33. CHRIS
33
CHRIS
T he air was heavy with salt and tension. It settled in my lungs and refused to leave.
The final night of the yacht show was supposed to be a celebration, but I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate shit. Not after everything that had gone wrong.
The music from the gala thumped faintly in the background, muffled by the polished walls of the venue.
Inside, guests swirled around, champagne glasses clinking, laughter spilling out into the night. And then there was me—simmering in a corner with a whisky in my hand and a bad fucking attitude.
Every swirl of champagne in their glasses felt like a direct insult. It reminded me of that night years ago, standing at a similar event where I’d worked my ass off to secure a deal only to watch the client laugh and shake hands with someone else.
Fucking Eli Moretti.
Back then, I’d told myself I’d never let that son of a bitch make me feel small, that I’d prove I was worth the investment, worth my salt, worth the Blackwood name.
But here I was, watching it all slip through my fingers again, and the bitter taste of failure burned worse than the whisky.
The world that I’d built spun on without me while I drowned in my own mess.
The gala was all polished smiles and expensive suits, but the air reeked of fake pleasantries and underlying greed.
And at the center of it all stood Eli Moretti, holding court at the far end of the room like he was God’s gift to yachting and humanity combined. His stupid smug grin was plastered across his face as he talked animatedly to a group of investors.
Every so often, his gaze flicked in my direction, and the weight of his arrogance pressed on my chest like a boot. I clenched my jaw and turned away, knocking back the rest of my drink.
If whisky could drown the anger burning through me, I’d have been a better man by now.
“Another?” the bartender asked, his tone neutral but his eyes cautious. Smart guy. He’d seen enough to know when someone was about to lose it.
“Yeah,” I grunted, sliding the glass toward him. “Make it a double.”
I shouldn’t have come. I knew that.
But Ben and Alex insisted—something about keeping up appearances, representing the company, blah, blah, blah. I was in no state to represent shit. I was the worst Blackwood of the four, the rest just couldn’t see it. Or didn’t want to. They still believed I could do something for the company. As if I had it in me when I had always been nothing.
Eli’s laugh cut through the room, sharp and grating, like nails scraping against a chalkboard. His ease with the crowd, the way his gestures drew people closer—it all screamed confidence I couldn’t fake if I tried.
Fuck, it wasn’t just the sound that got under my skin—it was what it represented. Smug, untouchable, and utterly convinced of his superiority. It was the laugh of a man who thought he’d already won, who thought he could take everything I cared about and still walk away unscathed.
It turned out he wasn’t wrong. He’d already taken more than I could bear to lose.
I looked up just in time to see him clink glasses with one of my investors. The same investor I’d been courting for months. The bastard had a way of worming his way into places he didn’t belong, and he’d managed to work his way into Bella’s orbit, too.
Fuck.
My grip tightened around the glass, the cool surface biting into my palm. It wasn’t just about the business—though God knows I hated losing to him. It was the way he moved through the room like he owned it, his voice carrying the smooth cadence of someone who had never doubted his place in the world. He had everything I didn’t, and worse, he made sure I knew it.
It was the way he’d been with Bella. Close. Smiling. Kissing her cheek like she was his to kiss.
The image was burned into my brain, and every time I thought about it, my blood boiled a little hotter.
Eli caught my eye and smirked, raising his glass in a mock toast. That was it. The last goddamn straw.
I was on my feet before I could think better of it, my fists clenched and my pulse hammering in my ears. Somewhere far away I heard Ben and Alex call out to me, but I was shrouded in a fog. The room seemed to narrow, the faces around me blurring until it was just him.
Eli fucking Moretti.
The sound of my blood rushing drowned out the murmurs around me.
“Blackwood,” he drawled as I approached, his smirk widening. “Enjoying the evening?”
“Fuck you, Moretti,” I spat, my voice low and venomous. “Stay the fuck out of my business.”
He raised an eyebrow, pretending to be amused. “Your business? You mean the investors I’ve been charming all night? Or the woman who couldn’t wait to spend time on my yacht?”
My jaw tightened as his words landed like sucker punches. “You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?” I bit out. “Leeching off what other people build, pretending you’ve earned a damn thing.”
Eli’s smirk didn’t falter. If anything, it grew, his head tilting slightly, his eyes gleaming with a predatory shine that just pissed me off even more.
I was heading into blackout-fury territory.
“Oh, come now, Blackwood. Don’t be bitter just because you can’t keep what’s yours. Investors. Women. Seems like you’ve got a bit of a retention problem.”
That did it.
My vision went red, and before I knew it, my fist connected with his jaw. The satisfying crack of impact was drowned out by the collective cries of the crowd. Everyone was watching now. They circled around us as if we were suddenly in a boxing ring.
Eli stumbled back, clutching his face, but he recovered quickly, his smirk replaced by a snarl. “Big mistake, Blackwood,” he growled, lunging at me.
We collided, a tangle of fists and rage. He got a hit in—a sharp jab to my ribs—but I didn’t care. My anger drowned out any pain I could feel. I swung again, my knuckles splitting against his cheekbone. The crowd erupted around us, voices shouting, hands trying to pull us apart, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
Ben’s voice cut through the chaos. “Chris! What the fuck are you doing?”
Strong arms yanked me back, dragging me away from Eli. I struggled against the hold, my chest heaving, my fists still itching to connect with something. Ben stepped between us, his expression a mix of anger and disappointment.
It was Alex who held me back and I stopped struggling.
“That’s enough,” Ben snapped, his tone sharp enough to make me pause. “You’re making a goddamn fool of yourself.”
Eli straightened, wiping blood from his split lip. He looked at me with triumph gleaming in his eyes, and it took everything in me not to lunge at him again.
“Go cool off, Chris,” Ben warned with a growl, shoving me toward the exit. “Before you ruin what little reputation we have left.”
I staggered out of the venue, not seeing much around me. The cool night air hit me like a slap.
My knuckles throbbed, my ribs ached, and my head was a fucking mess.
The bright lights of the marina danced all around me. Maybe it was the hit to my head that made me dizzy. Maybe it was the whisky.
Maybe both.
The harsh glare of the lights only deepened the shadows inside me, highlighting every crack in my armor and every mistake I couldn’t undo. The stark contrast between the dazzling brilliance of the lights and the darkness twisting in my chest only made it worse. They seemed to highlight everything I wasn’t—steady, composed, successful .
Instead, I stood there drowning in my own chaos, feeling like the darkness was all I would ever be. It consumed me. It wasn’t just tonight that I’d fucked up; it was years of never being enough, never doing enough, unraveling in this one damn moment.
The place was too quiet, too empty. It rang in my ears and I was painfully aware of Bella’s absence. It was a physical ache, a hollow space inside me.
When I got to my yacht—a thing of beauty—all I could see was the fact that she wasn’t there.
I dropped into a chair in the main cabin, my head in my hands.
“What the fuck are you doing, Chris?” I muttered to myself. Everything was falling apart. The company, my image, my goddamn sanity. And Bella—God, Bella. I’d pushed her away, told her to leave, and now she was gone.
Gone.
She’d always been there when I fell apart. Like that night I came back home after losing my first deal, drowning in frustration and self-loathing. She’d found me pacing, my chest heaving with the weight of failure—the start, I guess.
Without a word, she’d handed me a glass of water and sat down on the stairs, her presence pulling me back from the brink.
“You’re allowed to be mad,” she’d said, her voice steady and unflinching. “Just don’t let it own you.”
I’d been a mess, snapping at anyone who tried to talk to me like a caged animal. We’d sat there in silence, the weight of my failure slowly easing just because she was there. She’d reached out, placing a steady hand on mine, grounding me in a way no one else ever had.
That was Bella—always knowing what I needed before I did, always pulling me back from the edge without asking for anything in return.
But I’d fucked it all up.
Twice.
I’d let my fear, my anger, my goddamn pride ruin everything.
I glanced around the cabin, hoping—stupidly—that she might still be there. That I could apologize, beg, do whatever it took to fix this. But the emptiness was deafening, the silence suffocating.
I leaned back, my head hitting the wall with a dull thud. The motion felt like a punctuation mark on the night—final, heavy, and full of regret. It wasn’t just frustration; it was the weight of everything I’d tried to suppress crashing down on me. No matter how hard I tried to hold it together, I always seemed to come apart in the end. The fight with Eli, the tension with Ben, the fucking weight of it all—it was too much.
I couldn’t do it.
My chest felt tight, my throat raw, and for the first time in years, I felt like I couldn’t keep it together.
The quiet groan of the yacht’s timbers sounded almost accusatory, like even the damn boat was tired of my shit. I closed my eyes, trying to shut it all out, but her face was there behind my lids—her eyes filled with hurt, her voice trembling with horror.
I’d done that to her. I’d hurt her.
And now she was gone.