Moments that feel like forever pass when they stand from their table. He offers his arm like a gentleman. And she slips her hand through his forearm.
They drift down the path to the beach, sand silvered by the moon. Waves hush against their feet. His shadow bleeds into hers. She tilts her head, listening, her pale lavender hair, a striking contrast from the golden color she had before I left, catches in the breeze.
The image of them close together knives straight through my gut. Those hips were mine—nails carving half-moons into my shoulders, her whispering against my ear like a prayer only I could answer. She used to ignite me like that. Now she’s giving polite smiles and taking a stroll with a man she’s just met.
But she isn’t mine. This is a dating show.
This is fucking torture.
“Breaking the wood isn’t going to help,” Bradley mutters, eyeing my white knuckles.
I don’t answer.
“It’s called a date, Bennett,” he adds, smirking. “Some of us let them breathe longer than twenty minutes.”
I lock my jaw. Breathe? She’s walking away with him. And every step is carving into me another reason I should break the rules, cross the sand, and remind her exactly who she still burns for.
Bradley continues, oblivious. “Would it be so terrible if they actually got along?”
I’m two seconds from snapping his neck if he doesn’t shut the fuck up.
Every inch Damon has touched is ground I claimed first. Every polite laugh she gave him tonight is an echo of sounds she made for me—raw, desperate, mine. The thought isn’t logical. It’s territorial. Primal. A low burn in my blood that no amount of discipline can smother.
“I know you care for her,” Bradley says, softer now, “but you’ve got to let her figure this out. You don’t strike me as the guy who’d steamroll her boundaries or her choices.”
He’s right. I’d cut my own hands off before I ever forced her. That doesn’t stop the rage coiling tighter as I watch them disappear into the moonlight.
Until today’s challenge, until Damon popped up like a fucking jack in the box, I believed I had time. Time to chip away at the wall she built against me after I left. Time to earn one civil conversation. Now it feels like we’re back at day one of filming.
He claps my shoulder. “So…what’s the plan, Bennett?”
I don’t answer. My eyes stay locked on the beach path.
They’re returning. Then Lyla pauses, murmurs something to Damon, words too quiet for me to catch against the roaring waves of the ocean. She slips away alone.
Her gaze flicks up. Toward the deck. Toward me. Her expression isn’t filled with guilt; nor is it defiant. But rather unsteady, like she’s caught in the same current I am.
Is she ending the date early? I have to know.
I’m already moving, my steps silent on teak, pulse a steady hammer in my throat. She takes the palm-lined path, torchlight sliding gold over bare shoulders I used to kiss until she trembled. I follow, slowly closing the distance the way I was trained to track the enemy; patient and inevitable.
I head down the stairs, my bare feet quiet on teak, pulse hammering in my throat. She takes the winding path through the palms. I follow. Not rushing. Letting the distance close naturally.
“You look beautiful tonight, little one,” I say, my voice low. Just for her.
She stiffens but doesn’t turn to face me. “Don’t.”
I stay planted. Don’t step closer. “I know you’re on a date, but I had to see you.”
She stops. “Why follow me to the bathroom? Why watch us like that?”
“Because every time you glance back, it looks like you’re waiting for me to stop pretending I’m okay with this.”
She scoffs. “You’re seeing things.”
“I know you, Lyla. I know what disinterest looks like on you. And that”—I gesture to the expression filled with something like apprehension and longing—“that’s not it.”
Her brows knit. “Damon?—”
