11. Cassie
CASSIE
Something is wrong with the Azure Cay renovation contracts.
Not small wrong either.
Burn-the-entire-project-down wrong.
I fix my gaze spreadsheets spread across the private conference table while rain lashes against the resort windows outside. The storm rolled in fully last night—thick, coastal, unrelenting. Everything outside has blurred into grey water and wind.
Vendor invoices blur together after three straight hours of reviewing procurement reports, but the numbers keep clawing at my brain.
Duplicate payments.
Shell companies.
Inflated material costs that somehow passed three separate approval departments without triggering compliance flags.
“Okay,” I mutter to myself. “Either I’m hallucinating from exhaustion, or somebody’s laundering money through resort renovations.”
“Please tell me it’s the hallucination option.”
I look up sharply as Bianca Torres steps into the conference room carrying coffee.
Thank God.
“You’re awake,” I say.
“Unfortunately.” Bianca drops into the chair beside me, sleek dark hair pulled into a severe ponytail while her sharp brown eyes scan the paperwork instantly. “What did you find?”
I slide the contracts toward her. “Vendor accounts tied to the eastern villa renovations keep rerouting through offshore holding companies.”
Bianca’s expression changes immediately.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Cold unease crawls down my spine. “You already knew something was off.”
She stays quiet too long.
“Bianca.”
Her teeth grits slightly before she lowers her voice. “Several board members have been behaving strangely since we arrived on the island.”
That gets my full attention.
“How strangely?”
“They’ve been requesting restricted acquisition files they normally wouldn’t care about.” She glances toward the closed conference room doors carefully. “And two financial approvals disappeared from the internal system yesterday before magically reappearing this morning.”
My eyes stay on her. “That’s not suspicious. That’s criminal.”
“Welcome to corporate politics.”
The bitterness in her voice surprises me.
Bianca usually carries herself like polished steel. Elegant. Untouchable. But right now she just looks tired.
My stomach twists harder. “Does Gideon know?”
Her eyes flick toward me sharply at his name.
Interesting.
“He suspects something,” she says carefully. “But if there’s internal corruption tied to the acquisition, proving it without triggering panic becomes complicated.”
Rain crashes harder outside while silence stretches between us.
Then Bianca leans closer. “Cassie, you need to be careful.”
A chill slides through me. “Why are you saying it like that?”
“Because people notice things.” Her gaze sharpens knowingly. “Especially where Gideon is concerned.”
Heat creeps into my face instantly.
Bianca sighs softly. “He trusts you more than anyone in this company right now.” She pauses. “That makes you visible.”
The exact same warning Gideon gave me yesterday.
Suddenly the resort feels less luxurious and far more dangerous.
I glance back down at the contracts scattered across the table, pulse beginning to pound.
Because if the paperwork is compromised, somebody inside Carrington Global is hiding something massive.
Delilah calls me thirty seconds after I leave the conference room with Bianca.
“That bad, huh?” she says immediately.
I blink while walking along the resort pathway. “Hello to you too.”
“You sound stressed.”
“I am stressed.”
“Mhm.” Papers shuffle loudly on her end of the line. “Now tell me why you suddenly sound softer every time Gideon’s name comes up.”
I nearly trip over my own sandals.
“What?”
“Oh my God.” Delilah gasps dramatically. “There it is again.”
“There is no it.”
“Cassie.” Her voice drops into delighted suspicion. “You’re emotionally compromised.”
I lower my voice automatically while passing two executives near the pool terrace. “Can you not say terrifying things like that out loud?”
“You’re deflecting.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“You like him.”
Heat floods my cheeks instantly, which is deeply annoying considering she can’t even see me.
“I do not.”
“You literally sound different.”
I stop outside my villa slowly. “Delilah.”
Her teasing softens slightly. “Honey, I’ve known you for seven years. You only get that quiet when something matters.”
That shuts me up completely.
Before I can answer, a familiar low voice speaks behind me.
“Something matter?”
I turn so fast I almost drop my phone.
Gideon stands a few feet away in dark linen and rolled sleeves, hands tucked casually into his pockets while sunset gold catches against his sharp jawline.
Which should honestly be illegal.
Delilah immediately squeals through the speaker. “OH MY GOD HE’S THERE.”
I hang up instantly.
Gideon’s mouth twitches. “Should I be concerned?”
“Always.”
That actually earns a real laugh from him. Low. Warm. Dangerous.
God help me.
An hour later, he drives us across the island in a black resort jeep with no security detail and no executives in sight, not once before now all week.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You ask too many questions.”
“You evade too many answers.”
His grin flashes briefly in the darkness.
And weirdly, that’s what gets me.
Not the billionaire confidence. Not the devastating face everyone fears in boardrooms.
The grin.
Because Gideon almost never looks carefree.
But tonight he does.
The restaurant sits hidden along a quiet cliffside beach lit with lanterns and soft jazz drifting through the salty air. No investors. No staff hovering nervously nearby.
Just us.
Halfway through dinner, I realize Gideon hasn’t checked his phone once.
That alone feels historic.
“You’re staring again,” he says while sipping whiskey.
I smile faintly. “You seem different here.”
His brows lift slightly. “Different how?”
“Relaxed.”
The word hangs there between us.
Gideon leans back slowly in his chair, ocean waves crashing below the cliffs behind him. Without the constant pressure of executives and negotiations surrounding him, he looks younger somehow. Less guarded.
More human.
“I used to come here before acquisitions,” he admits quietly. “Back when I still remembered how to breathe.”
Something painful twists inside my chest.
“And now?” I ask softly.
His gaze holds mine across the candlelight.
“Now breathing seems to depend entirely on you.”
My heart stumbles so hard that it aches.
Until this moment, after arriving at Azure Cay, I stop worrying about everything waiting to explode around us.
Because right now, Gideon is smiling at me like I’m the only peaceful thing he’s found in years.
The farther we get from the resort, the more Gideon changes.
Not completely.
He still carries himself like a man used to command. Still watches every room automatically when we enter. Still has that sharp, controlled edge beneath everything he says.
But here, sitting beside me beneath dim lantern light with ocean wind moving through his dark hair, he finally looks tired.
Not physically.
Soul-deep tired.
“You really come here alone?” I ask softly.
Gideon swirls the amber whiskey in his glass. “Used to.”
“And what did you do?”
“Think.”
“That sounds horrifying.”
A quiet laugh leaves him.
The sound surprises me every single time.
His laughter feels rare. Like something expensive nobody else gets access to.
For a while we just sit there listening to waves crash against the cliffs below us while soft jazz drifts through the restaurant. The silence isn’t awkward anymore.
It feels intimate.
Dangerously intimate.
Then I notice the dark circles beneath his eyes when he glances toward the candlelight.
“You’re exhausted,” I say quietly.
Gideon’s jaw flexes slightly. “Occupational hazard.”
“That’s not an answer.”
His cool slate eyes meet mine over the table.
“I haven’t slept properly in years, Cassie.”
The blunt honesty knocks the breath from me.
“What?”
He leans back slowly, expression calm in that way people get when they’re too used to carrying pain.
“I sleep a few hours at a time,” he says. “Then I wake up expecting something to be wrong.”
My chest tightens painfully.
“Gideon…”
“Acquisitions collapse. Markets shift overnight. Executives lie.” His mouth twists bitterly. “Disaster becomes predictable after a while.”
The casual way he says it hurts worse somehow.
Like he genuinely can’t imagine living differently.
I observe him across the table, suddenly understanding things I hadn’t before. The control. The constant vigilance. The intensity that never fully leaves him.
It isn’t arrogance.
It’s survival.
“Did you always live like that?” I ask softly.
“Long enough that I have no idea how to stop.”
Something inside me cracks a little.
Because beneath the terrifying billionaire reputation and brutal self-control, Gideon Carrington is just… lonely.
Exhausted.
A man so used to carrying pressure alone that he’s forgotten rest is supposed to exist.
Without thinking, I reach across the table and lace my fingers through his.
He stills immediately.
“You don’t always have to anticipate disaster,” I whisper.
His thumb brushes lightly against mine.
“You’re the first peaceful thing I’ve had in years,” he admits quietly.
Emotion lodges hard in my throat.
And suddenly I understand something terrifying.
I’m not just falling for Gideon anymore.
I’m starting to see all the broken pieces underneath him too.