“Oh God,” she whispered as her stomach fisted into knots again.
“Jenna!”
A woman’s voice called out to her, and Jenna turned in that direction. She spotted Mary, standing up at one of the tables along the wall, waving and smiling at her. Gratefully Jenna headed her way, threading a path through the milling crowd. When she reached the table, she slid onto a chair and smiled at the margarita already waiting for her.
“Hope you don’t mind. I ordered one for you as soon as I got here,” Mary told her, taking a big gulp of her own oversize drink.
“Mind?” Jenna said, reaching for her frosty glass, “Are you kidding? This is fabulous.” When she’d taken a long, deep gulp of the icy drink, she sat back and looked at her new friend.
Mary was practically bouncing in her seat, and her eyes were shining with excitement. Her blond hair looked wind tousled and her skin was a pale red, as if she’d had plenty of sun today. “I’ve been looking for you all over this ship,” she said, grinning like a loon. “I had to see you. Find out where they put you.”
Jenna blinked and shook her head. “What do you mean? Put me? Where who put me?”
Mary stretched one hand out and grabbed Jenna’s for a quick squeeze. “Oh my God. You haven’t been back down to the pit all day, have you?”
“No way,” Jenna said on a sigh. “After my meeting, I came topside and I’ve been putting off going back down by hanging out on the Verandah Deck.”
“So you don’t know.”
“Know what?” Jenna was beginning to think that maybe Mary had had a few margaritas too many. “What’re you talking about?”
“It’s the most incredible thing. I really can’t believe it myself and I’ve seen it.” She slapped one hand to her pale blue blouse and groaned like she was in the midst of an orgasm.
“Mary…what is going on?”
“Right, right.” The blonde picked up her drink, took a big gulp and said, “It happened early this afternoon. Joe and I were up on the Promenade, you know, looking at all the shops. Well,” she admitted, “I was looking, Joe was being dragged reluctantly along behind me. And when we came out of the Crystal Candle—which you should really check out, they have some amazing stuff in there—”
Jenna wondered if there was a way to get Mary to stay on track long enough to tell her what was happening. But probably not, so she took a sip of her drink and prepared to wait it out. She didn’t have to wait long.
“When we came out,” Mary was saying, “there was a ship steward waiting for us. He said, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Curran?’ all official-sounding and for a second I wondered what we’d done wrong, but we hadn’t done anything and so Joe says, ‘What’s this about?’ and the steward only told us to go with him.”
“Mary…”
Her new friend grinned. “I’m getting to it. Really. It’s just that it’s all so incredible—right.” She waved one hand to let Jenna know she was back on track, then she went right back to her story. “The steward takes us up to the owner’s suite—you know, Nick Falco?”
“Yeah,” Jenna murmured. “I know who he is.”
“Who in the English-speaking world doesn’t?” Mary said on a laugh, then continued. “So we’re standing there in the middle of a suite that looks like a palace or something and Nick Falco himself comes up to us, introduces himself and apologizes about our cabin in the pit.”
“What?” Jenna just stared at the other woman, not sure what to make of all this.
“I know! I was completely floored, let me tell you. I was almost speechless and Joe can tell you that that almost never happens.” She paused for another gulp of her drink and when she finished it, held up one hand for the waitress to bring another. “So there we are and Mr. Falco’s being so nice and so sincere about how he feels so badly about the state of the rooms on the Riviera Deck—and can you believe how badly misnamed that deck is?—and he insists on upgrading us.”
“Upgrading?”
“Seriously upgrading,” Mary said as she thanked the waitress for her fresh margarita. She waited until the server had disappeared with her empty glass before continuing. “So I’m happy, because hey, that tiny cabin is just so hideous. And I’m expecting a middle-grade cabin with maybe a porthole, which would be great. But that’s not what we got.”
“It’s not?” Jenna set her glass down onto the table and watched as Mary’s eyes actually sparkled even harder than they had been.
“Oh, no. Mr. Falco said that most of the cabins were already full, which is how we got stuck in those tiny ones in the first place. So he moved us into a luxury suite!”
“He did?”
“It’s on the Splendor Deck. The same level as Mr. Falco’s himself. And Jenna, our suite is amazing! It’s bigger than my house. Plus, he said our entire cruise is on him. He’s refunding what we paid for that hideous cabin and insisting that we pay nothing on this trip.”
“Wow.” Nick had always taken great pride in keeping his passengers happy, but this was…well, to use Mary’s word, amazing. Cruise passengers usually looked forward to a bill at the end of a cruise that could amount to several hundred dollars. Oh, the food and accommodations were taken care of when you rented your cabin. But incidentals could really pile up on a person if they weren’t paying attention.
By doing this, Nick had given Mary and her husband a cruising experience that most people would never know. Maybe there was more heart to the man than she’d once believed.
“He’s just so nice,” Mary was saying, stirring her slender straw through the icy confection of her margarita. “Somehow, I thought a man that rich and that famous and that playboylike would be sort of…I don’t know, snotty. But he wasn’t at all. He was really thoughtful and kind, and I can’t believe this is all really happening.”
“It’s terrific, Mary,” Jenna said sincerely. Even if she and Nick had their problems, she could respect and admire him for what he’d done for these people.
“I’m really hoping your upgrade will have you somewhere near us, Jenna. Maybe you should go and see a steward about it, find out where they’re moving you.”
“Oh,” Jenna said with a shake of her head, “I don’t think I’ll be moving.” She couldn’t see Nick doing her any favors. Not with the hostility that had been spilled between them only a few hours ago. And though she was happy for Mary and her husband, Jenna wasn’t looking forward to being the only resident on the lowest deck of the ship. Now it would not only be small and dark, but small and dark and creepy.