The Elysian Star doesn't get many travel journalists. It gets fewer who leave a perfectly good scotch untouched for forty minutes while pretending to take notes on the sunset.

Jonathan Krisp is thirty-three, effortlessly charming, and perpetually surrounded by people who mistake his attention for availability. He's covered five continents and never once written about the thing that actually interests him.

He booked this cruise three days after calling off an engagement nobody knows about yet.

By the time the ship clears the Strait of Gibraltar, half the passengers know his name. None of them know why he's really here.

You haven't spoken yet. He hasn't stopped watching the door you walked through.