She wanted to stay angry. Wanted to keep that protective wall of resentment intact. But something in his expression—the raw sincerity, the lack of expectation—made it impossible.
She spun away and headed for the stairs without looking back. “Goddamn you, Dominic Wilde. Why can’t you just let me hate you?”
“You don’t hate me, Viv,” he called after her.
No. She didn’t. Not anymore, and that was the problem. Hate would have been easier than this tangle of attraction, resentment, and lingering affection that made her want to both push him away and pull him close.
Her legs still trembled slightly, and the evidence of what they’d done was cooling against her thigh. She should be mortified, but instead, she felt strangely powerful. Used and raw and satisfied in a way she hadn’t been in years.
The climb back to the main terrace gave her time to compose herself. She smoothed her hair, checked her reflection in adecorative mirror hanging in the stairwell, and wiped away the smudged lipstick at the corner of her mouth. By the time she reached the top, she looked almost normal. Almost like a woman who hadn’t just been bent over a balustrade and fucked senseless.
Ugh. What was it about Dominic Wilde that made her so stupid?
fourteen
Dom stared into the darkness,counting breaths that refused to deepen into sleep. The moonlight cut a silver path across the bed, illuminating the curve of Vivi’s shoulder, the sweep of her hair across the pillow. He’d been lying there for hours, watching the slow rise and fall of her breathing, waiting for exhaustion to claim him. It never came. His mind raced with schematics and security protocols, with the weight of tomorrow’s mission, with the heat of Vivi’s skin against his earlier on the terrace. With everything he stood to lose if he failed.
He slipped from beneath the sheets, careful not to disturb her. The tile floor chilled his bare feet as he padded across the room to the window. The night pressed against the glass, vast and indifferent. Somewhere out there, his family was looking for him. Somewhere out there, Sabin sat in a concrete room with broken fingers and determination etched into his face.
The Aegean sprawled before him, dark and restless. Moonlight scattered across the water like shards of silver, breaking and reforming with each wave. There were no boats,no lights from distant islands. Just water and sky melding into a seamless horizon of black.
Dom rested his forehead against the glass. Cool, solid, unyielding. Like the walls of this place. Like the task ahead of them. Like the history that stood between him and the woman in the bed behind him.
He heard the rustle of sheets, then the soft pad of feet crossing the floor. He didn’t turn. Didn’t need to. He’d know the sound of Vivi’s footsteps anywhere—lighter than they should be for someone her height, deliberate but never heavy. The skill of a woman who’d spent years making sure no one heard her coming.
She joined him at the window, not quite touching. The heat from her body radiated across the small space between them. He wanted to close that gap. Wanted to pull her against him, bury his face in her hair, feel her heartbeat against his chest. He kept his hands at his sides.
“Can’t sleep?” Her voice was soft, husky with the remnants of rest.
“Too much noise in my head.” He tapped his temple. “Security rotations. Access points. Contingencies.”
“Liar.” She didn’t look at him when she said it, but he caught the curve of her mouth in the reflection on the glass. Not quite a smile. Not quite not.
He exhaled a small laugh. “That obvious?”
“Always has been, with you.”
They stood in silence for a moment, watching the water. Villa Pandora slept around them—the staff retired, Stavros’s machinery at rest, no performance required. Just the two of them and the sea and tomorrow waiting at the edge of everything.
“Do you remember the first time we tried to infiltrate that embassy in Prague?” he asked. “When I couldn’t sleep for three days beforehand?”
“You threw up in the hotel bathroom an hour before we went in,” she said. “Then walked in there like you owned the place. Charmed the ambassador’s wife into giving you a private tour.”
“Yeah.” The memory warmed him. “Sabin was so pissed. Said I was showing off.”
“You were.”
He smiled. “Maybe a little.”
She shifted her weight and leaned her shoulder against the window frame. “I was ten the first time Sabin and I ran a job together.”
Dom turned to look at her. Her face was softer in the moonlight, the sharp edges of the day blurred into something gentler. Something closer to the girl he’d met all those years ago.
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “I thought the Monte Carlo job was your first.”
She shook her head. “No. That was just the first one that mattered. The first one was on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Small-time stuff. Sabin had this idea for a con—a way to make quick cash off drunk tourists.” She smiled slightly at the memory. “He called it the ‘Lost Little Sister’ routine.”
Dom settled against the opposite side of the window frame, giving her space to tell the story.
