“You thought what?” he interrupts, leaning back now, studying me openly. “That you’d make friends? That you’d wander off with someone you met last night and play tourist while I handle things?”
My cheeks heat.
“I didn’t mean?—”
“No,” he says softly. “You didn’t think at all.”
Silence stretches.
The ocean keeps breathing.
Somewhere, cutlery clinks. A tray passes. Life continues, oblivious.
“You’re here because I want you here,” Noah continues, voice low enough that it feels like it’s meant only for me. “Not to socialise. Not to dig. And definitely not to start attaching yourself to people you don’t understand.”
My fingers curl into the napkin in my lap.
“She asked about you,” I say before I can stop myself.
His expression changes.
Just a flicker. So fast I almost miss it. Something tight. Something dark.
“What did she ask?”
I hesitate.
It feels dangerous to answer. It feels worse not to.
“She said,” I begin slowly, “that she didn’t think you’d marry again. Not after the last time.”
The air between us goes cold.
Noah’s chair scrapes back as he stands.
The sound is controlled. Precise. But the movement is sudden enough to make my heart kick against my ribs.
“That’s enough,” he says.
I look up at him, my mouth dry. “Noah?—”
He leans down, hands braced on the table on either side of my plate, boxing me in. His face is close now. Too close. His voice drops.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with my past,” he says. “Or with women who like to talk too much before they disappear.”
Disappear.
The word lands wrong.
My pulse starts to race.
“She’s nobody,” he continues, straightening. “And she’s gone. End of conversation.”
He turns, already signalling for staff, the moment dismissed like it never mattered.
I sit there, staring at the ruined tablecloth, at the untouched food, at the perfect morning that suddenly feels like a staged photograph—beautiful, lifeless, lying.
Vivian has gone.
