Chapter 263. Dinner on the Cliffside

Franco had outdone himself. The small, circular table on the cliffside terrace was a masterpiece of understated elegance. A crisp white linen cloth, heavy silverware that caught the last of the twilight, and a single, low arrangement of wild lavender and sprigs of rosemary that perfumed the air with the essence of the hillside. But the true artistry was in the placement: at the very edge of the world, it seemed, where the flagstones gave way to a low stone wall and then to nothing but a thousand feet of air and the vast, indigo expanse of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Candles in glass hurricanes were the only defence against the encroaching dark, their flames dancing like captive spirits in the gentle breeze that swept up from the water below. The sky was a slow-burn riot of colour—saffron, rose, deepening to a bruised violet where the first bold stars were pricking through.

Anton stood by the table, adjusting a fork that needed no adjustment, his heart performing a frantic, syncopated rhythm against his ribs. He was dressed simply in a white linen shirt and dark trousers, but he felt more exposed than he ever had in a boardroom. The ring was a warm, solid weight in his trouser pocket. The speech, the one he’d laboured over, was a forgotten ghost. All that existed was the precipice, the candles, and the imminent arrival of the woman who had become his entire axis.

He heard the soft click of the French door behind him and turned.

Sabatine stood framed in the light from the villa. She wore a dress he’d never seen—a fluid column of emerald green silk that seemed to drink the twilight and glow with its own inner light. It was simple, sleeveless, cut to the delicate hollow of her throat, and it moved with her like water. Her hair was swept up in a loose knot, a few rebellious strands already escaping to curl at her nape. She wore no jewellery. She needed none.

For a moment, she was perfectly still, taking in the scene: the table on the edge of the cliff, the candles, the endless sea, and him, waiting. Her expression was unreadable, a soft, private awe. Then, a slow, breathtaking smile began at the corners of her eyes and spread to her lips, transforming her face into something so radiant it stole the air from his lungs.

He could barely breathe. It wasn't nervousness, not anymore. It was a profound, physical overwhelm. The love he felt was a tidal force, vast and elemental, and seeing her here, like this, in the place he’d brought her to set her free, threatened to pull him under.

“Anton,” she breathed, her voice hushed with wonder as she walked towards him. “This is… this is insane.”

“In a good way, I hope,” he managed, his own voice rough.

“In the very best way.” She stopped before him, close enough that he could see the candlelight dancing in the depths of her eyes, gilding the fine bones of her face. She reached out and touched the sleeve of his shirt, a gesture of grounding familiarity. “You’re going to cause a lot of trouble for a woman who already said yes.”

“The trouble,” he said, finding his words as he looked at her, “is the point. The ‘yes’ was the answer. This… this is the celebration.” He pulled out her chair, the one facing the view. “For you. For us.”

She sat, the silk whispering against the linen. He took his seat opposite, and for a moment, they just looked at each other across the flickering light, the world below them falling into darkness, the world above them blooming with stars. The intimacy was almost unbearable in its sweetness.

Franco appeared like a phantom, presenting plates of delicate crudo di pesce—translucent slices of local fish dressed only in lemon oil and sea salt. He poured a glass of Vermentino, its pale gold catching the candlelight, and vanished again.

They ate, the food a sublime distraction from the intensity humming between them. They spoke of the day, of the feel of the sun on their skin, the taste of the sea, the silly sandcastle. But the conversation was a surface shimmer over a deep, silent current. Anton’s gaze kept returning to her face, to the way the candle flame lit the curve of her cheek, the line of her throat, the peaceful curve of her lips as she smiled.

With the main course—a simple, perfect branzino baked in salt—came a shift. The playful ease of the afternoon deepened into something more profound, more weighted with the significance of the place, the hour, the promise hanging in the air between them.

“I used to think love was a vulnerability,” Sabatine said softly, setting her wine glass down. She looked not at him, but out at the dark sea, though he knew she was seeing something else entirely. “A flaw in the armour. A system breach.”

“And now?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

She turned her gaze to him, and in it, he saw the woman from the jetty, the one who laughed at the sky, tempered by a fierce, enduring strength. “Now I know it’s the only armour that matters. It’s the thing that makes you invincible, even when you’re terrified. Even when you’re standing on the edge of everything.” Her eyes glistened in the candlelight. “You taught me that.”

The tidal force within him swelled. He couldn’t wait. The dessert, the planned moment after coffee—it was all meaningless protocol. The truth was here, now, in her eyes, in the sacred space their love had carved out on the cliff’s edge.

He stood up. The movement was sudden, but not abrupt. It felt inevitable, like the tide answering the moon.

Sabatine watched him, her expression softening into a gentle, knowing expectation. She didn’t look surprised. She looked… ready.

He didn’t go to one knee. That felt like a performance for an audience they didn’t have. Instead, he came to her side, the stone wall and the dizzying drop at his back. He took her hand, feeling the cool, capable strength of it in his own. The candles painted her in gold and shadow.

“Sabatine,” he began, and his voice was steady, clear, carrying over the sigh of the waves far below. “I had a speech. About how you saved me. How you rebuilt my world. How you are the bravest, most brilliant, most infuriatingly beautiful person I have ever known.”

A smile touched her lips, her fingers tightening around his.

“But I find I don’t need it,”he continued, his free hand going to his pocket. “The only thing that matters is this.” He withdrew the small, midnight-blue box. He didn’t open it yet. He held it between them, a shared secret about to be given to the light. “I love you. With a certainty that has replaced every doubt I ever owned. I want to build a life with you—not in the shadows, but in the light. I want the quiet mornings and the chaotic days and the peaceful nights. I want to be the reason you laugh like you did this morning, forever.”

He opened the box. The black sapphire, square-cut and severe, didn’t sparkle. It smouldered in the candlelight, a depth of dark fire captured in platinum and tungsten. It was her, in a metal band.

He saw her breath catch. Her eyes flicked from the ring to his face, wide and shining.

“You are my home,Sabatine. My partner. My love. Will you marry me? Officially, now, with a ring?”

The question hung, simpler and more monumental than the one in the kitchen. This was the covenant, offered under the stars.

For a second, she said nothing. A single tear escaped, tracing a glittering path down her cheek, following the trail of the candlelight. Then, her smile returned, wider and more radiant than any constellation above them.

“Yes,” she said, the word a vow exhaled into the night. “Yes, Anton. Always yes.”

He slid the ring from its bed of velvet. It was cool as he took her left hand. It slipped onto her finger with a perfect, fateful ease, as if it had always been meant to rest there. It fits. Of course it fits.

He brought her hand to his lips, kissing the ring, then her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers. Then he pulled her to her feet and into his arms, holding her as if the cliff might crumble and he would be her only anchor. She clung to him, her face buried in his neck, her body trembling—not with fear, but with the sheer, seismic release of joy.

They stood there, entwined on the edge of the world, the candlelight dancing around them, the sea a dark, rhythmic whisper below. The love was no longer a tide within him; it was the air they breathed, the ground beneath their feet, the infinite sky above. He could breathe again, and every breath was filled with her. The dinner on the cliffside was forgotten. There was only this: the ring on her finger, the woman in his arms, and a future, bright and boundless, waiting to be claimed.

---