Scarlett #2
I grip the balcony railing, knuckles white, breath uneven.
Noah is going to marry me on Sunday.
Here.
On this island.
In a ceremony he planned without asking me.
In a life he decided for us both and if I don’t comply—If I push back too hard—If I make the wrong sound—He’ll drag me home and do it even quicker.
I swallow against the tightness in my throat.
What the fuck am I supposed to do?
Go to the police?
Tell them what — that someone blindfolded me? That someone touched me but left no mark, no evidence, nothing except my own terror?
Tell them my fiancé threatened to marry me by force if I don’t behave?
Tell them I think the man I condemned in court broke into my room last night because I whispered his name like a prayer into the dark?
They wouldn’t believe me.
And even if they did.
Kai is out.
Kai is free.
Kai is coming.
And I don’t know if my fear is from Noah’s hand or the shadow waiting in the jungle just beyond the resort lights.
A sudden thud echoes from behind me — the bathroom door opening.
I stiffen so hard my ribs ache.
Footsteps.
Slow, measured.
Bare on the tile.
“Scarlett.”
My name drops like a coin into cold water.
I turn.
Noah stands there with a towel around his waist, droplets clinging to his chest, slicking down the carved lines of his abdomen. A man sculpted out of money and discipline and terrifying self-control.
His hair is damp.
His expression unreadable.
He looks at me for a long moment — too long — as though deciding which version of himself to use.
“Come here,” he says.
Not a request.
Not even a command disguised as one.
Just a simple, unshakeable expectation.
I force my feet to move.
He reaches out, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth in a gesture that would appear tender to any outside observer.
But it’s not tender.
It’s surveillance.
He’s checking for a reaction.
Checking for guilt.
Checking for weakness.
Checking which parts of me he still owns.
“You’re pale,” he murmurs, tilting my chin up. “You look… unwell.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
He studies my face.
“You don’t look fine.”
I swallow hard.
“It was just… a lot yesterday. The argument. The heat. I didn’t sleep well.”
A soft hum leaves his throat — thoughtful, assessing.
“Take a shower,” he says, pressing a kiss to my temple that feels like a signature rather than affection. “We have a lunch meeting with Langford at one. You’ll wear the blue dress.”
The kiss lingers for exactly one second.
Then he steps away.
Walks to the wardrobe.
Pulls out clothes with the same clinical precision he applies to everything — tailored linen trousers, a crisp white shirt, a watch that costs more than my childhood home.
He buttons the shirt slowly, each click of the cufflink echoing through the silence.
“We’re going to enjoy this trip,” he says without turning around. “You will be calm. You will be presentable. You won’t embarrass either of us. And you certainly won’t entertain imaginary stories about strangers in our room.”
My nails dig into my palm until my skin burns.
“And when Sunday comes,” he continues, sliding his watch into place, “you’ll walk down the aisle without hesitation. Or I’ll know exactly what that means.”
My breath stops.
“What does that—”
“It means you’re choosing your brother over your future,” he says coldly. “And I won’t allow that.”
He turns then.
His eyes are ice.
Beautiful, lethal ice.
“Shower. Now.”
I nod quickly, because my body has learned obedience the way some people learn languages — through repetition, through necessity, through survival.
I slip past him into the bathroom.
Close the door.
Lock it.
Lean my forehead against it as my breath trembles out in shallow, broken bursts.
My pulse screams under my skin.
My hands shake.
My reflection in the mirror looks wild-eyed and pale and not like someone who belongs in paradise.
But the worst part—The part that makes my stomach twist and my heart pound and my mind fracture—is that somewhere, deep in the woods surrounding this resort, Kai is close.
And the man I thought I feared most—might not be the monster waiting at the door.
It might be the man already inside it.
The bathroom is too bright.
Too clean.
Too white.
The kind of sterile luxury that looks expensive in photographs and suffocating when you’re standing inside it with shaking hands and a tightening throat.
The mirror fogs slightly as the shower steams up the room, warm air rolling over my skin like a slow exhale from something unseen.
My robe slips off my shoulders.
It feels lighter than it should.
I should be stepping into the shower.
I should be breathing.
I should be steady.
Instead, I stand there, frozen halfway between the sink and the shower, because something in the room feels…
wrong.
Not loud-wrong.
Not obvious-wrong.
Just a strange, quiet shift in the air, the same way a forest feels different after something big moves through it.
My pulse picks up.
I swallow, throat tight.
“Get a grip,” I whisper to myself.
I reach for the shower handle—
Stop.
There’s something on the tiled floor behind the glass partition.
Small.
Dark.
Not where anything should be.
I push the glass door open slowly, breath stuttering, the warm steam curling around my legs as I step inside the shower stall, each footstep cautious, as though the tiles themselves might bite.
At first, I think it’s a piece of shadow.
Then I realise it’s fabric.
Black.
Soft.
Folded perfectly.
A blindfold.
Not the same one.
Not silk.
This one is thicker.
Darker.
Hand-cut.
Hand-stitched.
My stomach plummets so hard I grip the edge of the glass to stay upright.
Noah didn’t blindfold me last night.
But someone did.
Someone who came back.
Someone who walked into this room again.
Someone who left this behind as though gifting me a memory of last night’s hands on my skin.
My throat burns.
I sink to my knees slowly, the tiles cold beneath my shins, steam curling around my hair as I reach out and pick it up.
It’s warm.
Not from the shower.
From being held.
Recently.
A tremor runs through me so violently I nearly drop it, but I clutch it tighter, thumb brushing along the edge of the fabric.
There’s something written on it.
Threaded into the inside seam, stitched with rough, hurried precision, as though done by someone who doesn’t do delicate work but couldn’t stand leaving it plain.
One word.
One claim.
One threat.
MINE
The letters are jagged, almost violent, sewn with a heavy, almost angry hand.
My breath stops.
Then breaks.
Another piece of fabric slips from beneath it.
I hadn’t seen it before.
Something small.
Flat.
Wrapped in a torn strip of black ribbon.
My fingers shake as I unwrap it.
It’s a photograph.
A glossy, perfectly lit photograph.
Of me.
Last night.
Blindfolded.
Head tipped back.
Mouth parted.
Lips swollen.
Hands braced against the bed as someone — someone I couldn’t see — touched me like he already owned me.
My knees slide on the wet tile.
My heart free-falls.
My breath comes in sharp, broken bursts.
And scrawled across the bottom of the photograph —in dark ink, thick strokes, the handwriting unmistakable —is a message so intimate, so threatening, so possessive it steals every bit of air from my lungs:
IF YOU MARRY HIM, I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM.
— K
Not Noah.
Not fiancé.
Not boyfriend.
Him.
He didn’t even bother writing a name.
Because in his mind there is only one other man, one other threat, one other obstacle standing between my body and his hands —and he’s already decided how that ends.
My vision blurs at the edges.
I’m not sure if it’s the steam or the panic or the heat pulsing between my ribs like a second heart.
I drop the photo onto my lap, clutching the blindfold so tightly my fingers ache.
“Kai,” I whisper into the steam, voice cracking.
I don’t know if it’s horror or longing or both tangled together in something poisonous.
And then—
Something else catches my eye.
Something carved into the condensation on the shower glass.
Not deep.
Not obvious.
Subtle.
A fingertip dragged slowly, deliberately, with the patience of someone who stood in this room for longer than a heartbeat.
Four words.
Four quiet, devastating words:
YOU WON’T MARRY HIM
My chest caves.
My heartbeat staggers.
I cover my mouth with my shaking hand, a strangled, breathless sound crawling up my throat because this isn’t a threat from far away.
This isn’t a distant obsession.
This isn’t a ghost.
He was here.
In this villa.
In this shower.
Within arm’s reach of where I’m kneeling now.
Close enough to touch the glass.
Close enough to watch me sleep through the wall.
And as the steam curls and thickens, washing the room in a soft veil of heat—the words carved into the glass stay.
Stark.
Cold.
Permanent.
He isn’t giving me a choice.
He never was.
And as my fingers brush the stitched word on the blindfold—
as the photograph trembles in my lap—as the steam closes around me like warm hands—I realise with a sinking, terrifying certainty:
I’m not afraid of choosing Noah.
I’m afraid of what Kai will do if I try.