But judging by the way Gisella had played things off, he didn’t feel like he had a right to be.
Was this him shoving it all down in an attempt to stay professional and do his job, to not bedramatic, as she’d called him?
“I’m not cut out for this,” he said, his eyes losing focus on the floor between his feet. “I thought I could make something of myself again, but clearly, I was wrong. I failed in Dublin, and now I’m failing here, too. Maybe I’m just… done.”
My chest ached. “You don’t believe that.”
He let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t I?”
Resolve settled in over me as I watched him break in front of me. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t my Finn.
I had minutes to pull him out of this, and I wasn’t afraid to pull out the big guns to do it.
“No. You don’t believe that.Idon’t believe that,” I said firmly. “And you know who else wouldn’t believe that for a second? Your gran.”
His head snapped up at that, his eyes finding mine with the kind of wounded resistance that told me I needed to tread carefully.
But there wasn’t time for that.
“What would she say if she saw you now?” I asked, my voice gentle but unwavering. “Would she tell you to give up? To throw away perfectly good food and sulk on the floor while some influencer chef with a superiority complex calls your soup sewage water?”
He said nothing.
“Would you be able to look her in the eye and say you quit?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Still no answer.
“Exactly,” I whispered. “You wouldn’t, Finn. Because she believed in you. And she was right to. Because she knew everything you’re capable of.”
Finn exhaled hard through his nose, dragging a hand over his face.
“You are not a failure,” I continued. “You’re a genius in the kitchen. You’re the reason our guests have literally wept over a grilled peach. You’re the guy who nearly made me convert to a religion over a spiritual experience with a scallop, Finn. A scallop.”
That earned me a twitch of a smile, the ghost of it haunting the corner of his mouth.
“You can do this. You’ve done it before, and you’ll do it again. One bad course doesn’t define you. One rude guest doesn’t negate the magic you create every single day on this boat.”
I leaned in, catching his eyes again, holding them with everything I had.
“This dinner isn’t over. And neither are you.”
His jaw ticced, eyes searching mine. “I… I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can save this.”
“Yes, you can.” I leaned forward even more, wrapping my hands around the back of his neck. My fingers slid into his hair and I held him with my eyes never wavering. “Imagine it’s me at that table. What would you do?”
At that, his hands hooked around my wrists where I held him, and he brought our foreheads together. Instead of his breaths steadying, I watched his chest struggle even more for air.
Suddenly, I was struggling, too.
“It’s you at the table,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“And it’s just us on the boat?”
“It’s just us,” I confirmed. “No one else. What would you do?”
Finn wet his lips, his tongue darting out for just a split second. It was enough to make a bolt of electricity zip through me, and my thighs squeezed together instinctively.