“Coffee?” he offered, looking up at her with a smile. Especially in the mornings, he looked just like his father: his fine black hair slicked back, glasses perched on his nose, a newspaper in his hands. Alex shuddered to imagine the logistics that made it possible for the latest issue of the Financial Times to appear on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean each morning.

“God yes,” Alex answered, grabbing a cup and saucer from the delicate arrangement on the sideboard before sitting across from them. “Did you guys sleep okay?” She felt the boat move beneath her, anchored in the water, and adjusted her black wristbands.

“We slept okay,” Bee cut in. Like Sophie, she was loath to give full praise to anything. She pulled her sweater up along her wispy shoulders, always a little chilly even in the heat of summer. Her dark hair was swept back into a neat chignon at the base of her neck, and Alex briefly marveled at how utterly adult she looked—a far cry from the astrology girl who once spent an entire summer volunteering on an art commune.

“I slept great,” Dev chirped, pouring the coffee. “But I would sleep well in a prison cell if it meant not getting woken up four times a night.”

“You don’t get up with them,” Bee corrected. Turning to Alex, she added: “But he thinks he does.”

“That is unfair,” he chided, a lilt of frustrated love in his voice. “I do get up with them. Just not as much as you, maybe.”

“He’s been back and forth to Mumbai every other week, I’m surprised he even remembers he has kids.” She glanced at Alex with feminine knowing, inviting her to join in on the eye rolling.

Dev placed his hand on hers, whispering something gentle in Hindi. It was odd to see the effect that so much external stress—the twins, Dev’s father’s illness, the coup d’état at his company—was having on the couple. She busied herself with filling her plate from the cornucopia of breakfast items spread across the table, giving them a moment of privacy. As her hands moved, a calm settled over her, the realization that despite their vast resources, she didn’t feel envious of them at all.

“Anyway, how about you?” Bee asked once they had broken apart, resting her hand on top of Dev’s.

“I slept well, thank you.”

“Have you slept on a boat before?”

This was the kind of question that used to send Alex into a week-long spiral, frequently inspiring her to lie about her experiences. She hated being the only one who didn’t know how to ski, or hadn’t been to Tulum, and she would do anything to avoid the feeling—up to and including credit card debt.

“No, actually, I haven’t.”