Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 30269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Wide and unblinking.
Dilated…panicked.
“I was just looking at the seals.”
“You were hanging over a two-hundred-foot drop.”
“I was leaning against the rail.”
“The railing is old, Novalee.” Rain streams down the tense angles of his face, collecting in the hollow of his throat. “Maybe allowing you near a cliff wasn’t such a good idea.”
His veiled accusation cuts deep, curdling confusion in the pit of my stomach.
Because he knows I wouldn’t…
Doesn’t he?
“Why are you acting like this?”
“I shouldn’t have to spell it out.” Fear and pain bleed through his tone, and that expression tugs at the heartstrings still attached to him. It only takes a second for understanding to crystallize.
My attempt that night weighs on him, even now, despite how far I’ve come.
Despite time passing, because time…
It doesn’t erase trauma.
Doesn’t erase Talitha.
And now we’re connected in a way that can’t be undone.
I guess we both have misbehaving heartstrings.
“I didn’t mean to worry you.” My palm finds his chest, pressing flat against the violent drumming beneath his ribs.
His gaze drops to my hand, as if my touch is the most disorienting thing that’s happened today.
It stuns me too, because I touched him without thinking.
The moment stretches, held together by rain and the sound of the sea. Water hangs from his dark lashes, highlighting the vulnerability there.
His focus shifts to my mouth, and the air between us stalls altogether.
I’m frozen in his sights, unable to move or speak or think as his breaths ghost across my lips as if he might—
A seagull lands on the railing, startling us both. Oliver clears his throat and steps back.
Relief floods me.
But it’s mixed with a hint of disappointment, and that bothers me more than anything.
“We should head back before the rain worsens.” Dragging a hand through his soaked hair, he blinks several times before scooping up the umbrella.
I fall into step beside him, gravel crunching under our shoes, and the want that flared in my blood doesn’t fade with distance.
It turns to coal, searing under the guilt trying to smother it.
I gave myself to Sebastian not even twenty-four hours ago, but for one insane rain-soaked breath, I wanted Oliver’s kiss.
What kind of person does that make me?
The sedan waits with its engine running, headlights cutting pale tunnels through the fog.
Tomorrow we fly home.
Back to the island, the tower…the House of Aquarius.
I glance over my shoulder one last time. The lighthouse beam sweeps through the dying afternoon, a thin stroke of light swallowed whole before it completes the arc.
6
Despite what I let Oliver believe the morning after I gave Sebastian my virginity, when I woke up to an empty and cold bed, I have not, in fact, made myself come.
Not for lack of trying.
Between the promise I made to Liam all those months ago and Dr. Price’s therapeutic methods—which only seem to have conditioned me to reach that edge and not a step further—I haven’t been able to let go.
God, I want to let go.
As Oliver and I step into the elevator, it’s all I can think about. It doesn’t help that this space reminds me of Sebastian and how he took me on the floor, full of rawness and passion and heat.
Oliver keys a code into the sleek panel, unaware of the emotions swirling in my gut, and the car begins its short trip down the tower.
Three floors.
That’s all that’s left—two more months above ground zero.
Two more months until the auction, at which point Sebastian will be home.
A pang of hope rises in me at the thought, even as something deep inside sinks with the elevator, because the brooding man across from me has turned into a locked door I can’t get through.
Oliver leans against the opposite wall, arms crossed, jaw wired tight, his gaze fixed on the descending numbers.
Distant…closed off.
He’s been like this since the cape.
We returned to Zodiac Island several days ago, but that moment in the rain came back with us. On the ride up, he positioned himself the way he’s standing now, with a careful gap between us.
And in my quarters, after he set my suitcase by the bed, he paused as if he meant to say something.
But he never did.
By the time I’d unpacked, he’d already shut himself in his office. At first, I assumed he had work to catch up on, but even busy men eat dinner. They sit across the table and stare with unnerving insight, nonchalantly sipping wine.
Busy men still find the time to haunt doorways at night.
So why did Oliver stop haunting mine?
And why do I feel like I did something wrong?
Sebastian is alive. I should not be upset that Oliver is suddenly ignoring me. Except…we fell into a routine that got me through the days and made the grief tolerable. Now that he’s taken that crutch away, I don’t know what to do with myself at bedtime.
This man, with his manipulative kinks and vulnerable chestnut eyes, has me all tangled up.