I checked my phone. Jason had been gone forty minutes.
I put the phone away.
He was stressed. I knew that better than anyone. The past six months had been difficult in ways I only partially understood — real estate partnerships and investor agreements and terminology that Jason tried to explain to me patiently and that I tried equally hard to follow. What I understood clearly enough was this: one of his major investors had been threatening to pull out of a significant project, and the financial and reputational consequences of that were serious. Jason had been fielding calls at odd hours, disappearing into his home office late at night, carrying a particular kind of tension in his jaw that I recognized as his working-through-a-problem face.
And yet — he had insisted on this cruise.
Come on the cruise, Camila.
No matter how many times I told him to postpone this trip, his answer was always a steady reminder of just how much he loved me. “I cannot go about my life without taking you on this cruise for our anniversary, Camila.”
How did I get this lucky?
It was a question I genuinely couldn’t answer. My friends had stopped being subtle about their disbelief somewhere around the six-month mark of our relationship. Elena had said it directly, which was very Elena:I love you, Camila, but how did you land him?She’d said it while looking at a photo of Jason on my phone, her eyebrows somewhere near her hairline. I’d laughed, because what else could I do. The honest answer was:I have absolutely no idea.
He was the kind of man who walked into rooms and changed the temperature of them. Tall, broad-shouldered, that olive skin and easy confidence that came from genuinely not needing anyone’s approval. He ran a multi-million dollar real estate business with the same calm competence he applied to everything else in his life. He was extroverted in the way that some people just naturally are — he remembered names, asked follow-up questions, made waiters feel like the most important person in the room.
And I was — well. I was me. Introverted and soft-spoken, most comfortable with a book or an animal or a small group of people I trusted completely. I had spent most of my twenties quietly at the edges of things, volunteering at shelters on weekends, working my library job during the week, not particularly bothered by my own smallness in the world.
And then Jason Riley had walked into my life, and my entire quiet life had rearranged itself around him without asking my permission first.
I still didn’t fully understand why he’d chosen me. I had stopped questioning it, mostly, because Jason had a way of making the question feel irrelevant. He looked at me like the answer was obvious. Like I was the only sensible conclusion.
I heard the stateroom door open behind me.
I turned around, already smiling.
Jason came in, and something in my chest went slightly still.
He looked — not like Jason. Or not like the Jason of two hours ago, loose and laughing in the jacuzzi, telling me I’d be his dessert. This Jason looked like he’d been somewhere effortful. His tie had come undone and been reknotted slightly off-center. His hair was different — not dramatically, but enough. There was a faint flush across his cheekbones that hadn’t been there before.
“Hey.” He didn’t cross to me. Didn’t reach for me. Just stood inside the doorway with his jacket slightly misaligned. “Are you ready for dinner? Just give me one minute.”
He moved straight to the bathroom, pulling the door mostly closed behind him.
I stood on the private deck and didn’t move.
The tap ran. I heard him moving around — efficient, purposeful, the sounds of a man tidying himself up quickly.
I walked inside. The freesias were still in the water glass on the vanity where I’d put them. The room looked the same as when he’d left it — our anniversary stateroom, golden-lit, roses fromthe cruise line on the table, the champagne we’d been saving for tonight still in its bucket.
I picked up my clutch. Checked my lipstick in the mirror.
And then Jason came out of the bathroom.
He looked more like himself now— tie straightened, hair smoothed back, the flush fading. He smiled at me, and it was a good smile, a real one, and I felt the knot in my chest begin to loosen.
“You look incredible,” he said. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
“The walk ran long?” I said.
“I saw the gym on the way.” He came toward me, took my hand, pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You know me. Hard to walk past without going in, even for ten minutes.”
“In your tuxedo.”
“I kept the jacket on.” He smiled again. “Come on. I changed the reservation to eight.”
He was leading me toward the door, his hand warm around mine, and for a moment it was exactly right — the dress, the diamonds, the anniversary dinner we’d been looking forward to for months, Jason’s hand steady in mine.
