Chapter 10
Lex
The riverboat is moored up, waiting for us when we arrive at the dock. We are greeted by a big, dour man, and I frown as he grunts a welcome. I paid damn good money for this, and the service onboard better be more friendly.
I hold Vani’s hand as she wobbles down the jetty in her heeled boots and long red dress, and help her onboard.
A second man comes forward to greet us, smiling broadly.
“Welcome,” he says. “I’m your captain. Let me show you around.”
He proceeds to do so, showing us the deck, and the dining room, which has huge floor to ceiling glass windows so we can watch the city pass by. There’s also a ballroom, but that won’t be used by us tonight, and a bar area.
The dining room has a huge Christmas tree in one corner, and some tinsel strewn around the window ledges, but after the luxury of the apartment, and the lights of the city, it’s a little disappointing. Still, the draw is the views we will have from the river, not the décor on the boat.
“What about the toilets?” Vani asks, her cheeks pinking. “I need a pee,” she whispers to me.
“Oh, yes, umm, of course. This way?” The captain gestures, and we follow him.
He seems nervous. Sweaty and a little confused.
“Don’t you know your own boat?” Saint snaps when the man leads us down the second wrong corridor.
“I do apologize, sir. It’s my first time on this particular vessel.”
“The service when we are dining better be much improved on this,” my twin mumbles.
“Saint, don’t be an ass.” Vani shoots the captain an apologetic smile.
He finally shows her where the restrooms are, and she thanks him.
Saint and Zane head to the bar for a pre-dinner drink, and I wait for Vani. As she’s in the bathroom, the boat lurches, the engines rumble, and we start to chug down the river. A faint petrol scent fills the air.
On closer inspection, this boat is kind of old and not in the best shape.
It might look luxurious, but if you examine things closely, they’re faded.
The wallpaper, the carpets, the doors, all a little past their best. Still, it appears to be clean, and I hope just being on the river will make it fun for Vani.
Once she exits the restroom, we walk together along the deserted corridor until we reach the bar. I know I paid for us to have this exclusively, so there are no other passengers, but I’d honestly believed there’d be more staff.
It feels unnervingly like the Mary Celeste.
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 is Christmas 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.”
He shrugs. “I think that when we called and said we wanted to hire this entire boat, they moved staff to other vessels, basically trying to save money.”
I consider his words. “I expect it’s something like that. Weren’t we reading something the other week, about how the hospitality industry has never really recovered fully yet from covid. I bet they’ve taken every bit of money they can this Christmas.”
“Wonder if they really did refund the other passengers,” Saint mutters. “Fuckers.”
I don’t point out that I was the one who probably ruined all their Christmas plans by insisting we were the only people on the boat. I don’t want to look like a complete asshole.
“Still, the dining table is laid well,” I say. “Looks perfect.”
“Wow, they can lay a table.” Saint rolls his eyes, and I nudge him with my elbow.
“Cheer up. This is for Vani, remember,” I say in French. “We will ruin it for her if we’re in bad moods.”
“D’accord,” Saint finally agrees.
I leave it at that and look again at the table. The glasses gleam and the silverware is polished to perfection. The steak knives have walnut handles, which is a classy touch.
The courses include a choice between chicken and filet mignon—steak again, but I could eat that all day, every day—and a smoked salmon terrine or soup as an appetizer, and crème brulée or cheese platter for dessert.
The captain is nowhere to be seen, and I presume must be the one piloting the boat. The barman enters the room and begins to place bottles of opened wine on the table.
“The food smells lovely,” Vani says.
She’s right. At least it should all taste damn good if the smells coming from the galley are anything to go by.
She frowns and glances quickly behind her, looking for the exit to the dining area, it seems, before turning back to us.
“I'm just going to have to nip to the loo again. I swear my bladder is the size of a grape.”
I chuckle at that imagery as she sashays off across the carpet toward the hallway. I watch her as she goes, admiring the view.
Damn, she looks good in that dress, Zane signs.
“We ought to buy her lots of dresses like that.” Saint agrees. “All different colors and materials. Did you notice the boots? I bought her those.”
Of course he did.
We make idle conversation as we wait for Vani to return, but at some point, it turns into Saint relaying an entertaining story, and it sucks me in.
He’s telling us about a time he hid in the Paris catacombs for two entire days.
I'm not sure I believe him because I don't remember him going missing for that length of time.
Then again, some of the memories of our past are hazy. Trauma will do that to you.
“Do you think Vani would like to go to the catacombs?” he asks.
I stare at him as if he's grown another head.
“It is Christmas,” I explain to him as if he's a child. “We brought her here to have a wonderful vacation in the City of Light. It's all meant to be about romance and happiness, and you want to take her into a dark and dingy place full of skeletons and bones?”
He shrugs. “Some people like skeletons and bones.”
Speaking of Vani, she seems to have been gone a long while. I glance at my watch, a trickle of unease stealing down my spine.
Where the heck is she?