As soon as he ducked inside I turned and dragged in a lungful of sea air. I replayed the last hour, and with it giddy anticipation swirled. Two nights. My skin prickled with lust. I pressed my thighs together to quench the deep ache that had settled between them. I knew what this was. A two-day affair. That was it. I had no doubt it would be highly sexed and searingly hot. I just hoped my heart could handle it when he turned it off after time was up. Would I be able to do the same? And then what? Should I go home? Or did I take up his mother’s offer to stay on a few weeks with her? That seemed far more of an intimate prospect now than it had before everything had changed between me and her son. I chewed my lip. I should call Meredith for advice. But somehow I didn’t want to. Telling someone, even Meredith, that I was planning to have a two-day affair with my ex-boss on his yacht made it feel … sordid somehow. And of course, there was Tabitha. I didn’t know what this situation fell into. Technically, I was no longer his employee. But it was still Tabitha’s reputation that could be affected if people knew about us. They wouldn’t care about the technicalities. They would still only see that Xavier Pascale boned his daughter’s nanny.

Land was a distant blur and around us was nothing but wide-open ocean. A shiver rippled through me. Now that Xavier wasn’t out here distracting me, and we were farthest from land than we’d ever been, the reasons for my dislike of boats came back strong. My stomach lurched queasily.

I left the railing and made my way inside to find some ginger tea.

In the galley, Chef was wedged into the banquette reading a newspaper spread across the table.

“I think I’m getting seasick. I held the edge of the table. Do you have some ginger tea I can make?”

“We have sachets, but best bet is I make you some fresh. Also, we have anti-nausea meds if it gets bad, and,” he pulled himself out of the booth and grabbed a basket from a small bottom shelf, “we also have these. Acupressure cuffs. They actually work great.” He held up a package of rubber bracelets in light blue.

“Really?” I asked skeptically.

“Really.” He tossed them to me. “They press on the Nei Kuan acupressure point on the inner wrist. My ex-wife swears by them. And she’s right about most things.”

I felt an odd smile cross my face.