Edward closed the door after Estella. He moved slowly around the room, taking off his suit jacket. Estella sat herself at the nearby table peeling off her gloves when their maid came into the room.

"You're back early." she welcomed them.

Standing in the middle of the room, Edward turned. "What's that supposed to mean? Should I not be here? In my room?" he turned to look at Estella. "Were you expecting someone else?" he narrowed his eyes at her.

"No, sir, I—" the young maid regretted saying anything at all.

"Leave us, Betty." Estella said looking at the table, scared to lift her eyes at any of them.

Without another word, Betty went out of the room as fast as she could.

Edward took a seat across Estella and lit a cigarette.

"Now," he said in between blows "you know I'm going to ask you. And you know what I'm going to ask you."

"You know I don't like you smoking around me." she looked away, refusing to meet his gaze.

"And I don't like when you embarrass me!" he yelled and she winced.

He inhaled the smoke and let it out, calming himself. "I don't want to yell or fight with you, Stella. If you didn't do anything wrong then you'll have no problem telling me the truth."

Despite his very nice and calm personality, Edward knew to be harsh and stern when he needed to be.

She swallowed. "I can't tell you." she finally looked at him, her eyes all red from holding back tears.

"Why?" he leaned forward, as if he was challenging her.

"Because," she took a deep breath "it would ruin a surprise."

"A surprise?" he raised his eyebrows. "What the hell are you talking about?" a small smirk formed in the corner of his lips.

"For your birthday, sweetie!" she made a nervous smile; afraid he would not believe her.

"You're making me a surprise?" he laughed.

Estella didn't know whether to start laughing with him or not.

"Yes, sweetie, didn't I always?" she rose up and walked over to him.

"Yeah, I guess you did." he had to admit.

She smiled satisfactorily and hugged him from behind, her blonde hair falling at her side. She felt he was still a bit of a tense.

"Is something wrong?" she questioned, backing away to look at him.

He sighed. "I just thought it was something else. I mean, the way you put up a show…"

"Well, I had to, didn't I? Otherwise, you'd be onto me." she leaned forward to face him.

"Yeah, I guess."

Estella kissed his cheek. "Let's get to bed."

She felt like the weight on her shoulders was lifted up, and Edward felt there was more to the story, but decided to let it go for tonight. He'll get to the bottom of this first thing in the morning.


"Hey, you're back on time." James said when he spotted Harold walking up to him.

"No, I'm not." replied the other boy.

James wanted to say something, but Harold stopped him before he could say anything. "I came to tell that I have an extra hour. Captain's orders."

"What the hell?!" James spat.

"I don't have time for this, she'll be here any second." Harold patted James on the shoulder, but before he could leave the other boy grabbed him.

"You invited her here?!" he hissed.

They both turned to see Mr. Murdoch looking at their commotion and James let go of Harold's hand.

"Good evening, Mr. Murdoch. How are you?" Harold flashed him his most charming smile.

"Ah, so-so." Mr. Murdoch answered, holding his cup of tea.

"Very well." Harold answered waiting for Mr. Murdoch to go back minding his own business.

Once he did, he turned again to James. "Of course not, stupid. But tell me, did Lightoller caused you any trouble?"

"No. He did walk around, but he knows your rounds start at ten."

"Dammit." Harold whispered looking at his watch. "It's quarter to ten."

"Then you better start moving, boy." James wiggled his eyebrows.

"Shut up." he playfully hit the other boy before leaving.

He went flying down the stairs to beat her from waiting for him. He then realized how stupid it was from him to ask her to meet here since they could easily be seen from the bridge. He came down just in time to see Elaine coming out from under the bridge and quickly motioned to her to stay put. She stopped walking and gave him a weird look. He looked up and around to see if anyone saw him and if it was safe to approach her.

"What was that?" she laughed, intrigued.

"Measures of precaution." he answered, not looking at her, but ahead of them.

Elaine waited if he'd say anything else, but he didn't. He just took her by the hand and said "Come."

They started walking slowly at first, but Harold started picking up pace when they were almost running down the deck. In their advantage there wasn't many people out, almost not any.

Elaine loved it. She laughed, but hardly could keep up anymore. "Slow down, please."

He stopped at the corner where the stairs were. Elaine leaned against the wall to catch her breath. Looking at her like that he could do the same. She had a pure smile on her face and didn't even care that her dark brown hair was all messed up. He thought she was gorgeous like that. He fancied her even more now that he knew he could go rebel with her.

"What?" she asked looking at him, her hand on her chest.

"Nothing." he shook her head.

"So," she moved towards him. "Where are we going, Mr. Lowe?" she asked in her most seductive tone that sent shivers down his spine.

"I want to show you something."

"That wasn't on the tour list?" she raised her eyebrows.

He shook his head. "You tell me."

She smirked. "Lead the way, then."

He got a hold of her hand once again. "Here, down the stairs. I'll go first, follow me."

They walked down into the dim light, Elaine looking around not recognizing the place.

"I don't think we—" suddenly she slipped on her dress, but Harold was quick to turn and catch her. "Oops." she voiced.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his breathing quick.

"Thanks to you, Mr. Lowe, I'm always perfectly fine." she declared.

"Harold." he breathed. "Call me Harold."

"Alright, then. Harold." she smiled and he let go of her.

"Come, down this hallway." he motioned with his head.

"It's good to have you around, Mr. Lowe—I mean, Harold." she corrected.

"And why is that?" he stopped in front of a door.

"Well, you're always quick to run and help a lady in trouble. Do you help a lot of ladies like me?" she wondered.

"Other ladies like you don't tend to get in trouble as much as you do." he answered and opened the door. "After you." he cheekily smiled at her.

Elaine passed him wondering if it was a good or a bad thing what he just said. She suddenly froze in the doorway as if she remembered something and turned to face him.

"Ladies," the world rolled out of her tongue. "You said earlier today you were always happy to help a lady in trouble, were you implying that I am not a lady?" she questioned.

"No—"

"Do you think I'm a prostitute? Is that why you brought me down here?"

"No!"

"A hooker?"

"Miss Badour—"

"Are you trying to rape me?"

"For Christ's sake, no! I was just, well, I saw you with these two men and I didn't want to be fooled around by you so I just—"

"Was rude?"

"Yes! No, I mean, well, I later found out that one of them is your brother, supposedly everyone knew that except me, and the other one is William Caison." he was nervous, Elaine could tell.

Elaine started laughing. Harold just stood there, uncomfortable, watching her. Once she composed herself, she wiped the tears from her eyes murmuring oh goodness and turned around.

They entered the room where the swimming pool was. It left Elaine completely breathless. It was completely empty with the dim light from the wall lamps filling the room, but the most of the light was coming from the moonlight which reflected on the shimmering water.

"Harold, this is beautiful." she exclaimed, completely forgetting about their previous conversation.

"So, you hadn't been here before," Harold himself wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement he was making.

"No, not yet at least. I heard about the swimming pool, but no." she was looking amazingly around the room.

"Well then, care to go for a swim?" he motioned with his arm.

"Now? I possibly couldn't." she protested.

"Oh, come on! I bring you all the way here and you won't even dip your fingers. But you are more than welcome to watch, if you'd prefer." he said as he was rolling his pants up and kicking of his shoes and socks.

He walked over to the rim of the pool and sat down. "Ahh. Are you sure you don't want to join me?" he looked at her over his shoulder.

She stood behind just looking at him. She felt challenged. It was the first time that some dared her to something. She lifted her dress and kicked of her shoes. Harold noticing the movement, turned his head with to give her privacy, if needed, with a satisfied smirk. Minute later she sat beside him, her bare feet in the water.

"You made a good call." he leaned back.

"No, I did the good deed. You were lonely." she looked at him.

"That too. I agree." he straightened himself a little bit.

"More than once tonight!" she rose her index finger up.

He laughed. "Yeah."

"By the way, what's with you and the Caisons?" she furrowed her eyebrows.

"Oh, that! Well, we were kind of at war. Did you see how they pretended to not know who I am?"

Elaine laughed. "Yeah! What's that about?"

"My dad screwed them over." he started. "When I went home for the holidays father would've let me stay only if I worked with him. He thought I would change my mind and decide to take over and stay with them forever. And to be fair, I thought so too. I couldn't really judge something I hadn't tried before. So, yeah, I got in just when he was negotiating business with Caisons. I was amazed how little William spoke, but he probably trained his whole life for that moment." he rolled his eyes.

"I was just sitting there, listening. Listening to the fairytales basically. They were talking like they could do this and that if we only paired up, but honestly, their only intention was to screw my dad over and drain all of his money. And what I failed to say is, they were competitors." he remembered. "And not one competitor has true intentions."

"What happened then?"

"After the meeting I told father about my concerns and what we should do. I said we should accept the partnership, but do this: we let them think that we are going to invest in them, which we are in the beginning, and let them do their projects that they oh so praised about, but we raise the stakes. Or in this case, we lower them. So, we start with the higher investment than they expected and as their business grows, we lower it with the excuse 'well you got your business running just fine, I don't know where the money from that goes to'. Eventually, they hit a rock bottom and my dad walked away richer than ever with his investors. Later he found out Caisons had no project at all they could benefit from."

"Wow." Elaine said in the end.

"Well, they would have done it to my dad instead." he shrugged. "They were on the shaky ground anyway."

"But they somehow managed to get back in the game." Elaine shook her head.

"They have their manipulative ways. It just depends who bites the bait."

"But you walked away, anyway?" she said looking at him.

"Well, if I didn't, I wouldn't be sitting here with you."

"Or maybe you would, but only you'd be a handsome businessman who sneaks into the pool with a first-class lady in the middle of the night." she suggested.

"Oh, if you're a first-class lady, where does that put me? Second class?" he raised his eyebrows at her. "No? Third?" she giggled. "Like, I'm bloody rich, but oh I'm so modest you'll give me a third-class ticket, thank you very much!"

Elaine could barely get any air from laughing. "Stop it!"

"And by the way, you think I'm handsome?" he looked at her.

She immediately stopped laughing. As if she forgot to speak, she remained silent. She felt her cheeks burn and bowed her head.

"Why, I think you're pretty attractive, too." he added and cleared his throat.

Elaine turned her head away from him, her face obviously red now. Once the tingly feeling has stopped, she turned again to look at him.

"Why?" she quietly asked. He gave her a puzzled look. "Why did you leave again?"

"I couldn't live in that lie. That life is full of lies and schemes. Just looking how to screw over one another. It wasn't fulfilling." he finished.

"Trust me, I know." Elaine breathed looking ahead.

"And I wouldn't have it any other way than this." he looked at her.

"Me neither." she looked back.

They stared at each other for a couple of moments until Elaine shivered.

"Are you cold?" Harold frowned. "Should we get out? Yeah, we should get ou—"

Elaine grabbed him to stop him from standing up saying "It's not from the cold!"

Once he was sitting still beside her again, she repeated quietly "It's not from the cold."

"Then what it is?" he furrowed his brows.

She just kept staring at him, smile dancing in the corner of her lips. He was still looking puzzled at her then he came to realization making an ahh face and smirking at her. Elaine batted her eyelashes at him and he moved closer. Slowly at first, to see her reaction. When there was no negative response from her, he moved a bit closer again until there was no space between them. Their noses were touching for a couple of moments. He brushed his lips against hers, to test her waters, until he finally leaned in and kissed her.

If it was for Elaine, she would have kissed him the first day when he saved her hat. As of thank you, of course. But the wait is what made that kiss even more special. It was sweet kiss at first. He pecked her lips before fully grasping her bottom lip into his mouth. Her heart was pounding in her chest and if she wasn't sitting down, she would have probably fell down how weak in the knees she felt. She could only focus on how soft he felt against her mouth and how gently he was doing it.

The kiss started getting deeper and deeper with each passing second. He licked her bottom lip, asking permission that she gladly granted. He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her even closer and biting her lip. She moaned against him, driving him crazy. He wanted more. When thing started to really heat up, Harold pulled away while he could still contain himself.

"D-Do you want to go somewhere else?" he asked, breathless.

She just nodded her head, unable to say anything. They grabbed their stuff and went out hand in hand.