Cruisin' For A SEAL: SEAL Brotherhood #5 by Sharon Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

They’d be asking about her up on Deck 12 with the other entertainers. Besides, they weren’t supposed to mingle with the passengers, she reminded herself. Being seen talking to him could cost her the job she’d waited two years to get.
    As she took the chrome and glass elevator up to the party deck, she wondered what her mother would have said.
    I was young, Sophia. The man I was supposed to marry was from a good family. Our mothers were friends.
    Sophia thought it odd this could happen in Italy during the wild 1960’s. Men immigrated out of the country for work, and were especially in short supply. Women and children were left alone, fending how they could, and usually trying to work full time as well as tend the family. Her mother was the youngest of five girls and she watched as every one of them made poor choices from the lack of a good gene pool. But just as in ancient times, her family needed the help and assistance of his wealthy family. He was older, but had lost his wife to cancer and had been crazy about her.
    Much like Sophia, her upcoming marriage still worried her.
    He walked into the little disco with two of his Air Force buddies from the base nearby. They wore their bomber jackets and their hats back on their heads and they owned the room. Not a single woman in the room could resist them.
    When he asked me to dance, I declined, trying not to look at his handsome face. My girlfriend, Paulina, jumped in and he held her in his arms, occasionally looking over at me. Paulina did everything she could to distract him, but he was fixated on me, Sophia.
    Somehow he found out where I worked. We tried to speak, but honestly I couldn’t think of Italian, let alone the little English I’d learned in school. He pretended to need flowers for someone every day. Every day he’d bring me a cappuccino and we’d talk while I made the bouquet for him.
    He’d watch my hands. When I’d hand him the bouquet, our fingers would touch. He knew about the engagement, too. Sophia, somehow I just knew he would become the love of my life, just in the quiet way he waited for me to smile, waited for me to feel comfortable enough to go on one little walk with him on one rainy afternoon I dared to close the shop early.
    Sophia looked over the flabby bodies burning in the warm sun on deck. Her dad might have looked like one of these, she thought, if he had survived the plane accident that took his life when she was just twelve.
    She glanced over at the Americans in the corner with their beautiful wives. She quickly searched the group, but did not find Mark among them.
    “You okay?” Roberto came over and asked, planting a kiss on both cheeks. His hand lingered a bit too long and possessively on her bare waist. He was Matheus’s best friend, and would be in the wedding party. But she didn’t particularly trust him. The Brazilians were known for being womanizers, though Matheus had denied those rumors.
    “I’m not a child, Roberto. You don’t have to hover.”
    “Oh, but I enjoy it so, and I know how anxiously Matheus awaits,” he said as he leaned in too close and planted a kiss on her lips, despite her attempt to divert him. She was tempted to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, but resisted.
    “Go. Flirt with all your lovers,” she said as she pushed him aside.
    They completed the dance demonstration, Sophia engaging the sunburned crowd. She danced with men as well as women, even a few children who were hanging out around the shallow pool on deck with their Brazilian and Italian Bahia Club staff who entertained the youngsters.
    Her thoughts about the handsome American were distracting…how he had looked that morning in her bed as she poured water down on him, how his muscled arm behind his head and dancing eyes lit up her insides. How he’d wanted to cover her up earlier this afternoon.
    She suddenly did feel shy. Naked. Undressed. Admiring eyes were all around her, and she smiled back, even pretending to flirt. But