Chapter 6
I didn't wait for him to finish buttoning his shirt. The bedroom door was closed now, but I could hear the four of them down the hall, that low, happy murmur that comes after applause, the clink of something being set up for breakfast. Someone laughed. The younger woman in the light blue blazer.
I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the chain again. It was warm from my skin. The ring at the end of it was heavier than it looked, that wide gold band with the black enamel stripes catching the recessed light. His was identical, lying against his black shirt. Two of them. Unbroken.
"We need to tell them," I said. "Together. One sentence. That this was a misplacement, not an engagement."
He was standing by the polished wood dresser, his hand still at his collar. He didn't look at me right away. He looked at the doorway, then at the ring on his chest, then finally at me. His breathing was slow and even, but I could see the small tightness around his mouth.
"I know," he said.
I waited. He didn't move.
"Tell them this is a misunderstanding," I said. My voice was quieter than I meant it to be. "That's all. We don't have to explain the rest. We don't have to accuse anyone. We just say the rings were not ours to wear last night and we woke up wearing them. Then we take them off."
He sat down across from me, not touching me. The mattress dipped. The yacht shifted slightly under us, that gentle rock I hadn't noticed until that morning.
"My grandmother," he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "She's seventy-eight. Her blood pressure was up last week. My mom told me not to argue with her about anything this trip."
The elderly woman with the white hair and the double pearl necklace. Beige suit. She'd been the first one clapping.
"And?" I said.
"And she thinks this is real," he said. "She told my mom this morning she already called my aunt. She thinks I've finally done the thing she wanted. If we walk out there and say there is no engagement, in front of everyone, in front of the crew—"
"We planned to announce it later," I said, echoing what he'd said at dawn. I remembered the way he'd said it, calm, to buy time. "That was the lie that made them clap harder. We can't leave it sitting there. It gets heavier every hour we don't correct it."
He nodded. He knew. He picked up his ring between his thumb and forefinger and let it drop again. It hit his shirt with a soft tap.
"It's not just my grandmother," he said. "The board meeting is Tuesday. My dad told the Carters we'd be there together. If there's a public correction, even a small one, it looks unstable. Like we can't control our own house. My grandmother will think I'm embarrassed of you. She'll think I'm—"
He stopped himself. He exhaled through his nose.
"What did you want me to be embarrassed of?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said quickly. "That's not what I meant. I meant she'll think I'm backing away from you. And optics aside, I don't want her to think that. I don't want anyone to think that."
I looked down at the cream satin where my hands were knotted. The fabric was cool and wrinkled where I'd clutched it all morning.
"So what do we do?" I asked. "Let them toast us at breakfast? Let them pour champagne and take pictures with a lie between us?"
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. For a second he looked exactly like he had in the bed at dawn, serious and concerned and trying to hold something together.
"What if we do it in the other order?" he said. "We find who put them on us first. Tonight, privately. Then we correct it tomorrow morning, together, with an answer. Not just 'this is a misunderstanding' but 'this is what happened and it wasn't us.' My grandmother gets a private conversation, not a public reversal. The board gets nothing to talk about because there's nothing to see."
I felt the pull in two directions. The part of me that wanted to walk out that door and say the truth out loud right then, and the part that knew if I did, I'd be standing alone in that hallway while four women stared, and he'd be caught between me and his family, and whoever had slipped those chains around our necks while we slept would get exactly what they wanted — a scene.
"How long?" I asked.
"Twelve hours," he said. "We get through breakfast. We smile. We keep the rings on until we're alone again so no one thinks we're hiding something else. And after dinner, we go to my grandmother first, just the two of us, and we tell her. Before anyone can make it a toast."
"And if we don't find who did it by then?"
"Then we still tell her," he said. "We use the line you said. Verbatim. We say this was locked in my office last night, and then who put it on me? We tell her someone placed them and we don't know who yet, but we know it wasn't an engagement."
I looked at the doorway. The laughter had gotten louder. Someone had turned on music in the main cabin.
"Twelve hours," I said. "Not a day. Not until Tuesday."
"Twelve hours," he said.
I reached over and took his hand. His palm was warm and dry. It wasn't romantic. It was an agreement.
"Then we keep it on," I said, lifting the chain slightly. "Until we can take it off honestly."
May you like
He nodded and stood. He checked his reflection in the wood paneling, straightened his black shirt, and the ring caught the light again, gold and black, deliberate and wrong.
I stood too. I smoothed the cream satin sleepwear I was still wearing and knew I'd have to walk out there in it, wearing that ring, and let them celebrate something that hadn't happened yet.
