"We'll see." But she was almost smiling now. "Seven o'clock?"
"I'll pick you up. Where are you staying?"
"The Marriott on Long Wharf."
"I know it." He hesitated, then reached out and took her hand. She let him. "Lily... thank you. For giving me a chance I don't deserve."
"You're right." She squeezed his fingers once, then let go. "You don't. So don't waste it."
She turned and walked back toward the building, her heels clicking against the pavement. At the door, she glanced back over her shoulder.
"Oh, and Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"If you stand me up, I will use every one of my six million followers to make your life a living hell. Understood?"
Despite everything—despite the emotional gauntlet he'd just run and the terrifying uncertainty of what came next—Alex laughed.
"Understood."
Lily smiled—a real one this time, the kind that crinkled the corners of her eyes—and disappeared inside.
Alex stood on the terrace, watching the harbor, feeling something unfamiliar bloom in his chest.
Hope.
It was fragile and uncertain and absolutely terrifying. But it was there.
And for the first time in thirty-five years, he didn't try to protect himself from it.
Don't screw this up, Carmichael.
He didn't intend to.
Epilogue
Six months later
The rental car kicked up a small cloud of dust as Lily pulled into the research station, and there he was.
Alex was emerging from the water like something out of her most ridiculous fantasies—wetsuit peeled down to his waist, water streaming down the planes of his chest, his dark hair slicked back and dripping. The late afternoon sun caught the droplets on his skin, turning them to liquid gold against the tanned muscle beneath.
Six months, and he still made her forget how to breathe.
She sat there for a moment, engine idling, just watching him. The way he moved—confident, purposeful, completely unaware of howdevastating he looked. He was checking something on his dive equipment, his forearms flexing as he adjusted a strap, and Lily felt heat pool low in her belly.
Down, girl. You literally saw him two weeks ago.
But two weeks felt like forever when you were in love with someone who lived on the opposite side of the country. Two weeks of video calls that never lasted long enough, of falling asleep to voice memos because the time zones were cruel, of missing him so much it felt like a physical ache beneath her ribs.
She'd spent six years traveling the world, and she'd never been homesick until she met Alex Carmichael.
Now home wasn't a place. It was a grumpy marine biologist with blue eyes and calloused hands and a smile he still rationed out like it was precious—which only made her work harder to earn each one.
Alex looked up, spotted her car, and that smile broke across his face like sunrise.
There it is.
