Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
The first blotch of red sunrise bleeds through the curtains separating the room from my private deck. Soft linen twists around my legs, the room beyond the bed all polished wood and expensive innocence. Morning almost makes Blackwood’s island look harmless.
Then I remember Alistair’s dinner table, the restraints, Evan’s voice cracking around his plea, and Alistair’s boredom with his own game’s finale. One last memory crashes through all the others.
Jake’s mouth on mine.
My morning wood gives one hot, humiliating pulse, and I sit up too fast, desperate for any distraction strong enough to ignore it.
The embroidered napkin is still in the pocket of my linen pants, bunched on the floor.
I cram it into my bag, and check the drawers to find plenty more of the same outfit waiting.
This time, I get dressed without my father’s pin and leave the bungalow before the room can start feeling like another set of restraints.
Outside, the island is obscenely gorgeous, careful landscaping letting the sunrise in wherever Alistair wants it.
The path curves through palms wet with morning, past flowering shrubs and snuffed torches that ran themselves dry last night.
I avoid the route I know leads to the beach house.
I don’t know where Alistair sleeps, or where he eats breakfast, or whether he has some billionaire wellness ritual involving imported fruit and human suffering, but I’m not in the mood to find out.
So I take the other path.
It cuts to a new part of the beach, where white umbrellas stand open over ten carefully placed lounge chairs. All of them are empty except one.
My panic must still be exhausted from last night, because it doesn’t take hold before I realize it’s Jake. The calm might not be mine at all. It might be Wilder putting one foot in front of the other because Jake was my last kiss. I call it chasing an ally and keep walking.
Evie and I will never be able to build our story around one embroidered napkin and a list of kinks I barely understand. We need someone who knows the rules. Someone who can point to the game and say it’s real.
Jacob Quinn is my best shot.
He’s stretched out under one of the umbrellas with a laptop balanced against his thighs, barefoot in loose white linen, sun catching in his messy blond hair and enough buttons undone to expose a long strip of chest.
Farther down the beach, near the grove line, a staff member stands with his hands folded in front of him, watching. In case Jake needs anything. Or keeping track of him. On this island, the difference feels decorative.
Jake doesn’t look up when I approach. A mean streak in me decides he’s back to the same antics that kept him from looking at me last night when I needed one nod, one signal, one scrap of proof that I wasn’t about to drown.
“Is this seat taken?” I ask.
His fingers pause over the keyboard. “No.”
I sit on the lounge chair beside him and watch the sun climb over the water, stretching long umbrella shadows across the sand behind us.
The island is beautiful in the polished, billionaire-private-island way, but my attention still catches on Jake when the wind lifts his loose shirt and turns the skin beneath it gold.
He still hasn’t looked up from his screen.
“Hell of a night,” I say, casual, like it was merely freaky instead of demented.
His harrumph is less unfazed than he probably wants it to be.
“You okay?”
“Do you care?”
He’s mad. The reason seems simple enough. He’d been trying to get my attention at the end of the night, when those still interested in entertainment could continue. Maybe his kiss wasn’t as strategic as I’d thought.
“Sorry I bailed last night,” I say. “I was tired. Overwhelmed.” I reach across the gap between our chairs and touch his arm.
That finally gets his attention.
“Don’t.” His eyes snap up, blue and irritated. “You were right to leave the minute that test was over. I’m mad we kissed in the first place. That was stupid as hell.”
“You kissed me,” I say, needing that to be true.
Jake’s expression cracks.
“You’re probably right,” he mutters, dragging a hand over his mouth. “But you were staring at me all night.”
“I was not.”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was checking whether you were giving me another signal.”
“You were staring.”
“I was trying to avoid making any wrong moves.”
“So was I.” He turns back to the laptop with enough force to make the screen wobble. “What’s your plan for the day, anyway?”
My mouth hangs open, but he’s already too engrossed in his work to catch what I intend as an Is that a serious question? expression.
“How does it work?” I ask. “What are you doing all day? I mean, is someone going to bring out a waterboard? Does Alistair stick his dick in a coconut next?”
Jake laughs, and his eyes snag on my lips before cutting over my shoulder toward the staff member at the back.
“You want anything?” he asks, raising his hand. “Did you eat already? I’m starving, and since this bug is apparently a cockroach that refuses to die, I need food before I throw my laptop into the ocean.”
“Thought there wasn’t Wi-Fi.”
“Not all of us need Wi-Fi so desperately.”
I’m being too obvious, but Jake waves it away before I can think of something to say.
“Alistair knows I work every morning. You’re still the new guy, so order whatever you want. Let’s just make sure he knows it’s for you. I don’t want him thinking—” Jake cuts himself off.
“What?”
He looks at me, then at the staff member approaching across the sand. “Just wondering how dumb it is for us to be together like this.” His concern disappears behind his island smile. “Samuel.”
“Sirs?” the server says from behind me.
“Can I get the crab omelet, grilled sourdough, and one giant black coffee?” Jake catches me looking at him. “What? Alistair’s loaded. Order whatever you want.”
I glance at the server.
“Samuel’s fine,” Jake says. “And he knows Alistair has money. That’s not one of the secrets being kept on this island.”
Samuel’s face remains politely blank. Everyone who works here knows enough. They’re paid to keep quiet, which makes me wonder how much Alistair would pay once he realizes I came here to do the opposite.
“Avocado toast,” I say. “And a normal-sized coffee.”
Jake smirks as Samuel leaves us with the beach to ourselves.
“What do you mean, it’s dumb for us to be together?” I ask. “Did I miss a rule in the welcome packet?”
“You didn’t get that? Shoot. Must have gotten lost in the mail.”
I laugh despite myself, and the smug edge slips from Jake’s smile.
“I’m probably being paranoid,” he says. “Alistair saw us kiss in the limo, and last night was during playtime. As far as he’s concerned, wanting each other is still within bounds.”
Jake wants Wilder, and he obviously thinks I want the same thing.
This would be no big deal if Marcus Wilder were the only one reacting. But I’m still wearing Wilder, so I take my racing heart and make it useful. Jake’s want could matter.
“Comforting,” I say.
“It shouldn’t be.”
“Yeah, no. I got there.”
His fingers move over the keyboard so fast I can’t follow the work even if it were written in plain English instead of code stacked across windows inside windows.
Jake looks alive diving back into it, the same fizzy energy he uses to perform in the game bubbling out of him here on the beach.
Even if he does want Marcus Wilder, I can tell he’d be happy getting back to work without the distraction.
“What are you actually doing?” I ask.
“Working.”
“Yes. Thank you. I gathered that from the laptop and the tech-bro posture.”
“I don’t have tech bro posture.”
I hunch my shoulders and pull my hands below my chin to wiggle them over a tiny invisible keyboard.
Jake puffs out his chest in disgust, which does nothing for the lump I still haven’t managed to swallow.
“Rude,” he says. “But it’s an occupational hazard. I’m not above using this”—he bats his eyelashes—“to woo investors. This posture comes with a vesting schedule.”
That pulls another laugh out of me, and this time he glances up like he likes having caused it.
“So what’s this bug?” I ask. “The cockroach that won’t die.”
“A synchronization issue between research databases. The delay is fucking up all our models.” He sighs. “It’s boring to explain, but infuriating to fix.”
“Try me.”
“You really want to hear this?”
“Compared to last night? Synchronizing databases might as well be curling up with an epic book.”
“Oh?” His mouth twitches. “What counts as epic?”
“Mostly mysteries,” I say, surprised to find the sliver of honesty feels good even on this island. “Anything where the narrator is clearly lying and the fun is figuring out why.”
“That tracks.”
“Ouch. That sounds like an insult.”
“It was admiration.” His gaze drops back to the laptop, but the corner of his mouth stays soft. “I like medical thrillers and the occasional deeply depressing space novel.”
“Deeply depressing?”
“I want all my main characters trapped somewhere they can’t leave, slowly realizing their mission was flawed from the start.”
I glance down the beach and snort. “So, autobiographical.”
“Obviously.”
Our smiles catch on each other, and I forget we’re not on vacation. I let myself imagine taking time off after this nightmare and finding a beach I’m allowed to leave, with Jake still beside me when neither of us has to be. As friends.
“So, this bug?”
He explains while Samuel returns with coffee, then plates balanced on a tray that briefly disguises the beach as any normal resort.
I expect Jake to stop talking when Samuel gets close, but he only shifts the laptop enough to make room and keeps going, already half lost in something that deserves him more than this game does.