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)
Not even lunch offers the buffer of distraction. We stop at a café on the harbor, and Oliver barely touches his clam chowder. He’s too busy watching me eat mine. I gave up trying to slide the bowl away after the first three bites—all it took was a raised eyebrow and one finger pushing it back.
So I eat, and on our way back to the car, he rewards me with a small bag of taffy. Caramel and sea salt that teases my taste buds, sweet and useless against the unease shadowing me since breakfast.
Being trapped with him only makes it worse. Our driver does little to break the heavy tension or this stifling sense of isolation.
I need air.
A brown highway sign surfaces out of the drizzle, displaying a lighthouse silhouette over the words scenic viewpoint, and I reach for it.
“Can we stop at the lighthouse?”
His gaze cuts to the sign before settling on our driver. “Detour to the cape.”
The black sedan carrying our security detail follows us off the highway.
The cape sits at the edge of the world, or close enough to it, reminding me of Zodiac Island.
Oliver exits the car before the driver has a chance to push his door open, and an umbrella bobs over my head as he helps me from the back seat. His hand closes around mine, tripping my pulse, as if it doesn’t know better.
I hate that it doesn’t know better.
The second my heels find gravel, I pull free. Rain drizzles past the umbrella’s edge, obscuring a mountain of evergreens.
Ahead, a white lighthouse rises at the edge of the cliff, half-swallowed by the haze—a view that should inspire awe. Instead, all I feel is the weight of his gaze on me, and I’m gut-certain he knows how the foundation of my world shifted last night…even if he can’t put one of his manicured fingers on the specifics.
Smoothing my expression, I let him walk me toward the overlook. The railing is slick under my palms, worn smooth by salt and tourists and years of weather. Below, the Pacific throws itself against the rocks.
That’s what I love about the ocean—it doesn’t temper its existence.
It just is.
Waves folding over themselves, foam dissolving, seabirds sailing through the mist. The wind carries salt and pine, and I breathe it in until my lungs ache.
Oliver stands close enough that the umbrella covers us both. “Thank you for today,” he says, eyes on the gray horizon.
“You’re thanking me?” I glance at him, brows raised. “You planned the whole thing.”
“That doesn’t diminish the company.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “It was a good birthday gift.”
“Wait.” I turn to face him. “Today’s your birthday?”
“Tomorrow, actually. But we’ll be thirty thousand feet in the air, so today seemed like a reasonable substitute.”
I replay the last few hours. Breakfast in bed. The drive. The café, the taffy. All of it orchestrated in a way that’s just Oliver, and not once did he mention it.
“You know,” I say, flicking raindrops off my coat. “It helps if you tell the person you’re celebrating with that there’s cause for celebration.”
A low sound rumbles out of him, not quite a laugh. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“So you’d rather watch me eat chowder than actually be celebrated?”
“I’d rather spend it with someone whose company I enjoy.” He turns his head toward me. “You have a birthday coming soon, right?”
“In a few weeks.”
“You’ll get to decide who to spend it with. If you choose me, it’ll be my pleasure to return the celebratory favor.”
His tone stays playful, but the reminder of what he’s referring to presses on my sternum.
The choice I get to make on my birthday.
As if that’s a gift.
Another Brotherhood tradition—the one Liam weaponized.
I want your virginity.
The railing bites into my palms.
My virginity is gone, given freely to the only man I ever wanted to give it to.
And no one can know.
Not Oliver or Liam…not even Landon.
“Where did you go just now?” Oliver shifts closer, breaking into my mental spiral.
“Nowhere.” I loosen my grip, flexing life back into my fingers. “Just thinking about home.”
Just as his perceptiveness threatens to rattle my composure, the bark of seals erupts from below the cliff, giving me an out.
“Look!” I lean over the railing, rain forgotten, and gape at the colony sprawled across the rocks, their sleek bodies piled in a chaos of flippers and open mouths. A pup slides off its mother’s back into the surf before hauling itself out again with an indignant yelp.
A sound escapes me that I barely recognize.
Laughter.
Wanting a better view, I move along the rail to where the land drops into a steeper incline and crane my neck.
“There’s so many of them!”
Suddenly, I’m yanked back, my heels skidding across the pathway. The umbrella clatters to the ground as he pulls me flush against his chest.
“Don’t,” he chokes out that single word, jaw as hard as granite, but those eyes are the true betrayers.