He closes in, slow and deliberate, until his foot brushes mine.
Our eyes lock.
My pulse stutters.
“I mean it, Isla. Not a single soul can learn about this.”
I understand.
If word gets out, it’ll mean more than lost investors and a fractured empire. New York will do what it always does—sensationalize. My father will become a laughingstock. Raffael and his brothers will be cast as members of some type of underworld blood-debt dealing syndicate. The kind of wild narrative that snowballs fast and feeds into every corner of the city.
And I refuse to be the victim in that story.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut.” I maneuver around him, giving him a wide berth. “Just as long as you agree to my terms.”
Chapter
Nineteen
RAFFAEL
Elena works in silence,stripping Isla’s belongings from my cabin with the precision of someone excising a tumor.
I should be relieved.
Instead, I stand in the debris of my own doing, every breath dragging through my lungs like sandpaper.
Today has been a clusterfuck. Sleeping with her the epitome of self-sabotage.
I scrub a hand down my face.
Of all the reckless things I’ve done, that, by far, could cost me the most.
Her moans still live in my head. The way she clenched around me. How easily we both lost control.
“I need a fucking drink.” I stalk down the stairs, ignoring the open door to Isla’s cabin and the glimpse of her stretched across the bed, phone in hand.
It takes everything in me to keep trudging forward, to resist storming in there, ripping the device from her fingers, and scanning every message to Quinn or whoever else she’s been in contact with.
The thought of her running her mouth and putting herself in danger again winds me tight, my temper primed to trigger.
But I’ve got to get over that shit. Sooner rather than later.
I can’t keep her here forever.
Well, Icould. But I doubt the crew’s equipped to handle her particular brand of chaos long term, and the urgent need for distance grows by the hour.
I storm into the salon.
The stewardess behind the bar startles, crystal stemware slipping briefly in her hand. “Evening, sir. Would you like your usual whiskey?”
“The bottle,” I grate.
Her eyes widen before she rushes to hand it over with a glass tumbler.
Smart girl.
I take my tools of suffering, cross the room, then drop into a leather armchair that faces the water through the tinted windows.
