The cut was high on my thigh. It was a graze really, now that the blood had been wiped clean.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing. The razor slipped.” I gestured to the area of the cut.
His hand shoved the towel aside and revealed the tiny wound for a second, before he then covered his