Starboard Vow Read online

  Starboard Vow

  A cruise director is taken off course when the country’s hottest bachelor—and her secret husband—arrives aboard her ship for a whirlwind cruise!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Excerpt: Real Men Knit

  Other Works by K.M./Kwana Jackson

  About the Author

  Starboard Vow

  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

  By K.M. Jackson

  Starboard Vow By K.M. Jackson

  Published by River Hills Press

  Originally Published by May 2019 under Once Upon A Wedding Anthology

  Copyright © 2020 by Kwana Jackson

  Cover by Mae Phillips at coverfreshdesigns.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at mailto:[email protected]

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

  www.kmjackson.com

  Other titles by K.M. Jackson

  The Creative Hearts Series

  Book 1: Through the Lens

  Book 2: Seduction’s Canvas

  Book 3: Threads of Desire

  Loving On The Edge Series

  Bounce

  Bounce Back

  The Unconventional Brides Series

  Insert Groom Here

  To Me I Wed

  The Betting Vow

  The Sugar Lake Series

  As Good As The First Time

  Too Sweet To Be Good

  By Kwana Jackson

  Real Men Knit

  Praise for Kwana / K.M. Jackson

  “A lush island setting provides the backdrop for this equally lush romantic tale. K.M. Jackson’s wonderful writing voice brings her characters to life. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this sexy island adventure.”

  —Farrah Rochon, author on Through The Lens

  “This story is funny, completely modern, emotional and heart wrenching at times . . . Bounce plays out almost like a Lifetime movie, except with more interesting characters and richer dialogue, complementing the storyline.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Bounce

  “Jackson’s Unconventional Brides series was a clever delight, and we’re excited to read what is sure to be a witty, intelligent take on the small-town romance.”

  —Bookpage.com on the Unconventional Brides Series

  “Readers will love [these] warm, witty characters who remind us all that happiness and love come only when we’re brave enough to follow our hearts.”

  —Jamie Beck, bestselling author of When You Knew on The Unconventional Brides

  “A heartwarming story that should be read with a warm drink and a pastry, of course.”

  —SheReads.com on The Sugar Lake Series

  “K.M. Jackson writes with a keen eye and smooth voice about the complexities of family and relationships. Her storytelling is as rich and inviting as a pie warm from the oven.”

  —Kristan Higgins, New York Times Bestselling Author on The Sugar Lake Series

  “Jackson really shines . . . a must-read for fans of second-chance love stories and sweet small-town romances.”

  —Booklist on As Good as the First Time

  “I loved every word of Real Men Knit. It’s a sweet and satisfying slow-burn of a romance about what knits us together as family, friends, and lovers. I can’t wait for the next installment of the Old Knitting Gang!”

  —Lyssa Kay Adams on Real Men Knit

  To Will

  Once around with you is never enough.

  Acknowledgements

  First and always thanks, to God for all my blessings and inspiration.

  Thank you to the amazing sisterhood that is Fiction From The Heart, Jamie, Tracy, Sonali, Donna, Sally, Falguni, Pricilla, Barbara, Hope and Liz, You women are a true inspiration.

  And finally, thanks to all my dear readers, old and new.

  You all are a wonderful and make what I do a true pleasure.

  Thanks for sticking with me!

  With love,

  KMJ

  Chapter 1

  Jules Monroe straightened the seam of her already straight uniform skirt as she squared her shoulders and tried her best to focus ahead with her usual open and friendly smile. It was the big day. Game time! She was on.

  As the chief social director on board the cruise ship Elegance, Jules was a master at making people feel comfortable and welcome. She’d done it all her life growing up. The middle child in a turbulent household, Jules was a born peacekeeper, and she had a knack for defusing difficult situations and putting folks at ease. So much so that the first chance she got she ended up making a career out of it, when she left college and by a weird happenstance ended up a fill-in for a friend who needed help with what seemed on the surface like easy summer money.

  Turns out it wasn’t. The first summer Jules spent as a third stewardess and general assistant for a private luxury yachting company but still, it was during that hard summer she’d found both a career she’d come to adore and a man she’d come to love.

  To some, she was the maker of fun, to others the designer of dreams, but Jules’s favorite moniker of late was “The Princess of Party Times.” Too bad today though, she felt like anything but. More like the “Countess of Crocks” or the “Baroness of Bullshit.” Yeah, any of those would suit her much better right now, she thought, as she was lined up with her fellow chief crewmembers, all dressed perfectly in the pristine officer whites, smiles bright, not a hair out of place, as each stood side by side waiting for their special VIP passengers to arrive. Jules continued to smile as her jaw started to ache from the strain of it, and she feared her perfect façade would crumble at any moment if he didn’t arrive soon and put her out of her misery.

  Jules swallowed down on the lump in her throat and once again sent up a prayer to God, the universe, just anything or anyone who would listen with a divine ear that she could get through the next few days without completely losing her job, her dignity or shit in general. Moving from those big thoughts she went macro and momentarily fretted over the state of her clinical strength deodorant as trickles of sweat formed between her shoulder blades, the late afternoon Miami sun bearing down on them with a vengeance. She squirmed slightly and her friend, and right-hand woman, Dina, snorted from beside her and gave her a quick nudge. Jules looked over and was slightly comforted by Dina’s cheeky grin and saucy wink.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dina whispered. “You’ve got this. You are a strong, professional woman. You’ve made it through the last year without him, so you’ll clearly be able to survive the next four days in his presence. Hell, by Monday I’m pretty sure Mr. Big Superstar will be brought down a rung or two, at least that is if I have anything to do with it.” Dina gave another hard snort getting a dangerous glint in her eye that sent all sorts of warning bells off in Jules’s head.

  “Maybe it’s you who should calm down,” Jules whispered out of the side of her mouth. “You know I love you to pieces, but I don’t need you making this awkward situation any worse by going all destruct
o on me. Things will be tense enough, not to mention weird. And what I really need to get through this is calm. So please, just let’s keep it cool. It’s the only way I’ll get what I need out of this cruise.”

  “Need? Oh, you mean sex,” Dina whispered in a way that said she might as well have been using a megaphone.

  Jules gave her a side elbow. “Ugh!” she hissed. “You know that is not on the agenda. The order of this cruise is cool, collected and by the end of it all”—Jules swallowed once again before she said the next word—“divorced.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you,” Dina replied. “You know it will be a lot more convincing if every time you said the D word you didn’t swallow as if just the thought of divorcing your absentee mega star husband would break you in two.” Dina sighed and gave Jules a quick but too deep glance. “Though I still think that one for the road for old times’ sake is not the worst idea. You know, see if that pony still has pep.”

  Jules blinked. How was she friends with this woman?

  “What is this I hear about old times’ sake and ponies?” It was Brenden Fox, her friend and chief steward, and of course he would walk up just when Dina was saying something saucy. Though the odds of Dina saying something saucy at any moment were usually relatively high.

  “Nothing,” Jules responded quickly.

  Brenden raised a teasing brow her way and she took in his soft hazel eyes, suddenly shining brightly, and watched the edge of his lips quirk up transforming his normally sweet, innocent look into something entirely opposite.

  She gave him a quick eye roll. She could not deal with both him and Dina today. The two of them on tag team would be too much. Still, Brenden did have a way of making her smile. He was disarming with his classic good looks, broad shoulders, strong jawline, copper tanned skin and sandy blonde hair, cut in the military style that made him look a bit like an ’80s teen heartthrob come to life.

  “Nothing,” Jules said, focusing on the work at hand. “It was just Dina going on like she does. You know her, always trying to get someone hooked up. It’s not like we’re working on the Love Boat here.”

  Brenden gave Jules a pointed stare, his expression suddenly more serious and turning slightly smoldering. “Well, I can’t say that I fault her there. Nothing wrong with love. You say it as if the L word is a bad thing.” He stared at her a beat longer before wiggling his brows.

  Jules gave him a light tap on the shoulder. “You really are incorrigible. As if you know a thing about love,” she said, her mind going to the fact that she’d had more than a few chances with him as he’d made it clear early on that he was available and interested in her, but she never entertained him, and he never pushed. Not that he had to. Jules knew she was nothing more than a friend to Brenden. Any offers were purely of the hookup kind, and a man like Brenden could and did hookup as frequently and with as much variety as he liked.

  “Hey, I know plenty about love,” Brenden protested. “Just ask anyone who’s been with me. I’m one of the most loving guys there is out here. I’m so loving I could write a book on the subject.”

  “I’m not sure if what you would write would actually count as a love story, Brenden. More like a lust story,” Jules countered.

  “Love, lust? As long as each person comes out feeling good in the end, I don’t see much difference between the two.” He grinned, his smile once again going toward the sexy side that had passengers swooning and lining up four deep for any drinks he was pouring for the night, or whatever else he happened to be serving up.

  Meanwhile, it was taking all Jules had just to keep up with the conversation because truly, she was only half listening. Her not-whispered-quietly-enough conversation with Dina had gone into dangerous territory and sent her mind even further into a tailspin. She took a deep breath and smoothed back her already well-smoothed and contained dark curls. She needed to get her head on straight. Time to get it together since he, aka Aaron Manning, would be coming on board in just a few moments.

  That’s right, the Aaron Manning. This year’s hottest, well, just about everything if you let the entertainment trades and social media tell it. He’d made Hollywood breakout star list, Fan Stan magazine’s most heroic hero list and just this past month, Entertainment Now’s sexiest bachelor list. Jules held back tightly on a frown. That one, she had to admit, grated on her.

  She and Aaron being technically married and all.

  Though, to his credit—and was she really giving credit here?—he’d barely made the list, coming in at number 25 out of 25. But yeah, the fact remained, even if no one knew it, he was her freaking husband. So what that it wasn’t public knowledge, and that they had not been seen together in going on a year now, or had it made a year? Jules felt her thighs go taut. Yep, it was definitely a year.

  At least for her it was a year in any and all ways. She knew it in her heart, mind, and body. As for Aaron, she didn’t know what he knew. All she could surmise was from what she’d gleaned from the internet and gossip sheets. And though it didn’t seem like he dated around, he had been photographed repeatedly with one woman, his leading lady from their Starboard franchise, Poppy Roberts.

  Aaron and Poppy. The current couple on everyone’s lips. Are they, or aren’t they? What the hell tabloids? He was her husband. Though he didn’t wear a ring, it shouldn’t take more than a cursory search to find out that Mr. Hotshot, whether he did or didn’t wear a ring, was legally a full-on married and attached man. At least for the moment he was. After this cruise, she hoped not so much.

  For now, he was her husband and if any of the aforementioned news outlets had researched past their noses, they could have fairly easily found that out. Jules let out a breath, fighting against the anger simmering just below the surface of her chest. What right had she to be mad at some anonymous news outlet? Wasn’t this what she wanted? Wasn’t it what she’d signed on for when she left Aaron last year? She should be happy about all the headlines. If she wasn’t, then it was all for nothing. The headlines let her know that her objective had been achieved. Now all she had to do was stand in the truth of the fact that she was right all along.

  Just then a small parade of dark town cars and two sprinter vans with darkly tinted windows pulled to the curb at the end of the dock. Captain Giardano let out a small cough which was more than enough of a signal for the crew to once again assume the positions and prepare properly for their VIP guests.

  Jules locked her knees tight against the overwhelming impulse to run. Not that she knew which direction she’d go anyway. Forward or back. The fact that she was struggling with that thought scared her the most. Where would she go and who would she run to, she thought as the door of the first van opened and way too quickly, she got her first glimpse of her husband, Aaron, in over a year.

  “Whoa,” Dina said, from by her side, “are you sure about this? That man looks so good that even my non-committal ass would ask for his hand. Woman, what are you doing?”

  Without thinking Jules let out a low moan as she took in Aaron’s tall, dark and way too handsome figure. Dang it! In the past year he’d somehow gotten more sexy, alluring, and downright more mouthwatering than ever before. Jules swallowed. Shit, was she drooling? She hoped she wasn’t drooling. She let out a long breath before answering Dina. “You said it. My overtime celibate ass is right now wondering the exact same thing.”

  Chapter 2

  Once again, Aaron Manning vowed to himself he’d win Jules back. Forget her stupid divorce papers and to hell with nights sleeping alone. He wasn’t leaving this ship without his wife by his side.

  Yeah, that’s what he told himself. Too bad his quickly beating heart and shaky knees didn’t quite get the memo, he thought as he prepared to exit the van and make his way to the cruise ship Elegance and be face to face with Jules for the first time in way too long.

  But why should he be nervous? He asked himself for the hundredth time in his head. If anyone should be nervous it should be her. She was the one who left with hardly more than
a word. She was the one who served the papers first, also with hardly more than a word. Aaron reached for the door handle and paused. But he was the one who let her go. And he was the one who didn’t chase her back. Instead, heading in the opposite direction over and over going from film shoot to film shoot in pursuit of his career ambitions.

  “You just gonna sit there or we going to get out? It’s your call,” his manager Morris said from by his side.

  Aaron looked down. He was no longer holding the door handle but instead looking at a wide-open space where the driver had stopped, come around, and opened the door. Shit. When did that happen?

  Aaron shook his head. “Yeah, of course I’m getting out. Let’s go.”

  Morris let out a sigh. “Listen, I know you’re nervous. So am I. But I have a feeling everything will work out fine. Jules is a levelheaded woman. I’m sure she’ll see reason.”

  Aaron turned and looked at Morris. He really should and wanted to be mad at Morris for his part in all of this, but he couldn’t. No, he had to take responsibility for the fact that Jules left. Putting it on someone else was the cowardly way to go. “I’m not sure this is a case for levelheadedness. We’re way beyond that. Though any positive love thoughts you can send my way will be appreciated.”

  Morris nodded, though he still looked nervous. Aaron knew he was worried about the repercussions of both Aaron getting back with Jules and what would happen if he didn’t. Both would probably affect his bottom line. Aaron gave him a reassuring smile. “Come on, man. Have some faith in me. I’ve got this,” he said and stepped out of the van and onto the dock.

  Aaron tried to walk confidently and think of the objectives of the cruise. As far as gigs went, this was a glorified vacation and a paid one at that. The fact that his wife was the Elegance’s chief social director only fell in line with his philosophy of combining work and pleasure. So, win/win there. Work because the cruise was put forth by the studio as a chance to continue to promote his movie Starboard and an opportunity to sit with the principals and hash out agenda items for Starboard 2, the sequel.