Free The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware Page A

scooping up a handful of canapés as he went, and inserted himself into the little group with the practiced ease of a born journalist.
    “Belhomme,” I heard him say, his tone full of a sort of Old Etonian faux bonhomie, which I knew to be completely out of keeping with his actual background, growing up on an Essex council estate. “Great to see you again. And you must be Lars Jenssen, sir, I read that profile of you in the FT . I very much admire your stance on the environment—mixing principles with business isn’t as easy as you make it look.”
    Ugh, look at him, networking like a bastard. No wonder he was working at the Times doing proper investigative stuff, while I was stuck in Rowan’s shadow at Velocity. I should get over there. I should inveigle myself into conversation with them just as Ben had. This was my chance and I knew it. So why was I standing here, holding my glass with cold fingers, unable to make myself move?
    The waitress came past with a bottle of champagne and, slightly against my better judgment, I let her fill up my glass. As she moved away, I took a reckless gulp.
    “Penny?” said a low voice in my ear, and I whipped round to see Cole Lederer standing behind me.
    “Sorry, Penny who?” I managed, though my palms were prickling with sweat. I had got to get over this.
    He grinned, and I realized my mistake.
    “Oh, of course, for my thoughts,” I said, cross with myself, and with him for being so coy.
    “Sorry,” he said, still smiling. “Stupid cliché. I don’t know why I said it. You just looked particularly pensive standing there, biting your lip like that.”
    I was biting my lip? Well, hell, why not trail the tips of my Mary Janes in the dirt as well and maybe flutter my eyelashes?
    I tried to remember what I had been thinking about, other than Ben and my lack of networking skills. The only thing that came to mind was the bastard who broke into my flat, but I was damned if I’d bring that up here. I wanted Cole Lederer to respect me as a journalist, not feel sorry for me.
    “Oh . . . uh . . . politics?” I brought out, at last. The champagne and the tiredness were starting to hit. My brain didn’t seem to be working properly, and my head was starting to ache. I realized that I was halfway to being drunk, and not the good kind of drunk, either.
    Cole looked at me skeptically.
    “Well, what were you thinking, then?” I said crossly. There’s a reason why we keep thoughts inside our heads for the most part—they’re not safe to be let out in public.
    “Other than looking at your lips, you mean?”
    I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and tried to channel my inner Rowan, who would have flirted with him until she got his business card.
    “If you must know,” Cole continued, propping himself against the wall as the ship heaved over a wave and the ice in the champagne buckets rattled, “I was thinking about my soon-to-be ex-wife.”
    “Oh. Sorry,” I said. He was drunk, too, I saw, just hiding it well.
    “She’s screwing my best man, from our wedding. I was thinking how much I’d like to return the favor.”
    “Screw her bridesmaid?”
    “Or just . . . anyone, really.”
    Huh. As propositions went, it was certainly direct. He grinned again, somehow managing to make the line sound fairly charming, like he was trying his luck, rather than acting like a sleazy pickup artist.
    “Well, I think you shouldn’t have too much trouble,” I said lightly. “I’m pretty sure Tina would oblige.”
    Cole gave a snort of laughter, and I felt a sudden twinge of guilt, thinking about how I would feel if Ben and Tina were over on the other side of the room making jokes about me throwing myself at Cole for the sake of my career. So Tina had turned on the charm. Big deal. It was hardly the crime of the century.
    “Sorry,” I said, wishing I could take back the remark. “That was a pretty cheap dig.”
    “But accurate,” Cole said dryly. “Tina would skin her own