“Hey,” he said, giving her the same up-and-down that Purdue had-although not as offensively. Somewhere in that practiced expression was some honest friendliness. “Quite a boat.”

“Fantastic, isn’t it?” She reeled off her short list of questions.

“I can eat anything.” He cocked his head. “You can’t be on 24/7.”

“I’m not. Once dinner’s put away, I’m on my own time.”

“So…you do have some free hours.”

She wasn’t about to pretend she didn’t understand where he was going. “Tons. Crew and staff eat together, tour together when we’re offshore. We’ll all have plenty of time to get to know each other. Once the dinner stuff’s completely put away, though, I’m on my own time. Which means you guys can stay up deck, drink all night, watch whatever you want and do whatever you want, without crew in your face.”

“That’s good,” he said, then opened his mouth to continue.

“I’m en route to your boss,” she mentioned, which shut him up beautifully.

Of course, it shut her up, too. Ivan had made clear to the crew that sucking up to Harm Connolly was required. Unfortunately, Cate had always flunked the course in kowtowing. It would have helped if she’d gotten a look at him before, she thought glumly, but no, she hadn’t thought ahead and made the effort. Truth to tell, failing to think ahead was a fault of hers. In fact, pretty much a fault on a daily basis. And she really didn’t want to put her foot in her mouth right off the bat with the head honcho…which meant she was all too likely to.

She rapped. Waited. Thought aha, maybe she could get a reprieve and not to have to deal with him right then-but then the door unlatched and there he was.

The punch in her gut was completely unexpected. He was the owner of a big-to-do company, for Pete’s sake. Mentally, she’d had pictured him as in his sixties, tyrannical, formal.

Instead she got a half-naked dude with sculpted shoulders, unshaven cheeks, and a head full of towhead blond hair, spiky and wet from a fresh shower.