Chapter 3

3

Erin nervously fingered the black lace of her sleeves, knowing the dress she'd picked out for tonight's dinner party hadn't been quite right. Getting dressed up had never been her thing, but knowing she'd probably see Jace again had motivated her as she'd gotten ready in her cabin. He was a shifter, that much she knew. In fact, she was sure she knew quite a bit more about him despite their vague talk and the short amount of time they'd spent together. It was enough to make her realize how much she wanted to see him again, and she'd overheard Gretchen telling him that he simply must join them for the pre-wedding dinner.

"What we really need are some good tax cuts," Archie proclaimed. "Yeah, I know, you get all the poor people whining about it. What they don't understand is that a guy like me, who's making a lot of money, is also creating a lot of jobs. It's a service I'm providing for my community and for the economy, and I should be rewarded for it instead of punished."

Phillip cut a neat square of his steak and nodded. "Of course. There's plenty that the poor don't understand about finances, though. That's why they're still poor!"

Erin blinked at the appalling conversation around her. Archie and Phillip had struck her as used car salesmen from the moment she'd been introduced to them, only worse. They just wanted to make a buck, and they didn't care who they stepped on to get it. It was no surprise to her that they were still single, but she didn't doubt some vapid gold diggers would come and find them eventually.

"What about you, Florence?" Archie turned to the guest next to him. His eyes slid down to her breasts, which were mostly exposed except for the thin film of her dress that held onto her nipples by some sort of magic. The material dipped almost to her navel. "You probably make plenty of money on the runway. You shouldn't have to give all that up just because someone else doesn't want to work. I mean, if they want food, they should get a job instead of going to the soup kitchens and demanding to be fed on taxpayer dollars."

Erin pressed her tongue to the top of her mouth, promising herself not to make a scene. These people were wealthy, but it didn't mean they were smart.

Florence slowly turned to look at Archie. "How can I feel bad for the hungry? I've made a lot of money by not eating."

And this was just the first night. How would she get through a week of this? Erin glanced down the table, noting that Jace had been seated at the complete opposite end, and frowned to herself. It was only polite that Hugo and Gretchen had put the captain near them, especially if they were trying to treat him like a guest of honor, but it still irked her. If she had to suffer through this, it would've been nice to do so in the company of a hot guy along the way.

"You see," Hugo was saying, leaning back in his chair and pointing at Jace with his fork, "there's a lot of history behind sailing. It was the backbone of the economy, both in individual countries and around the world. It made the difference between life or death for some people, and this country wouldn't be anything without it. You might know how to operate the ship, but do you truly understand the meaning of maritime history?"

Jace watched the groom placidly. "I'm fairly certain I do."

Wow. These people were unbelievably pretentious. How could Hugo talk to him that way?

"Then there's the etymology of how all the various marine terms got their names. It's fascinating stuff." Hugo scooted his chair back and stood. "Excuse me for now, but we'll talk about that when I get back."

"I look forward to it." Jace happened to look down the table as he replied, and his eyes locked with Erin's. He raised an eyebrow, communicating a lot with little more than a twitch of a muscle.

She turned her face down toward her plate to suppress her laugh. There wasn't much she could do to rescue Jace from all of these ridiculous conversations, no more than she could save herself. It would be far too bold and obvious to take Hugo's vacated seat and chat up the captain. Erin would have to wait it out for now, so she turned her attention toward the middle of the table.

"No, you didn't!" Gretchen hooted.

Blaire nodded emphatically. "I did! I told her if she wasn't going to give me the one on the mannequin, I wasn't buying anything at all! And get this: She tried to tell me that she would just sell me a dress off the rack, insisting it was the same size, so it would be fine!"

"But the pattern on the fabric wouldn't be quite the same," Hadley insisted.

"Exactly!" Blaire agreed. "It's like, listen, lady, if the placement of a pinstripe doesn't mean that much to you, maybe you shouldn't be working here! As a matter of fact, I have photos of both dresses on my phone, but it's charging in my room. I'll go get it so I can show it to you." Blaire slipped away from the table.

Erin turned her focus to her dinner, which was good even if most of the company wasn't. It was odd that she should meet someone like Jace there. She'd barely even spoken to him, yet she'd felt a connection with him she hadn't expected. Erin had always wanted to meet her true mate, and at forty years old, she'd been starting to believe it wouldn't ever happen. In fact, she'd waited long enough that she usually didn't dedicate much time to thinking about it at all. It just felt too late. People fell in love when they were young and full of energy, not when they were approaching midlife and stubbornly stuck in their ways .

Picking up her glass, Erin took a sip of wine and realized her body wasn't interested in holding another drop of liquid. At least a full bladder was a good excuse to get away from this bunch for a little while. "Excuse me," she said as she stood up. Most of the table didn't even notice, except for Jace. He looked up as soon as she rose, and she could feel his gaze steady on her until she disappeared below deck.

She smiled to herself as she moved past the galley and into the passageway at the center of the yacht. Her hand ran along the wall in the narrow hallway. Even with the boat anchored, it still felt strange to walk around on top of the water. Once again, that made her mind drift back to Jace. Were his muscles a result of long hours at the gym or just hard work on boats? Maybe a fancy yacht like this wouldn't make him sweat so much, but he'd mentioned sailboats…

As her mind drifted, she realized she was wandering. Everything down there looked the same, especially when all the doors were closed. Erin's palm glided along until she found a handle. This seemed about right, so she twisted and pulled.

"Oh, yeah. That's it."

It wasn't a bathroom. It was a storage closet, and there was a lot more going on there than she'd expected. Hugo stood with his back to the doorway, his pants sagging around his hips. In front of him, Blaire was bent forward with her skirt flipped up. Her thong was a tangle of string around the straps of her designer sandals. She had her hands wrapped around the end of a shelf for balance as Hugo pounded behind her, their flesh slapping together as he sped up.

Erin shut the door just as quickly as she'd opened it and skittered away. She cringed, waiting for the door to slam open and for Hugo to see who had discovered them, but nothing happened. She slumped against the wall, frozen and uncertain. As her ears adjusted to the quietness around her, she could hear the deep vibration of Hugo's voice as he continued to murmur about the goods he was getting.

Completely forgetting about her full bladder, Erin hurried back up to the dining table. She paused long enough to slow her breathing and run a hand over her hair. She hadn't done anything. She hadn't been the one getting it on in a storage closet, yet she felt everyone would know something was wrong when she returned. It was hard not to walk stiffly. She moved too slow or too fast across those few feet of space, and she pressed her hands between her thighs under the table so that no one would see them shaking.

"Hey." Gretchen slid over into Blaire's seat, then leaned even further to be right next to Erin. "You wanna know something?"

No. She didn't. She already knew too much, and now she had to figure out what to do with that knowledge. But she smiled and hoped she didn't look as nervous as she felt. "What's that?"

"I am so glad you're here with me." Her boozy breath wafted over Erin as she raised her glass of wine.

Playing along, Erin clinked her glass against Gretchen's. At least her old friend was too drunk to know something was off. "Of course. I wouldn't be anywhere else."

"Well, but you might be," Gretchen replied, tucking her chin into her neck in a rather unflattering way. "I know this isn't your scene. We're not the same people. We haven't been for a really long time."

"No, we haven't," Erin agreed. And what kind of friend was she now? She was here for Gretchen, but she wasn't enjoying herself. And now she needed to give her oldest friend the worst news the night before her wedding. "Listen…"

"But you know, the thing is," Gretchen went on, not listening at all, "there isn't anyone else who understands me like you do. There are things you know about me that no one else knows."

"That's true," Erin admitted, and it only made her hurt and confusion worse. "You were really there for me in those younger years. I didn't think there was anyone else in the school like me."

"But there was me!" Gretchen answered happily. "I'll never forget the day Wade Boskey was picking on you. He had his whole little gang of hooligans ready to pound you into the concrete."

Erin didn't remember it as being quite that ominous, but those kids certainly had it out for her. "They kept calling me The Weird Girl. They just didn't realize how weird I am." Erin had always known she was an outsider. The school always claimed they taught diversity and acceptance, but that probably wouldn't extend to someone who was both a shifter and a witch.

Gretchen laughed. "Then I got to show them how weird I am!" She wiggled her fingers in the air.

Despite all her nerves, Erin managed another smile. "They had me cornered, and you came running over. You told them if they didn't leave me alone, you were going to blast them into pieces. It only took one little spark from the end of your finger to send them screaming, running for the teacher. Of course, she heard their little tale and knew they were making it all up."

"But they had no idea!" Gretchen laughed again and then sighed. She furtively glanced around the table and lowered her voice another notch. "I'm pretty sure Wade pissed his pants that day. Do you know he never spoke to me again? He got a job at the corner store when we were in high school. I went in there to get something for my mom, and he had this look on his face like he'd seen the devil himself. When I went to the cash register, he'd had someone else take over for him."

"I guess you really had an impact," Erin noted. She put a hand on her friend's arm. "I guess you and I have always had something in common, even while leading such different lives."

"We sure do, girlie!" Gretchen clinked her glass against Erin's again, only this time, Erin wasn't holding hers. Erin's glass tipped dangerously, and she caught it, but Gretchen didn't seem to notice. "You want to know something else?"

"Sure." Why not? Gretchen was so drunk, she wouldn't remember anything Erin told her that night, anyway.

Her head wobbling back on her neck, Gretchen sucked her lips against her teeth and then let them go with a loud smack. "I've still been practicing a bit."

"Have you?" Erin had occasionally wondered if Gretchen still harnessed her natural talent. "I wasn't sure how something like that would fit into your lifestyle with a guy like Hugo Bradford on your arm."

"Well, how do you think I got him?" Gretchen asked, her dark eyes shining.

"What do you mean?"

Gretchen rolled her eyes. "I know how to make things happen. I know how to put myself in the way of the right people. Back then, we used our magic to scare kids on the playground, but now I use it to climb the social ladder."

"Oh. Gotcha." Erin didn't really understand, but she didn't need to. It was dangerous to talk about such things right there in front of other people. Granted, everyone seemed so focused on their own lives that they wouldn't have cared if Erin got up and did a song and dance routine.

"Here it is!" Blaire came trotting back to the table, waving her cell phone. "You've just got to see the stripes on this dress!"

Gretchen scooted back to her own seat, and Blaire resumed her seat next to Erin. Her thong was no longer around her ankles, at least. In fact, there was no sign at all that Blaire had done anything beyond going to her cabin and getting her phone. If anyone noticed that it'd taken her a surprisingly long time to do that, they didn't comment.

Hugo returned a few minutes later and picked right back up where he'd left off, trying to lecture Jace about his own profession. Erin simmered inside as she picked up the wine bottle on the table and topped off her glass. Gretchen had gone on and on about how happy she was with Hugo. The more Erin knew about him, the more she hated him. How could Gretchen be with someone like that? Sure, he was rich, but he was also a pompous jerk.

Erin had no idea how she was going to handle this.