The yacht sails away from Manhattan and starts a wide turn, so the southern tip of the island comes into glorious view. From a distance, the city looks narrower than I’d expect, and jammed with buildings: glossy skyscrapers, mirrored towers, sturdy older buildings, and flashy new architecture press up against one another like rush-hour commuters on the subway. One World Trade Center soars majestically over it all. I try to ignore how queasy I feel so I can stay in the moment.

“This view is really spectacular,” I tell him. I turn to kiss his cheek. “This is a perfect surprise. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he says, breaking away from his Titanic pose and joining me along the guardrail. He shoves his hands into his pockets, hesitates, then plunges on. “You know, this view makes me think about when I first moved to New York. I came here for an adventure. To build something great. To become the person I wanted to be.”

“I get that,” I say. “I really do. I used to sit at home with a stack of magazines, reading about powerful, famous, glamorous people in New York, thinking about how big and magical my life could be here.”

It’s the perfect segue for me to drop in why I spent so many hours indoors reading magazines, because I was too seasick to join the rest of my family on our boat. But Blake clears his throat and keeps going.

“There’s this quote from the writer E. B. White,” he says. “I’m probably going to butcher it, but basically, he says there are three versions of New York. There’s the city that’s taken for granted by people who were born and raised here. There’s the city that’s just a nine-to-five destination for people who commute into work here. And then there’s the city for people who come in quest of something. That’s his exact phrase: ‘in quest of something.’ He says those New Yorkers give the city passion. That’s so clearly you, Eliza. I like to think that’s me, too. And that’s one of the reasons we work so well together. We want a life full of quests and passion and ambition.”

Blake looks straight ahead as he speaks and so do I. My gaze is fixed on the rollicking waves below. They’re stormy blue with frothy white caps. The yacht lurches dramatically, and so does my stomach. I’m nauseous to my core.

“We’re a great team, you and I,” he says. He turns to face me now. “I’d never be bored with you by my side. There’s so much I admire about you—your big dreams, your drive to succeed, what a fundamentally good person you are. That’s why it was so easy to fall in love with you. I love you like crazy.”