I’m about to tell her I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about—then it dawns on me.
She saw me with Camile.
Isla saw me in the garden with Camile. Of course we looked close, but it’s not what she thinks.
That’s what was wrong with her.
Isla thought I was cheating on her.
The pieces fall together, and then it hits me like a goddamn freight train.
Isla’s not just angry. She’s jealous.
She thinks I cheated, and it guts her. I see it now in her eyes, in the trembling running through her. I heard it in her voice when it cracked on the word hate.
But hate isn’t what’s burning between us.
It’s want. Raw, forbidden want.
The kind that ruins a man. The kind that makes him forget every line he swore he wouldn’t cross.
For a moment, everything inside me stills. The rage fades into something darker.
Hungrier.
She wants me. Just like I want her.
She doesn’t even see it yet. But I do.
And fuck, if that doesn’t undo me completely.
She yanks her arm, and I remember I’m still holding her.
“Let me go.” She tugs harder. “Or better yet, why don’t you go find your girlfriend and terrorize her?”
“No.” I look at her, and every shred of resolve I had disappears.
I drop the damn box with the fucking gift and the note, then pull her closer, flush against my chest.
“What are you doing?” she demands, breathless.
“Showing you what’s real.” I cup her jaw. Then I kiss her, blurring the line between fury and desire.
It feels like a collision of everything we’ve been pretending not to feel.
It feels…like coming home.
Her hands come up like she’s about to shove me, but her fingers curl into my shirt instead, holding on.
Every part of me screams to take more, to taste more, to make her remember exactly who she belongs to.
And that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Isla
The world fallsaway as Knox kisses me, and I realize I've been holding my breath my whole life.
