With Every Breath (Sea Swept #2) (2 page)

After a few false turns, I finally reach my cabin. Pushing open the door of room 0013, I haul my luggage into the tight space. Inside, the room is cramped but clean. Bunk beds hug the left side, with a small desk on the right wall. On top of the desk is a TV—the screen blares some sort of sporting match—and to my immediate left a door opens into a minuscule bathroom. No windows. The whole place is tiny. There’s barely enough space for me to lie down on the floor, and I’m only five-foot-two.
 

A girl with light brown hair unfolds herself from the bottom bunk and mutes the television. She’s pretty, with curves to die for and freckles sprinkled across her cheeks.
 

“I’m Camelia,” she says. “You are the new photographer? I am one too, and it will be nice to have another girl on the team.” Her accent is slight, vowels lilting in a songlike manner.

“Yasmin.” We shake hands, and Camelia gives me a broad smile.

“If you steal any of my chocolate,” she says, “I will kill you.”

My grin falters. “Um, okay.” Is she serious?

“Do you snore?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” I pause. “Do you?”
 

“Never.” Her gaze slides across my tote bag, which bears the Greek letters of my sorority. She cocks her head. “What does that mean? Those symbols?”
 

“Kappa Alpha Kappa. It was my sorority in college.”
 

“Ah, sorority.” She grins. “That means you drink?”
 

“Sure.”

“A lot?”

Her line of questioning is a bit strange, but I go with it. “Sometimes. After finals, especially.”
 

“Then we shall be great friends.” Camelia checks her watch and mutters something in another language, then says, “We should go. West will be angry if we are late for the meeting. You can unpack later.”

“West?”

“The photography department manager, our boss. Do you have your name tag and staff card?”

“I think so.” I put my folder on the desk, and Camelia helps me find what I need. The name tag must be worn at all times when in passenger areas, she tells me, while my staff card will act as both a room key and debit card for the crew bar. Once I locate both, she leads me out of the cabin. I’m still dripping water and wish I’d thought to towel off my hair, but I shove it out of my face and focus on following my roommate through the twisty halls.

“So what’s our boss like?” I ask.

“Fine, if we meet our sales marks. If not … He fired Danny, the guy you are replacing, because he broke one of West’s macro lenses. I was sad, because Danny was great fun to drink with.” Camelia shoots me a grin. “Luckily West is hot enough that I don’t hold it against him.”

I blink. Do she and our boss have something going on? Before I can ask, Camelia says, “Where are you from, Yasmin?”

“Louisiana.” After a moment, I add uncertainly, “Do you know where that is?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Camelia tosses her straight hair, and I feel like an idiot.

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“Romania.” She slides me a sly smile. “Do you know where
that
is?”

“Somewhere in Europe?” I offer. Camelia laughs.

“Typical American.”

I feel like even more of an idiot now, but Camelia seems to take everything in stride. I follow her up a spiral staircase, down a short hallway, up another staircase. I have no idea where we are, and if she abandoned me I’d never find my way back to the room, which would suck because I left all of my dry clothes on my bunk. Camelia told me to leave my windbreaker, but I’m still wearing my wet shirt and shorts. I rub my cold arms as I jog to keep up with her.
 

She pauses at a door.

“Here is an entrance to the Promenade, where all the shops are. Past this door you must have your name tag on, and be polite to passengers no matter what stupid things they say.” She walks quickly down the staff hallway, and I hurry to follow. She stops abruptly, checks her watch again, and winces. “We are late, so be quiet when we join the meeting.”

She opens a door marked
Photo Department
, and we slip into a storage room stocked with paper, DVDs, backdrops with folding frames, and other photography paraphernalia like tripods and a box of orphaned lens caps. A group of people has gathered in the room beyond, and we join them as unobtrusively as possible.

“Where’s our new hire?” a masculine voice is saying. That must be West, our boss. His voice rings with authority and annoyance. “If we have to spend another cruise down a photographer, I swear I’m going to—”

“I’m here,” I say, realizing he’s talking about me. Pushing my wet hair out of my face, I squeeze past a couple of men wearing polo shirts like mine. When I’ve stepped in front of them, I put on my best employee smile and look up … right into the eyes of Cart Guy.
 

Make that
Boss
Cart Guy.

Chapter 2

West

Brilliant. My new photographer is the pretty girl who doesn’t know which way is forward.
 

Is it me or is this day getting worse by the minute?

My head still hurts, the remnants of my raging hangover not yet gone. My stomach nearly rebelled after breakfast, and not from my usual seasickness. Speaking of which, of course it’s storming, so even though we’re docked, the boat is moving more than I’d like. When we put out to sea it’s going to be tough not to puke my guts out.

Hangover aside, the last morning of a cruise is inevitably when a couple hundred people realize it’s their last chance to order photographic mementos of their trip—and they turn into piranhas if they have to wait in line too long. We got complained at for four hours this morning before the last customer finally trotted off to the debarkation line and I could let my staff grab food while I restocked. That, of course, led to the debacle with the cart and my ruined paper. Cleaning up and salvaging what I could took enough time that I didn’t get so much as a French fry for lunch. Now it’s time to prep for the next round of passengers.

And deal with my new hire.
 

I sigh and reconcile myself to the fact that my wish for a pleasant, professional replacement photographer was not answered. Yasmin might be pretty, but if my experience with her so far is any indication, my job just got harder.
 

“Everyone, this is Yasmin Alejo,” I announce. I don’t know much about her beyond that she’s a college grad from Louisiana. And that she called me an asshole earlier. “Some of you might recall my story about meeting her in the hallway a little while ago.”
 

“Wait, this is klutz-girl?” Benny says, sizing Yasmin up. I’d just finished telling him about my encounter with her before the meeting. “You’re the girl who knocked over all our photo paper?”

“It was an accident,” Yasmin says through clenched teeth. Her brown eyes are shooting daggers at me now. A girl like that, all high heels—on a boat, no less—and manicured nails is probably used to fluttering her lashes and getting her way.

“Let’s give her a warm Star Heart welcome,” I say dryly.

“Does that mean what I think it means?” asks Charlie, a South African with ridiculously gelled hair. Probably the biggest womanizer amongst the staff, he’s already checking Yasmin out. It’s hard
not
to notice her petite but killer body, but I’m her boss, so she’s off limits. Besides, these days I don’t have time for distractions.
 

“Sure does,” I tell Charlie, who pumps his fist before shaking Yasmin’s hand heartily.

“Welcome aboard,” he says to her, grinning. The others are similarly cheered and shake her hand as well. The ‘Star Heart welcome’ is something we always look forward to when a newbie arrives. Yasmin looks a little confused, but smiles in return.

She has a nice smile, I have to admit.

Though I doubt she’ll be smiling for long.
 

“All right, back to the meeting,” I say. “Passengers start boarding in ninety minutes. Let’s get the shop cleaned, and the storeroom stocked. I’ll go tally up the sales for the cruise and see who the winner is, and check in for the ship schedule.”

“Winner?” Yasmin asks.

“We have a sales competition each cruise,” I tell her. “Winner gets a prize.”

“What’s the prize?”

I haven’t decided this week’s prize yet, so I shrug. “Don’t worry about it. None of the newbies win on their first few cruises anyway.”

Yasmin’s dark eyes cool. She looks offended, but she’ll wise up to the realities of ship life soon enough. Like every other newbie photographer I’ve trained, I’m sure she probably thinks she’ll make tons of sales right out of the gate. But she’ll learn. Everyone starts at the bottom, like I did. I spent my first eight-month contract working my ass off and learning the ropes, and by the end of it I was promoted to Photo Department manager. It wasn’t easy, but it’s something I’m proud of.
 

As I head out the staff door into the crew hallway, I hear Camelia explain to Yasmin how we, not any custodial staff, are responsible for cleaning our photo gallery area and shop. I somehow doubt Yasmin has spent much time with a broom and vacuum, not with those impractically heeled shoes.

I run up the staircase a couple decks, to Owen Swift’s office. As the ship’s Publication Manager, he makes and prints the daily program of events on board, plus whatever passenger handouts the Cruise Director needs.

I give a courtesy knock, then open the door. Inside, Owen leans back on his comfy padded office chair, his feet propped up on his desk. His uniform looks rumpled and his eyes are closed.

“Hey there, Owen,” I say.
 

A single eye opens. Unsurprisingly, it’s bloodshot, because Owen was the one who made me stay up so late last night, pounding beers at the crew bar. He, at least, gets to nap away his hangover. I had to make do with four tablets of aspirin and a surly attitude.

“I hate embarkation day,” Owen says.

“Don’t we all. You got today’s program?”

“In the print room.” He groans and pulls himself from his chair. “I guess I have to hand that out to the department heads now. Why can’t they come up and get them like you do?”

“Because they’re lazy,” I say, even though we both know it’s not true. If the room stewards had to run across the ship for each day’s schedule—they put one in each cabin when they clean—they’d never get their work done.
 

Owen walks with me down the hall to the print room, where I grab a stack of schedules for my team and for the inevitable passengers who’ll ask me for one.

“Want to grab a beer or twelve later?” Owen says.
 

“Sure,” I find myself saying, despite the headache throbbing at my temples. I can already tell that today is going to be one of those days where I’ll need to head to the bar after work. “I get off at ten.”
 

“Ten? You’re the boss, aren’t you? Why don’t you make your minions work late instead? The beers are already calling our names.”

I laugh, because Owen doesn’t care about his job, and he doesn’t quite get why I care about mine. “See you later, okay?”
 

“Wait a sec,” says Owen. “I just remembered that Randall asked to meet with you tomorrow morning.”

My throat goes dry. “Did he say what the meeting is about?”
 

“Nope. Only that if he hasn’t caught up with you before nine, you should stop by his office.”
 

“Right. Thanks for telling me,” I say, and jog back down to the Promenade deck. I need to focus on handing out the programs and looking over our sales figures, but now I can’t stop thinking about this meeting tomorrow morning. Randall Cunningham is the ship’s Hotel Director. In other words, he’s the guy in charge of nearly everything on the
Radiant Star
, except of course for actually moving it, which is the captain’s job. Randall is the guy all the department heads report to. Basically, The Boss.
My
boss.

When I finished my first cruise contract last year, I wasn’t even sure I’d re-up after my two-month break. To be honest, I didn’t really want to. Ship life is grinding, with twelve-hour days and no weekends. No days off. Ever. I also get more seasick than most of the crew, especially when the weather sucks, like it does today.
 

But then I heard about a lower-level management job opening up in the Star Heart Cruises’ corporate offices in Miami—and that they were looking to hire from within. Specifically, they wanted someone from the ships, a department head who excelled at drumming up revenue from passengers. Randall told me that my performance, especially after I’d been promoted, had been noticed. He said I’m on the short list for the position.
 

And damn, I really want this job. It comes with a steady paycheck that’s higher than my parents ever earned, enough to let me finish my college degree at night.

Plus actual weekends. God, I miss weekends.

So if I can just get through this contract—and bring in much-needed revenue—then that job could be mine. That’s what gets me up every morning, what keeps me going when I fall exhausted into bed each night.
 

Back in the photo shop, everyone’s busy: sweeping, mopping, wiping down anything customers might have touched with a bleach solution, carefully washing all the display screens that will soon show off photos of happy vacationers. I grab one of the computer terminals and pull up the sales data for the cruise that just ended. I note each person’s revenue, tally up the total, and …
 

Shit. My stomach knots.
 

“Hey, everyone!” I shout across the shop. Heads snap up immediately. “Come on. Gather around. I have an announcement to make.”
 

Hearing the sharpness in my tone, my staff hurriedly circles around, some of them still holding bottles of glass cleaner and rags.
 

“So who’s the lucky winner from last week?” says Charlie, crossing his arms with a smirk. He won the past two cruises, so I’m sure he’s hoping for lucky number three.
 

I glance at the numbers again. My sales competition isn’t a company-mandated thing, just a game I thought up to get everyone to work harder. Our numbers have been decent on the last several cruises, and I had been pleased to see a slight bump in revenue with every trip. But on these last two cruises it’s trended the other way. Partly because of Danny, who I had to fire—he was a train wreck, and drunk half the time. Without him we’ve been down a team member and our revenue showed it. I’ve got a full staff again now, but one member is new and untrained.