“I knew you were smart,” he murmured.
He bent his head and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, right where her hair parted, and the simple touch felt like a promise, quiet and unspoken. She melted against him, herbody softening as if it had been waiting for that exact moment to exhale.
He could feel her heartbeat against his ribs, steady at first, then quickening just slightly. His hand traced lazy circles on her shoulder, the scent of salt and something uniquely hers winding around him until the rest of the world fell away.
He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, breaths matching, hearts finding the same rhythm. But he knew that if heaven felt anything like this, warm, effortless, completely undone by someone’s nearness, then he had already found it.
19
SOFIA
Shimbalaiê – María Gadú
They had spentall day hunting for whale songs, and Sofia hadn’t felt this excited about her research in quite some time. She didn’t care if it wasn’t groundbreaking, if others had done it before, but if she could send those songs to her father and soothe him even a little, then every second out there was worth it.
“How’s it going with Ilias?” Elvira asked, waggling her eyebrows with a wicked grin.
Sofia checked her wristwatch.
“Wow. We’ve been out for six hours and you just asked. Are you feeling alright?”
“Ah, ah, ah. Very funny, Sofia.” Elvira rolled her eyes, earning a middle finger. “For the record, whales will always win over a hot surfer.”
“Because they have bigger dicks?” Sofia choked on her own idiotic joke, snorting, while Elvira’s eyes widened in mock shock.
Spending too much time with Alejandra had definitely affected her brain functioning. A second later, Elvira threw her head back and let out a laugh so loud and undignified it made João glance their way from the driver’s seat.
“Yes,” Elvira cackled. “Because whales have bigger dicks than hot surfers.”
João raised an intrigued eyebrow but said nothing. When they were together and talking about science, they usually slipped into Italian, their comfort zone, even though some English words always slipped in. Sofia had met Elvira in Genova during the university years, they had bonded over salt water and stubbornness, and had been inseparable ever since. Even Elvira, master of reading people, hadn’t seen the betrayal coming from Thomas.
“So? How is it really going with Ilias?” Elvira pressed, her voice a little gentler now.
“Good,” Sofia admitted, surprising herself. “I feel good when I’m with him.”
No lie there. Ilias had grown on her in ways she didn’t want to examine too closely. He was cocky, sure, but also funny, oddly sweet, insightful. And hot. So hot it was stupid.
Their two-day stay in Biarritz had been a mix of surfing and laughing, of lingering touches and that constant hum of unspoken tension. He had surfed with his shortboard and she had stuck to her longboard, enjoying the view: both of the ocean and of him, dripping wet, earning praise from strangers he didn’t even pretend to need.
“Is he still in town?” Elvira asked.
“He’s packing for Australia. Snapper Rocks.”
“Excited to surf again? Or sadder to leave you?”
“Probably both.” Sofia shrugged, though something fluttered in her chest.
“You two look good together,” Elvira added with a smirk. “Even the press can’t stop talking about you two.”
Sofia grimaced. They’d beenpaparazziedmore than once back in Biarritz, caught off guard while laughing, talking, even when she’d just leaned into Ilias for warmth. The cameras had flashed from across the promenade, through café windows, from behind sunglasses and phone screens. It had felt like being stripped of something private, a tiny piece of her life taken without permission. It was crazy to her that the paparazzi even cared about them, even though Ilias suspected TerraVive must have tipped them off. They clearly had lowered their standards along the years.
The headlines that followed were worse. Half of them painted them as some fairytale couple,the surfer and the scientist, the ocean’s golden pair, while the rest tore her apart. The comments were a battlefield: hearts and sparkles from the romantics, and venom from the jealous.
Some women online had claimed Ilias deserved “someone better,” or that she was using him for fame. Apparently, she was expendable. Replaceable. Just a placeholder until someone shinier came along.
Well, the fuck she was. She wasn’t any fucking placeholder. She was a scientist, a woman who had claimed her narrative.
Even if this whole thing was fake, part of her wanted to snap back, to shove the truth in their faces and remind them that if she and Ilias were together, there was a reason. PR, sure, but they didn’t need to know that. Let them choke on their assumptions.
