Creed.
I stared at his name longer than I should have.Long enough to remember silence.Long enough to remember how it felt to be shut out.
Finally, I answered.“Yes?”
“Hello, Peyton.”
His voice slid through me, smooth and measured, familiar in a way that still unsettled me.
“I’d like you to join me for dinner tonight.”
I frowned.“Dinner?”
“Yes,” he said.A pause.Intentional.“On my yacht.”
My breath caught.
The yacht wasn’t casual.It wasn’t neutral ground.It was territory—controlled, private, deliberate.
I’d only ever seen it in glossy magazine spreads—a floating masterpiece, sleek and untouchable, as private as his penthouse.The fact that he wanted me there...
It meant something.
I hesitated.
Days of silence.Weeks of uncertainty.And now this?
“I’d like that,” I said carefully.
Another pause.
“Good,” he murmured.“A car will pick you up at seven.”
The call ended before I could ask anything else.
I stared at my phone, the quiet suddenly too loud.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t an apology.
It wasn’t closure.
It was an invitation.
I rushed inside the house, my pulse thrumming as I hit Dixie’s number, barely containing the storm of anticipation building inside me.
“Peyton!”she squealed the second I told her.“Are you kidding me?His yacht?That’s not just dinner—that’s a declaration.”
“Or a trap.”My voice wavered despite my best attempt at control.“What if he’s just playing games again?”
Dixie gripped my hands, eyes sharp, unyielding.“No.”She shook her head.“This is Creed’s way of showing you he’s ready to talk.And you, my dear, need to make sure you look so good he forgets how to be stubborn.”
The words settled something inside me, but they didn’t erase the anxiety.
By the time his driver pulled onto the driveway, I was wound tight with nerves and intention.Aunt Ruth and the twins had insisted on the hunter-green dress, claiming it was dangerous in the way only women who loved me could mean.The fabric skimmed my curves, elegant but unapologetic.My hair fell in soft waves, my lips painted darker than usual—not seduction, exactly.Armor.
As I slid into the backseat, the door closing with a quiet finality, the weight of the night pressed in.Not anticipation alone, but something sharper.Something edged.
The drive passed in silence.The city blurred past the window in streaks of gold and white, reflections bending and breaking against the glass.I watched them without really seeing them, my thoughts circling one question I refused to ask out loud.
