Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
I ran out to check on the guests, laughing when they cheered at my announcement that Finn was awake and creating a cheesy paradise for them. When I slid back into the galley, I found Finn staring at what he’d assembled so far with a frown like he was making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.
He was twisting a ring on his right pinky finger.
My breath stalled out at the sight.
His grandma’s ring.
He’d told me about it one morning as we had coffee on the dock in Greece, our feet swinging beneath us as we watched the sun rise higher over the diamond blue water.
“I don’t know any other guys who wear a pinky ring,” I say, nodding to the simple gold band gleaming from where he holds his coffee mug.
“Ah,” he says, smiling down at it. He wears his exhaustion on his face and somehow it makes me even more attracted to him. I wish we could spend the day snuggled in a hotel bed. “Me granny’s.”
“Really?” I reach out for his hand, and he lets me inspect the ring closer. “That’s so sweet.”
“She left it to me when she passed, along with her best cookware. She didn’t have much in the end, since she’d moved in with us, but… she knew I’d appreciate the little she did have.”
“It’s really nice that you honor her memory by wearing it.”
He cracks his neck, growing quiet before he takes a sip of his coffee. “One day, I hope I can do more.”
I hadn’t understood what he meant by that then, and our radios had gone off in the next instant, our captain calling a crew meeting.
Now, I knew he meant the restaurant he’d yet to tell me about at that time.
His words battled through the fog of the alcohol from the night before, though I struggled to remember it all clearly.
I didn’t want to ruin what we had.
I thought if I had a grand plan… you’d come with me.
If I were a more confident woman, maybe I would have. Maybe Gisella would have if she were in my spot then. But Finn had triggered me, even if it wasn’t his intention. He’d made me feel the way my father did, like my career wasn’t important, like my dreams weren’t valid.
And worst of all, him leaving me in the end confirmed my deepest fear.
That I wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t enough to stay for, to change course for, to be honest with, to fully let in.
Staring at this man in the galley now, I wondered if it had been his fears ruling him that night, too. I wondered if love, or lack thereof, wasn’t to blame.
Love never stood a chance against bad timing and two scared kids trying to figure out who they were.
Finn startled a bit when he realized I was back. “They good?”
I smiled. “They’re fine. Drunk and hungry, but fine.” I edged closer, placing my hands on the opposite side of the stainless-steel island where he worked. “I love that you still wear that.”
He followed my gaze to his ring, flexing his hand before he curled it into a fist.
“Never take it off.”
“Finn.” I waited until he looked at me again. “What happened to the restaurant?”
His hands stilled where he was working, his eyes searching mine for a long moment. “Put my trust in the wrong eejit, didn’t I?”
“What does that mean?”
He sighed, cracking his neck before he was back to work. He seemed to do everything with a little more gusto, frustration rolling off him in plumes. “It means I thought I had a proper partner. Turned out I’d hitched my wagon to a bloody crook.”
He poured the dipping sauce he’d been making for the grilled cheeses into a ramekin — some sort of maple glaze — then tossed the silver mixing bowl into the sink without care. The clang of it made me flinch.
Finn rested his hands on the edge of the sink for a moment, smoothing out his breaths. “Everything was perfect, Em,” he said softly, shaking his head. “It feels impossibly hard when you open a new restaurant. There are a thousand ways you could fail… a shit location where no one can find you, a menu that tries too hard to impress everyone and ends up impressing no one, staff that’s either incompetent or just couldn’t give a shite, margins so razor-thin you’re bleeding out before you even open the doors... but everything worked out for us.” He hummed a little laugh like he still couldn’t believe it. “The location was great, the community was welcoming, the reviews were glowing, the staff keen to make it a success. We struggled in the first couple of months, but before we knew it, every table was filled for dinner every single night of the week. We had a waitlist.” His nostrils flared. “It was too good to be true. I knew it, but I thought maybe…”