“Sorry.” I stifled a chuckle at giving him a fright. “Please leave it open. I can’t breathe with it closed.”
He was quiet as he processed this. “We leave the port early in the morning. You must close your window.”
I sat up.
“Je le ferai.” He waved me off and came fully into the room, his silhouette heading to the porthole. He slid it closed and latched it.
I could smell him. His cologne mixed with the sweet scent of scotch. He’d been up late drinking. I wondered if this was a common occurrence. I swallowed, breathed in deeply, the air now filled with him, and rubbed my chest.
“You are okay?” he asked.
“I—I think so.”
“Is this why you do not like boats?” his voice rumbled in the darkness.
“Part of it.”
“And the other part?”
I only vaguely made out his features in the dark. “The ocean has always scared me a little. It’s so dark. Fathomless. Full of things humans don’t understand.”
“Mystery and miracles too. It all depends on how you choose to see it. And the Mediterranean … well, you will see so many parts that are clear and sparkling and seductive. You will forget your fear. You will want to dive down deep to discover her.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am. Oh. Merde!” he cursed. “Can you swim?”
“Of course.” I huffed out a laugh. “And I love beaches. It’s just the idea of being in the middle of wide open expanses of water that makes me forget how to breathe.”
“And that’s where the air is the most clean and plentiful. Where you can breathe the easiest.”
“I guess so.”
“We will cure you, Dauphine and I.”
I chuckled. “Perhaps. She is wonderful.”
“She is.” He stood still for a long moment, then made a slight inhale sound. “Thank you for staying.”
It was probably the closest to an apology for our rocky start as I was going to get.
I nodded but wasn’t sure he saw me. “Of course,” I whispered. “And I’m sorry I reacted so strongly.”
He seemed to take my words in, and then without responding headed toward the door and vanished through the opening to his cabin.
I waited for the sound of him closing his door and instead heard his bathroom door close and the distant sound of running water. Then it opened and I listened to the sound of clothing being removed and the soft rustle of sheets. Was he going to sleep with his cabin door open too? I supposed as a concerned parent he would.
I lay awake for what felt like hours, straining to hear his breathing. It struck me how oddly intimate it was for us all to be sleeping separately, but yet all sleeping with no closed doors between us in such close quarters.
Chapter Twelve
XAVIER
I threw my pen down on the report I was trying to annotate in disgust after reading the same paragraph four times and ran my finger around my already loose collar.
I felt the itch of this Josephine Marin under the collar of my shirt like a sunburn. I was used to the au pairs from the agency being plain and no nonsense. They were sweet, mostly personality-less, and easily blended into the background. As they should.
It wasn’t as though I needed a plain nanny. I’d never been the type for that to be a problem, unlike some of the men I knew—my father being one of them, the old dog. I hadn’t picked the agency based on the nondescript looks of the childcare professionals. But Tabitha Mackenzie had always sent really fantastic professionals with endless amounts of patience, and who were much more sensible than beautiful. As long as Dauphine was safe and well-cared for, looks had nothing to do with it. Maybe some of them had been pretty, but I’d certainly never noticed.
But now … now it was a different story.
My first meeting with Josephine Marin yesterday had me second-guessing the decision from the instant I saw her. I knew immediately that she’d been the woman who’d stumbled into my video call with Tabitha. Who I was ashamed to admit to myself I may have also thought about again, in graphic detail, that night in the shower. I’d almost put her back on the train right then. I couldn’t even remember how to speak English properly. Me. A man who’d gotten his degree from the London School of Economics. My English was usually flawless. Evan was going to have a field day with me, since he’d witnessed the whole