“You made her fucking fall.” I snatch my cell from his hand and shove it into my pocket. “Her death would’ve been onyou.”
He nods. “I’m sorry, sir. I-I?—”
“Raffael, please.” Isla tugs at my arm. “You’re hurting him.”
“You need to get off my yacht,” I snarl in his face. “Now. Before I kill you.”
“Raffael.” Isla fights to unlatch my hand. “Stop.”
“She thinks I’m bluffing.” I hold his gaze. “But you know me, right? You know my family. My heritage. You’re well aware if you don’t get out of my sight you won’t live to see tomorrow.”
His head jerks in a frantic nod. “I do.”
“Then vanish.” I release him with a shove. “Before I make your disappearance permanent.”
He scrambles up the stairs on hands and feet as I pivot back to Isla.
She looks at me like she’s never seen me before.
And maybe she hasn’t. Not like this. Not without the suit, the smirk, the polish.
The curtain’s down, and all that’s left is blood and bone and fury.
“That’show you should act around me.” I stab a finger in the direction the asshole fled and fight to level my breathing. “That’sthe fear my family has earned.”
She raises her chin. Her fragility remains, clinging to the clumped lengths of her damp hair. But her fire still burns through the cracks.
“Go, Isla,” I snap. “Get out of those wet clothes and make yourself presentable. Just because you flirted with death doesn’t mean the slate is wiped clean.”
Chapter
Sixteen
ISLA
Ocean water clingsto my skin like another colder layer of memory as I sit under the scalding shower, knees tucked to my chest, arms wound so tightly around them my fingers ache from the pressure.
I can still feel him.
The echo of Raffael is burned into my nerve endings.
His hands. His strength. His violence.
That goddamn kiss.
I fell hard into the water, my back taking the brunt of impact, the weight of my soaked blazer dragging me under. I tried to claw my way toward the surface, kicking with all I had, my lungs screaming, only for the yacht’s current to seize me, dragging me deeper into the dark.
I would’ve drowned. Been cut to pieces.
Then there he was, yanking me back from the brink. Holding me like I was precious. Smashing his lips to mine like he hated me for almost dying.
But it didn’t stay that way.
Heat bled into the contact.
He devoured me.Ravagedme.
For one suspended moment, it was as if the last two years hadn’t existed. That the cruelty and manipulation had been a fever dream.