Still, she’d thought she was being discreet. “Is it that obvious?” she asked.
“No, I’m just that observant,” Trevor said. “It’s one of my many good qualities.”
“It sounds like you’ve got a lot of good qualities,” she teased.
He grinned. “I do.”
“What are your other good qualities?”
“I’m entertaining, generous, I can cook.”
“A man who cooks, that’s impressive.”
“Can you?”
“Of course I can. No one makes a better French silk pie than me.”
“A pretty big brag to make to a guy who owns a chocolate company.”
“I’m that confident.”
He nodded. “I’m impressed. Most of the women I’ve dated wouldn’t even know what a French silk pie was, let alone how to make one. Nobody likes to cook anymore,” he finished sadly.
“I do. It’s one of my good qualities.”
“I bet you’ve got a ton.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said.
Right now being magnanimous sure wasn’t one of them. She shot another glance over to where her sister, the traitor, sat with Dr. Rudy and company. He and Catherine seemed to really be hitting it off. Or maybe he was just being polite. It looked like Denise had already found someone, so that took her out of the running. Catherine was another story. She was still on her own, and frustratingly, irritatingly nice. Hard to compete with nice, especially from across the room.
Sophie suddenly felt cranky. And tired.
But Catherine had to be tired, too. Sophie was younger. She could outwait her.
“Would you like another glass of white wine?” Trevor asked.
“I’d better not,” she said. “Wine always makes me sleepy.”
And she had to stay awake. Had to outwait Catherine. Had...to...
The sound of someone snoring jerked Sophie awake. Who was that? Her. And here she was on the fake leather sofa with her head on Trevor March’s shoulder.
She pulled away, mortified. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. Please tell me I didn’t drool on your jacket.”
“Okay, I won’t,” he said. “Looks like the jet lag has hit.”
She glanced to where her sister and the rest of her dinner companions had been sitting. There was no one there. In fact, there were a lot of empty seats in the lounge.
“Your sister stopped by,” Trevor said. “I told her I’d walk you to your room after you woke up.”
“What if I hadn’t woken up?”
“I have no problem spending the night in the lounge with a beautiful woman’s head on my shoulder.”
“Someone you don’t even know.” Good Lord, and here she was using him for a pillow.
“Someone I’m getting to know.”
“Drooling on your jacket.”
“What’s a little drool between friends? Anyway, I didn’t notice. I was too busy admiring how thick your eyelashes are. And real, too. You don’t see that very much anymore.”
“You are sure good with the flattery thing,” she said, standing up. She was going to give Sierra an earful when she got back to their room.
“Another one of my fine qualities.”
“You sound practically perfect.”
“Oh, I am,” he said, and stood up also. “Except that I’m a slob and I lose my temper in traffic and yell at people a lot.”
“That could get you killed.”
“Not as long as I keep my car windows rolled up. Come on, I’ll walk you back to your room.”
“I’m probably pretty safe walking there all by myself,” she said as they left the lounge.
He looked at her, shocked. “You haven’t heard of the cruise ship ghost?”
“Cruise ship ghost?”
“Oh, yeah. One of the earlier captains of this ship. He died on it. He ran it aground.”
Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Can you run a ship aground in a river?”
“This guy did. He’d been drinking too much schnapps and wasn’t paying attention. He knew there’d be a big scandal and he’d lose his job so he went into this very lounge, drank one last shot of schnapps and then broke the bottle and slit his wrists with it.”
“Eeew.”
“They say he walks the halls every night at...” Trevor checked his watch. “Eleven-thirty. Every cruise he’s on the lookout for a woman.”
“Lonely, huh?”
“No, he just figures he’ll get more sympathy from a woman than a man and he needs someone to bandage his wrists.”
“Okay, that was the stupidest ghost story I ever heard,” Sophie said, shaking her head at him.
“I guess storyteller doesn’t go down as one of my talents.”
“And I guess I don’t need an escort.”
“Let me walk with you, anyway,” he said.
“You’re hard to say no to.”
“I hope so,” he said with a grin.
It didn’t take them long to get to her stateroom, which was probably just as well. Trevor March was a very tempting distraction. If Sophie hadn’t met Dr.