Chapter 23 New Beginnings
Now
The morning sun catches the water like scattered diamonds as I lean against the sailboat’s railing, watching Max adjust the rigging with practiced ease.
Nine months have passed since my parents’ conviction, nine months of rebuilding myself from the wreckage of everything I once thought I was.
The guilty verdicts came down three weeks ago—Father got thirty-two years, Mother twenty-six.
I should feel vindicated, but mostly I just feel empty where the anger used to live.
“You’re thinking too hard again,” Max calls from where he’s securing the mainsail. The morning light catches the gold flecks in his brown eyes, and I’m struck, as I often am these days, by how naturally beautiful he looks when he’s not performing the role of privileged heir to a criminal empire.
“Just enjoying the quiet,” I lie, but he sees right through me. He always does now.
The boat rocks gently beneath us as he makes his way over, his movements fluid and confident.
We’ve been doing this for weeks—borrowing boats from various Shark Bay workers, sailing out into the open water where the weight of our past feels less suffocating.
Today’s vessel belongs to Jonah, one of the maintenance crew who’s worked at the university for decades.
Max charmed him into lending it with promises of careful handling and a generous tip.
“Your parents can’t hurt you anymore,” Max says quietly, settling beside me. His shoulder brushes mine, solid and warm and reassuring. “They can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
I nod, but we both know it’s more complicated than that.
The network my family helped build didn’t die with their convictions.
If anything, the trials exposed how much deeper the corruption runs, how many powerful people are still out there, still operating from the shadows.
Detective Harper calls it “cutting off tentacles while the head remains hidden.”
“I know.” I turn to face him, studying the sharp line of his jaw, the way his dark hair falls across his forehead in the ocean breeze. “It’s just… strange. I spent so many years being their weapon, their perfect daughter, their spy. Now I’m just… Belle.”
“Just Belle is pretty amazing,” he says, and the sincerity in his voice makes my chest tight with unfamiliar warmth.
We’ve been dancing around this thing between us for months now—the attraction that sparked in federal safe houses and grew through shared testimony, through late nights processing trauma and trying to figure out who we are without our families’ influence.
But something always held me back. Fear, maybe.
Or the bone-deep knowledge that everything I’d ever known about love was transactional, conditional, designed to manipulate rather than heal.
But watching him now, seeing the way he looks at me like I’m something precious rather than useful, I feel that familiar wall cracking.
“Max,” I say, and his name comes out softer than intended.
He turns toward me, recognition flashing in his eyes. We’ve been here before—on the edge of something real, something that might genuinely matter. But this time, I’m the one reaching for him. This time, I trace my fingers on his cheek with devastating gentleness.
“Are you sure?” he asks, and I love him for always asking me that small but significant question. For making it my choice instead of an expectation.
“I’m sure.”
And with those three words, the carefully constructed wall between us dissolves.
Kissing Max is every kind of intimacy I’ve ever experienced.
Gentle, chaste, coaxing rather than demanding.
His lips are soft against mine, his body strong and warm as he pulls me to him.
There’s no pretense or manipulation, no sense that either of us is giving anything in exchange for something else.
There’s only raw, honest affection, his hands gentle on the small of my back, the feeling of belonging I haven’t had since childhood.
When we pull back, breathing hard, his smile is radiant.
“Make love to me,” I whisper, and his breath catches.
“Let’s go under cover,” he murmurs against my mouth.
There’s a narrow cabin below deck, barely large enough for the single mattress and sparse furnishings, but it still feels like privacy.
Sunlight filters through the circular porthole as Max closes the hatch above us, providing light while also shielding us from the harsh realities of the world outside.
In this tiny room, on a borrowed sailboat, Max kisses me like I’m the most precious thing in the world. Like a gift he’s been waiting his whole life to receive. Like something too fragile for words.
His hands are everywhere, his mouth hot against my neck. I’ve never seen him so undone—so present in his own vulnerability. When he looks at me, I finally recognize what I’ve only read about: desire, yes, and affection, but something deeper. Something frightening and wonderful all at the same time.
“I want you,” I say, not recognizing my own voice. Not quite innocent, not quite broken.
When I reach for the zipper on his pants, he stops me, the strength of his hand an unexpected turn-on.
“You’ll get mine after I get yours.”
I shake my head. “No way. It’s my turn.”
He chuckles, soft and deep. “As you wish.”
Still holding his hand, I lead him back to the mattress and gently push him down.
He’s wearing a simple button-up, and I slide it slowly off his shoulders, savoring the way his eyes darken as I reveal inch by inch of him.
His skin is smooth under my fingers, invisible scars tracing patterns that mirror mine.
My fingers go to his fly.
“Take them off,” I whisper.
He grins. “Now who’s bossy?”
But he moves with impressive efficiency, revealing legs muscled and tanned from spending his summers at the beach. His pants join his shirt in a tangled pile on the floor, leaving him gloriously naked.
I take in the lines of him, the tension in his muscles, the evidence of his longing already evident.
“Tell me how you want it,” I say.
His brows go up, then soften. “So many options,” he murmurs. “Slow is good.”
I position myself between his legs, my tongue teasing the tip of his cock. The sound of his breath catching is the sweetest music. I hold his gaze as I pull him into my mouth, loving the way he bites his lip when I stop.
“Not too slow,” I say, smiling wickedly.
“Belle.”
The way he says my name—like a moan and a plea and a prayer—shocks me with its beauty.
I move down on him again, this time with deliberate slowness.
“Not fair,” he whispers, then bucks his hips, thrusting deeper than I expect.
The act is unpracticed, more clumsy than erotic, but it still makes my heart race. That he’s willing to surrender control. That he trusts me enough to be vulnerable, to risk what happens when I meet him at that most intimate part of him.
I move faster, my pulse racing as his moans grow more desperate, his whole body tensing.
“Wait, I…”
He gasps and throws his head back. I swallow reflexively, surprised by the taste. Real. Natural. Salty and sweet. It’s the first time I’m not appalled by semen, the rare time it didn’t feel like a power play.
I can taste the sweetness. That’s the thing, I think, not without humor. I like it, as long as it’s coming from him.
Still breathing hard, he rises, then tugs my body toward his. His arms feel like iron bars, and all at once, I’m perfectly fine with that. He takes my head in his hands and holds me there for a moment, just looking. His fingers trace my cheeks, then his mouth crashes into mine.
“Fuck,” he whispers against my mouth. “That was amazing.”
I smile, flush with power, relieved to feel like someone worth kissing again.
The word “mine” comes to my lips, but then he pushes me against the bed and undresses me.
Carefully, softly, almost tenderly. My body responds with an ache and a surprise urge to tear at his chest and tell him never to leave.
He hesitates at the hem of my shorts, eyes darting to mine. An unasked question—my answer, unmistakably certain. “Take them off.”
We are animals, we are humans, animals that fuck. But are we animals that love? I don’t know, but as Max’s fingers enter me, we are definitely fucking. No force behind it, but a commandment, one we couldn’t turn away from if we tried.
That thing is happening. God, I want it.
He strokes, and I gasp.
“Oh, fuck,” I say, losing a little breath. “Max.”
“Shh,” he breathes, and it’s already close. “Don’t stop,” I say, throwing my head back on the pillows. It’s an order now—don’t stop. Nothing has ever felt like that. That’s not the orgasm, not his fingers. That’s what’s inside him coming into me.
Inside me, his cock feels perfect. Heady, familiar. I’ve fucked too many strangers to feel like I’ve never had sex before, but it’s different with him.
Max is different.
He waits for me to nod. I can feel the tenderness in his patience, the trust.
A wave of pleasure grows until I can’t help moaning softly, bucking against him. It’s all happening so fast, moving faster, harder. Breathless, now, sweat between us, breath against each other’s face.
That’s when we come. For a moment, there’s nothing left, nothing in the world but us in this moment.
“Belle.” Max’s mouth is in my hair, his limbs tangled with mine.
His fingertips graze the exposed skin of my side, soft like we’re each made of glass. We stay that way for a while, lost in our own thoughts and the sensation of syncing heartbeats, breaths, everything.
Afterward, we move to the boat’s cushioned deck where we lie together, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat gradually slow.
The sun has climbed higher, warming our bare skin as gentle waves rock us in a rhythm that feels like the world’s most peaceful lullaby.
For the first time in my life, I understand what people mean when they talk about feeling complete.
“I love you,” I whisper against his skin, the words coming easier than they ever have before.