“Find out what you can about her father—if he’s been up to anything shady, how she feels about him. Stuff like that.” He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure she’ll be able to give me much, or enough, but it’s worth a try. And you’ll get more than I can either way.”

  It didn’t seem like information that would be useful, but hey, she wasn’t the superspy assassin, so who was she to judge?

  “Okay,” she said.

  Piper picked out a light sundress, then went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and put on some makeup. She had slept in too long to do her hair so a simple ponytail would have to do.

  When she came out of the bathroom, Damian was nowhere to be seen. She was a little surprised by that, and maybe a bit sad. She had wondered what sort of face he’d make, seeing her dressed like this—just a little playful, and her makeup done properly instead of in a hurry. Would he look her over like a utilitarian object, or would there be more there?

  You’re not looking for more, Piper, cut this shit out. He’s a kidnapper for God’s sake!

  She shook her head and left the bedroom. Damian was out in the main suite. He had put on some slacks, which was good because another look at that tight ass would have undone her. He had not put on a shirt, however, and he was drinking black coffee as he scrolled through something on his phone. She could have tried to catch his attention before she left, but what was the point? He wasn’t looking at her, and she wasn’t supposed to want him to look at her.

  She grabbed the clutch purse that matched the dress and headed out.

  The “little cafe” that Fiona had described was bigger than Piper’s entire apartment. She took a seat at a small table that faced the front of the boat. She could mostly see the ocean from there, and less of the big white cruise ship beneath her. That seemed infinitely more pleasant.

  She had never been out on the ocean before. She’d been on boats, once or twice, but mostly boats that were still docked, and to watch fireworks or something like that. Sailing out to the sea, where the coastline was barely visible... that was new to her, and she wasn’t entirely sure why she was doing it. Well, she hadn’t made the choice after all. And, given how things were going so far, it wasn’t something she ever wanted to do again. Though there was obviously a certain bias involved.

  Fiona didn’t arrive until close to 9:30 AM. In a way, Piper was glad that the other woman was fashionably late. It gave her time to enjoy the first cup of coffee and stare out at the water. There was something truly incredible about not being able to see land, no matter how closely she looked. Her stomach tightened up into a knot over it—and then loosened into a gorgeous, free space that she’d never felt before.

  When she then saw Fiona standing at the edge of the table, she jumped just a little.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were there.”

  Fiona laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Is this the first time you’ve been out here?”

  “Yeah, I haven’t had time to come up here yet. It’s a nice spot. Good coffee.”

  Fiona shook her head as she sat down. “No, I mean is this the first time you’ve been out on the ocean?”

  Piper nodded. “I mean, I’ve been out on the water before, but never like this. Not on a—” She caught herself and tried to look like someone who was ridiculously wealthy, spent time with people like Rich Chamberlain and his family, and had been on a yacht before.

  Fiona’s face grew serious, all of a sudden. “I’ll order a coffee and something to eat for us. We need to talk.”

  A tight feeling clenched Piper’s stomach again. She tried to keep the nervousness from spreading to her face, but that wasn’t easy. She swallowed hard, matched Fiona’s neutral expression, and nodded.

  They got a French press full of coffee, a pot of cream and a cup of actual sugar cubes, as well as a plate of scones and mini muffins that were still hot. It is absolutely ridiculous, Piper thought to herself. There was no way any person could eat this much food, and she wasn’t even sure that the two of them would make a dent. But, hey, at least she didn’t have to worry that she was taking the only chocolate chip scone. She picked it up, cut it open, and smeared butter on the soft inside. Probably only filthy peasants eat scones this way—but she suddenly didn’t care. She was hungry, and if there was food, well, when in Rome…

  “So you’ve never been on a yacht like this before?” Fiona asked.

  Piper shook her head. “No, I’ve never had the chance.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  “It’s gorgeous.” The scone was so soft and fresh that she didn’t even have to slug it down with coffee. Absolutely incredible. “When you’re on the beach, you know, it seems like the water goes on forever, but then once you’re on the water—My God, it really does go on forever.”

  “The planet’s almost 75 percent water after all,” Fiona said. Her eyes were drifting, wandering the horizon as she picked at her muffin. “So I guess it may as well go on forever.”

  Piper watched her, trying to think of what information might be useful to Damian, and how in the world she was going to get it for him. “Hey, when is a good time to murder your dad?” wasn’t exactly the kind of question that would fly. But she didn’t know this girl, and she didn’t know what to do or say.

  So get to know her, doofus.

  “I can’t believe how long it’s been since school,” Piper said, hoping her bullshit voice had held up over the years. “What have you been up to?”

  Fiona made a snorting sound that did not sound like it belonged to someone who could probably buy several big islands. “Please, don’t do that.” She looked around, and when she was sure no one was nearby, she continued. “We didn’t go to school together?”

  “We didn’t?” Piper asked like an absolute idiot. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she winced.

  “Of course we didn’t. No offense, but I was a party girl when I was in college, but I wasn’t so out of it that I forgot who I lived with for a year. I went along with it because I wasn’t sure what was going on. At first, I thought your boyfriend must be one of Alex’s friends, and I’d just misheard you. But then Alex started asking if we’d been friends, and I realized that couldn’t be true.”

  Piper’s heart felt like it was in her throat. She was obviously new at this whole murder-assassin thing, but if Fiona had told Alex that Piper wasn’t an old friend, she had enough sense to know that she and Damian could be in a lot of trouble.

  “So what did you tell him?”

  Fiona offered a small smile. “I didn’t tell him anything. I know Daddy hired plenty of private security for the boat because I can’t leave my suite without bumping into someone with a clear earpiece. But Alex knows all of them. So I figure you and your ‘boyfriend’ are some kind of security that is supposed to be flying under the radar. That Alex doesn’t know about. Something like that, right?”

  It took Piper a second to realize that this was a request for confirmation, and she nodded.

  “Yes,” she said, hating that she was getting better at lying every day. “Something exactly like that.”

  Fiona nodded, clearly pleased with herself. “That’s just like Daddy.” She sighed. “I know he thinks Alex is just after the money...” She trailed off, staring out across the water.

  “And what do you think?” Piper prompted.

  It felt like way too much of a reach and a risk, asking the young bride to confide in her, but at the same time, Fiona had invited her up here, not one of her bridesmaids or theoretical friends. Her. There had to be some reason that she was seeking this sort of connection.

  Fiona kept staring, and she was quiet for a long time.

  “My mom left when I was a little girl,” she said after a while. Her voice had the quiet, level tone that some people got when they were speaking about something deeply traumatic. Something they had processed and mostly put behind them—mostly. “She and Daddy had a big fight, I don’t know what about exactly, but after that… she was gone. I found out that she’d died when I was in my late teens—that revelation was probably why I spent so much of my college years praying to the ‘porcelain goddess’.” Fiona gave another big sigh. “I never missed her exactly, not until we started planning the wedding. A girl’s mother should be at her wedding, you know?”

  Piper’s familial relations had never been good, and she was pretty sure that if she ever found someone to marry, after all the bullshit she had gone through trying to get away from Todd, she was going to elope, or have a courthouse wedding or—literally anything else other than having a big fancy wedding. On a big, fancy yacht. As if she could afford any of this anyway.

  “I get it,” she said, to keep the girl talking.

  “Alex was there, of course, and Daddy. Everyone kept telling me that I could have whatever I wanted.” Fiona laughed, and the sound was strangely flat on the open air. “I picked the most ridiculous things just to see if someone would tell me no. And no one did. Of course, I don’t think it would have been like that if Daddy weren’t—” She shook her head hard. “It doesn’t matter. We’re out here now. And I’m married to Alex.”

  “What about the money?” It felt incredibly rude to press, but at the same time, Fiona had brought it up.

  Fiona shrugged. “He signed the prenup. It’s watertight.” She narrowed her eyes at Piper. “You’re not some sort of fiduciary or something, are you? You’re too pretty and too interesting to be stuck with a job like that.”

  Piper laughed. “I know some very nice accountants.” Which was true-ish.

  “Nice, sure. But interesting?”

  Piper laughed and shrugged.

  Fiona got quiet again after a moment.

  “I don’t know. The thing about growing up with a ridiculous amount of money—or at least, with a father who has a ridiculous amount of money, no matter how much of it you can actually use or not—is that it starts to be hard to tell who’s around because of the money and who’s around because of you.” Fiona groaned and put her head in her hands. “It’s such stupid ‘poor little rich girl’ stuff to complain about. But does Alex really love me? Does it really matter?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. How would I tell?”

  Piper took a chance, reaching out and touching the back of Fiona’s hand with her fingertips. “I think it matters. I think it must be really hard to have that doubt always in your head.”

  Fiona smiled, but to Piper, it looked like the too-bright smile of someone who has realized that she’s been caught showing her emotions in public, and who now wants to change the topic.

  “So, can you tell me more about your job? Or that cute guy on your arm? It seems like the two of you are more than just professional...”

  Piper bit back the panic and tried to keep it off her face. “I mean, really, I’m potentially compromising things just by being here.”

  That sounded like something that a private security person would say. Maybe?

  “And the guy? Damian is his name, right?”

  Piper felt her cheeks flare with heat.

  Fiona laughed in the most ungraceful way and stopped just short of pointing at Piper. It was the most genuine expression Piper thought she’d seen from the woman yet.

  “Oh, oh, I see. You’ve been screwing the whole time, haven’t you?”

  “It’s not like that...” Piper trailed off. She couldn’t muster any kind of disagreement, not really.

  Fiona shook her head. “Of course it is.” She paused. “Look, everyone on this boat is pretending to be something. You and Damian are pretending to be guests, all my bridesmaids are pretending to know me inside and out, my father—” She faltered. “If we’re all pretending, perhaps you could pretend to be my friend?”

  Piper’s heart ached. “Of course I can.”

  She wasn’t even sure it would be pretending. Fiona seemed like such a nice girl. Something deep inside of her had been dinged up and damaged, yes, but nice. Kind. Yeah… Piper could be her friend.

  She reached across and took Fiona’s hand, giving it a hard squeeze.

  Easy as that, part of her thought in a voice that sounded way too much like Damian’s. Easy as that.

  15

  Three weeks passed on the boat, and they were the most luxurious weeks Piper had ever experienced in her life. Every night there was a fancy dinner with the kind of food she had only ever seen on TV cooking shows. Rack of lamb, scallops, swordfish, tuna, that weird geoduck thing that looked like a giant dick, prime cuts of beef, chicken cooked to perfection in extravagant sauces... Everything was rich, lovely, and delicious.

  It turned out that being Fiona’s friend came with a lot of perks that Piper hadn’t anticipated. It sounded shitty, but she could see why other girls had flocked to try and be in Fiona’s circle. Fiona wasn’t exactly irresponsible with her money as she was fully aware that she had more of it than she could spend in a lifetime, and so she saw no need to hoard it.

  The yacht was making a tour of the Caribbean islands, and Fiona went ashore every chance she got. She took Piper with her, and they just explored the bazaars and everything else that was set up to make a living off the American tourists who had stolen everything the islands had to offer and then tried to sell it back to them at a profit.

  But Fiona didn’t stick to the beaten tourist paths. Somehow, she always got someone to tell her where to go for a real meal and local market—the unfiltered truth. She bought as much as she could carry, which meant that she bought a lot of stuff.

  “The least I can do is this,” Fiona had said, gesturing at the piles of souvenirs. “I can’t fix everything we’ve all done wrong here, but I can at least try and give them what I can. The kind of charity I can do physically on the islands would be bullshit, and I can’t fix the systematic problems singlehandedly, but I can do this—give them the money I have.”

  That said, Piper saw plenty of plain money change hands. It seemed to be why she was seeking out the local people, Piper realized. Fiona gave a man money to purchase supplies and rebuild most of a community that had been devastated by a hurricane, and a young woman enough money to get to the mainland on the next ship so that she could rejoin her family. She just... gave.

  If Fiona were a character in a movie, Piper thought, she would be too good to be true. Instead, she was just the kind of good that made you want to be better.

  The first time Piper was sick, they’d been in Fiona’s suite, surveying the various purchases Fiona had made with Fiona divvying up what she intended to keep, what she thought some of the other girls traveling with her might want, and what was going to be Piper’s. Fiona gave her a sideways hug that somehow turned Piper towards her. Piper had been a little sick all day. They’d had breakfast off the ship, and given the state of water after the horrible hurricanes in the area the past several years, she had assumed that she’d just eaten something off. But during the hug, Piper’s nausea peaked, and there was no controlling what happened next; she was about to be violently sick.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth as the first heave happened, trying to keep it down as she bolted for the bathroom. She couldn’t help remembering the way she had been sick just after she’d come aboard; the thought made it worse, and this time she didn’t make it all the way to the toilet before she vomited.

  The splat of the sick on the floor made her heave harder, and she struggled to get the toilet seat up and her head over the bowl before she was sick again. Her knees were shaking but damned if she was going to kneel in her vomit.

  “Here,” Fiona said gently behind her and shoved across a small footstool behind Piper.

  Piper managed to sit before the next wave hit her and she gagged into the toilet again. Tears streamed down her cheeks at the intensity of it, and as the illness passed, she felt a different kind of sick. Even in her college days, she had never thrown up on a goddamn floor, not when she was blackout drunk and needed to be carried home. This was a kind of sick she’d never experienced.

  Fiona rubbed a hand over her back; she was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, safe from the mess. Piper sat back a little, flushing the toilet and surveying the damage.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Fiona said. “We’ll call someone to come and clean up, then get you sorted out in Alex’s room. Hey, we got you plenty of new clothes from the bazaars.”

  Piper’s stomach flipped, and she gagged again, but she had emptied her stomach, and there was nothing left to come out. The pressure on her back didn’t let up.

  “Are you sure Alex won’t mind?”

  Something dark crossed Fiona’s face. “He’d damn well better not. Or if he does, he’d better keep his mouth shut about it.”

  Something occurred to Piper then. The time that Fiona was spending with her was really time that Fiona ought to have been spending with her new husband. Instead, the two didn’t seem to be spending any time together at all. Well, maybe at night. Piper went back to Damian’s cabin every night, and he still seemed to take a vicious delight in using her body mercilessly. It was nothing less than he had promised her after all, and God knew she was getting off on it—sometimes more than once a night.

  Some nights he was fully present, murmuring her name as he fucked her, twisting her clit between his fingers and scraping his teeth over her nipples. Other nights he was far away somewhere, his gaze cold and distant. He was harsher then, more brutal.

  It was hard to tell which nights she got off harder.

  Maybe Fiona and Alex had been together so long that this honeymoon period didn’t feel like anything special. Fiona had insinuated that the marriage wasn’t entirely a love match; maybe they didn’t particularly want to spend a lot of time together. Or maybe it was simply that they didn’t like each other. But the darkness in Fiona’s voice now was much harsher than before.

  Piper nodded her okay. What the hell else was she going to do? She stood up and, with Fiona’s help, cleaned herself off with a towel the best she could. She could smell the sick on her hair and her clothes, but it would get her across the hall without making more of a mess.