“A boat, yes,” Riley said. “I mean, it was just someone’s speedboat, nothing as luxurious as a yacht. One of my friends had a rich uncle or something like that. He took us all out and we went tubing.”
“I should have asked you before but, do you get seasick?”
Riley chuckled. “Not to the best of my knowledge,” she told him. “But then again, I feel like a speedboat is probably a different experience from a yacht.”
“Very different; for one you don’t have a whole lot of space for a bedroom, or a dining room, or a dance floor,” Mansour said with a little grin.
“A dance floor? Your yacht has a dance floor?”
Mansour nodded. “It’s not a very big one, but it’s there alright.”
Riley shook her head, unable to quite believe the situation she had found herself in.
A few minutes later she saw the outline of the huge yacht in front of them, marked out from the gathering darkness by floodlights on the deck. Riley’s heart beat faster with excitement as they approached the behemoth; for a moment she wasn’t sure how they would ev
en get from one boat to another.
“How are we going to get up?”
Mansour gave her waist a squeeze. “There’s a ladder on the side—it’s really very sturdy.”
He showed her when the shuttle boat came to a stop next to the yacht, and although Riley felt nervous, she trusted him. She climbed up first, very aware of the fact that she was wearing a dress—possibly not the best choice, when she was climbing a ladder with Mansour standing under her.
The yacht was everything that Mansour promised and more; as he led her on a tour of the boat, he took her to the dance floor below deck. He plugged his phone into the sound system and called up a song: Arctic Monkeys’ “Hellcat Spangled Shalala.”
Riley grinned when Mansour hurried back to her, putting his hands on her waist and drawing her onto the dance floor. She tingled every time their bodies brushed against each other, her skin heating up everywhere, her heart beating fast but steadily in her chest.
“I never would have imagined there’d be a dance floor on your boat,” Riley said as the song came to an end and they pulled away from each other reluctantly.
Mansour grinned. “I’m glad to have finally had the opportunity to use it,”
He took her hand and led her on a tour through the rest of the yacht, showing off the cabins, the bridge, and surprisingly spacious kitchen where his personal chef was already hard at work. Riley had never given much thought to the level of staffing that a yacht would require; but as they moved from one section of the boat to another, she noticed that there were at least a dozen crew members moving about on one task or another.
“Where are we going to have dinner? I’m starting to get hungry,” Riley said.
Mansour grinned and led her out onto the deck; the boat was moving fast through the water, and the wind against her cheeks felt exhilarating.
“Right over here,” Mansour said. He gestured to a table—it was just big enough for two with room for dishes, with a white tablecloth and candles shielded from the wind by crystal shades.
He pulled one of the chairs out for her and Riley sat down, looking around in excitement and amazement at the view. She could see the moon starting to rise, the stars starting to show in the darkness; the ocean was a dark mirror flowing alongside the yacht, combers radiating out from alongside the boat in white and blue.
Unlike the rustic, home-cooked food from their first date, the plates Mansour’s stewards brought to the table were some of the most carefully-presented and delicate that Riley had seen, even at Le Roi. Each course came with an explanation of the components that went into it, and Riley listened intently, enjoying being served instead of serving. She devoured oysters with mignonette sauce, lobster with clarified butter, and steak so perfectly cooked that Riley thought it was just as well that there was only a small medallion of it—she would eat herself sick otherwise.
“You told me you’ve had all this kind of food before,” Mansour said as Riley exclaimed over the dishes, almost moaning with pleasure at the flavors and textures.
“It’s a totally different thing to eat it on a gorgeous yacht with a beautiful man,” Riley told him archly.
She sipped champagne, and still managed to find room to eat the dessert: sabayon over macerated berries with whipped cream. Even with the delicious food, she managed to keep up her end of the conversation, and in spite of her steadfast determination to shut her feelings of, to set them aside and treat her interactions with Mansour as nothing more than work, she found herself liking him more and more.
After dinner, Mansour suggested that they lie down for a while, and Riley followed him to what he called the “sun deck,” where one of the crewmembers had laid out a pallet of pillows and blankets. Another bottle of champagne rested in a bucket of ice, and a basket of long-stemmed strawberries waited for them.
“Oh God,” Riley said, spotting the basket. “I couldn’t possibly eat another bite. You’re going to make me explode from too much food.”
“Not right this moment,” Mansour reassured her, chuckling. “Right now I just want to lay down and look up at the stars.” He turned away from her and called out to one of the crewmembers to cut the deck lights. Velvety darkness enveloped them, and Riley wasn’t sure whether she was more apprehensive about her sudden inability to see, or more excited at what might happen between them next. “Kick off your shoes,” he suggested.
Riley kicked off her shoes, stepping onto the pallet and sinking down. Mansour found his way next to her in the darkness, moving a cushion under her neck and head and taking her hand.
For a while they stared up at the stars in silence; Riley was amazed at how many of them she could see. “I forget how beautiful the night sky is,” she said to Mansour. “I never really get to see it.”
“Too much light pollution in LA,” Mansour agreed.