THE PROPOSAL
Maya's POV
The candles at Canlis flicker like dying prayers, their light dancing across Ethan's face as he reaches for something in his jacket pocket. Elliott Bay stretches beyond the restaurant's windows, ferries moving like ghosts across dark water while Seattle's skyline glitters with the kind of beauty that makes you forget the city has teeth.
My engagement ring—the one I've never worn, the one that's been sitting in my jewelry box since my grandmother gave it to me at sixteen—catches the candlelight from the small velvet box now resting beside my untouched salmon.
"Maya," Ethan says, his voice carrying tremors I can't identify as nervousness or calculation. "I know this is fast, but when you know, you know."
The diamond stares back at me like an accusation, my mother's one-carat princess cut surrounded by smaller stones that spell out a love story I thought died fifteen years ago on a mountain road. The setting is different—platinum instead of gold, modern instead of vintage—but the center stone burns with the same fire that caught Susan Reeves' breath when Robert proposed outside Pike Place Market thirty-six years ago.
"It's beautiful," I whisper, the words scraping against a throat that tastes like ashes and betrayal.
How does he have my mother's diamond?
Ethan slides from his chair to one knee, the gesture drawing appreciative glances from other diners who believe they're witnessing romance instead of the final move in a chess game fifteen years in the making. His hands shake as he opens the box fully, revealing the ring that should have passed from my mother to me, not through the hands of the family that killed her.
"Maya Reeves," he says, each word precise as surgical incisions, "will you marry me?"
The question hangs between us like smoke from funeral pyres. I should say no, should demand explanations, should ask how he obtained jewelry that disappeared the night my parents died in their convenient accident. But the woman from Cross Technologies' warning echoes in my skull: some secrets are too dangerous to expose, some people too valuable to lose.
And I need more time to understand who's playing whom in this elaborate performance.
"Yes," I breathe, extending my left hand with fingers that betray nothing of the earthquake reshaping my understanding of everything I thought I knew about love and vengeance.
Ethan's smile could power the city as he slides the ring onto my finger, metal warm against skin that remembers my mother's hands, her laugh, her promise that someday I'd wear this same diamond when I found someone worth keeping forever. The irony tastes like blood and roses.
The restaurant erupts in spontaneous applause, strangers celebrating what they believe is our happiness while I sit frozen in the spotlight of their approval, wearing my mother's stolen jewelry and accepting a proposal from her killer's son. The champagne arrives without ordering, Dom Pérignon that bubbles like laughter at a funeral.
"To us," Ethan says, raising his glass with the confidence of someone who's just achieved a long-sought victory.
"To us," I echo, crystal chiming against crystal like church bells announcing something sacred or profane.
The champagne burns my throat as I force myself to smile, to play the role of surprised and delighted fiancée while my mind catalogs every detail of Ethan's performance. His relief seems genuine—shoulders dropping, breath steadying—but relief at what? Successfully proposing to a woman he loves, or completing Phase Three of his family's revenge plot?
"I can't believe you managed to find something so perfect," I say, angling for information while examining the ring that fits my finger like it was sized specifically for me. "It looks almost vintage."
Something flickers across Ethan's features, too fast to identify but sharp enough to cut. "I had it custom designed," he says, his voice carrying undertones I can't decipher. "I wanted something that would connect with your family history. The jeweler said the center stone reminded him of pieces from the early 2000s."
The lie slides between us smooth as silk wrapped around razors.
"It's extraordinary," I murmur, letting wonder color my voice while ice forms in my chest. "Like it was made for me."
"It was," Ethan says, reaching across the table to cover my hand with his, thumb brushing across the diamond that caught the light in my mother's engagement photos, that sparkled in Christmas morning pictures, that disappeared along with everything else the night two brilliant innovators died for the crime of creating something revolutionary.
Our conversation flows like wine—plans for the wedding, discussions of venues and guest lists, negotiations about timing that dance around my inheritance deadline without acknowledging the countdown that brought us together. Ethan suggests a small ceremony, something intimate that won't require months of planning, and I agree with the enthusiasm of a woman in love rather than a lawyer calculating how much time I need to prove he's been manipulating me since our first coffee date.
The drive to my penthouse unfolds in comfortable silence, Ethan's hand resting on my thigh while classical music whispers from the Mercedes' speakers. My engagement ring catches streetlight through the passenger window, each flash another reminder that I'm wearing evidence of my parents' murder while pretending to be grateful for the gesture.
"I need to call my mother," Ethan says as we enter my apartment, his voice carrying undertones of obligation rather than joy. "She'll want to hear the news."
"Of course," I say, disappearing into the kitchen to give him privacy while my newly engaged heart hammers against ribs that feel too small to contain my rage.
But sound carries in the penthouse's open layout, and Ethan's voice drifts across hardwood floors with the clarity of confession.
"Phase Three complete," he says, the words sharp enough to shatter crystal. "The daughter of Robert Reeves is finally mine."
Ice water floods my veins as his meaning crystallizes like winter on glass.
"I know," he continues, his tone shifting from triumph to something darker. "She has no idea what's coming. The protocols will be ours within the week."
My mother's diamond burns against my finger like a brand marking me as property of the Cross family, payment for debts my parents never owed, collateral in a war I didn't know I was fighting until the moment I agreed to marry my enemy.
The engagement ring—my inheritance, my mother's love made tangible—becomes a shackle that binds me to the man who's spent months perfecting the art of breaking my heart in service to his family's twisted sense of justice.
In the kitchen's chrome reflection, I watch myself transform from fiancée back into target, the woman who fell in love with her parents' killer's son while he counted down the days until he could complete their murder by destroying their daughter.
The champagne burns like acid in my throat as Ethan's laughter echoes from the living room, celebrating a victory I've just handed him wrapped in my own stupidity and desperate hope that love could somehow exist in the ruins of my family's graveyard.