I take his hand.
He drives along the coast. I don’t ask where. I’ve stopped needing to know the destination in advance.
Eventually, we stop at a cliff I’ve never seen. Private. Secluded. The sun’s halfway down, and the sky’s all pink and gold bleeding into the water.
“Raffaele. What is this?”
He reaches into his pocket.
Pulls out a box.
“I know I already asked.” He says it with that small, dry humor he uses when he’s covering up something genuine. “Just outside a bathroom. While I was covered in someone else’s blood. Not ideal.”
“It was… memorable.”
“You deserve better than memorable.” He opens the box. “You deserve everything.”
The ring.
A ruby—deep red, the color of the wine I just left on the patio, surrounded by diamonds.
“Oh my God, it’s—” I don’t know how to finish that. It’s more than just beautiful. It’sperfect.
“The ruby’s from Myanmar. One of the last of its kind.” He holds it up to the light. “It took me two months and favors from three different people on two different continents to find it.”
“Raffaele—”
“It reminded me of you.” He says it simply. “Rare. Worth more than whatever I paid for it, which was a considerable amount.”
I laugh despite myself.
“The first time I asked,” he says, “you were in shock. I need to know”—he takes my hand—“in the quiet. When there’s nothing coming. Do you still want this?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “Obviously, yes. A thousand times, yes.”
He slides the ring onto my finger.
It fits like a dream. He kisses the back of my hand before standing and kissing me on the lips. Slow and passionate.
When he pulls back, the sun is just dipping beneath the horizon, and there’s a burning light in his eyes.
“There’s one more thing,” he smiles.
“What?”
Without warning, he scoops me up off my feet and throws me over his shoulder.
“Raffaele!”
“There’s somewhere I want to take you.”
“Put me down!”
“Have you ever been on a yacht in international waters?”
I go still over his shoulder.
“You bought a yacht?”
