Reaching past her to grab an apple off the counter, it was like he could read her thoughts.
In her personal space. Much, much too close, a full head taller, he crunched that first bite of forbidden fruit and gave her a wink.
How the hell he even had apples was… something she didn’t want to know. How they had any of this bounty couldn’t be anything but bad.
“Are you really going to just stand there?” Inches away, so close she could smell him, all woodsy and leather. That she’d nudge him if she turned around and went back to scrubbing dishes.
He took a second bite of apple. Chewed and stared.
She gave it right back to him.
He ate that whole fruit down to the core, smiling as he snacked.
When she just couldn’t tolerate another moment of his antics, she groaned to the heavens and threw up her hands. “Fine, stay. I’ll leave. After all, it is your ship. I’m just an endentured guest here… trying to wash your pretty dishes, so your ugly men have something eat off of when they cash in their tickets to visit your sex slaves on Level 15.”
She hadn’t made it a step before he ended her retreat, grabbing her by the bicep and yanking her close. “The books in your pack. You a doctor?”
He knew just where to land a verbal blow. Her eye twitched when she stared toward the door and put her weight against his grip. “Do I look old enough to be a doctor?”
“No.”
Mimicking his drawl, she tugged against his hold. “Well, aren’t you smart?”
“Eugenia.” The way he said her name, it was as if he knew all her secrets. “You wrote your name on the inside cover of both books. They were wrapped in plastic to protect them from the elements. Weighed a ton, and you’ve carried them since the world started over.”
And he had them, and she wanted them back. “How many tickets do you want for them?”
His brow arched. “You’d fuck for those books?”
“Volumes, slaver. And no. But I give great foot rubs and I’m happy to bet on chess. Your idiot brigade has not been able to beat me yet. And believe it or not, I’ve found three whole tickets while sweeping up at the end of the night. I’m rich!”
“Foot rubs?”
“Your mistake is thinking that all these men want is to get their dick wet.” Of course they wanted that, but they needed so much more. Including verbal punishment she was happy to dole out.
Leaning closer, all lecher, he grinned. “Oh, I know what they want, sweetheart.”
“Eww.”
“Neil offered me three times your price. Came to my office with his hat in his hand. Fancies himself in love.”
That deserved another eww, but Eugenia wasn’t going to acknowledge how absurd the conversation had grown.
“And now I’m going to have to kill him for it.” He set her arm free, watching her scowl. “You can’t let these men fall in love with you. I don’t have enough women to go around, and you’re singlehandedly messing up the game by drawing them in with the virgin angle.”
She couldn’t help but feel a bit proud. But far more than proud, she felt disgusted. “So you’re going to kill a man for wanting a woman? He doesn’t even know me. And though he is handsome, he is not my type. Wait,”—maybe she had something to work with here—“could he afford me?”
“No. He’d be indentured for the next forty years.”
Frowning, she asked the question no one had answered for her yet. “Exactly how much do I cost?”
“Aren’t you going to beg for Neil’s life?”
The whole idea was ridiculous. “You’re not going to kill Neil. That would be stupid and a waste of a resource.”
Deadpan, the captain said, “Twenty million.”
As in tickets? “No woman on this boat has a quarter of that price! Why must you be such a dick?” And just to drive home her point, she picked up one of his pretty plates and smashed it on the ground. “And there is another five-thousand.” And broke another one. “And there’s another five-thousand. I might as well just break them all!”
Voice dropping, he warned, “Break another plate and I might just get mad.”
“Twenty-million tickets at five-thousand tickets a fuck, is four-thousand fucks. One fuck every night of the year would take more than ten years to pay off! Don’t look at me like that. Yes! I can do fucking math!” And fucking math should have been funny, considering the context. Normal Eugenia would have snorted. But nothing was normal. And nothing, not even air conditioning, was good. “Brooke is going to be out of your hellhole ship in two months, and you’re telling me you think you deserve ten years of my life? YOU DON’T DESERVE ANY OF IT!”
“I like it when you wear your hair up.” He tugged a tiny curl at her nape. “You look pretty.”
“I hate you!”
Leaving with a chuckle, the door swung back and forth upon his exit—a panting, furious, sad, and all the other emotions Eugenia grinding her teeth in his wake.
***
After the ambush, shirking chores while her uterus sloughed off last month’s cells, Eugenia stayed in her room until her period was over. When she emerged, tired of staring at the walls with nothing to do, and tired of not sleeping, she went to Joan and accepted the night’s outfit.
Naughty nurse—chosen by the captain himself, no less.
At Table #2, staring at the white tablecloth she’d be washing later, resentment pinned her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
A hand landed on hers, shaking her out of the gloom. “All the new girls go through this. In a week or two, you’ll be your old self again. Neil was a nice guy, but he knew better.”
Dragging her eyes up took more effort than it should have. “What about Neil?”
The guest said it again. “He knew better.”
But that would mean...
“Excuse me, I need to…” Inelegantly climbing from the cookie sheet, the lap, and over the other men in the way, she muttered, “use the ladies room.”
Of course the captain was standing there, leaning against the wall. One leg crossed over the other as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Tipping his chin, he greeted her, “Eugenia.”
None of it made sense. None of it. “What if I had actually liked him?”
“Then I would have let you go.”
Unsure why she was crying, especially where people could see, she said, “All he wanted was to hold a baby and be a daddy. He told me so six times at least!”
“And all you wanted was that one special guy to give your virginity to and live happily ever after.”
Senseless murder because some schmuck fancied a woman who didn’t like him back? “How could you?”
“You’re unattainable. Three hundred men will grasp that now.” Scratching his unshaven chin, he added, “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Did he suffer?”
“No. Never saw it coming. I told him he could have you, then shot him in the head as he walked away. Happiest I’ve ever seen him.”
There was no lie in it. Because as far as she had seen, neither of them had ever lied to one another. “I’m going to throw up.”