Money to Burn Read Free Page A

back to your place downstairs with the other spouses. Amazing, thought Ivy, the way women were always tougher on other women. Michael excused himself, and Ivy led him away.
    “Hey, having fun yet?” he asked.
    She gave him a half smile, trying to be a sport. “Honestly?”
    “This is the only event like this,” said Michael. “Some genius in New York thought the spouses might enjoy one cocktail party where they could get to know each other without us at your hip.”
    “It’s not that.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    She turned her head slowly, drawing Michael’s gaze toward the lower deck. He caught on quickly.
    “Ahh,” said Michael. “I see you met Shannon and her gosse.”
    “Gosse?” said Ivy.
    “Gossip posse.”
    “Good one. That’s exactly what those women are.”
    Ivy stepped closer, arms at her side as she laced her fingers with his. Their bodies weren’t quite touching, but she flashed an expression that would have tempted any man with an ounce of imagination.
    “Can we get out of here?” she said.
    “You mean go back to our cabin?”
    She shook her head. “I mean ditch this cruise and lose these losers.”
    “But…we just got here.”
    She glanced across the glistening sea, toward the moon rising over the island’s silhouette in the distance. “This is such a beautiful place. Let’s hire a captain and charter our own sailboat. Just you and me.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Does a Shannon Bear shit on her friends?”
    Michael smiled. “You really want out of here?”
    She draped her arms atop his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “I’m very possessive of my playthings.”
    “All right,” he said. “I’ve had enough of these blowhards myself. We’re in port tomorrow morning. Consider it done.”
    She rose up on her toes, hugged him around the neck, and whispered, “This is one move you will never regret, Michael Cantella. I promise.”

3
    I COULDN’T WAIT TO GET OFF THE S AXTON S ILVERS PARTY BOAT THE next morning, and by noon the sails were full on our private charter. It was a fifty-foot Jeanneau International, which was probably more boat than we needed. But Ivy kept her promise— “This is one move you will never regret, Michael Cantella” —and we spent each of the first three nights breaking in a different stateroom. “A promise is a promise,” she told me, and by now I knew everything about her was as advertised. She hadn’t become the love of my life by pumping me full of candy-coated popcorn and then skunking me on the prize.
    The past three months had been picture perfect. My relationship with Ploutus Investments had been well established by the time Ivy started working there, and she was just a month into her new job when I invited her to lunch. She turned me down—repeatedly. Ivy was serious about her career, and dating a guy like me could have created a conflict of interest. Or maybe she thought I was just another Wall Street jerk. Whatever the reason, we worked it out on the condition that I say nothing to her boss, agreeing to keep our first date “just between us.” By the second date, sparks were flying. Ten weeks later, we were sailing the Bahamas together.
    “Michael, can you help with the anchor?”
    “Got it,” I said.
    This was our fourth day away from Saxton Silvers and the MS Excess . Just Ivy, me, and a Bahamian captain named Rumsey who lived in a T-shirt that read R ELAX : I T’S M ON - DAY , M ON . Ivy had raced J/24s in college and was a skilled sailor in her own right. Our captain knew the waters and was also a fairly talented chef. I did all the important stuff, like phoning ahead to the marinas to restock the liquor cabinet—and helping with the anchor.
    “Try not to fall overboard this time, okay, honey?”
    “I didn’t fall . I just picked a not-so-convenient time to go for a swim.”
    The fact that I couldn’t even stand on the bow of a sailboat and operate a motorized anchor reel was doubly embarrassing because my father lived