The flirt. The criminal. The newly patched outlaw with too many secrets and not enough fear.
All of it fell away, and I saw the man underneath.
The one with a story he hadn’t told me yet.
“Anytime, Beautiful,” he said.
Then he was gone.
I closed my eyes before the room could start spinning again.
By sunrise, they would try to send me away.
By sunrise, everyone would be moving pieces around a board I barely understood.
By sunrise, I might be gone.
But tonight, I had stood at my mother’s grave. I had given her wildflowers. I had cried without breaking. I had kissed a man who knew better.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like Destiny was just my name.
It felt like something I could still choose.
By the time we reached Cabo, the world had turned blue.
Blue sky. Blue sea. Blue pools cut into white stone. Blue shadows beneath palm trees. Everything looked too bright, too clean, too expensive. The kind of place people came to forget their lives for a week and post pictures pretending they were happier than they were.
The house JD had arranged wasn’t really a house.
It was a fortress pretending to be a villa.
White walls. Terracotta roof. Bougainvillea spilling hot pink over stone archways. A courtyard with a fountain. A pool that seemed to pour straight into the ocean. High gates. Cameras tucked discreetly where tourists would never notice. Men posted where guests would assume they were gardeners, drivers, staff.
Protection dressed up as paradise.
I hated how beautiful it was.
Regan took me upstairs before anyone could fuss over me. The bedroom she chose opened onto a balcony facing the ocean. White curtains breathed in the breeze. The bed was huge and soft, covered in linen so clean it almost offended me. Someone had set out clothes for me already: loose dresses, oversized shirts, sandals, sunglasses large enough to hide half my face.
“Bathroom’s through there,” Regan said. “I’ll have food sent up.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t ask.”
I turned toward her, ready to snap, but she only raised one eyebrow.
Something about that stopped me.
Maybe because she didn’t look afraid of me. Not of my anger. Not of my bruises. Not of whatever ugly thing might come out of my mouth if I got pushed too hard.
She just looked steady.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
The mattress gave beneath me, soft and unfamiliar. My body wanted sleep, but my mind kept pacing like a caged thing.
Regan crossed to the balcony doors and opened them wider. Ocean air rolled in, warm and salted. It touched my face gently, nothing like the desert wind on the hill.
