Better Together: Cruisin' Around

By Natalie-Nicole Bates

Dharma had a feeling she shouldn't go on the cruise her parents booked for her as a gift.

 

For one reason, she hates water.

 

But after everyone forgetting her birthday and the death of a close friend, Dharma decides to take the ten-day vacation along with her flighty friend Arielle.

Almost immediately, Dharma catches the eye of a handsome Hungarian interpreter, and the sparks fly!

 

That is until Arielle vanishes from the cruise ship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Perfectly Poisoned Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223641926

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Natalie-Nicole Bates is a book reviewer and author. Her passions in life include books and hockey along with Victorian and Edwardian era photography and antique poison bottles. Natalie contributes her uncharacteristic love of hockey to being born in Russia. She currently resides in the UK where she is working on her next book and adding to her collection of 19th century post-mortem photos.    

Book preview

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Better Together

First published by Perfectly Poisoned Press 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Natalie-Nicole Bates

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Natalie-Nicole Bates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Natalie-Nicole Bates has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

First edition

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

About the Author

Also by Natalie-Nicole Bates

Chapter 1

Chapter Separator

Here I am, a girl who hates water, even fears it to an extent, except for a lovely hot bubble bath in winter or a cool refreshing shower in summer, I’m waiting to board a cruise ship.

First, let me make it clear that this wasn’t my decision to take this ten-day Mediterranean adventure cruise.

The cruise was a birthday gift given to me by my parents for my twenty-ninth birthday that just happens to fall on Halloween.

Which everyone forgot about this year.

My parents, my brothers, my friends. Not one happy birthday from anyone I know. I’m not one of those people who brag about their birthday coming up in hopes of getting a few good gifts. So, although it stung that I didn’t even get one happy birthday, I can’t be too upset about it.

So now we are in November.

Keep in mind that this cruise gift, if you can call it a gift, I don’t, is not because my parents feel bad because we will not be celebrating Thanksgiving together. We’re British, we don’t celebrate that particular holiday. But if we did, we likely would not have celebrated it anyway.

I am what they call a late-life baby.

My mother was forty-seven when I was born. And my father, well, he was in his fifties.

Surprise!

At their ages, they thought the only babies coming into the family would be grandchildren.

Surprise again!

My two brothers, who are significantly older than me, never had children. Since they are now in their late forties, I don’t foresee a birth announcement in either of their futures.

Of course, stranger things have happened. I’m proof of that. I wouldn’t mind having a little nephew or niece to spoil.

Anyway, I spent my life being raised by nannies, and later by teachers at the boarding school I attended in Lausanne, Switzerland.

I’m not bitter.

In fact, I’ve had a stellar education, I got to travel extensively. And my parents are generous to a fault. As long as I didn’t find myself in a jail cell or pregnant without a husband, I was golden.

So, when my best friend from boarding school passed away after a long battle with cancer, my parents wanted to do something to cheer me up.

Hence, this cruise.

Normal parents would have asked their child to come home to grieve with a family to support them.

No, not my parents. They are currently on their own cruise in Iceland.

To them, this cruise I am about to embark on is their way of comforting me and making up for my forgotten birthday.

I look around for my cruising companion, and she is nowhere to be seen. But a short distance away, I catch the eye of