He walked over to the rail and looked out into the moonlit sky that reflected brightly off the ocean water. In another situation, the view and this night—everything about this—might actually be incredibly romantic.

“I love you, Ella.” He turned back to look at her. “I really think that if we try we can have something great, and I’m sorry, but I just don’t think things are gonna work out for you and Felix. I think, deep inside, you know that’s true also. He’s just gotten to you. I could stand around silently and wait for it to fall apart, but it kills me to know you’re gonna get hurt.”

Ella’s phone buzzed in her hand. It almost hurt to send Felix’s call to voicemail. She hadn’t realized their conversation had gone on this long.

She swallowed back the emotion that Grayson’s logic made her feel. Despite his shortcomings, she’d always thought him a very sensible guy. “I appreciate your concern, Grayson. I really do. And I appreciate everything that you’ve done for my family, but I’ve made up my mind about this. I’m taking my chances with Felix. You shouldn’t wait around either because even if things don’t work out between him and me, I already know things between you and me would never work either.”

“But—”

“I gotta go,” she said, walking away before he could say anything else that might rattle her.

“I’ll be here for you, Ella, and I won’t say I told you so either. Just know that I’ll be here for you.”

Ella kept walking without looking back or even slowing. She didn’t wait until she was in the comfort of her room to call Felix. She couldn’t. He’d already called twice and texted her to ask if they were skipping tonight’s call as if she weren’t dying to hear his voice already.

Only tonight she knew the call wouldn’t be quite as warm and fuzzy as they usually were because there was no way she could keep this from him anymore.

“Hey, baby,” he answered in his usual cheery voice. “I hope I didn’t keep you from anything. We can keep this short if you’re busy with your dad.”

“No,” she said, her voice a bit strained. “I didn’t realize it was this late already, and”—she took a deep breath, clutching the phone—“I got caught up in, uh, a bit of an argument.”

“Argument?” Felix’s cheery mood instantly deflected to concerned. “With who? Your dad?”

“No. With Grayson.” She stared out at the ocean, her heart racing at Felix’s momentary deafening silence.

“Grayson? He called just to argue with you?”

“No, he’s here”—she closed her eyes—“on the cruise.”

Chapter 20

Felix

Noah walked into the kitchen where Felix was standing holding the bottled water he’d just taken out of the refrigerator. Normally, Felix would’ve waited until he was out of the room, but at the moment, he didn’t give a shit who was around. He set his bottled water down on the counter before it busted in his hand. She already sounded upset, so he did his best to stay calm and not explode.

“Your ex-boyfriend is on the cruise with you? Why didn’t you tell me he was going?”

“I didn’t know he’d be here until we’d already boarded,” she explained quickly. “He told me it was a last-minute thing, that he was helping his cousin who’d gotten stuck with extra tickets, and that his room being right next to ours was a complete coincidence—”

“And you bought that shit?”

“No! Not for a minute. That's what the argument was about.”

Noah had left the room, obviously wanting to give Felix some privacy. Felix didn’t think it mattered what part of the house Gio, Noah, or the other trainers were in; this was about to get loud.

“What have you been doing with him?”

“Felix, this was supposed to be about my dad. Grayson sold tickets to people from his work. A married couple showed up with the wife’s sister, a woman my dad’s age. My dad hit it off with her right off, and we’ve all been hanging out as a group.”

It took Felix but a few seconds to understand what she’d just explained. “So you’ve been hanging out as three couples? And he planned it this way?”

“Yes, but—”

“What have you been doing with him, Ella?” Felix asked again, struggling to keep his calm.

“Nothing! Today I spent most of the day with just my dad and part of it alone sunbathing, but when we got back from Ensenada, we met up again with all of them on deck for drinks. We did some dancing in groups, but that’s it.” She inhaled and exhaled as Felix also took deep breaths, walking around his kitchen slowly in an effort to calm himself. “I left early like I did last night so I could take your call, but he caught up to me. He said he wanted to talk, so I agreed to listen as we walked, and it turned into an argument.”

“Why?”

She was quiet for a moment. “He keeps trying to convince me that things between you and me aren’t gonna work. That our worlds are too different.” There was a strange catch in her voice. “And that I’m fooling myself for thinking you could ever settle for one girl.”

Somehow Felix was able to remain calm and not roar like he wanted to, but it wasn’t so much the effort he made as the sudden unease that eclipsed his anger.

“And you believe that?”

“No,” she said softly.