Serene made it three graceful steps down the corridor before the elevator dinged and opened… empty.
Not empty.
Leo leaned out, saluted her with a ghostly flourish, and stage-whispered, "He likes you."
She didn't break stride. "He tolerated me."
"Darling, in this building, that's foreplay," said a silky voice behind her. The diva ghost from the elevator drifted through the closed doors, sequins scattering light that wasn't there. "You made him smile. I haven't seen a smile here since the champagne shortage of '82."
"I have an evaluation to pass," Serene murmured. "Please let me pass the hallway first."
The diva swooned to one side with exaggerated grace. "By all means. Float, glide, live."
Serene glided. She pressed the elevator button, stepped in, and fixed her eyes on the glowing floor numbers. Leo hovered beside her, humming a hotel jingle that predated electricity.
"Both of you," Serene said softly, "I'm serious. No sabotage."
"Us?" Leo put a hand over his transparent heart. "We enhance. We never sabotage."
The doors opened at reception where the third ghost, the tidy businessman with the ghostly newspaper, waited as if he'd been expecting her.
"Results?" he asked.
"I remain employed," she said.
"Splendid news," he replied. "Now, about that cinnamon coffee—"
"Discontinued," she said gently. "But I'll ask the living chef for something similar."
He considered this. "Ah. The living are stubborn."
"So are the dead," she said, almost smiling.
He harrumphed in satisfaction, folded his paper, and faded neatly into the corner of a potted palm.
Serene exhaled, squared her shoulders, and moved back into the stream of guests. Polite nods. Warm greetings. Always, always the living first.
Back upstairs, Lucien didn't move for a long time.
The glass office caught the horizon in a single, ruler-straight line, the sun made a slow path over the water, turning every reflection into steel and silk. Rowan slipped in quietly, tablet tucked under his arm.
"Well?" Rowan asked.
Lucien's fingers tapped the desk once. "Reassign her to Guest Relations. Morning shift. Shadow the department head this week, limited guest contact until they're confident."
Rowan made a note. "And the… other matter?"
Lucien's mouth almost curved. "Which one?"
"The one where she conducts conversations with oxygen."
"Mm." Lucien clasped his hands. "Observe, don't confront. If it distracts guests, we intervene. Until then…" He looked at the closed door, at the faintest print of a small hand where Serene had steadied herself while turning. "Until then, we let competence prove itself."
Rowan nodded and left, used to the moments when his boss's decisions sounded like strategy but felt like mercy.
Lucien looked back at the sea. In the reflection, for the briefest second, he could have sworn he saw a bellboy smooth down his cap and grin.
He blinked. It was only the angle of light.
At noon, the resort slipped into its steady, luxurious hum. The mid-day turnover, the pool staff changing towels, the sommelier briefing for evening pairings. Serene returned to the staff lounge to find a neat folder waiting on the table with her name embossed in silver.
VALE GLOBAL — INTERNAL ASSIGNMENT SUMMARY
Department: Guest Relations (Ethereal Shore)
Supervisor: Head of GR, Ms. Vierra
Duties (Initial):
• Lobby presence, 2–4 PM
• Suite amenity checks (shadow)
• Complaint triage (observe, assist)
• Professional demeanor: High priority
A sticky note sat on top in a tidy hand,
Miss Caelis,
Begin today with lobby presence.
Consider this a live examination.
—L.V.
She felt the smallest lift at the corner of her mouth. Not indulgent. Not cruel. Just fair.
From the window, Leo whistled. "A personal note. He does like you."
"He writes to many," Serene said, tucking the sheet into her folder.
"Not like that," the diva ghost purred, reading upside down. "Short. Purposeful. Slightly intimidating. Delicious."
"Both of you," Serene said, "please give me two hours of quiet."
"Two hours?" Leo blinked. "We'll die." He remembered. "Again."
"Quiet," she repeated, and stepped back into the flow of work.
Lobby presence at Ethereal Shore was part ballet, part chess. You stood where you could see everything without being seen. You smiled without performing. You anticipated need before it turned into complaint.
Serene slipped into the role like water into a glass.
She directed a family toward the pool, retrieved a left-behind scarf and returned it before the guest noticed, intercepted a delivery headed to the wrong wing and rerouted it with a soft apology.
The living noticed the results. They didn't see the way she stepped sideways because an invisible housekeeper was hurrying past with a tray from 1974. They didn't hear the under-breath "Sir, don't lean on that column, you'll slip through" to a ghost from the jazz era who wanted to pretend he was weighty again.
She made the improbable look effortless.
Across the lobby, Lucien's path intersected with Ms. Vierra's. The department head stood with a clipboard, expression trained to supportive neutrality. He joined her without announcement, gaze on Serene.
"Initial impression?" he asked.
"Poised," Vierra said, as if reading an ingredient label. "Attentive. Takes direction quickly."
"And the… conversations?"
"Minimal today," she said. "If she is—" Vierra glanced at him, measured the word "—distracted, she hides it well."
Lucien watched Serene pause beside an elderly guest, notice the man's shoe was untied, and kneel with discreet efficiency to fix it, laughing off his apologies with a polite joke about slippery marble and expensive embarrassment.
"Kind," he said softly.
Vierra smiled, surprised by the word. "Yes. That too."
He nodded and moved on, the observation filed in a place he rarely opened: the part of leadership where a human choice mattered more than a scalable one.
An hour later, a small commotion bubbled at the reception desk. Not a storm. A ripple.
Serene arrived before it swelled.
A middle-aged couple stood with luggage, the wife's frustration tempered by practical exhaustion, the husband trying to appear calm while reading the pamphlet upside down. The receptionist, sweet and very new, had gone pale.
"The booking says our suite has a terrace," the wife said, crisp but not cruel. "This room—" she gestured with a key card "—does not."
"It—um—the room you were assigned has a partial ocean view," the receptionist stammered. "The terrace suites—"
"—were a deciding factor," the wife finished gently, not unkind. "We're celebrating our anniversary."
Serene slid in like an addition someone had been expecting all along.
"Good afternoon," she said warmly. "Congratulations. May I take a look at your reservation? I'll see what we can do."
The relief on the receptionist's face was immediate. The wife exhaled. The husband handed over the phone, grateful for the soft landing.
Serene scanned the booking. Terrace suite requested. Notes: anniversary. Availability: tight but not impossible.
Behind the desk, someone tsked with authority.
Leo leaned over the monitor, muttering, "Suite 1203 is free. Late check-out, early turnover. Cleaners are fast today."
Serene didn't move her head. "We can offer you Suite 1203," she said, eyes on the availability grid. "It has a terrace and a direct view of the bay."
The receptionist looked startled. "I—let me check—"
Serene nodded once, encouraging, and tapped a discrete code. The system blinked: AVAILABLE — CLEANING: IN PROGRESS (ETA 30 MIN).
She smiled at the couple. "If you don't mind a short wait, we'll have it ready for you with a complimentary amenity. May I arrange a drink while you wait? The lobby bar does a beautiful elderflower spritz."
The wife's face softened to something like relief mixed with gratitude. "That would be lovely."
"Thank you," the husband echoed, genuine.
Serene led them to a quiet corner, signaled the bar with a hand the staff understood as if it were choreography, and returned to the desk with a private word for the receptionist that sounded like training but felt like reassurance.
The diva ghost fanned herself by the ficus. "She has presence. I taught the same principle in my day: glide through a problem so elegantly that the solution thinks it was its idea."
Serene allowed herself a small smile and moved on.
Two steps later, she passed a column where a shape flickered at the edge of her vision. The businessman ghost again, tidy as ever.
"Good handling," he said. "But tell the bar to garnish with orange peel, not lemon. Anniversary people like orange peel. Feels like a decision."
"Thank you," Serene murmured.
A passing porter glanced at her. She gave him a courteous nod as if the comment had been for him. The porter smiled, oddly pleased.
Kindness echoed. Even when misdirected.
In the mid-afternoon quiet, Clara caught up to Ms. Vierra. "How's our new belle?"
"Better than her transcript," Vierra said. "She has… intuition."
Clara laughed. "Expensive intuition."
"Someone will try to poach her," Vierra said. "Let's make sure they fail."
Lucien didn't join the conversation. He didn't need to. He had already made his silent choice. If competence stayed married to composure, he'd keep Serene close enough to learn why his resort felt steadier when she was on the floor.
At four, Serene was released to complete her evaluation paperwork. She took the quiet desk in the corner of the staff lounge, opened the form, and filled in the boxes: punctuality, dress code, incident response, guest rapport.
A shadow pooled beside her. "Do you ever tire?" the diva ghost asked, sincere now, the performance thinned to velvet.
"Of working?" Serene said lightly. "No."
"Of holding a world together," the ghost corrected.
Serene capped her pen. "Everyone holds something together."
The ghost considered that. "True. I once held a show together with a dress pin and a whiskey sour." She smiled wistfully. "You do it with a smile and a pen."
Leo peeked over the form. "And a bellboy."
"And a bellboy," Serene conceded, very nearly fond.
A cough sounded behind her, living and polite. Serene turned.
Lucien stood in the doorway, jacket off now, shirt sleeves rolled once. Somehow, that made him more formal.
"Miss Caelis," he said, voice even. "A word?"
She stood, set her pen down, and followed him down the glass corridor. They stopped near a window where the ocean threw silver at their shoes.
He didn't waste her time. "Today was a test," he said.
"I gathered that, sir."
"You did well." He paused. "Very well."
She inclined her head. "Thank you."
"And yet," he went on, not unkindly, "there are three separate reports from yesterday and the morning that you were seen addressing… corners."
"Corners," she repeated, neutral.
"Or elevators," he amended. "Or decorative palms."
She let the smallest breath out. "Understood."
"Understand me," he said, tone softened by intention rather than volume. "I don't mind how you focus as long as guests never feel secondary to it. This is a home we rent by the night. People come here to feel tended to. If you can do that, I won't care if you say goodnight to the furniture."
A laugh rose in her chest, surprised and bright. She kept it in, but her eyes warmed. "I don't talk to furniture, sir."
"Good," he said gravely. "Our accountant would insist on charging you."
For the first time, she let him see her smile. Not the professional kind. The human kind.
"May I expect the same candor from you, Miss Caelis?" he asked after a beat. "If my requests become unreasonable?"
"Yes," she said. "Politely."
"Politely is my favorite adverb."
"Mine too."
They stood for a moment in a quiet that wasn't awkward. The sea softened the edges of everything.
"Guest Relations, 9 AM tomorrow," he said finally. "You'll shadow Ms. Vierra. One more note."
She waited.
"If you must… converse," he said, very carefully, "choose the back corridors. My staff has delicate imaginations."
It was a reprimand dressed in linen. Gentle. Firm.
"Understood," she said. "I'll be more discreet."
"Thank you." He glanced at the ocean, then back at her. "And Miss Caelis, be kind to yourself as well. It appears to be your… operating system."
She blinked. "My what?"
"Never mind," he said, the ghost of a smile there and gone. "Dismissed."
She bowed slightly. "Good evening, Mr. Vale."
"Good evening."
She turned to go—paused—and then, because she believed in credit where it was due, said without looking back, "For what it's worth, sir… the lobby feels calmer this afternoon."
"Does it?" he asked, mildly curious.
"Yes."
"Then let's keep it that way."
She left, steps light, the reprimand absorbed like a note written in a hand that cared how it would be read.
When she reached the elevator, the diva ghost floated through the ceiling like a chandelier sigh. "Well?"
"He was fair," Serene said.
"Fair is the new charming," the ghost pronounced. "And charming is still charming."
Leo appeared upside down from the display panel. "Did he fire you?"
"No."
"Then we celebrate," the businessman ghost announced, reconstituting beside the ficus with a satisfied rustle of paper. "I propose cinnamon coffee."
"It's discontinued," Serene and Leo said together.
The businessman sniffed. "You people have no commitment to tradition."
The elevator chimed. Serene stepped in, turned, and because she was learning her own balance in this place, she bowed to no one at all. Polite, minimal, inexplicably satisfying.
The doors slid closed on three delighted ghosts.
Back in his office, Lucien stood where she had left him. The glass caught his reflection beside the vastness of the bay. A man who had built an empire out of edges and now found himself watching for something softer between them.
Rowan returned with two signatures and a question. "Should I schedule Miss Caelis for the ambassador suite walk-through on Friday?"
Lucien considered. "Yes. With Ms. Vierra. Add a note for Housekeeping to prepare terrace amenities early."
Rowan nodded, hesitated. "Sir… is she unusual?"
Lucien's gaze returned to the long, steady line of the horizon. "Everyone useful is."
Rowan smiled. "Fair."
"Fair is the new charming," Lucien said, without knowing why the phrase fit.
As the door closed, he caught a flicker in the glass, the suggestion of a woman in a sparkling gown, hands clasped in applause, Lucien feel it's ridiculous, impossible. He didn't believe in ghosts. He believed in optics, in payroll, in clean lines and margins.
And yet the room felt… less empty than it had at noon.
He sat. The sea kept its counsel. Somewhere below, the lobby hummed like a well-tuned instrument.
Tomorrow would bring guests with birthdays and demands, a terrace with too much wind, a chef with a genius idea and a terrible invoice, a young woman with a poised smile who spoke to no one and improved everything.
He adjusted his cufflink, closed the last open file, and let the day end exactly on time.