“Good,” he says again. “Because I don’t like repeating myself.”
Neither do I.
I finish my breakfast. I smile when expected. I let him talk about plans, about shopping, about the island like it belongs to him.
Vivian doesn’t come up again.
She won’t.
And I understand, with a clarity that settles cold and permanent in my chest, that this is how it works:
Questions disappear first.
Then people.
I don’t ask where Vivian went.
I don’t ask why.
I don’t ask what happened to the last wife.
I file her away where Noah clearly intends her to stay—nowhere.
But as we stand to leave the terrace, his hand tight on my lower back, guiding me forward like a possession he’s already priced and paid for, one thought keeps looping in my head, relentless and sharp:
If Vivian could vanish this easily…
So could I.
And this time, no one would even mention my name at breakfast.
Scarlett
The night opens up like a wound.
A deep one — glossy, raw, and throbbing beneath the illusion of paradise. Warm torches flicker along the private path, their flames bending in the coastal wind as if trying to warn me back, whispering that nothing here is as beautiful as it pretends to be.
The villa doors spill us onto a private beach where the world is too perfect — torches burning in tall glass cylinders, sand smoothed into flawless patterns that look raked by a god, not a person, and a table set for ten beneath a canopy of soft golden lights that sway with the ocean wind.
It’s paradise for people who don’t bleed.
For people who don’t fear the shadows.
For people who don’t love the wrong monsters.
Noah’s hand finds the small of my back again — too firm, too deliberate, too claiming — as we walk toward the gathering of wealthy executives and polished wives who look at me like I’m a decorative accessory Noah hasn’t finished paying off.
The air tastes of salt and burning citronella, a chemically sweet scent meant to mask the fact that insects still crawl in paradise, still bite, still draw blood. Waves crash rhythmicallybehind us, folding into the sand with a soft, muffled violence, like the ocean itself is holding secrets beneath its surface.
The ocean crashes softly behind us, waves folding into themselves like muffled screams.
The air smells of salt, grilled lobster, and something deeper — expensive perfume layered over barely concealed tension.
Noah leans down, his lips brushing my hairline in a gesture that would be tender if it weren’t suffocating.
“Smile, Scarlett.”
My spine locks.
