“How far away are they?” I retreat into my cabin and pull on the dress shirt and pants splayed across the bed.
“Roughly ten to fifteen minutes. Do you want me to return to manning the guest cabin?”
“No, I’ll handle it from here.” I stride back toward the door.
He nods. Practically bows.
This time when I walk for Isla’s cabin, it’s not with simmering anger and boiling blood. It’s with sterile resolution.
I shove open the door to the darkened room and find her curled in the bed, half-tangled in the sheets.
She’s asleep, her blazer removed, her hair fanned across her back as she hugs the pillow to her chest like a shield.
I don’t see the woman who stood at the press briefing. There’s no cutthroat determination or moralistic aura.
What lays before me is the girl I’ve known since I was a teenager. Since Giancarlo first dragged CrossPoint into our world—quiet, stripped of armor and weaponry.
I kick the end of her bed.
She jolts upright, eyes dazed.
Breathless. Disorientated. Beautiful.
“You have a problem,” I growl.
She blinks up at me, pulling the pillow closer to her chest as if it’s a barrier that can protect her. “You’re storming suites now?”
“Your friend is on her way here after demanding to see you.”
The bewilderment of sleep bleeds from her gaze. She scrambles from the bed, hope flashing in her expression.
“No.” I warn. “This isn’t good news, Isla.”
“Are you sure? Because it seems like a win to me.” She throws the pillow to the mattress, reclaiming that ball-busting attitude she’s perfected over the years, the gape of her blouse buttons providing a show of cleavage I should ignore. “My eyes are up here,yacht boy.”
I take my time, letting my attention crawl over her body. “I’ve tried to do this the nice way?—”
She scoffs.
“—I’ve given you space. Time. Patience. But let me make something very fucking clear—if you don’t get rid of Quinn without raising suspicion, you’re going to learnexactlyhow volatile this situation is.”
“You messaged her—not me.” She buttons up quickly, smoothing her blouse with an errant hand.
Something noxious and cloying rumbles in my chest. Not rage, but reckoning.
The low burr of the approaching tender rolls in, as unwelcome as the woman who summoned it.
“How do I get to her?” Isla skirts the bed and makes to walk between me and the mattress.
I could laugh at how she still doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand. Doesn’t fucking listen.
I grab the crook of her arm, stopping her dead in her tracks.
She gasps. Flinches.
“You think you know me, Isla. That this side of me is performative. Or maybe that I’m bluffing.” I lean in, those stark gray eyes of hers glossy in the dim light. “I promise you’re mistaken.”
She raises her chin, her throat working over a heavy swallow.
