Roshaan
It’s a world, she realizes, that she’ll only ever service for others more privileged. Once, when she first set out to discover the universe, she’d dared dream for more—much more. She’d thought herself bold enough, smart enough, to become the kind of guest she waited on now.
Theo had sensed this secret fire burning inside her. He’d fed and fueled and fanned the flames. He promised they’d get there—together. They’d be the belowdecks couple who would rise like cream to the top decks. Into the sun. The light.
Her gaze slides back up to the cam with its little evil black eye, lurking, listening, waiting for the occupants of the Calliope suite to arrive. Theo watching through it from the dark bowels of the ship.
I love you, Rosh . . . I’ve been saving something for you . . . Come down to my cabin.
Tears spill down her cheeks. She swipes them away.
Maybe this will be it. A proposal. A ring.
A darker thought coils around the idea—barely conscious, but there.
Is he just using me? Is Theo purely, wholly transactional?
What about Maxine?
Roshaan definitely saw something between Maxine and Theo. She’d be lying if she denied the intimacy of it.
Suddenly she’s beyond desperate to see Theo. To lay eyes on him, touch him, feel his body against hers, hear him deny affection for Maxine. Reaffirm his love for her—Roshaan needs to anchor herself to his presence. Needs to wrap herself up in his aura.
If she hurries, she might just be able to get all the way down to the crew quarters before her missing Calliope guests show up. She moves fast, agency suddenly a blade in her chest.
But as she exits and shuts the Calliope door behind her, she senses a presence.
She glances down the hallway, and jumps.
It’s the little towheaded grandson of Dr. Gideon Marsh. He stands outside his suite, watching her with a notebook and pen in his hands.
Roshaan realizes her own hands are still shaking.
“Hi,” the kid says. “Is that suite for more of your guests?”
“Hi, Carter. Yes—I—uh, I was just double-checking that everything looks good before they arrive.”
He nods. Sagely. Importantly. All eight years of him. His gaze remains fixed on hers.
“Have you been crying?” he asks.
“What?”
“You look like you’ve been crying.”
“No—just allergies. I get allergies.”
“What kind of allergies?”
“Can I get you anything, Carter?”
“Oh no, I’m good. I’m just doing reconnaissance. Getting my bearings.” He lifts his notebook. “Making a map of the elite deck. Seeing who’s where and what’s what.”
“Right. Well, I’ll see you later.”
“Yessiree, Roshaan.”
She swears under her breath as she hurries to the elevator.
She stabs the button, checks her watch. She’s running out of time.
Her urge to see Theo grows hotter, overwhelming, all-consuming.
She needs to be assured she’s doing the right thing.
Yet in her marrow she knows it’s wrong. A terrible mistake.
And it’s probably almost impossible for her to turn back the tide now.
As she jabs the button again, an announcement comes over the PA system.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, fellow voyagers. This is your cruise director, Dimitri Markou, speaking. On behalf of Captain Sophia Bellini and the rest of the Black Orchid officers and crew, welcome aboard. We’re currently experiencing a brief delay as we await the arrival of two more guests.
We appreciate your patience and invite you to relax . . .”
The elevator arrives. Roshaan hurries in, punches the button for the staff deck. The elevator begins to slide down. Her heart pumps faster. Tension tightens. The elevator halts on Deck 9.
One of her elites, Hendrick Lodewijk, a suave antiquities dealer from Amsterdam, steps in.
“Oh, hello, Roshaan,” he says in his Dutch accent.
“Mr. Lodewijk, are you finding your way around okay?”
“Hendrick, please. Yes, I’m taking myself on a tour of the murals.” He presses the button for Deck 5, and Roshaan silently curses. “I’m now going down to see the Reflections of Arrogance mural.”
“Right. Yes, Nemesis watching Narcissus waste away.”
“Do you have a favorite? Among the murals?” he asks.
All Roshaan can see in her mind’s eye is Zeus zapping his lightning bolt at her sinful soul.
“I like them all.”
He laughs, and it crumples his face in a lovely way.
Hendrick might be in his late seventies, but there’s a youthful enigma and energy about him.
When she welcomed him on board earlier, he told her he’d been born in Palembang on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, to a Dutch father and Indonesian mother.
His parents both died in Japanese concentration camps during the Second World War, and after the war he was sent as a child, alone, to the Netherlands—a country he did not know—to live with a Dutch aunt he’d never met.
It was not an easy time, he explained. “I was neither Dutch nor Indo. Neither white nor properly brown. But we survive when we need to, don’t we? Even thrive.”
Whether Hendrick was opening a window for Roshaan to divulge her own cultural background or aligning himself with her lot—she being from mixed Portuguese, Mozambican, and Malaysian stock—Roshaan isn’t sure.
And right now she doesn’t care. She just needs to see Theo.
So she forces a smile, checks her watch again.
“You’re in a rush?”
“Always lots to do on departure day.”
“Of course.” The elevator stops, and relief rushes through her as Hendrick gets off.
“Tot ziens,” he says.
She hammers the button, but before the elevator can sink farther, a voice crackles in her earpiece.
“Roshaan. Finally! Your delayed elites are here! The Fairfax party has arrived at the terminal and will be boarding in moments. Where are you?”
Fuck.
For a wild heartbeat Roshaan considers letting guests “Lady” Arrabella Fairfax and her fiancé, Patrick McGregor, find their own suite. Like regular-fare passengers. But “good girl” Roshaan answers, steady and bright. “On my way—be there in a sec.”