The suite smelled of candle wax and something expensive burning.
Isla stood near the window, the navy dress now boxed and tissue-wrapped on the chaise behind her. The ocean was just visible in the distance, dark and endless, pressed against the sky. Caleb poured champagne behind her, ice clinking delicately against glass.
"To us," he said.
She turned to take the flute. His smile was bright, practiced, gleaming with intent.
"To us," she echoed, sipping. The champagne was cold and sharp—so sharp it almost tasted like relief.
She swallowed too quickly. The bubbles scratched her throat, stinging all the way down as if the drink knew something she didn't—an omen in a crystal flute. The ocean outside flickered with a distant boat light, but mostly it was pure black, a sheet of unbroken void. Looking at it, Isla felt a strange pull. A warning, maybe. A whisper. Something ancient and patient waiting just beneath the surface.
He sat on the arm of the sofa, turning to look at her with gentle scrutiny.
"You've been a little quiet lately," he said. "Everything okay?"
"I guess I'm just tired," Isla said, fingers brushing her forehead. "It's all been… a lot."
"A lot of good," he countered, his voice warm. "You're about to marry the man of your dreams."
The way he said it made her skin tighten. Not because of the words—but because he believed them so thoroughly that she felt suffocated under the weight of his certainty. A future formed entirely from his desires. His plans. His version of her.
She smiled faintly.
He reached for her hand and turned it palm-up. The diamond on her finger caught the soft hotel lighting and split it into rainbows across her wrist.
Two million dollars. He'd said it loud enough for her friends to hear when he proposed. For the press to repeat. For her parents to finally approve.
Caleb tilted her hand, studying the ring.
"I've been thinking," he said. "About this."
Her stomach curled. "What about it?"
"The setting's… bulky. It's drowning your finger. I want to have it reworked—make it sleeker. You know Charles in Paris? I'll have him slim the band, smooth the mount, maybe change the prong layout entirely."
"I like it the way it is," she said gently.
"I know you do. But this is about you. I want it to fit your hand like it was born there. Fluid. Sculpted. You deserve more than a rock in a claw."
Isla forced a breath. He always dressed his decisions in silk. Wrapped control inside compliments. He had perfected the art of making obedience sound like luxury.
She tried to pull her hand back slightly. "Do we really have time for that right now?"
"I've already texted him," Caleb said smoothly. "He's expecting the courier tomorrow. It'll be gone just for the weekend. You'll have it back before Monday."
"Caleb…"
Her voice was soft. Uncertain.
But before she could finish the sentence, he leaned in and kissed her.
Deep. Possessive. Perfectly timed.
His lips pressed every doubt out of her mind, smothering hesitation with heat. His fingers slid into her hair. Her breath caught.
Her body reacted—trained, almost—before her mind could form the word wait.
His mouth always felt like a command.
Always too warm, too sure, too heavy.
The kind of kiss that didn't ask. It replaced.
Replaced whatever she was about to say.
Replaced whatever she was about to want.
Replaced her with someone easier. Someone agreeable.
Someone he could sculpt.
It was how he always won.
When he pulled away, her heart was pounding—but the protest had died.
"See?" he whispered against her mouth. "Nothing to worry about."
He slid the ring from her finger with reverence, kissed the spot where it had rested, and crossed the room.
Isla watched in silence as he tucked the ring into a black leather pouch and zipped it inside his carryall.
"You trust me, don't you?" he asked without turning.
She hesitated.
Then— "Of course."
Caleb smiled at the glass, the window, the night.
So easy.
Something inside her sagged.
Not heartbreak. Not anger.
More like the quiet collapse of a beam in a house that had been creaking for years.
A soft internal crack that no one would hear but her.
Later, she lay in the tub. Warm water up to her shoulders, music humming low from the speaker. Caleb was on a call in the other room—something clipped and business-like, laced with irritation.
She rubbed her bare ring finger absently. It felt… off. Like something missing from a necklace you forgot you were wearing.
She lifted her hand from the water, watching droplets slide down her skin, catching the light.
Her hand looked naked. Vulnerable.
Wrong.
She tried to imagine the ring back on her finger, but all she could picture now was the moment it disappeared into that leather pouch—the same way sunlight sinks when a cloud swallows it.
Quiet.
Final.
Gone.
The dress hung from the closet door, shimmering in the low light like a thousand tiny diamonds had been sewn into it by hand.
From the tub, it almost looked alive.
Like it breathed when she wasn't looking.
Like it watched her.
A creature of glass and midnight waiting to be worn.
She told herself she was imagining things. The ache. The distance. The way Caleb always seemed to be slightly elsewhere.
She told herself the dress was perfect.
The ring would be back soon.
The man she loved was thoughtful, not manipulative.
She told herself all of it.
Because she didn't want to know what it meant if she was wrong.
The water cooled around her.
Her skin prickled.
A shiver crawled up her spine, not from temperature—but from the sudden, intrusive thought that the ocean outside the window was watching her too.
That something out there already knew what Caleb had taken from her.
Already knew what he would take next.
Already knew she was sinking long before she ever touched the sea.