Before Marina could respond, the old selkie had swept away toward the champagne fountain.
A questioning pulse tugged behind her sternum. Alessandro, sensing her emotional turbulence. She waved him off. He ignored her and crossed the deck anyway.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That didn’t feel like nothing.” He stood too close, as he always did now. The fifty-foot limit had become habit, and habit had become proximity that neither of them quite needed. “You’re upset.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re upset and working. I can multitask my observations.”
She almost laughed. Almost.
“Mrs. Waverly mentioned my grandmother.” She looked out at the pool. “It’s fine. I just… I miss her.”
Alessandro was silent. She sensed him choosing his words carefully, something she’d learned he did when the topic actually mattered to him.
“I never met my grandmother,” he said. “She died before I was born. Lost everything to the curse and then just… faded. My father doesn’t talk about her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” He paused. “But I understand missing someone you never got to say goodbye to properly.”
She looked at him, really looked, past the perfect suit and the unfairly sharp cheekbones and the arrogance that wore like armor. Underneath it, she saw exhaustion. Saw loneliness he’d learned to carry alone.
“Come help me with the dessert table,” she said. “You can carry napkins. Even you can’t destroy napkins.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
The party stretched into the golden hours of late afternoon.
Marina worked the room with an ease that surprised even her. Here, among her grandmother’s friends and neighbors, she wasn’t shy. She knew these people. They’d watched her grow up,had cheered when she took over the bakery, had mourned with her when her grandmother died.
Alessandro’s surprise rippled across the connection, a slow dawning recognition that the quiet woman he’d been living with was not the whole picture. She felt him watching her laugh with the mermaid contingent, joke with the selkie elders, charm a group of skeptical nixies into trying her salted caramel brownies.
Around six, when the party showed no signs of slowing down and Marina’s feet ached from hours of standing, Alessandro appeared at her elbow.
“Take a break.”
“I can’t. The cake hasn’t been served yet, and…”
“The cake is being handled by the mermaid grandmother who’s been eyeing it for the past hour. She seems competent.” He nodded toward the dock that stretched out into the harbor. “Come.”
She shouldn’t. She had work to do, guests to manage, a reputation to maintain.
She went anyway.
The dock was quiet, away from the party’s music and chatter. The wood was warm from a day of sunlight, smooth under Marina’s palms as she settled at the end. The harbor stretched before them, a handful of fishing boats bobbing at anchor, the lighthouse on the distant point already beginning to glow.
She kicked off her shoes and let her feet hang above the waves. The water was cold this time of year, too cold for most swimmers, but the chill felt good after hours in the crowded party.
Alessandro, after a moment’s hesitation that felt like a significant internal debate, removed his own shoes. His socks were designer. Of course they were. Probably cost more than her favorite mixing bowl.
“You’re different here,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
