PROLOGUE
ROWAN
The ship’slounge is half-empty this late in the evening, the jazz trio having packed up an hour ago. A few stragglers nurse drinks under soft amber lights while the ocean hums through the walls. I’m in my usual corner seat, back to the wall, eyes on the room—something between habit and paranoia.
Sean’s telling a story about some girl he disappeared from our conference to hook up with, all quick hands and crooked grin, and Declan’s pretending not to be amused.
I’ve seen her too. Not just the flash of her dress in the atrium or the sound of her laugh carrying down the hallways. More than seen her. Touched her. Tasted her. Had her. Enough to recognize her when Sean describes it.
Willow. Wild hair, green eyes, a name like something rooted deep. Strong, mysterious, wise. At least, that’s the way I tell myself the story should go. But the truth is messier.
They think they’re clever, but it’s not hard to put the pieces together. I don’t say it out loud. Not yet. Let them talk. Let them brag and pretend they’re the only ones.
I sip my whiskey and let their words wash over me, thinking about her. She’s already tangled up in more than she knows. And so are we.
“She’s got this laugh,” Sean says, leaning in. “Not fake, not polite.Deadly. Like you’ve just said the best thing she’s heard all week. You want to make her do it again just to keep hearing it.”
Declan smirks. “Jaysus, you’ve gone soft, talking like you’re married to her, only just met.”
“Says the man who’s been walking around like he’s guarding the crown jewels.” Sean tilts his glass at him. “Who is she, then?”
Declan shrugs, but his mouth tips at the corner. “Met her on the second day. She was lost, trying to find one of the upper decks. I showed her the way. She’s…different.”
“Different how?” I ask, even though I know how she’s different. I just know he wants someone to ask.
“She listens,” he says simply.
He means it, but it’s enough to make Sean snort. “I listen, I do. I’msound,” he says defensively, and I want to remind him that hopefully he doesn’t listen the way the woman Declan’s bedding listens, but I let it go.
“No,” Declan says without looking at him. “You wait to talk.” Then he adds, almost to himself, “And those eyes—green, almost yellow like a cat’s.”
Sean blinks. “Green eyes? Does she have curly brown hair?” He gestures vaguely around his temple. “Kind of messy in a good way?”
“Mm,” Declan says.
The door at the far side of the lounge opens, and Sean’s grin freezes for a half second. When I look up, my gut tightens. I’ve known I was sharing Willow since the beginning, but it’s still like a punch in the abdomen every time I see her eyes look for Sean first.
Declan
She walks in with swishing hips and a broad smile—the kind that belongs to a Hollywood star—that stretches across her cheeks.
She’s in a loose yellow dress tonight, hair down around her shoulders except for two braids. There’s a drink in her hand and a smile on her face as she scans the room, looking for someone.
She could be looking for any of us, it seems, and I know it as soon as her eyes find us. She finds Sean first, and she waves a big, bright, easy wave.
Then she sees me. And Rowan.
It’s like someone cut the string holding her up. Her hand drops mid-arc, the smile fades, and her shoulders stiffen. She’s in that doorway, but it’s like I watch her intention change. I don’t know how that could be, if it’s in the shift of her heels or the turn of her chin, but I know that she’s planning on leaving. She’s no longer bright and big—she’s a shadow.
Sean follows her gaze, finally clocks that she’s looking at all of us, and I see it land. Rowan’s eyes narrow just slightly, like he’s been expecting this.
For a beat, no one moves. The low hum of conversation in the lounge carries on around us, but at our table, it’s gone quiet.
Willow takes one slow step backward. Then another. Then she turns, andah, Jaysus,I’m watching her leave. I’m watching the fabric of her dress bounce across her ass, watching the light catch the sheen of her oiled legs. But all of it amounts to leaving.
Sean
She’s started to walk away before I’ve even decided whether to laugh or swear.
