When we reach the bar, I frown. The same dour man who greeted us at the mooring is now serving drinks.
“You’re a man of many jobs,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “How many staff are on tonight?”
He turns to me and smiles, but it’s fake as fuck. He clearly doesn’t want to be here, and I guess I can’t blame him. It isChristmas and he’s working. I probably wouldn’t be in the best mood either.
He replies in heavily accented English. “Me, the captain, the chef, and two waiters.”
“That’s it?” Saint frowns. “Five members of staff for the whole vessel?”
“Well…” He looks between us. “There’s only four of you.”
“Yeah, and…?” My twin is getting really pissed now. “We paid a lot of money for this.”
“I bet you did.”
The man’s muttered, insolent reply means that I’m getting pissed now, too.
Saint’s jaw sets in an arrogant, hard line. “What did you say?”
The man gives that strange, hard smile again. “We would have been full for Christmas, sir, is all I meant. So to refund all those people, I imagine you had to pay a lot.”
Slightly mollified by the explanation, Saint huffs out a vague noise as a reply and takes the glass of scotch he must have ordered.
“What do you want to drink, Vani?” I ask.
“I’ll have a diet Coke, please.”
I stare at her. “Coke?”
She nods. “I had a lot of champagne last night, and I’m still so tired from the journey. Also, I want to be fresh for tomorrow and the Moulin Rouge.”
My heart twinges at her words and her admission of how excited she is. When she and Saint painted the mansion and decorated it in a Moulin Rouge style, I’d been dismayed, to say the least. However, after seeing her face when she saw that windmill for the first time, I realized just what a dream of hers it's always been to see it.
“Let’s go on deck,” I suggest.
The smell of the fumes is making me a little queasy, and the view will be better, too.
The four of us head up to the deck and stand around with our drinks for a while, chatting and watching Paris go by. It’s not too cold, but there’s a breeze which every now and then delivers an arctic bite that lets you know colder weather is on the way.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows in the next couple of days. I hope it does. A white Christmas in Paris will be wonderful for Vani to experience.
I think of our family, and whether or not Saint and I were right to not tell them we were coming. We knew our father would throw a fit about us being back in the city, and also that we’d be under scrutiny if we turned up with Vani and Zane.
It’s best this way,I tell myself, a little guiltily.
Vani shivers. “Shall we go back inside? I’m getting cold.”
Saint glances at his watch. “They should be serving the food soon.”
Vani nods, and we all file back into the dining room. The staff, what little of them there are, bustle around us, taking drink orders and bringing freshly baked bread and curls of chilled butter to the table. Any worries from earlier fade as the scotch I ordered to match Saint’s warms my stomach.
Looking out the windows, I watch the lights twinkling as we slowly float down the river, the city laid out on either side of us, as pretty as any picture. I know Paris well, of course, but it's not often that I get to see her from the river. It's a very touristy thing to do, so this is a new experience for me. The lights of the city are just incredible, and it makes me realize that Paris truly deserves her nickname of the City of Lights.
The smells that waft from the galley make my stomach rumble, and I suppose if the meal is as good as the views, we can accept the fact that the service has been less than stellar.
Zane holds Vani’s hand, and she watches the view with a big grin on her face.
Quietly, I say to my twin, “Seems odd there’s so few staff, don’t you think? Even though there’s only four of us, they’ve got to prepare the meals and serve it all.”
