“He thought of you as a daughter. He never would’ve hurt you.”
She clasps a hand over her mouth.
“He found out about the agreement the same day I did.” I’d been the one to deliver the news. To announce all the hard work and determination he’d put into creating the Cavallo Group had meant nothing because the man who’d abandoned his own children to Giancarlo’s care had been paying to prop up the company’s success since its launch. “And as far as I’m concerned, Giancarlo died from the devastation three months later.”
Her hand drops to her chest, as if to ease a breaking heart. As if understanding the news of the agreement had killed him.
God,I want to reach for her. “Blame the hostile takeovers on us needing to blow off steam due to the upheaval.”
“You were looking for someone to punish for your grief?”
In more ways than she can imagine, but those details aren’t up for discussion.
“This stays between us, Isla.”
She cringes. “Okay.”
“I mean it.” I etch my tone with warning. “My father was a violent man. Cut-throat and fucking conniving, and I refuse to be publicly tied to his legacy. Nobody else can find out. My sister isn’t even aware.”
Isla’s eyes widen. “Aurelia isn’t aware of what?”
“A lot of things.”
Toomanythings.
I can’t elaborate. I’ve already betrayed my siblings enough for today.
Isla stills, her throat working, the silence stretching. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll take this to the grave. That your public statement was humiliating, but you’ll deal with it because you understand what’s at stake.”
My words hang between us, the weight of my ask heavier than she deserves.
She draws a slow breath, squares her shoulders, and nods. “I’ll deal with it.”
For the first time tonight, the tension inside me eases—not much, but enough to make me aware of the ache it leaves behind.
I don’t deserve her compliance, yet it encourages something feral I’ve spent years hiding behind lock and key. Gratitude, desire, yearning—all tangled into one impossible urge.
Now I find it’s no longer stupidity keeping me in her presence. It’s gravity. The kind that exists between two bodies destined to collide no matter how far they drift.
I need to move before it owns me.
“Come on.” I jerk my chin toward the stairs. “I want to show you something.”
I start walking, not waiting for her to follow, but I hear her—the faint pad of her feet against the teak, her quiet breaths unsteady in the still air.
I lead her to the sun deck above, where the roofline falls away into vast open sky.
She pauses at the top step, drinking in the view as I text the bosun to kill the lights.
I guide her past the spa to the sprawling stretch of daybeds. “Lay down.”
She hesitates, everything that’s passed between us turning even a throwaway command into something charged.
“I’m not trying to sleep with you, Isla.” Although my eager dick would argue. “Just let me show you something.”
She studies me for a heartbeat, then concedes, crossing to the wide, linen-covered daybed and resting against the cushions as the yacht’s lights blink out.
