#Chapter 3: He Smells Really Good.

“What do you think you’re doing, little wolf?” Arthur’s voice was all growl but it didn’t scare me. Given his current emotional state, I was surprised that he could speak at all.

“Please don’t do this. Think about your poor grandmother. How would she feel if you were gone?” I pleaded, burying my head into his back. I tightened my arms around him, hoping that he could feel that at least one person was here for him tonight.

Arthur firmly, but gently removed my hands from his body, his strength overpowering me. I felt like a child compared to him. He stepped down from the railing and turned, pushing me back with his hands on my shoulders.

Arthur frowned down at me. “Did you really think I was going to jump into the sea?”

I furrowed my brows. “Weren’t you? You were obviously upset…and crying…” My voice trailed off as he glared at me and I ducked my head to escape it.

Arthur sighed. With his thumb and forefinger, he cupped my chin and lifted my face back to his. “I wasn’t crying. The sea breeze irritates my eyes. That’s all it was.”

That’s a lie, Lily chimed in and I shushed her, even though I knew she was right. But if Arthur wanted to hide the truth, it wasn’t up to me to expose him.

“Then why did you go up on the railing?” I pressed, not willing to let it go. He didn’t know that I could see his emotions swirling around over his head. I could see everything he was trying to hide.

“Sofia isn’t the only one who’s dramatic,” he gave me a sad smile and dropped his hand, putting it into his pocket before opening it to show me a glittering diamond ring. “I was going to get rid of this.”

My face was hot as I stared at the ring. This was so embarrassing.

I told you he wasn’t going to do it. You should have listened to me, Lily said and I couldn’t even bring myself to argue with her. I one-hundred percent should have listened to her this time.

“Here. I want you to have it,” Arthur said abruptly, placing the ring in my hand. He closed my hand into a fist around the ring. I just gaped at him.

“I couldn’t possibly accept this,” I protested, trying and failing to give the ring back. He stepped away, clearly not wanting anything more to do with the ring.

“You can and you will. Think of it as a reward for your kindness. Even if it wasn’t needed,” and with that he walked back toward the ballroom and presumably his room.

I stood there, frozen. What the hell had just happened? I’d only come out here for some fresh air. I hadn’t expected to get wrapped in someone else’s drama.

You have too much of a bleeding heart, Almara. You could have just stayed out of it. You know the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, Lily unhelpfully supplied and I had to admit that maybe she was right. I was too much of a bleeding heart.

I opened my fist to look at the diamond ring again. It must have been worth a small fortune. Perhaps having a bleeding heart wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

---

I hurried into the ballroom, searching for Robert. I wanted to tell him about everything that had just happened. I wanted to tell him about the hail mary that we had been given.

Neither of us had a lot of money. The jobs that we had barely paid for the bills and we didn’t have much in savings. Not to mention the wedding costs. This ring could change everything.

However, I couldn’t find him. He wasn’t anywhere on the dance floor or at any of the tables. I was headed toward the bathrooms when a waiter suddenly grabbed my wrist.

“Miss, are you looking for the gentleman you arrived with?”

“Yes, I am. Do you know where he went?” The waiter grimaced and I knew that it wasn’t going to be good news.

“He and the woman he was dancing with had a lot to drink. Too much actually. They were, um, very affectionate. We had to ask them to leave,” he informed me and I felt the blood leave my face. No. He had promised he would never do this again.

Lily growled. I warned you this would happen again. He’s a gold-digging, two-faced ass. You know he wants more than the simple life you have planned.

Tears filled my eyes and a lump formed in my throat. No. He wouldn’t do this to me. Not again.

“Here. I think you need this,” the waiter said softly and handed me a glass of red wine.

“Thank you,” I whispered and downed the entire thing in one go. The sweet wine burned on the way down and warmed my belly. The rush felt good and I greedily reached for another glass before the waiter left to continue his shift.

I downed the second glass too and my body instantly felt hot. I set the wine down and brought my hands to my face. Yep. My skin was indeed on fire.

Forget that you’re a lightweight? Lily asked and I giggled. I hadn’t thought that information was relevant. I deserved to have some fun, too.

Get to bed before something happens. You’re burning up. We could shift by accident. There are quite a few human passengers on this cruise ship. I don’t think the humans would appreciate a drunk wolf running around, Lily griped and I pouted. I didn’t want to go to bed.

Lily swiped a metaphysical paw across my middle. Not enough to hurt, but I knew she was closer to the surface than she should have been. I definitely didn’t want to shift in the middle of all these people.

I took a few steps and knew that I wouldn’t make it too far in these heels. I kicked them off, leaving them where they landed. They weren’t my style anyway.

I quickly stumbled away and tried to keep my eyes focused. But it was getting harder. The room had started to spin.

Get to the room. Get to the room. Get to the room. I repeated it like a mantra. I could lay down once I got to the room. Things would be a lot better once I got to the room.

When I reached the door, I leaned my head against the cool steel. I fumbled in my purse for the key card and slapped it against the pad. Nothing happened.

I looked at the room number. It was definitely the right one so why wasn’t the door opening. Maybe I’d missed. I slapped the card against the pad again, turning the handle at the same time. The door opened. Thank the moon!

I slipped in, closing the door behind me. Why was the room so hot? I couldn’t breathe. This dress that I hated was too tight.

I allowed my hands to grow claws and ripped the dress off of me. In the process, I accidentally cut off my underwear as well, but I didn’t care. I was burning up.

I climbed into bed and moaned at how cool the sheets felt. They were like a soothing balm against my skin.

The bundle of sheets on the other side moved and I realized I wasn’t alone. Robert was here and already asleep. He hadn’t abandoned me. The relief I felt was almost corporeal.

I moved over and wrapped myself around him, burying my face into the nape of his neck, breathing him in. He smelled really good tonight.

He does smell really good. That’s strange…but I didn’t hear the rest of what Lily was saying. Sleep pulled me under and I was dead to the world.

---

Sunlight streamed in from the window as I woke up. I groaned and brought my hand to my eyes to shut out the light. It was too bright and it definitely wasn’t helping the headache that was threatening to rip my head apart.

What happened last night?

Well, you threw back two glasses of wine like you had been stranded in the desert and they were the first water source that you found, Lily informed me and I groaned again. What had I been thinking?

I slowly lowered my hand and looked beside me. Robert was gone. Maybe he had gone to get us both breakfast. Or, at the very least, some coffee. I desperately needed it.

I slowly stood up and made my way to the bathroom. I’d freshen up some before he got back. I didn’t want him to see me like this.

I splashed water on my face and reached for my toothbrush, but it wasn’t there. Confused, I looked around and, with growing horror, realized that none of the things in the bathroom were mine or Robert’s.

The bathroom was extremely luxurious. The room had a soft and elegant fragrance, not like the generic scent in ours. The faucets were inlaid with gold, inlaid with blue gemstones, a far cry from the basic silver I had seen. Even the toilet was gold. Who had a gold toilet?

Alarmed, I walked back into the room and finally noticed how nice it was. Much nicer than our room. Much nicer than we could ever afford. This far exceeded my imagination of luxury.

This wasn’t the right room. I had spent the night in a stranger’s bed. And my memory was fuzzy. I remembered cuddling, but anything past that was gone. Had we done…stuff?

I had to find Robert. But how was I going to explain this to him? My dress was in literal pieces on the floor. And I couldn’t exactly leave the room naked.

I had no other choice but to raid the closet. There wasn’t much in the way of clothes so I settled for a long dress shirt. I buttoned it all the way to the top and it was long enough to cover all my bits. It would have to do for now.

I bundled up my clothes from the floor and swiftly left the room. On my way out, I looked at the room number. It was 1100. Our room was 1200. I wasn’t even on the right floor.

Not wanting to linger in case the stranger came back, I made my way down the hall and up the stairs. Thankfully, there weren’t any other guests to witness my potential walk of shame.

After what seemed forever, I finally made it to the right room. I carefully touched the key card to the pad and was rewarded with a beep that let me know that this was indeed the right room. I breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door.

I heard them before I saw them.

“Harder…yes…like that…yes…yes…”

Soft moans emanated from the bed and I watched in horror as Robert pumped in and out of the woman from last night.