Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
RAFFAEL
Elena works in silence, stripping Isla’s belongings from my cabin with the precision of someone excising a tumor.
I should be relieved.
Instead, I stand in the debris of my own doing, every breath dragging through my lungs like sandpaper.
Today has been a clusterfuck. Sleeping with her the epitome of self-sabotage.
I scrub a hand down my face.
Of all the reckless things I’ve done, that, by far, could cost me the most.
Her moans still live in my head. The way she clenched around me. How easily we both lost control.
“I need a fucking drink.” I stalk down the stairs, ignoring the open door to Isla’s cabin and the glimpse of her stretched across the bed, phone in hand.
It takes everything in me to keep trudging forward, to resist storming in there, ripping the device from her fingers, and scanning every message to Quinn or whoever else she’s been in contact with.
The thought of her running her mouth and putting herself in danger again winds me tight, my temper primed to trigger.
But I’ve got to get over that shit. Sooner rather than later.
I can’t keep her here forever.
Well, I could. But I doubt the crew’s equipped to handle her particular brand of chaos long term, and the urgent need for distance grows by the hour.
I storm into the salon.
The stewardess behind the bar startles, crystal stemware slipping briefly in her hand. “Evening, sir. Would you like your usual whiskey?”
“The bottle,” I grate.
Her eyes widen before she rushes to hand it over with a glass tumbler.
Smart girl.
I take my tools of suffering, cross the room, then drop into a leather armchair that faces the water through the tinted windows.
Last night I’d spent too long watching Isla sleep. The steady tide of her breathing and the peace of knowing she was safe made way for my first real dose of rest in more than a week.
And while I slept, Eliseo broke into her goddamn apartment and stole her fucking cat.
I uncap the whiskey, pour, and take a hefty swallow.
You’d think the verbal strips I tore from him this morning would keep him in check for years to come. But my baby brother has always been hard to predict, let alone contain.
Was he repentant? No.
Still, he agreed to comply when I issued a text demanding he return Nyra safely home.
Hours dissolve in the burn of whiskey. Each swallow of the seventy-five-thousand-dollar bottle left by my father settles like battery acid in my gut as I wallow in the empire he damned us with.
His will has been a curse. The trust left to me and my brothers an inherited dynasty of power and corruption that I can’t risk anyone finding out about. It’s bad enough that I brought Isla here. That she’s on a yacht that was once his.
“Sir, dinner is almost ready.” Elena’s voice pulls me back to the present. “Shall I serve on the upper deck?”
I nod. Short. Sharp.
She lingers. “Will Ms. Cross be joining you?”
I picture Isla seated at the outdoor setting, surrounded by the sunset glow, hair in the breeze, her all-consuming gaze on me.
It’s better we eat separately.
“Would you like me to ask her?” Elena smiles with the trademark ease that never ceases to put me on edge.
“Fine,” I mutter, the heat of my irritation turning inward for folding so fucking fast.
I pour another drink, sip it slowly, and convince myself Isla won’t join me for a meal after all the shit that’s unfolded. But when I stride up the outdoor stairs to the dining area Elena is setting two places at the table.
“Ms. Cross will be here shortly.” She beams.
I grit my teeth and take a seat, dismissing her with a scowl.
I drain a glass of water. Then another for good measure. Neither does a damn thing to steady the thud of my pulse when Isla steps out onto the deck ten minutes later, still in her tailored skirt and blouse, her hair kissed by the light of the falling sun.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to stay in the cabin or…” She nibbles her bottom lip.
It takes all my fucking goodwill to gesture toward the seat opposite mine. “The formalities are over. As far as I’m concerned you’re a guest.”
She gives me a skeptical look but sits carefully. Guarded.
Elena sweeps back over to offer her wine. Then we’re left alone. Just two people clinging to alcohol like it might rewrite history and erase our sordid mistakes.
Isla sips her French chardonnay, eying my bottle of whiskey. “I guess a stiff drink is called for.”
I raise my tumbler in toast and use the excuse to drown in more liquor, but the stretching quiet is worse than the prospect of discussing our current situation. “Did you speak to Quinn?”
She opens her mouth, pauses, then closes it.
“Is there something I need to worry about?” I grind the words out, more growl than question.
“No.” She winces. “She’s just… hypervigilant. She zeroes in on inconsistencies and has noticed my behavior isn’t tracking.”
“Will she be a problem?”
“No.” Her stare is unflinching. “I told her it’s transitional chaos with the promotion. She’ll believe me soon enough.”
The first course is served before I can press the issue. Instead, I stew in this new volatility between us, seething over my inability to quit staring at her while she surveys her beef carpaccio and truffle shavings, a soft smile faintly playing at her lips.
I tell myself I’m observing, cataloging tells like I do in negotiations.
But it’s a fucking lie.
I’m watching her because I don’t know how to stop.
“Something funny?” I ask.
“Not at all.” She delicately forks a sliver of meat. “The carpaccio is a nice choice… I’m just surprised it’s not one of my favorites.”
The failure stings, even though I’d deliberately relinquished the menu to the chef tonight. “Would you have preferred oysters on ice with mignonette?”
Her smile falters.
Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. I need to lay off the liquor.
“I’m surprised you’ve paid attention.” She lowers her gaze, taking a slow, graceful bite, the exquisite return of her poise only making matters worse.
The dainty way she mouths the fork. The delicate chew.
The faint groan of approval that slips past her lips like she’s oblivious I’m sitting here enraptured.
“Details matter.” I spear a piece of beef. “They’re how I get CEOs to sign away their prized companies when I’m up against competitors with deeper pockets.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” Her tone softens, but the torment continues—another languid forkful, another unhurried press of crimson flesh against her tongue. It’s so fucking maddening my cock stirs.
“I’m just surprised, that’s all.” She pauses and meets my gaze with a polite smile that chafes. “So tell me, what’s my father’s favorite meal?”
I stiffen, vowing to ease off the liquor.
It’s obvious her question is filler—harmless chatter meant to take the sting out of my hinted infatuation. But my inability to respond has color rising in her cheeks.
Surprise parts her lips, as if she can’t quite believe I’d lie about something so trivial. As if she’s only now realizing I’ve tracked every breath she’s taken for years.
She clears her throat, recovering faster than I do.
“Your chef is amazing…” She attempts to force the conversation back into menial territory despite the damage done.
The undertone has shifted.
Now the space between us thrums with my infatuation.
She rambles about the “insanely good” shower pressure. Praises the buttery finish of the wine. And gushes over the main course once it arrives—the braised short rib “melting” in her mouth.
I reply with the bare minimum requirement to keep the conversation churning while the sun disappears, the horizon swallowing the daylight.
By the end of dessert, she’s abandoned her conversational efforts and is measuring her liquor intake as closely as I am, neither of us seeming to want to risk an intoxicated mistake.
Elena and her team clear the table with quiet efficiency. Once they disappear inside, Isla pushes to her feet.
It should be a relief. A blessing. Yet instinct has my body coiled tight at the thought of her retiring to her cabin.
Only she doesn’t leave. She drifts to the nearest railing, her hair catching in the breeze.
Relief consumes me, ugly and unwanted. I’ve been counting the seconds until dinner ended, yet the moment she stays, I’m grateful. Pathetic. Trapped in the contradiction of needing her close when all I’ve sworn to want is space.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she murmurs.
“The ocean at night?” I ask.
“The stars. There are so many.”
I grew up camping with my brothers in the Italian hills, surrounded by the vast sky that once made me feel small and alone.
I don’t feel that now.
What stirs in me is a lethal pang of inevitability. One I have to ignore.
I pour more whiskey into my tumbler, moderation be damned. “Philip never took you camping?”
“No. My parents were always silver-spoon, excessive-thread-count kind of people.” She exhales a weary breath. “Maybe if my father had learned to rough it, we wouldn’t be millions of dollars in debt to a client.”
“He,” I clarify. “His debt isn’t yours.”
She meets my gaze over her shoulder. “You’re kidding, right?” She rolls her eyes and turns back to the water.
My jaw locks.
She’s right, no matter how much I wish she wasn’t.
But she’ll recover from this. The worst has come and gone.
So why the hell do I itch to go to her? To appease a torment I didn’t cause and shouldn’t care to fix?
Fuck.
I down the whiskey, shove to my feet, and cross the deck in tortured steps until I’m beside her, mere inches separating our arms on the railing.
“Forget the blood debt.” I focus on the fish cutting through the glow of the yacht’s underwater lights, refusing to look at her. “As long as the Cavallo-CrossPoint relationship runs smoothly, you’ll never have to think about it again.”
She remains quiet. The silence gnaws at me.