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Fifteen minutes later the two of us walk down to the banquet room. My gaze does a quick scan of the room, a stab of disappointment hits me in the chest to find Rachelle isn’t seated anywhere inside.

Dinner is one succession of rollercoasters. There’s always the hope building in me that someone coming through the door is Rachelle, that she’ll be heading to our table and I’ll get to stare at her, in a non-creepy way, for the duration of dinner. But amidst the chatter for the meal and talk about business here and there, she never comes.

Instead I’m tortured by Savannah at my side, eating off my plate and placing her hand on my knee. I have to be careful, since her dad is watching like a hawk, but I’m able wriggle out of her grip for some of dinner.

“We’ll meet for about forty-five minutes in one of the rooms just down from here.” It’s the first conversation I’ve registered from Roman, or anyone, all evening.

Meeting? I almost forgot this trip is about work instead of chasing after the woman I let go of too soon. Hopefully it doesn’t take too long because I’m going to have to hunt through the ship to find Rachelle.

We finish up dinner and head in the direction of the conference room as an arm loops through mine. I glance over to see a shorter person than the one I would love to see.

“Hey Savannah,” I say, giving her a tight smile.

“I swear you’ve been avoiding me all day. I looked for you all over the ship and even asked a few people. What have you been doing?”

“Napping.” At least it was the partial truth.

Her eyes blink several times. “Napping? You’re on a beautiful cruise heading for a tropical destination and you nap?”

I have to hold back a chuckle bubbling up in my throat because I get the impression she’ll hit me if I make fun of her.

“I think everything is just hitting all at once.” We follow the rest of the group and I say, “Are you ready for this meeting?”

Savannah flicks her hand in the air and says, “I’m not worried about it. You’re my boss. I’ll just listen to anything we need to know when you tell me. Or we can slip away and do something else.” Her eyebrows raise and lower a few times and she puckers her lips. It takes a few seconds to realize she’s leaning in to actually kiss me.

I glance away, swallowing hard. She’s staking her claim and I need to tell her my heart belongs to someone else already.

“Savannah, I appreciate your trust in me but I think it might be best—”

My words trail off as we walk past the buffet room, and I catch a glimpse of brown hair. I stop and peek back through the door, confirming it’s Rachelle. Why is she eating in there? I hope it’s not to avoid me.

“Who are you looking at?” Savannah asks, causing me to jump. I forgot about her for those few blissful seconds.

“Um, just, uh…” How do I explain this to her?

“Oh, that woman from the other night. Are you guys a thing?” She takes a step back, looking at me in disgust.

“I, we, um—” Why is this hard? She’s directly asking me. “We have history.”

“Are you coming, Higgins?” Roman asks from the hallway.

I nod, grateful for the brief intervention. I’m sure I’ll have to answer the question at some point, but at least now I have a few minutes of space. Getting Savannah to leave me alone without her crying wolf to her dad is just another added task I didn’t think I’d have to deal with on this trip. But if I can get things straightened out with Rachelle, facing Gordon will be easy.

I jog the few steps to the door. Once I sink down into my chair, I breathe out a sigh. I’ve never been so grateful for a meeting in my life. If only it were some alone time with Rachelle, I’d be in heaven.

CHAPTER17

Rachelle

I’m a big chicken. There, I said it.

I can tell Tiffany thinks the same thing as we load up our plates at the buffet. I didn’t think I could face Landon again today, which is why I convinced Tiffany to eat at the buffet instead of where I sat with Landon and his company the other night. He already comforted me on the slide and then I held onto a hope that he would ask me to do something tonight.

Maybe it’s my fault but avoidance is all I can do to keep from going crazy right now. And I obviously read the wrong signs, because I just caught a glimpse of him passing in the hall with Savannah on his arm.

I take a seat at one of the open tables and start cutting the slice of ham I requested. Tiffany takes a seat across from me with a plate of bread and crackers.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick again?” I swipe the ham through a section of mashed potatoes.