Chapter 7
Karina folded the excursion list against her clipboard, the soft crack of creased paper swallowed by the gentle slap of water against the boat’s hull.
She bit her lip. She tucked the page so the heavy black strokes—and the names she’d crossed out—couldn’t glare at Adam.
“I suppose subtlety was never your gift,” she said with a laugh, but her eyes cool beneath her sunglasses.
Adam glanced over his shoulder, shading Lucy as she stepped from deck to dock—though she was already solid on the wood planks. “Just providing clarity,” he answered quietly, offering his hand to steady her.
Karina’s mouth tightened at the edges. Beneath her dark lenses, her gaze flicked from Lucy’s bright smile to Adam’s easy confidence. She pushed her sunglasses higher, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and launched into the revised schedule.
The private cove lay off St. Lucia’s southwestern coast, she explained: a tiny protected island, uninhabited.
Twenty-six people had signed up. The vendor would dispatch two launches since not everyone could fit on one boat.
Everyone needed to be at the marina by eight sharp—miss the boat and you’d view St. Lucia all day from the ship’s deck.
Adam looped an arm around Lucy’s shoulders as they started back toward the security checkpoint.
Karina forced herself to watch them go, her folded list tucked against her hip, Adam’s correction still visible in thick, confident strokes.
He’d erased Karina’s name. Her bright smile faded into a grimace as she watched their backs.
The ship did not leave Nassau until late afternoon, which left hours for Adam and Lucy to slip away from the Northstar crowd touring the old fort.
They wandered hand in hand through pastel-painted streets, pulled coffee from a rosy shop whose paint peeled in uneven patches, and smilingly argued over whether a wide-brimmed straw hat made Adam look distinguished or just… eccentric.
Lucy had let him buy it. It flopped over one ear in a way that reminded her of a cat’s fallen ear—adorable, but precarious.
When the breeze snatched it into a display of carved turtles, she heard Adam curse under his breath before he chased it across the square, emerging a little embarrassed, a little triumphant, wide-eyed with relief when he retrieved it.
At the market, sunlight glinted off rows of black-velvet trays covered in bracelets and necklaces, each piece set with pale blue stones. Adam lingered before a small jeweler’s table, picking up a ring and letting the light catch its curve. He looked at Lucy’s left hand.
“You already gave me one of those,” Lucy said, surprised.
He lowered the ring, turning it so the afternoon glow danced on the metal. “I was checking whether you still had it.”
She stared down at her hand: gold and light and memory. She lifted her gaze. “Where would it go?” The words tumbled out before she realized she’d spoken.
Adam’s expression softened and then clouded, shifting at once like a wind-blown sail. “Nowhere.”
The jeweler began to explain: the sky-blue stones were larimar, found only in the Caribbean.
Lucy tilted her face toward the sun, blinked, and then watched Adam drop the ring back into its velvet recess.
He paid the jeweler through a flurry of bills, tucking the new larimar-studded circle into a box the jeweler handed him.
“It’s a cruise ring. A memory.”
Lucy smiled and accepted the gift with a kiss.
They continued down the market’s winding path, hand in hand, until they found themselves debating rum cake, getting lost on a street whose name had looked familiar to them both—an alley of bougainvillea and crumbling pastels.
By the time they returned to the ship, they carried three wooden turtles carved by the vendor whose display had hosted Adam’s hat.
That evening, Northstar held its party on the pool deck as the ship pushed east toward St. Lucia’s sheltered coves.
Strings of lights crisscrossed above, making constellations on the open deck.
Pools glowed electric blue beneath them, lamps hidden under the water lighting the surface in slow pulses.
A steel-band trio played beside the bar, their steel drums shining, brass horns glinting.
Employees—people who’d met mostly through video calls—danced as though shedding a year’s worth of virtual stares.
Lucy wore a short white dress—light cotton that swirled at her knees.
Flat sandals slid easily against her bare legs.
Karina stood nearby in red—vibrant enough to make Lucy feel the two of them no longer looked like rival brides at some badly planned wedding.
They were contented women, each in her own element.
“Very nice,” Karina said softly when she saw Lucy, coming up behind her and smoothing one of the pearl buttons at Lucy’s waist. Her words sounded genuine—approval lit her dark eyes. She froze, hand hovering mid-air. “Sorry. Occupational hazard.”
Lucy glanced at the button. It hadn’t been crooked. She smiled, leaning into Karina’s small gesture. “Do you dress Adam often?”
The question hung between them, gentle but edged with something more. Karina held her gaze, the half-light catching the gold rim of her glass. For the briefest moment, they each understood it wasn’t idle chatter.
“I make sure he has the right clothes for events,” Karina said, stepping back. “Sometimes that means preventing him from wearing brown shoes with a navy tuxedo.”
Lucy studied her. “There is no navy tuxedo.”
Adam’s voice came from the side. “There was for eleven hours in Milan. I destroyed it by slipping in pile of mud. Thank goodness Karina was able to pull a miracle out of her back pocket and find me a new one.”
Karina’s laugh was soft. Then Steven arrived, threading four drinks through the dancers: white wine for Karina, whiskey for Adam, and a glass with a wedge of watermelon perched on its rim for Lucy. She took it, eyeing the drink’s delicate pink hue.
“What is this?” she asked, lifting it.
“Pink,” Steven replied with a grin.
“That’s not a drink.”
“It was the only information I retained.”
Lucy sniffed it. Sharp lime, sweeter watermelon, and a hint of something spun with rum. She sipped. The taste was a mischievous thrill that promised apologies in the morning. She laughed and tucked the glass beside her.
For the next hour, the party unfolded easily.
Adam danced—ineptly, with wide steps and elbows that bumped Lucy’s hips.
He defended his technique as regionally specific.
Lucy teased him, guiding him through half-steps that nearly became salsa before the band switched tunes and the dance dissolved into laughter.
Karina and Steven danced across the deck near the bar: he moved with feigned reluctance, she cued every step, leaning into his jokes.
Watching them was like witnessing two comfortable best friends—close enough to needle each other, certain enough to know when to hold back.
Lucy glanced at Karina once; Karina caught her eye and gave her a small, genuine smile. In that instant Lucy felt a tug of relief, sharp as spun glass but tempered by something warm: an unspoken truce. She smiled back.
Around ten, Daniel Rusk, Northstar’s CEO, climbed onto the low stage and raised one hand for quiet. The band wound down as he took the microphone. He thanked everyone for the record year, reminded them that tomorrow’s excursions began early, and then called Adam forward.
Adam hesitated, pointing to his whiskey glass. He refused twice—then let himself be nudged onto the stage, straw hat still perched at a jaunty angle. Laughter and applause rippled through the crowd. Adam set down his glass and looked directly at her before he spoke.
“I learned something important yesterday,” he began, voice steady. “Apparently Northstar employs several people who know every detail of our growth strategy but cannot identify my fiancée.”
Murmurs and laughter spread. Lucy felt every eye shift to her. Her cheeks warmed.
Adam tipped his hat off his head. “For anyone who missed last night, this is Lucy Brooks. She is not my sister, cousin, former fiancée, or emotionally persistent houseguest. She is the woman I asked to marry me, and unless this cruise gets considerably worse, she still intends to do it.”
The crowd laughed again, more warmly this time. Lucy laughed along with them. Then Adam raised his glass:
“Lucy has endured a year in which Northstar borrowed too much of my time. She’s also endured forty-eight hours in which Northstar misplaced her identity. I would appreciate it if everyone could remember her name from now on—if only because I’m very fond of it.”
Glasses rose in salute. Employees called her name.
She touched the glass to her lips, feeling the weight of every gaze.
Adam’s eyes stayed on her—steady, earnest, a little vulnerable.
He hadn’t asked her permission for this public correction—he’d simply known that he needed to do it.
The warmth of his commitment settled in her chest, wiping away a quiet doubt she hadn’t noticed until now.
Lucy lifted her pink drink in return, drinking in his relief and pride. She opened her mouth to thank him, but laughter from the bar interrupted her.
“What about your work wife?” came a voice, half-joke, half-challenge. A ripple of laughter followed. Several people glanced at Karina.
Adam’s smile faltered. He glanced once toward the bar, then back to the microphone. “Karina is my executive assistant,” he said firmly. “She is extraordinarily good at her job, let’s leave it at that.”
For less than a heartbeat the deck fell silent. Then Daniel led a round of applause—tentative at first, then surging to a roar. The band resumed playing. Adam stepped down from the stage, weaving through the crowd to Lucy’s side, taking her hand.
He kissed her there in the middle of the deck, the world narrowing to their embrace even as the crowd cheered around them. Lucy pressed her hands into the front of his shirt, closed her eyes, and let warmth bloom through her.
When she opened them again, she saw Karina just beyond Adam’s shoulder.
Karina stood at the edge of the deck, near the doors that led below. Her face was turned away from the lights, half in shadow. Steven stood close, one hand at her elbow, as if steadying her. Lucy watched—and saw Karina lift her fingers to brush beneath one eye.
Karina noticed her looking. She dropped her hand in an instant. A brave, embarrassed smile flickered across her face, then she raised her glass in a quiet toast to the couple. Without another glance, she turned and walked off the pool deck, Steven following close behind.
Lucy’s insides dipped cold. She turned to Adam. “Was she crying?”
Adam stepped back so he could look at her. His brows drew together. “Who?”
“Karina,” Lucy said softly.
He followed her gaze to the closed doors. The need to fix, to solve, flickered across his face—an old impulse. He turned back to her, dropping the protector’s instinct. His arm came around her waist. “She’s probably drunk.”
Lucy’s throat clenched. Karina hadn’t even had one glass of wine—she knew because Steven had delivered it and the level had barely changed. But Lucy didn’t say so. She let Adam guide her back toward the band.
“Come dance with me,” he murmured.
Lucy rested her hands on his shoulders. She told herself there was nothing else to ask for tonight.
Adam had chosen her here, before everyone, and then chosen to stay even when Karina left.
The promise was clear in every tender line of his face.
She pulled him close, swaying to the band’s gentle rhythm.
Across the deck, Steven reemerged alone. He carried two drinks—neatly balanced—and paused at the bar, watching Adam and Lucy. His expression was cautious: a silent question tucked into his posture. Lucy missed a step. Adam caught her by the waist.
“What?” he asked, concern warm in his voice.
“Nothing,” she whispered, straightening. “Your dancing remains a public hazard.”
He laughed, tilting his head as he tightened his arms around her. The lights above them trembled in the breeze. Somewhere behind, the band shifted into a slower tune.
Lucy closed her eyes, breathing in the music, the salt air, and the steady beat of Adam’s heart against her chest.