“Josie, are you coming in the water?” Dauphine asked me, not waiting for her father to answer my question. I’d promised her we’d get in the plunge pool after our class to cool off.
There was no way I was stripping down to my bikini in front of my boss. But I also didn’t want to break my promise.
“Papa, you should do yoga with us in the mornings. And you must come in the pool, yes?”
Oh God, no. Get in that tiny plunge pool with my hot boss? I didn’t think so.
“Non, mon chou. I have to go and discuss plans with Paco. But I will be up again in about twenty minutes. Ok?”
She stuck out her bottom lip but nodded.
A twenty-minute warning to not be in front of him with my butt in his face when he came back up. Embarrassment crawled through me.
After a cool off in the pool, Dauphine flew downstairs to get changed, and I followed at a more leisurely pace. I was passing the open master cabin when I heard Evan and Mr. P talking inside. They were talking in low voices. And I was sure I’d heard my name. I couldn’t help slowing my pace. In fact, after a moment, I realized I’d stopped completely and was straining my ears. I thought I heard Monsieur Pascale say something was impossible and a word that sounded like “coo,” to which Evan chuckled and said something in a teasing tone. I frowned as I tried to make sense of it with my limited French. I shook it off and reprimanded myself for being nosy. Just in time, I realized, because when I rounded the corner to head down the next set of stairs to deck two, I heard the master cabin door close as if they’d just realized it was left open. Whoever had closed it would have seen me listening.
Chapter Twenty
XAVIER
After interrupting yoga on the top deck, I stumbled back down the stairs, my normally reliant, powerful legs untrustworthy.
“Whoa. You okay?” Evan asked, just leaving the bridge.
“Fine.” I ran a hand over my stubbled chin. “I need to talk to Paco about the lunch plans.”
“Already taken care of.”
“Good,” I said distractedly and headed down the next half stairwell toward my office bedroom, this time clutching the handrail. “Hey. Please ask Andrea to move me back in here, I don’t think I need to be downstairs anymore.” God knew I couldn’t sleep one more night across the hall from the hot nanny. If I heard her get up and go to the top deck again, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t follow.
“All right,” Evan responded as he followed me into the stateroom. “As soon as you tell me what just happened on the top deck. You look a little shaken.”
I walked to the windows and stuck my hands in my pockets. “They were doing yoga.”
“And?” Evan asked.
I turned and shot him a look, the vision of Josephine Marin’s round, delectable ass pressed backward, covered in skintight pink, seared into my brain. “And her ass—” I broke off.
Evan’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Do go on.”
I scowled.
Evan made an inpatient continue gesture with his hand. “And her ass …”
“It was just there,” I snapped. “In my face.”
“In your face?”
“My God, you know what I mean.” My hand scrubbed over my eyes and shot through my hair. “Are you sure we can’t get another nanny.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“You will?”
“No. Get a hold of yourself, man.” My friend laughed. Laughed. He thought this was all some huge joke. It wasn’t a joke. She had set my equilibrium completely off balance. I gave him a look. The look. The one I gave people in the boardroom who couldn’t answer a direct question. The look that told him how very thin the ice was.
Evan raised his hands. “Forgive me. But will you listen to yourself?”
“I am. Now if you would too, that would be grand. What do I pay you for, anyway?”
“To keep you safe and entertained.”
“Does your protection not extend to my sanity?”
Evan pressed his lips tightly together, expelling a breath through his nose, almost choking in his attempt to curb a fresh bout of chuckling.
I snorted in disgust and stalked over to my desk. “And now I have to put her in front of my father.” My father, the philanderer, had boned almost every nanny I had growing up. When I was thirteen and no longer in need of one, my mother finally got sick of pretending she