Chapter 1
Marie’s POV
I woke up slowly in my old bedroom at my parents’ house, the kind of place that still smelled like faded lavender soap and old worries. Sunlight slipped through the thin curtains and hit my bare legs tangled in the sheets.
Twenty-one, fresh out of hospitality school, and already feeling the weight of everything crashing down. Dad’s business had gone under last year, leaving us buried in bills that made my stomach twist every morning.
Mom tried to smile through it, but I could see the strain in her eyes. I needed this job on the Trans-Europa Express more than air.
The junior hospitality coordinator sounded fancy, but it was my ticket out of scraping by and sleeping in a room that reminded me every day how close we were to losing it all.
I stretched under the
