“S’mores,” I said, nodding.
“Uh-huh,” Hunter said, nodding back at me.
At that moment, we both heard a stairwell door close and he leaned around the entrance to the alcove to look in the direction of the sound. He suddenly stepped back in, grabbed me by my waist again, and spun me around so that my back pressed to the wall and his mouth crushed down on mine. I was so shocked that I couldn’t even kiss him back. We had been in this position before and it hadn’t ended well for me. I was just getting to a point when I started accepting the kiss when he pulled back and stepped up to the entrance to the alcove again to look both directions. I could hear footsteps running in the opposite direction and I knew exactly what he had just done.
“That actually works?” I asked, knowing that he had just utilized my planned technique of making out with a stranger to divert the attention of the men chasing me.
Of course, Hunter wasn’t a complete stranger. Maybe it only worked when there was some history. Albeit brief, uncomfortable history, but history nonetheless.
“Apparently,” Hunter said. “Now, do you want to explain to me why you are running from three men who look like they should be manning the back door of a skid row strip club?”
I sighed, my shoulders falling slightly.
Dammit. I’ve been caught.
“I think that they were sent by my ex-husband to find me.”
“Why exactly would your husband want to send people like that after you when you are on a cruise after a wedding?” Hunter asked.
“Ex-husband,” I said. “Ex,” I emphasized again. “Like majorly big-old ex.”
“He was your husband just a minute ago when you were talking about the Cub Scouts.”
I glared at him.
“Ex,” I said again.
“Ex-husband,” Hunter relented. “That makes it a little bit clearer why he would be sending someone after you.”
I glared at him through narrowed eyes.
“Thank you so much for that vote of confidence.”
“So, what did you do?”
"I have some information on him that he is pretty adamant about ensuring stays with me rather than finding its way into the wrong hands.”
“Whose hands would those be?”
“FBI. CIA. NSA. The whole alphabet soup would be interested, probably.”
“Government agencies aside, it seems that he is determined to get his hands on you again, and the men he hired to make sure that he does look like they take their jobs very seriously. We need to get you safe. Once we reach the next port, you are getting off this ship."
I wanted to protest. Being told what to do was something that I had been more than happy to leave behind when I finally got up the nerve to leave Virgil, and I wasn’t about to let a younger man I barely even knew step into the role of doing it again. Even if that younger man was beyond gorgeous and had a restrained nerdiness about him that I wanted to peel away piece by piece. At the same time, however, I knew that he was right. As much as I had been looking forward to this cruise, if Virgil knew that I was on it and was determined that this was going to be the time when he got me under his control again, I needed to get off of the ship.
Hunter leaned forward to look both ways down the hallway again and then stepped out of the alcove. He started down the hallway, but I hesitated. My shoes were still lying in the middle of the carpet where I had dropped them when he grabbed me, all plans of using them as a weapon gone in the moment of terror. I stared at them, questioning my next move. Those stilettos had been a shopping coup for me. The limited-edition pair were impractical for virtually everything and several degrees less than comfortable, but they had been the envy of all of the other trophy wives during the days when that was my station in life. They were absolutely nothing like the plain, red, boring, pumps that Virgil had always insisted I wear, especially around others, which was one of the primary reasons that I had chosen them. He had been furious, but even after I had endured his wrath because of them, they still made me happy when I looked at them. They represented me, and I wasn’t going to lose myself again.
I dipped down and scooped my shoes up before following Hunter down the hallway. We moved at a good clip and I stayed as close as I could without actually pressing against him. Whatever had brought him down into that hallway to find me, his presence made me feel safer, and even though I didn't know what he could possibly do to help me, especially considering I was still reaching into the chip bag and not telling him the complete truth about who I was or really why my ex-husband wanted to find me, I was resigned to the fact that he may be my last hope of getting away. If I had known that this was going to be the way that this would all play out, maybe I would have done things differently. Maybe I wouldn’t have approached him across the dancefloor. Maybe I wouldn’t have even gone to the wedding at all. I could have dressed up in my purple satin dress and perched on my davenport to watch a live stream. That way I still would have been able to show Noah that I love him and was thinking about him, but wouldn’t have put myself, or now Hunter, in this type of danger.
Chapter Two
Eleanor
The weekend before….
“I still don’t think that I feel comfortable with this, Auntie,” Noah said.
I straightened the purple satin shawl that I wore over my shoulders and glanced out of the corner of my eye at the huge gilded mirror hanging on the wall. I cringed slightly at my reflection. The salesperson at the formalwear shop had assured me that this dress was nothing short of elegance in purple satin, but somehow the effect was almost painfully nuptial. I had been going for sophisticated, and dare I say, sexy, aunt-of-the-groom and had somehow ended up looking completely mother-of-the-bride. Considering there was no actual MOB in attendance at the wedding, I had spent the entire ceremony feeling as though the people behind me were trying to figure out why I was on the wrong side of the ceremony. When I had first arrived at the ceremony I was pleased to see that Noah and his new bride hadn’t gone for the tacky “Pick a Seat, Not a Side” signs that had become so popular at weddings and that be-tuxedoed ushers were escorting guests down the aisle to ensure that they were sitting in appropriate places. The moment that the young man whose name I couldn’t recall but who looked at me as though we had some long, deep connection, took my arm and started steering me toward Noah’s side of the ceremony, however, was the moment that I decided that getting mixed up in the guests might not be such a bad thing.