“That,” he says, calm as the sea on a blue day. “Can be arranged. Just say the word.”
I choke on air. “That’s not what I— Absolutely not.”
He watches me bite the denial in half and looks devastatingly entertained. “So. A price, then.”
“Yes.” The word comes out too fast. “If you want me to swan about on some yacht for fourteen days smiling at cameras, I want—” I swallow “—more time with Grandpa. Before we go. And when we get back. No business dinners on those days, no optics. Just… time.”
He leans back, assessing. “I thought you’d demand a diamond. Or a toy.”
“Money isn’t everything,” I say, and the old anger lifts its head, wild and sharp. “Isn’t that why we parted in the driveway ten years ago?”
He goes very still.
It’s a single heartbeat, but I feel the temperature of the room drop two degrees. “Careful,” he says, and it’s not a threat…more a reminder that some tripwires are shared.
I’m the one who should have been careful.
Shock breaks over me, and it’s not because that I said it, but because that I meant it, that the image is still bright as a freshwound: the country club dress, the stretch limo door, the gravel, the boy who looked like a cliff I could jump from and live.
I make a quick excuse about calls and schedule and absolutely nothing, and I get up from the table with a dignity I’m not sure I actually possess.
His gaze follows, hot and unreadable, maddening. I make it to the corridor before my knees remember their options.
I tellmyself I’m in control.
That flipping the script on him was power. Revenge. Victory.
And for a while, it feels like it.
Until I’m in bed later, staring at the ceiling of a room that smells faintly of cedar and salt, and I can still feel his hand on my back in a ballroom, his breath at my ear on a terrace, his mouth on mine while the world watched and I told myself it was the deal I signed.
You’re not the only one who can seduce, Vasso.
Except now I’m not sure who I’m seducing. Him… or me.
The suite stays silent. No footsteps. No retaliation. No storming down the hall to claim the last word with teeth and tongue and an apology he’d never give.
He lets me walk away.
It should make me smug. Safe.
It makes me restless.
I sit up, shove the duvet back, and pad barefoot to the balcony. The stone is cool under my feet; the night is a shoulder I lean on. Below, Rhode Island glows golden and cruel.
I’ve spent years building armor out of poise, training my smile to carry venom, choosing control over collapse, but thismarriage, this man—they don’t threaten to break my heart; they threaten to make me feel again.
A soft knock cracks the quiet.
I turn.
The door opens, slow.
Vasso steps through barefoot, black slacks and plain tee that pulls across his chest, eyes shadowed. Not the three-thousand-dollar suit.
Something worse. Something real.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says simply.
