An affair with an exotic cruise line dance instructor might be just the escape this single mother needs…
Andrea DeMarco is determined to merge a cruise ship career and single motherhood. But that leaves zero time for sex or love, so when she has a chance for a fling with a sexy cruise ship dancer, she goes for it.
Sebastian Vasquez enjoys a low-key life as the ship’s dance instructor, a welcome change from his previous life in Argentina as the star of a hugely popular dance show. But when Andrea sweeps into his life, everything changes.
Will new love help him come to terms with his past, and convince her to find room in her life for another man?
Andrea DeMarco is determined to merge a cruise ship career and single motherhood. But that leaves zero time for sex or love, so when she has a chance for a fling with a sexy cruise ship dancer, she goes for it.
Sebastian Vasquez enjoys a low-key life as the ship’s dance instructor, a welcome change from his previous life in Argentina as the star of a hugely popular dance show. But when Andrea sweeps into his life, everything changes.
Will new love help him come to terms with his past, and convince her to find room in her life for another man?
CHAPTER 1
Savvy Tip of the Day:
There is nothing
wrong with having a no-strings-attached fling. As long as you’re clear from the
start about what you’re looking for, getting naked with someone can be the
perfect way to regain your mojo after a long dry spell.
Andrea
DeMarco rested her chin in one hand and finished reading today’s article on her
favorite advice website, The Savvy Sex
Goddess’s Guide to Life, Love, and Getting What You Want. Dry spell? She
had a whole Sahara Desert stretched out in her past. She couldn’t remember the
last time she’d gotten naked with someone. Well over a year. Maybe even pushing
two. Ugh. Depressing thought. She shut down the computer and rooted around in
her makeup bag for lip gloss. She was already running late, and she had a
cruise ship to catch in less than six hours. Between now and then she had to
get her son off to school, pack, and stop by corporate headquarters in Tampa
before boarding the Spirit of the Sea.
The
cruise ship. Now there was a place
filled with possibility for a no-strings-attached fling. Cocktail Cruise Lines
specialized in singles’ cruises, which meant the ship was bound to be filled with
men of all ages, types, heights and builds.
“Yeah,
and I’m there to work,” she muttered.
She
zipped her suitcase and put her laptop into its case. Even though she worked in
the cruise line’s marketing department, she rarely stepped foot on any of the
ships. She was sailing this time only because the CEO wanted someone from
corporate to see the new itinerary. True, she wouldn’t be chained to a desk or
stuck inside an office the whole time. She could mingle. She was supposed to mingle, and get passengers’
opinions, which meant she’d be talking to single men. But she wouldn’t know the
first thing about going from talking to actually having a fling.
Andrea
pulled on a long-sleeved pink t-shirt and rolled up the cuffs. For just an
instant, the ship’s tall, sexy ballroom dance instructor flashed inside her
mind’s eye. Sebastian Vasquez had been working on the Spirit of the Sea for almost a year. She’d crossed paths with him
twice before, and each time he’d pulled her onto the stage for a little
two-step to please the crowd. But oh, it had definitely pleased her as well.
She could still recall the way he’d spun her in circles and left her weak in
the knees.
Now
that would be someone to have a fling
with. South American and sexy as hell, she bet Sebastian had women lined up to
sleep with him. That body. That accent.
She
bent over her makeup bag and peered inside. She had bought a new Funky Fuchsia lip gloss, hadn't she? She could
have sworn she had. She pulled her long blonde hair off her neck and reminded
herself to make an appointment for a cut when she returned, because –
“Mommmmmyyyyy!”
Drew's screech echoed through the small, ranch-style
house. Andrea dropped the makeup bag and stood straight up. Little tubes and
pallets and brushes scattered across the bedroom floor.
“Mommmmyyy!”
She dashed for the living room, heart ratcheting out of
her chest. Drew never screamed like that. Ever. She skidded down the hall on
bare feet. He was conscious and breathing, if he was making noise, right? He
shrieked again, and she prepared herself for blood or a femur sticking through
the skin or worse.
“What,
baby? What's wrong?”
Her tow-headed six-year old stood in the middle of the
couch, eyes wide, pointing at the floor. “Mommy, look!” No blood. No broken bones. Her stomach righted itself.
At that moment, the house’s resident mouse scuttled from
under the coffee table to the baseboard heater. A smaller one followed. Andrea
laced her hands over her eyes. There are
two of them now?
“Mommy, did you see them? Did you see both of them?” Drew clutched his hands
together in the gesture that normally made her smile. Today she marched over to
the couch and grabbed him under both arms.
“Yes I did, but you scared me.” She planted him on the
floor and put one finger under his chin. “Do you understand? When you yelled
like that, I thought you were hurt.” Perspiration covered her face. Her heart
still hadn't settled down.
Drew's bottom lip pushed out. “I wanted you to see them.
You never see them.”
Yes, I do, she
almost answered. Calling the exterminator just wasn't near the top of her list
of priorities. She wasn’t hurting for money, but she was desperately short on
time. She couldn’t wait around during a four-hour window for someone from
Rid-a-Rats to show up. She'd hoped that putting traps in the closets would have
done the trick, but it looked as though these mice weren't hungry for peanut
butter.
“Come on.” She took him by the hand and led him back down
the hall. “You need to finish packing.”
“I don't wanna go to Uncle Toby’s.” Drew's walk turned to
a sliding of feet along the hardwood. He pulled at her arm. “I wanna go with you.”
“I know, baby, but you can't. Cruises are for very extra
special occasions. You know Mommy is only going for work.” She'd probably made
a mistake bringing him along to Cozumel last year. It was all he could talk
about now: meeting the captain, getting to ride the elevators, selecting from
the endless meal choices on the buffet. She rubbed the top of his head, messing
his feather-light blonde hair. She'd probably made a thousand mistakes in all
these years of raising him alone, and was bound to make more.
They stopped in the doorway of his bedroom, and she
dropped to her knees and hugged him. One thing she hadn't done wrong, though,
and that was love him to the moon and back.
Do you know how hard it is, raising
a kid on your own?
Ron will never be around. You'll
have to sue him for child support.
There are other options, you know.
Have you thought about adoption?
Unexpectedly pregnant one year out of high school,
working a part-time job, she'd listened to her friends and family at first.
She’d spent nights lying awake in tears, she’d made lists, she’d weighed her
options, and then she'd ignored everyone’s advice. From the moment she felt
Drew move inside her belly, she'd loved him. When the doctor laid him in her
arms, pink and wet and bawling his little lungs out, she'd loved him. Every
scraped knee and nightmare and tantrum, every minute of letting go as he
learned to walk and talk and dress himself and climb to the top of the jungle
gym, she'd loved him. She hadn't known her heart could grow with the love that
filled it, that every day and week and year her heart would get bigger as Drew
did. It amazed her.
“Mommy, you're strangulating me,” he said against her
shoulder, and reluctantly she pulled back. His blue eyes met hers, and she knew
in a minute he'd tug her in with that don't-leave-me
look. In those moments he reminded her of his father, the way he could cajole
and manipulate and twist her inside out. She stood and brushed the dust from
her black jeans.
His
father. Damn it to hell. After five years of moving around the country, of
sending the occasional post card from a commune in New Mexico or a mountain top
in California, the jackass had showed up in Florida last year and announced his
intentions to get to know his son.
“Over my dead body,” she said aloud.
Drew frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing, baby,” she said, and steered him into his room.
“I was talking to myself.” Toys lay scattered across the bed and floor. His
denim knapsack sat open and empty on his bed. Much as she would have liked to
bring him with her, snuggle into his skin at night, point out constellations
from the Aloha Deck, and have the ship's cook make him Mickey Mouse pancakes,
that simply wasn’t an option this time.
“Uncle Toby will be here in an hour to take you to
school. You need to be ready to go. Decide which toys are going with you and
which are staying here.”
Drew gave a dramatic sigh and launched himself onto his
bed, where he began sorting his toys into piles.
Andrea’s cell phone rang. “Please tell me you’re not
running late,” she said as she answered on the first ring. Her brother had a
tendency to do that, and today was not
the day for –
“Late for what?” came the low, scratchy voice in
response.
Oh, hell.
Andrea stared at the phone, reading the number on the screen for the first
time. “Ron? Why are you calling me at seven in the morning?”
“I’m going out of town for a few days.”
“And not coming back?” she asked hopefully.
“And I’m hoping we can sit down when I get back and talk
about working out some time for me to spend time with Drew. You didn’t return
my last couple of calls.”
Her fingers drew into a ball. As much as she wanted to refuse
to see him, or to let Drew see him, she had no legal grounds. Ron had left her
three months after Drew was born, but he hadn’t waived his rights. He’d always
managed to send money. And in the last six months, he’d made her life miserable
with threats about suing for joint custody.
“Is that going to be a problem?” he asked when she didn’t
answer. “We’ve been around and around about this. I’m tired of waiting. It’s
almost Christmas. I’d like to be able to see my son for the holidays.”
My son. How dare
Ron say those words so glibly? “We’ll talk about it when you get back,” she
answered around the lump in her throat. Like he could take Drew to sit on
Santa’s lap and everything would be fine.
“I’ve already talked to my attorney about the hours you
work,” Ron said.
“What?”
“You work twelve, fourteen hour days at the office. You
told me that.”
Her jaw tightened. She had, too, when she’d announced
that she made a six-figure salary and provided well enough for Drew that they
didn’t need Ron’s money. She’d thrown the words at him, proud that she’d worked
her way up the corporate ladder and didn’t rely on anyone to support her.
“A six year old needs his mother at home. Not at the
office until nine o’clock at night.”
“How dare you
–” She stormed down the hall and into the half-bathroom by the front door.
Seething, she spit the words through clenched teeth. “How dare you accuse me of
neglecting my son. You think you know what a six year old needs from his
mother? How about what he needs from his father? Oh, but wait. You wouldn’t
know anything about that. You don’t have the first clue about raising a child,
or you would’ve stuck around after he was born.” She turned on the faucet to
hide her trembling voice and prayed Drew wouldn’t come looking for her.
Ron cleared his throat. “I’m talking about the present,
Andrea. I’ve made mistakes in the past. I never said I didn’t.”
“I am not having this conversation with you right now.”
“I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be away until
the middle of next week.”
She didn’t mention that she’d be out of town as well. Ron
didn’t need to know the details of her life. If he had an issue with her
staying late at the office, what would he say if he knew she was leaving Drew
in the hands of his uncle for six days? He’d turn that into some shit about
maternal abandonment.
“Fine,” she said and hung up. She pulled her hair back
from her face and stared into the mirror. Two pink circles burned in her
cheeks, and her mascara was smudged. She didn’t imagine she’d be having any
flings on board the Spirit of the Sea now,
regardless of the opportunity or the Savvy
Goddess’s advice. The last thing she needed was Ron finding out and
twisting the facts to suit his purpose.
Sometimes Andrea wished the Savvy Goddess had a section on her website for foolproof ways to
get rid of unwanted exes and dispose of the bodies without getting caught. A
small smile tugged at her lips. Or, at the very least, how to live as a single
mother and not spend nights wondering if she was ever going to fall in love or
feel attractive to a man again.
Want to read more? You can order your copy of Cocktail Cruises: The Collection for only $1.99 today!
No comments:
Post a Comment