She turns then, crossing her arms. Eyes level. “It wasn’t Valerie.” She pauses. “Does it matter who said what?”
Translation: someone said something.
I run through the evening in my head—the group reconvening, the debrief, the way everyone stared between me, Lyla, and Valerie like fresh gossip?—
It’s a hunch, but…
“Whatever you heard,” I say carefully, “I’d like the chance to tell you what actually happened.”
“What actually happened.” She repeats flatly. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“And what actually happened, Scott?”
“We had dinner. She tried to kiss me.” I hold her gaze. “I didn’t let her.”
Something shifts slightly in her expression. As though she’s working the information through her mind.
“I redirected it,” I explain. “It wasn’t what it probably looked like on a monitor.”
“A monitor.” Her eyes sharpen slightly. So she does know about the monitors. “You’re guessing an awful lot about what I heard.”
“I’m guessing because you won’t tell me what you know,” I point out, pushing off the doorframe and taking one measured step into the bathroom. Not close enough to touch her, but close enough that my reflection fills the mirror beside her. “Which means whatever it was hit hard enough that you’d rather stay angry than give me a chance to explain it.”
She exhales deeply. “I’m not angry.”
“No,” I agree. “You’re hurt. Which is worse.”
The silence that follows is different from the ones before it. Longer. She looks at me with something behind her eyes that she’s working very hard to hide.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says finally.
“It does.”
“Scott—”
“Let me finish.”
She closes her mouth, eyes narrowed.
“I don’t want Valerie.” I hold her gaze and don’t let her look away from it. “I didn’t want her at dinner. I didn’t want her when she leaned across the table. I redirected her kiss because there is no version of this where I want anyone in this villa except you.” I pause. “That doesn’t stop being true because you’re angry at me.”
Something flashes through her expression. Gone before I can name it.
“You don’t have to believe me tonight,” I say quietly. “But I need you to have heard it.”
She looks at me for a long moment. The lamp light catches the edge of her face, the careful stillness she’s maintaining with both hands.
Then—
“Go to bed, Scott.”
She turns back to the mirror.
I stand there another second, reading her the way I’ve always been able to read her even when she doesn’t want to be read. The way she turned back to the mirror instead of to the door. The deliberate quality of her stillness. She’s not dismissing me. She’s keeping me at arm’s length until she decides what to do next.
“Goodnight, Lyla.”
