He grinned and pulled me close. “No. I forgot toannounceit properly.”
I blinked and tilted my head looking at him in confusion. “Have you had too much to drink?”
“I’m stealing you,” he said, loud enough that if Thalia and Claire were still on the deck, they’d hear. “We’re going sailing. A real trip. Not just a few months away.”
I blinked again. “Wait, what?”
“The yacht is ours forever. We’ll hit every island, every coastline. No obligations. Just us and the ocean and whatever chaos you decide to bring.”
I stared at him, caught somewhere between stunned and elated. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly,” he smirked. “You in, sweetheart?”
I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close. “Always.”
And together, laughing, hearts pounding, we stepped onto the boat, the night behind us aglow with the last firelight of the life we were finally ready to leave behind.
The yacht cut through the horizon like a dream carved in chrome and shadow, sleek and elegant, a thing that belonged in fantasy more than reality. The name glinted in sharp silver across the hull:The Future.
I stared at it too long, like maybe the name would make sense if I just stared harder.
Theo didn’t wait for me to move. His fingers threaded through mine—hot, certain—and he tugged me up the gangway like we had always belonged here, like the sea had been waiting for us.
“You named it that on purpose, didn’t you?” I asked as my boots touched the polished teak deck. The wind tasted like salt and starlight. I felt untethered.
Theo smirked. “Maybe.” He pulled me in and kissed me—fast, fierce, like a hit to the chest. “Maybe I needed to believe there was one.”
A future. Our future. I think I melted inside at the sentiment, not that I’d tell him.
The captain greeted us first. Silver hair. A sunburned face lined with stories I didn’t ask to hear. His eyes lingered on Theo with something between reverence and fear. The rest of the crew was the same. Loyal. Quiet. Efficient. The kind of people who’d follow you into hell—or help you burn it down.
But when they looked at me, it was different. Curious. Measuring. And something else. Like they knew. Not who I was. But what I was tohim.
Theo gave me the tour like a man laying out a kingdom as we left the dock behind. The hot tub, the marble kitchen, the upper deck shaded in soft cream and silence. A study, fully stocked with books I didn’t even know existed. Moonlight broke across the sea like shattered glass. It was obscene.
But it was the daybed on the top deck that stole my breath.
Up high. Wide enough to hold us both and more. Cushions soft as clouds. A tray already set—wine, strawberries, the air thick with sugar and sea spray.
We collapsed onto it like our bones had melted. His limbs wrapped around mine. My head on his chest. His heartbeat thudded steady and slow beneath my ear.
I hadn’t been touched like this before him. Not like I mattered. Not like I was real.
“No one’s ever done this for me before,” I murmured, my voice barely audible over the ocean. “Not like this. Not without asking for something in return. Or wanting me for nothing morethan a quick fuck. And once, I thought I was okay with that. But not now, not after all you’ve shown me.”
Theo’s fingers slipped through my hair. Gentle. Possessive. “That’s because no one ever saw you for what you are.”
I tilted my head just enough to glance at him. “And what’s that?”
His gaze burned into me. “Mine.”
And I believed him. Because he was mine too.
EPILOGUE
THEO
The yacht we moored just off the coast of St. Barts swayed to the gentle rhythm of the tide.The Futurewas quiet in the early light, its metallic gunmetal gray hull gleaming under a rising sun that kissed the water with liquid gold. Somewhere in the distance, the island stretched out in lush, sun-drenched beauty—palm trees swaying lazily in the breeze, hills covered in emerald green, and beaches so pale they looked bleached by time.
