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Ending up in Mexico, he had started working as a waiter when the money King gave him ran out. Cautiously, he and King decided not to have any contact with each other, to prevent the money from being tracked to him. Taking on an assumed name, he started working as a waiter near a beach when he made friends with some of the regular cruise workers. That was where he met Andrei. He was a ship’s captain for an Ivan Pavlov yacht.

Joining the crew was the best and worst decision of his life. The eye-opening experiences broadened his horizons in unimaginable ways, in ways he would have never seen if he had stayed in Queens City. He quickly learned that, while he had been poor, it didn’t compare to the poverty in other countries, nor the despicable way the poverty-stricken were treated. He had thought there wasn’t much he hadn’t seen with the way he and King had lived, but working for Ivan showed him horrors that still haunted him to this day.

He’d decided to stay in Mexico the next time the yacht docked there, when Ivan informed them that his wife would be joining him. Desmond still remembered standing on the deck, wearing a neatly-pressed uniform, when she had come onboard. He had taken one look at her and was attracted. She was older, but he didn’t care, nor did he care that she was married to a dictator who could end his life with one spoken word. The spark of attraction was intense and had him watching her as she walked across the deck.

Smiling, she had greeted each of them in the line they had formed. When she stood in front of him, unlike the others, he didn’t bow his head. He hadn’t been able to move with her so close to him. Despite the crewmembers on both sides of him digging their elbows into his ribs, he couldn’t fucking gather enough sense to move.

He should have lowered his fucking head, but he hadn’t, and it had been his downfall. In one single moment, she stole his heart, and any plans to disappear once they reached Mexico. He couldn’t leave her behind. She was everything he wanted and needed in life. Someway, somehow, he wouldn’t stop, regardless of how many years it would take.

Aanya would be his.

Twelve

“That’s ridiculous. You’re basically working twenty four hours a day.”

Coming back to the present, Desmond shook off the grogginess.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Sooner or later, your schedule will get the better of you. Pick the priorities that matter the most to you, then hire someone else to help you with the rest.”

“I like to stay busy.”

“There’s busy”—the mocking perusal she gave him had him straightening on the couch—“then there’s driving yourself to exhaustion. Something is obviously going to get affected, and from where I’m sitting, it’s going to be your health.”

“I’m in perfect health.”

“The migraines are your body’s way of giving you a warning sign. Keep ignoring it, and your health may cost more than even you can pay,” she advised.

“Thank you for your concern, but I am fine.”

“Your health is no concern of mine,” she corrected him, “but it should be yours.”

Desmond couldn’t help but laugh at her retort. “I stand corrected. My mistake.”

“I just gave you the same advice I would give my father.”

“Ouch! I need to start using the gym more if you’re comparing me to your father.”

“You are his age.”

“There’s a few year’s difference.”

“Not by much.”

“Wow, that was a shot to the heart. Was my age the factor in shooting me down at lunch today?” he asked curiously.

“No. I shot you down because I could tell you weren’t being authentic. I can recognize someone being phony from a mile away.”

Haley giving him that insight was a tactical error on her part. If he were a nice person, he would warn her that was a trait she should keep to herself. Since he wasn’t, he would keep that suggestion to himself.

“I have to admit, I haven’t been called a phony before.” At least not to his face.

“I didn’t say you were a complete phony. Only what you were saying.”

“Don’t be shy. Tell me what you really think about me. You do believe I am, don’t you?”

“I think you give people the impression you’re charming, concerned about the less fortunate, and manipulative. Wait a minute. I take it back. The order should be reversed.”

“And you’ve gained this opinion of me in the short periods of time we have spent together?”

“I forgot to mention intelligent. You’re very smart. You recognize that I see you.”

“If I do, why would I have embarrassed myself by pretending an interest in you?”

She gave him a complacent grin. “Which is why you then tried manipulation, so you could reveal what you really wanted from me.”

He had to mask his reaction, his astonishment that she hadn’t been taken in by his intended deception.