Chapter 16
‘…This adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.’
We cruised for two days and nights. Sea sickness never raised its head. Something about the steady rise and fall of the boat, the salt air, and cocoon of teak, canvas and sun made me feel steadier than I had in months. The Serafine cut through the water like a knife through butter.
I spent long hours lying on the foredeck, the prow dipping and rising through aquamarine water under full sail, letting the warmth of the sun bake into my limbs while the wind teased at my hair. It was peaceful. I was in heaven.
The crew were discreet. They had that well-trained knack of vanishing when not needed, and appearing at precisely the right moment when a drink was finished or a line needed pulling.
Chase was, unsurprisingly, entirely at home in this world.
He gave instructions like a man born into a life where when you asked, it was given to you.
He continued to mine for every last detail of my life, insatiably curious, as if I were some lost manuscript he was determined to finish before landfall.
I told him about Jamie.
Not everything, not the rawest edges, but enough.
The outline of a love that had arrived young and burned brightly.
The boy who had felt larger than life, charming and utterly magnetic.
And then I told him about the accident. The suddenness of it.
The way a whole imagined life could vanish between one breath and the next.
As I spoke, I realised I wasn’t collapsing inside. The story didn’t shatter me open the way it had before. It sat between us, fragile but intact.
We were up on deck by then, the sky melting into layers of amber and rose. The sun hung low, a molten disc slipping towards the horizon, its light spilling across the water in golden ribbons. Chase slid his arm around me and drew me in close against him.
We watched in silence as the last edge of sunlight disappeared into the ocean. There was only the hush of dusk and the steady rhythm of the sea beneath us. Finally, I felt enough joy to forget what I’d lost.
In bed, we were bold. If I’d had more experience, I might have compared our time together to a chapter from the Kama Sutra, but with Jamie as my only benchmark, I had no real comparison. Chase, on the other hand, was extremely well-versed. He told me so. In detail.
Buried somewhere in his list of lovers was Candice De Malta, a girl whose name sounded like a cocktail and who, according to Chase, had once had the full support of both their mothers as a future daughter-in-law.
They’d dated for two months after her debutante ball in San Francisco before he caught wind of matrimonial manoeuvrings and bolted to Hawaii.
He recounted it with a kind of nostalgic amusement.
I smiled, unsure whether I was meant to be impressed, appalled, or both.
There was something dangerously appealing about Chase. He had the kind of energy that made you feel like life would be over if you didn’t keep up. You jumped on his bandwagon or watched it disappear down the road.
On our final evening we sat cross-legged on white leather deck cushions, sipping cold martinis. I watched the way the light hit his cheekbone, the way he turned his glass slowly in his fingers.
‘I didn’t think you’d embrace the high seas quite like this,’ he said.
‘An English rose isn’t as delicate as you might think,’ I replied. ‘We’ve got grit. And we’re an island nation, in case you forgot.’
He grinned and slid his hand up under the sarong I’d borrowed. I protested faintly, glancing back towards the helm, but the autopilot was engaged and the deck deserted. A moment later he had me naked under the open sky, as if this – us, here – was the most natural thing in the world.
The next morning we moored at The Royal Phuket Yacht Club.
It was quick and businesslike. They had more guests to collect in Krabi, and I had to get home.
I said goodbye to the crew, who gave me warm smiles and hugs.
Then I followed Chase down the gangplank, trying not to feel like I was walking away from something important.
We reached the end of the jetty and turned to face each other.
‘Florence Elliot,’ he said, like he was tasting the name.
‘Thank you,’ I said, suddenly awkward. ‘For the adventure.’
I didn’t know how to end it. I wasn’t sure if he did either. He lived in San Francisco. I lived in a peony-chintz spare room in South London. It had been a beautiful, unreal, vivid dream.
‘I find goodbyes difficult,’ I added, and gave him a quick, soft kiss on the lips before turning away.
I was halfway up the jetty when I heard him call my name. He was striding after me.
He caught up, reached out, took my wrist and spun me back around to face him. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?’
I blinked. ‘Done?’
‘Undone,’ he said, without irony. ‘I want to marry you.’
I stared. The sea roared somewhere behind us, a rhythmic, steady pull. The wind tickled at the hem of my shirt.
I’d known him a few days. But his face was serious. Earnest.
He dropped to one knee. ‘Florence Elliot, will you marry me?’
I looked down at him. My mind flicked through images: Jamie, my parents’ strained smiles, the cold attic room. And now here I was, salt-tangled hair and sunburned shoulders, on the far side of the world, a Californian man at my feet.
‘Yes.’