"Got it," I say. "Comfort forward."
"He'll eat anything, apparently. The other two are more particular." She hands me the binder. "Matteo doesn't eat carbs after eight. Tomas is allergic to shellfish."
I hold the binder.
"Jennifer," Carmen says.
"I'm reading," I say, and I look down at the page, and the names are there in clean printed type because of course they are, because the universe has a very specific sense of humor and today it has decided to deploy it at thirty knots in international waters, and I breathe in slowly and breathe out slowly and the rose sharpens further and my strawberry scent goes cold and strange in the sea air before I force it back under control through what I can only describe as sheer disrespectful willpower.
Santos.
Matteo.
Tomas.
There are coincidences and then there are coincidences, and as I feel my face growing red, this is the worst of them.
I close the binder.
"Great," I say, and my voice comes out completely normal, which I consider a world-class achievement. "I'll review the full guest list tonight."
Carmen looks at me for one half second longer than necessary.
She nods and takes her efficient self elsewhere.
I turn back to the sea, grip the railing, and breathe while conducting a detailed internal discussion covering fate, coincidence, the personal malice of circumstance, and what exactly I plan to do about it.
What I plan to do is my job.
I'm going to cook three meals a day for a business delegation and whoever else is on that island. I'm going to be professional, competent, and forgettable. Whatever happened in Vegas can stay there, where things are supposed to stay, unlike apparently everything else in my life.
I'm going to save money. Call Anna in the evenings and pretend everything is fine, then occasionally admit it isn't. Grow a small human in peace and dignity.
And when the three months are up, I'm going to leave.
None of this is going to be a problem.
My stomach growls again.
"Working on it," I tell her.
The island comes into view about an hour later, and I forget everything for a little while because it is just genuinely, unreasonably beautiful.
It rises out of the water like it chose to be here and never looked back. Green hills, the kind of green that only happens where water is never a question. A white shoreline curves around a small natural harbor, where the sea shifts from deep blue to a shallow turquoise so bright it looks painted on.
There are palms and other trees I should probably know the names of, broader and darker, crowding the slopes. Tucked into the hillside above the harbor is a house doing what very expensive architecture always does, which is pretending it grew there naturally instead of being designed by someone who charged a fee I prefer not to imagine.
Near the shore sits a smaller building with a lower, longer roofline, and another structure half-hidden by trees thatCarmen, appearing at my shoulder, informs me is the staff quarters and kitchen.
The kitchen is separate from the main house.
Good. Excellent. That is the best piece of architectural information I have received all day, and I take it personally.
The crew ties us to a small dock with quiet efficiency and Carmen leads me up a path that is crushed white shells underfoot and bordered by something flowering in yellow that I don't have the botanical knowledge to name but that smells warm and a little sweet in the afternoon heat.
I stop at the top of the path and just look.
Green hillside dropping to white sand. Water so blue, turquoise at the edges where it runs shallow, deepening to something richer further out. A dock of pale wood. Yellow flowers banking a shell path that curves up through the trees toward a low white building with shuttered windows and bougainvillea climbing the near wall in a color I don't have a word for.