Run or stay.
He could feel an invisible pull inside her. The need to flee. To reclaim her sense of self, her freedom. She was a storm caught in a glass bottle, and the pressure was building.
She turned away, just slightly, and his heart stuttered in relief.
But then she stopped again.
Her head tilted. Her shoulders hesitated. It was like some part of her heart was still tangled in the sea, whispering that it wasn’t too late. That she could still run before she was shackled. Before her name was printed on wedding invitations she hadn’t approved.
He wanted to curse. To shout. To race down to the beach and drag her into his arms.
But he didn’t move.
And then—she looked up.
Their eyes met across the distance, a heartbeat suspended in time.
The wind tossed her hair, the light caught her eyes, and Alexandros saw everything in that one glance—her longing, her defiance, her confusion, her need. And buried beneath it all, a question:Will you come after me, or will you let me go?
Something inside him snapped.
Not with anger.
Not with lust.
With resolve.
He would not lose her.
He couldn’t.
She might think she needed to find herself before she could give herself. But what she didn’t understand—what she hadn’t yet let herself feel—was that with him, she didn’t have to give up anything. He didn’t want to tame her. He didn’t want to trap her. He just wanted to be the man she could run to—not from.
And tonight, before she vanished like sea foam, he would claim her.
He would go to her, not to hold her like a broken doll, but to love her like a woman who set him on fire every time she breathed.
She was his mermaid.
And tonight, before she slipped through his fingers like sea foam, he would claim her.
Not out of dominance.
Not out of fear.
But because they both needed it.
He turned from the window, fire in his chest and purpose in his steps.
It was time.
Thirteen
The clink of silverware, the hum of polite conversation, Alexandros’s father talking business with her grandfather—it all blurred into background noise.
Dani sat stiffly, her nerves stretched taut like rigging on a storm-pulled sail.
She could feel it building.
