"A deal."

I said it back to him like a word in a foreign language. My eyes burned. My nose was running. I probably looked like a wreck someone had fished out of the ocean.

"What do you want, Caspian?" My voice cracked down the middle. "Just say it."

He didn't answer right away. He slid his phone into his coat pocket and leaned one shoulder against the vending machine.

"Tell me what you stand to lose first," he said.

"You already know."

"I want to hear you say it."

I wiped my cheek with my knuckles. "My father signed forty percent of Lark Shipping over to your family in March. It was the wedding gift. The handshake. If Kael breaks the engagement over a cheating scandal, the contract says we pay damages for breach. And we don't get the shares back."

"How much in damages?"

"Enough to sink us." I swallowed. "My dad's sixty-three. He had a heart scare last winter. This would kill him, Caspian. I mean that."

He nodded once. Slowly. Like he was filing every word away.

"Your turn," I said. "What do you want?"

Caspian straightened. For the first time since he dropped into that seat beside me on the plane, he looked me full in the face without any guard up.

"Help me take it from him."

"Take what?"

"Everything." His voice stayed low. "The board seat. The voting shares. The company my grandfather built while my brother was learning to tie his shoes. My father thinks Kael is the safe choice. I'm going to prove he's the most dangerous thing that ever happened to this family."

"And you need me for that."

"You know him better than anyone alive. His passwords. His habits. Who he calls at two in the morning." A pause. "And you're the one person he thinks is too soft to fight back."

That last part landed like a slap.

"Wow," I said. "Thanks."

"It's not an insult. It's an advantage."

"It sounds like an insult."

"Join me, Nora." He held my stare. "Help me win the family fortune, and I'll help you make him pay. Every share back to your father. Every lie dragged into the light. He walks away with nothing."

The vending machine buzzed between us. Somewhere past the doors, a car horn blared.

I didn't speak.

Five years. I had picked out his ties. I had memorized how he took his coffee. I had planned to name our first daughter after his grandmother because he'd cried telling me about her once.

*She's on a plane, baby. Being a good girl.*

"How do I know you won't do the same thing to me?" I asked quietly. "Use me. Throw me away when you're done."

"You don't."

I laughed. Short and ugly. "That's your pitch?"

"That's the truth. I could lie and make it pretty. He would." Caspian's mouth twisted. "I'm not him."

I studied him. The hard jaw. The shadows under his eyes that said he hadn't slept on that flight either.

Then I stuck out my hand.

"Fine. Partners."

He glanced down at my hand like he hadn't expected it. Then his fingers closed around mine. Warm. Firm. Rougher than Kael's had ever been.

"Partners," he said.

His phone buzzed before he could let go.

He pulled back and answered. "Talk."

I could hear a man's voice, fast and clipped, but not the words. Caspian's eyebrows rose a fraction.

"Where?" A beat. "Keep him there. I'm coming."

He hung up.

"What was that?" I demanded.

"Your photographer." He was already walking. "My guys picked him up behind the taxi stand."

I hurried after him. "Your *guys*? You brought people?"

"You think I'd walk into my brother's trap with nothing but a phone?"

"I think you could've mentioned that before I cried in front of a vending machine."

He shot me a sideways look. Something almost like a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, then disappeared.

---

Behind the taxi stand, the air stank of diesel and fried fish.

Two men in plain gray shirts stood on either side of the guy in the faded baseball cap. He was younger than I'd thought. Twenty-five, maybe. Sweat dripped down his temples.

"I didn't do anything," he blurted the second he saw Caspian. "I take pictures. Tourists. Sunsets. It's my job."

"Give me the camera," Caspian said.

"It's my property, man—"

One of the gray-shirt men plucked the camera off the guy's neck and handed it over. Caspian scrolled through the screen. His jaw went tight.

He turned it toward me.

There we were. Me stepping out of customs. Caspian right behind me, his hand at my elbow. Another of us in the hallway, my face red, his head bent close to mine.

From that angle, it looked like a lovers' quarrel. It looked exactly like what Kael wanted.

My stomach rolled.

"Who paid you?" I asked.

The guy's eyes darted to me, then away. "I don't know names."

"Try harder."

"A guy emailed. Said there'd be a bonus if I got you two going into the villa." He wet his lips. "Five grand more if it was at night."

Caspian didn't raise his voice. That was somehow worse.

"Delete them. All of them. Then the cloud backup. Then your phone."

"Come on, that's—"

"Or we call the airport police and explain why you were stalking a woman through customs. Your choice."

The guy deleted them. Every single one. One of Caspian's men watched over his shoulder while he wiped the cloud account and handed over his phone to be checked.

When it was done, Caspian tossed the camera back to him.

"Tell your employer the batteries died," he said. "Tell him anything. But if I see your face again this week, you'll be explaining yourself to a judge."

The guy scrambled off so fast he nearly tripped over a curb.

I watched him go, and something loosened in my chest for the first time in fourteen hours.

"That's it?" I asked. "It's over?"

"It's one move." Caspian slid his hands into his pockets. "He'll make another."

---

By the time the resort boat dropped us at the Coral Veil, the sky had gone deep purple and the lanterns along the dock were glowing.

The woman at the front desk smiled at us the way people smile at honeymooners.

"Welcome, Mr. and Mrs.—"

"We're not married," I cut in. "I need a separate room. Anything."

Her smile flickered. She typed. Frowned. Typed again.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am. We're fully booked through Sunday. There's a regional conference." She glanced between us. "Suite 1104 has a sofa, if that helps?"

"There has to be something. A storage room. A cot. I'll pay double."

"I truly have nothing tonight."

Caspian leaned his forearm on the counter. "And the other hotels on the island?"

"The last boat to the main atoll left an hour ago, sir."

I turned to him. "Say something."

"I just did."

"Say something *useful*."

He took the key cards from her hand and held one out to me.

"We sleep in the same villa tonight," he said. "Or you sleep on the dock."

I snatched the card from his fingers.

The walk down the overwater path felt endless. The boards creaked under my sandals. Water slapped against the pilings beneath us.

He swiped the door open and stepped aside to let me in first.

One king bed. White sheets. Rose petals scattered across them in the shape of a heart.

And on the pillow, a small cream envelope with my name written across the front.

In Kael's handwriting.