The question should have sounded reckless. It didn’t.
“Starting with the truth.”
“Which truth?”
“That I want you in Maris Key for the work.”
He didn't answer.
“And I want you in Maris Key for me.”
The line went quiet enough for my own breathing to become inconvenient.
I had started pacing without realizing it. Two steps away from the island, one back. Bare feet on cool wood, phone pressed too tightly to my ear. My reflection caught in the glass doors: silk pajamas, sleep-tangled hair, one hand at my mouth like I could hold the words in.
I dropped my hand.
“It won’t be Mara Khaya,” he said.
“No.”
“Real life gets louder.”
“Then we’ll see if we can still hear each other.”
A pause.
“Nick, I run an international company, survive five sisters with freakishly intelligent opinions, and manage vendor contracts across three continents. Loud doesn’t scare me.”
His voice went flat. “Juliette.”
“I’m not finished.”
He went quiet. Wise man.
“You have Sofia. Mara Khaya. A team that needs a proper handover. I have Wilder Horizons, clients who think money makes gravity optional, and a calendar that looks like it was designed by someone who hates women.”
“So no easy.”
“No easy. No clean. Accurate, or nothing.”
“There will be distance.”
“There already was.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No.” I slid one thumb along the handle of the mug. “This time we decide what to do with it.”
Outside, the first bird called from the palms, thin and bright and entirely unimpressed by human complications. Nick stayed quiet long enough that the silence began to feel less like hesitation and more like math.
“If I come,” he said, “I come as a consultant first. Defined scope. Written terms. Gabriel in the room.”
“Yes.”
“And after the meeting?”
My throat moved once. “That depends.”
