Her struggle must have looked pretty bad because Leon locked his arms around both her and the baby. He plucked the empty bottle from her hold and eased her into the nook seat, scowling at her with a disgruntled expression.
“Are you in pain? Maybe it’s something more serious. Appendicitis?”
“Oh, that’s very calming, thanks. It’s not that bad,” she insisted, even though she was so weak Illi felt as heavy as a bag of cement in her arms, one that wriggled and kicked with joy.
It was so nice to see her full and happy, Tanja couldn’t begrudge her energy. She played a game of wiggling Illi’s soggy hand against her soggy mouth, saying nonsense things. Illi released her infectious baby chortle, making Tanja chuckle in turn.
When she heard Leon snort, she glanced at him and caught him watching them with the strangest expression on his face. Amusement, but something intensely personal.
He quickly snapped his attention to the horizon, showing her only his stoic profile, but her heart took a stumble over what she had glimpsed. Envy? Longing? Tenderness?
“Oh,” she groaned as a sudden stab went into her stomach, sharp enough to push the noise out of her. She swallowed, but didn’t think the porridge was going to stay down. “Can you—” She stood and shoved the baby at him before hurrying to the head.
A few minutes later, feeling scraped hollow, she shakily returned to the helm.
“There are anti-nausea pills in my shaving kit.” He had Illi clasped in one bent arm against his chest.
“They knock me out and I have to look after Little Miss.”
“I can hold her. Go lie down.”
“If I’m lying down, I might as well have her beside me.” She moved down the ladder and held out her hands.
He hesitated, then crouched to transfer the baby. “Call me if you need help. It’s only a few hours until we intersect with Poseidon’s Crown. You might feel better once we’re not rocking so much.”
“I’m sure I will,” she said, but already knew it was a lie.
When Leon made visual contact with his yacht, he slipped down to tell Tanja. She and the baby were fast asleep. Illi wore a healthy glow beneath her light tan skin. Tanja wore a frown on her brow and hectic patches of red on her pale cheeks.
“Tanja?” He touched her arm and she flinched. “We’re moving to my yacht soon.”
“’Kay,” she murmured, not opening her eyes.
He touched her forehead. She was dry and disturbingly hot. He swore under his breath. “You’re burning up. Did you take anything?”
“Your kit is gone. Pirates took it.” The mercenaries on Istuval, he assumed she meant.
He checked for it anyway, but she was right. “Hang in there.”
“I’m fine. Is Illi okay?”
“Sleeping. No fever,” he assured her after setting the backs of two fingers against the baby’s soft cheek.
Within the hour, he was close enough to Poseidon’s Crown that he dropped the sails and bobbed in the water. The yacht was manned by a crew of a dozen. One would sail the trimaran back to Malta, so there were two men in the tender that came across.
Leon transferred their bags, then woke Tanja. She sat up and shuddered with cold, hugging herself and trying to drag the blanket back over her.
“Wear this.” He removed his pullover and helped her into it. “I’ll carry the baby.”
“I can do it.”
“You want to drop her? No. You’re sick.” He took the baby.
Illi didn’t want to be disturbed. She began to cry when he gathered her, but a fussy baby was the least of his worries. Tanja nearly hit the deck when she tried to stand.
“Stay there,” he ordered, pressing her back onto the berth. He carried the baby out and handed her across to the crewman piloting the tender.
When he returned, Tanja had stumbled into the galley, clinging to whatever was in reach. She looked like death and sounded panicked. “Where is she?”
“Waiting for us,” he said evenly. “Let me help you.”
Her weight loss hit him as she leaned into him. She was reedy and light as he boosted her up to the deck and lifted her from the trimaran into the tender. She folded into a seat and held out weak arms for the baby.
Leon exchanged a few brief words with the sailor taking control of the trimaran, warning him supplies were low and the water was boggy. When he sat down next to Tanja, he wrapped his arms around her, both to warm her and to help her hold the baby.
She snuggled into him with a grateful noise, head heavy as she nestled it onto his shoulder. Then she picked it up to ask with weak outrage, “What the hell is that?”
“What?”
Her gaze went up and up and up as they neared the yacht. “That’s Poseidon’s Crown? It’s a cruise ship.”
“It has staterooms for twelve, not twelve hundred,” he dismissed, keeping to himself that Poseidon’s Crown had been touted as the world’s first “gigayacht” when his father had ordered it.
“I saved up so I could go to Istuval on a working holiday,” Tanja said with indignation, eyes glassy with fever and fury. “I picked Istuval because it was close enough to Greece to make the side trip affordable. I was dreading asking you for a divorce because I thought I might get stuck paying legal fees and I don’t have extra money for lawyers. Once I had Illi and Brahim in my life, I didn’t know how I would pay for a divorce and adoption. And all the while you have this?”
A chill descended. It might have been caused by entering the shadow of the yacht’s seven decks. Poseidon’s Crown loomed like a skyscraper above them. But it might have been that word divorce. It might have been every word she’d just thrown at him like sharp icicles that still managed to penetrate his skin rather than shatter on impact.
“My father bought it,” Leon said flatly. “It was tied up on lease to a sultan for its first three years. I couldn’t sell it without taking a bath. Keeping it has allowed me to borrow—”
“I don’t care! You’ve been sitting on this kind of money for years while I traded my smart phone for baby formula. You’re the worst, Leon. You are the absolute worst.”
The behemoth with its stair-step decks of sleek angles and spaceship aerodynamics looked as though it was made of quicksilver and glass. It was modern and visually beautiful, and Tanja knew it to be indisputably luxurious even before she boarded.
As they approached the stern, a wall of the hull opened, allowing them to step straight from the tender into the yacht’s fitness club. Across from where they entered, a glass-walled weight room held treadmills and ellipticals pointed to enjoy the view off the port side.