Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marie
Light pressed against my eyelids, warm and insistent, pulling me from sleep that felt deep and much too safe. This wasn’t the harsh fluorescent buzz that had been my only sun for five years, but something softer. Almost… natural.
I blinked, and the world slowly came into focus through the haze of whatever was swimming through my system. A white ceiling, high, with clean lines instead of concrete and stains.
The hum was gone—that constant drone of artificial lights that had lived in my skull for so long, I'd stopped hearing it. This was quiet. Almost silent except for a sound I couldn't quite place, something distant and rhythmic that made me ache with a recognition I wasn't ready to trust.
I tried to sit up, and my body protested immediately. Everything ached, but it was muffled somehow, distant. Like someone had wrapped all my pain in cotton and pushed it just far enough away that I could function without screaming.
I looked down at my arms. Clean, white bandages were wrapped from wrist to elbow on my left arm, while smaller dressings on my right covered the cuts I'd gotten crashing through the jungle.
It wasn’t the hasty gauze I'd been using in The Sanctuary. This was real medical care.
Where was I?
My gaze lifted, following the light that had woken me, tracking it across pristine white walls and furniture that probably wasn’t real… until I saw it.
The ocean.
It was behind an entire wall of glass, stretching the full width of the room like someone had decided walls were optional and the Caribbean itself should just be the architecture.
And beyond it, endless, impossible yet real, was the water.
Turquoise so bright it looked unreal, bleeding into sapphire where it met the horizon.
Waves rolled in perfect rhythm, white foam kissing a beach of sand.
The morning sun turned the water into diamonds, so bright and beautiful it hurt to look at.
I couldn't breathe.
The room around me was all white, a white that spoke of taste and luxury.
There were white linens on the massive bed, so soft against my skin they felt like clouds.
White furniture with expensive curves sat around.
Everything reflected the ocean light, glowing with it, and the whole room felt like it was floating on water.
But none of it mattered. Not the fact that I was wearing a soft white shirt I didn't remember putting on, one that definitely wasn't my torn, bloody shirt from last night. Not the luxury.
Only the ocean.
Five years since I'd seen it. Five years since I'd felt salt spray on my skin, heard the waves, or watched the sun paint patterns across water that moved like it was breathing.
I was moving before my brain caught up to my body. I was off the bed in a scramble of tangled sheets and unsteady legs, my feet hitting cool marble that felt nothing like the concrete I'd walked on for five years.
My legs were fuzzy from whatever painkillers they'd given me, uncoordinated and weak. I stumbled, catching myself on the bedpost with a frustrated hiss.
I had to move, I had to keep going.
The ocean was right there. Right there beyond the glass, and I needed to touch it, needed to feel the air, needed to know it was real and not just another dream I'd wake up from in a locked room underground.
There was a balcony door, glass framed in white wood. My hands fumbled with the lock until it clicked open, and warm air rushed in—salt-heavy and humid, and so familiar it pulled all the breath from my lungs.
I fell.
My knees hit the balcony floor, white sun-warmed stone against my skin.
The ocean spread before me, unobstructed and infinite, and I couldn't stop the sound that tore from my throat.
Half sob, half something that didn't have a name—something that felt like my soul was breaking and healing at the same time.
My hand flew to my mouth, trying to stifle it. Five years underground had taught me that crying was dangerous, that showing emotion invited punishment, that strength meant silence.
The strength I'd worn like armor for so long felt suddenly flimsy, useless.
The sunlight was on my skin, real sunlight that warmed my face, my arms, my shoulders. I’d forgotten how it felt. How it made everything warm, how it tasted like freedom and felt like home.
The salt air filled my lungs, and I tasted everything I'd been separated from. Tasted my childhood. Honey's wet fur after she'd been swimming. Tasted morning tours with tourists who asked too many questions, and the reef that had been my backyard. I tasted home in every way that made my eyes water.
This was the rhythm I thought I'd never hear again.
Tears ran down my face, hot and unstoppable. My shoulders shook with the effort of keeping quiet, of holding back the sounds that wanted to escape. All the strength I’d held onto for the girls, all the competence and control—it all cracked open like a dam breaking.
I'd made it. I'd actually made it out, and the ocean was still here, still where I belonged.
"Does the ocean please you, little darling?"
The voice came from behind me, low and smooth. Strong hands caught my shoulders, steadying me as I swayed on my knees.
I scrambled backward so fast I nearly fell again, my body moving on pure instinct. Away from the touch, away from the man, away from anything that felt like control being taken from me.
My back hit the balcony railing, warm stone pressing through the cotton shirt. I lifted my chin, blinking through the tears, fear spiking but mixing with a sharp defensiveness at being caught this vulnerable.
A man stood in the balcony doorway, backlit by the white glow of the room behind him.
Tall. That was the first thing I noticed. Tall and built like someone who knew discipline. He had lean muscle under a linen shirt, sleeves rolled to show forearms that were lightly tanned and corded with strength.
He had platinum blonde hair with silvered roots, and his eyes were the palest blue I'd ever seen, like water over white sand.
He was beautiful. Handsome, but that word was too simple, too ordinary for what he was. He was beautiful in the way that old money and absolute confidence created.
And he was looking at me like I was a treasure he'd found.
"Where am I?" My voice came out rough, used. "Who are you?"
"You're safe." He didn't move closer, and I appreciated that more than I could say. He lingered in the doorway with his hands loose at his sides, posture relaxed and non-threatening. "That's the most important thing. You're safe, and no one is going to hurt you here."
"That's not an answer." I pressed harder against the railing, trying to clear my mind through the fog of confusion and the fact that this man was so attractive it was physically disorienting. "Where am I? Whose house is this?"
"My estate." He gestured behind him, the movement elegant and controlled. Everything about him was elegant. "On the northern coast. You ran into me outside a restaurant last night and asked for help. I brought you here and had my medical team treat your injuries."
Fragments of memory surfaced through the fog. Running, pain, jumping from the car, hitting pavement hard. Then crashing into solid warmth, grabbing fabric with bloody hands.
There was a voice, deep and certain, followed by the feeling of being carried, of letting go because someone else was holding on.
Him. I'd run into him.
"You're the man from yesterday.” It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway, that same elegant movement.
"Wade Easton." He offered the name like a gift, as if he were trusting me with it. "And you are?"
"Marie." I swallowed, trying to think past how his presence seemed to fill the balcony. "Marie Rivers."
"It's a pleasure to meet you properly, Marie Rivers." He smiled, and his face transformed from beautiful to devastating. It was warm and completely focused on me. "Though I do wish it had been under better circumstances."
"Why did you help me?" The question came out before I could stop it, rough and suspicious. I’d learned not to trust kindness. "You don't know me. I was covered in blood. I could have been dangerous.”
"You were terrified." He answered gently, his voice still in that low, calm tone. "And you needed help. That was enough."
"People don't just help." My voice was hard. "Not without wanting something. So what do you want?"
Something flickered in his expression. Understanding? Or recognition that I wasn't going to be easy to convince? Whatever trust I'd given him last night wasn't going to extend into daylight without proof.
"Right now? I want you to sit properly before you fall down. You've been unconscious for twelve hours, and your body needs rest."
"I'm fine." My limbs were shaking so hard I could barely stay upright, but I refused to crumble. I'd been saying I was fine for five years when I wasn’t; the habit was hard to break.
"You're not fine, darling,” he corrected, without judgment. "But you're safe. When you're ready to talk about what you escaped from, about the girls you mentioned, about whatever evidence is in that bag you were clutching…”
He gestured back toward the room, and I followed his gaze to see my canvas bag sitting on the bedside table, intact and untouched. Relief flooded through me.
"When you're ready," he continued, "I'll help. But first, let's get you sitting down before gravity makes that decision for you."
He was right. I hated that he was right, but my body was already giving out, the adrenaline finally fading enough that the pain and exhaustion were catching up.
Wade crossed the balcony with grace and lowered himself to sit a few feet away. Close enough to help if I needed it, yet far enough that I didn't feel trapped.
He settled onto the white stone like it was the most natural thing in the world, his linen shirt catching the breeze, and I noticed he was barefoot too. Somehow that made him seem more real, more human.