Chapter 13
Adam’s fingers closed around the ring. He stared down at his fist in that hallowed silence between them, as if expecting the ring to somersault free or perhaps to bite him back. When at last he lifted his head, his carefully practiced calm had evaporated.
“No.” His voice was low, but it carried enough authority to make Daniel start backward. “You’re dehydrated, exhausted, and furious. Now isn’t the time or place to have this conversation.”
Lucy slid off the narrow medical bed, the deck underfoot swaying in a gentle roll. She braced one hand against the mattress. “That’s convenient,” she said. “How much water do I need to drink before I’m allowed to not marry you?”
His jaw tightened. He popped the ring into his pocket with a movement that pulled thread at his trousers. “I didn’t say you aren’t allowed. I said this is not the time to make that decision.”
Lucy swallowed a wave of dizziness. She could feel every pair of eyes in the tiny treatment bay, but shame had already lost its sting.
Adam advanced a step; she recoiled. His shoulders looked crumpled. “I should have checked the cabin sooner. I should have questioned Karina the moment her story shifted. You can be furious for every second I spent thinking you were avoiding me, but you can’t pretend I didn’t care you were missing.”
“I don’t have to pretend,” Lucy said.
He stiffened, the corners of his mouth flattening into a line. “That’s not fair.”
An incredulous sound escaped Steven from the neighboring bed. Every glance, every tension point in the room, was charged now. Lucy met Adam’s eyes—the man she’d once pictured as the center of her future—and found only cracks.
Lucy’s pulse throbbed in her temples. Adam had invited fairness into their argument because in his mind, he’d never meant to let anything go wrong. He’d boarded the cruise adoring her; he was terrified of losing her. He deserved credit, he thought, for caring enough to search. But at what cost?
“No,” Lucy said. “What wasn’t fair was getting stranded on a deserted island with hardly any supplies.”
Adam seized the moment, reaching out. He stopped just short of touching her arm. “Wait until we’re home. Just sleep. Eat something. Let the coast guard finish their interviews. If you still want to give me back the ring after that, I’ll listen.”
Lucy laughed, but it came out a harsh rattle. “You’ll listen. How generous.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he protested.
Silence fell. Even the hum of the life-support monitors seemed to pause in that charged air. Lucy turned toward the nurse, her voice steadier than she felt. “Am I required to stay in the treatment bay?”
The nurse glanced at Marco, and he offered Lucy a slow, sympathetic nod. “Your blood pressure’s stabilized, and you’re retaining fluid. I’d prefer you stay nearby a few more hours. We can move you to an observation cabin—quieter than this.”
“I want a cabin Adam cannot enter,” Lucy said, her voice small but firm.
Marco looked toward the door, where the captain had slipped in during the standoff. The captain met Marco’s gaze and inclined his head. “I’ll arrange one on the medical deck.” His tone was brisk.
Adam slammed a fist onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. She shouldn’t be alone.”
“She requested privacy,” the captain said, folding his arms. “Given the circumstances, we must respect that.”
“I’m her fiancé.”
The word throbbed like a bruise under Lucy’s skin. She opened her mouth, but before she could dispute the claim, Steven cleared his throat.
“Now you’re just the man holding the ring she no longer wants.”
Adam whirled toward him. Rage flickered in his eyes. “Stay out of this.”
“I spent the night she was missing right beside her. Where were you?”
Marco raised a hand. His voice was calm but carried an unmistakable edge of command. “Enough. Steven, I remind you that a fight here means medical reports—forms I really don’t want to file. Adam, another outburst and I’ll have security escort you out.”
Adam fell silent. He pressed both hands against the nape of his neck, head bowed. That sudden collapse of fury left him small, vulnerable—fear rippling beneath the surface.
“Lucy, please.” He lifted his head, eyes rimmed red. His voice lost its force, swallowed by desperation. “Don’t make me leave you after I just got you back.”
That plea nearly unraveled her. Between them, the past night trembled: the island’s dark, the fear that he’d thought she was gone forever. She wanted to forgive him, to fall into his arms. She wanted their cabin, the soft sheets, and the quiet proof that he was still there.
“I’m not asking you to leave me alone forever,” she said, hating that hope had crept into her words. “I’m just telling you that I can’t bear to be around you right now.”
The nurse stepped forward, gently helping Lucy into a wheelchair.
Lucy protested—she could walk, she insisted—but her vision was narrowing from exhaustion, the corridor edges pulsing.
The thought of collapsing in front of everyone was unbearable.
As the nurse turned her toward the door, Lucy spared a glance for Steven.
He lay pale in his bunk, foot elevated, resentment still bright in his gaze. “I’ll find you later,” he murmured. Then softer, “After Doctor Marco stops threatening me.”
Marco checked the IV line dangling from Steve’s arm. “I made no threats—merely described likely consequences.”
Lucy caught an echo of the faintest smile before the doors swung shut.
Karina was already there, just outside the treatment bay, arms wrapped around herself, flanked by security and Daniel, leaning forward in quiet discussion with the captain.
Karina’s eyes flicked from Lucy’s hand—bare now, the ring gone—to Adam just emerging behind the wheelchair.
Lucy braced for the triumph she now expected, but instead Karina looked… horrified.
“What did you do?” Karina demanded of Adam.
He halted mid-stride. The question struck between them like a blade, intimate and accusing. Lucy felt the old schism spring back to life—Karina on one side, herself on the other.
Adam’s grief flared into fury. “You are the cause of all this. I can’t talk to you right now.”
Karina’s shoulders curled inward. “I said I was sorry.”
Adam advanced one step. “You lied, saying she was on the other ship. You said she was annoyed with me.” Karina recoiled. “You watched me panic,” Adam continued. “You built your story piece by piece, and I was stupid enough to believe you instead of searching for Lucy.”
Lucy held her breath. Those were the first words Adam had ever spoken that fully acknowledged Karina’s betrayal. They were too late to heal anything, yet the force of them resonated. Karina’s face paled, eyes flicking from Adam to Lucy, pleading without words.
“I messed up,” Karina whispered. “I got confused in the chaos. Why would I deliberately do this? To Lucy? To Steven?”
The corridor stilled. Even Adam seemed to wrestle with the question.
“How could you have gotten confused,” Daniel demanded. “You had a manifest.
Karina shut her eyes, the tissues at her temples tightening. “I—told you already. I thought I saw them. I told both captains no one was missing.”
Karina opened her eyes, caught Adam’s gaze. His expression flattened all her excuses; the fight went out of her. She could only sink back against the wall as security guided her away, her shoulders slumped, words gone.
Daniel turned to the captain, already discussing camera footage, text logs, vendor manifests. The machinery of consequence ground into motion.
Adam drifted to Lucy’s wheelchair and crouched before her. His hands rested on his thighs. He looked up at her, exhaustion etched in every line of his face.
“You are right,” he said quietly. “I should have looked for you”
Lucy watched as guilt and relief warred behind his eyes. The ring lingered in his pocket, a mute witness to everything. She found her voice. “That’s not the same as knowing why you didn’t.”
He blinked, and desperation edged his next words. “I do know. Karina made herself indispensable. I stopped questioning her. I let her handle too much.”
Lucy frowned. The explanation was neat—administrative, almost—and not nearly enough.
“Let me come with you. I’ll wait outside your cabin, if that’s all you can stand.”
“No.”
“Lucy, please,” he begged, voice cracking. “I just need to know you’re safe.”
His need was real. Refusing him hurt. “I needed you to care about knowing that yesterday.”
Adam bowed his head, crouching there in the corridor, while the nurse hovered behind. His shoulders shuddered with the weight of it all. After a moment that stretched too long, he rose without another word and stepped aside.
Later, the nurse wheeled Lucy to the observation cabin—a plain little room with a narrow bed against one wall, a small sink, and a single window no larger than a porthole.
Outside in the hallway, the hum of ship systems was quieter here.
Lucy accepted clean scrubs and a bottle of water; the nurse locked the door at her request and promised to check in on her.
For the first hour, no shadow crossed beneath the door. No soft knock. No voice. The silence felt considerate, until it wove itself into loneliness. Lucy listened for every footstep, every echo down the sterile corridor, until exhaustion finally claimed her.