Authors: Amber Bardan
“What are you doing?”
“Give-me-a-phone-now.” The sentence rushed out as a single word.
He came closer.
“Stop,” I said, holding out my free hand. “Go get me a phone, or I drop this in the ocean.”
Haithem stopped moving and held up both his palms. “Angelina, we are miles away from any mobile phone towers. Do you really think a phone would work out here?”
“I think there’s no way you’d be out here without some way to reach the outside world. I think you most definitely have a satellite phone or something capable of making a call.”
I breathed heavily.
Haithem watched me and smiled a smile so cold it almost gave me frostbite. “Clever girl. I didn’t expect you to be so sneaky. I’m surprised.”
“Good,” I said.
He took a step, and I raised my hand further over the railing.
Haithem paused. “I won’t be next time, though. You only get to fool me once.”
“Shut up and get me a phone.”
“No,” he said.
My heart beat as if I’d swallowed a mouthful of speed. So fast it hurt. “I swear I’ll drop it.”
He moved closer.
“I won’t say anything about you—I’ll just put my family at ease.”
He smiled wider but just as coldly.
Fuck, he knew he had me.
Haithem closed in.
I couldn’t let him win.
I could drop his necklace in the ocean. I could test him and see what he was really made of. What he’d do to me. Find out who I was really trapped with. Put my infatuation with him to the test when I suffered whatever punishment doing something so reckless would get me.
But I’d never been brave. When I was little, I was the first to cry at the mention of a blood test. God, how I hated needles. Dad used to call me a wuss.
Now I wanted to push, to see how mortal this peril I was in might be.
I, more than most people, understood the full significance of my own mortality. I might be flirting with danger, but these days I wanted to
live
.
The only question remaining was how I now defined being alive.
Haithem reached my side, his fingers moving toward the wrist I held over the railing.
Don’t be such a wuss, Angelina.
I flinched, hearing my father’s words in the back of my brain.
I opened my hand and let go.
ELEVEN
T
HE
NECKLACE
FELL
straight as an arrow—from my hand into the dark gray water lapping against the side of the yacht. Haithem didn’t watch the necklace fall, didn’t lean over the railing and yell like a person who’d just lost something valuable. He kept his gaze on me, his lips tightening over his teeth the instant my fingers opened.
Silence extended between us. The only sounds were the ocean and the roar of blood in my ears. White clouds blanketed the sky. They must have moved, because it grew darker on deck. I stared at Haithem, unblinking. My heart didn’t seem to want to stay in my chest—it rattled my rib cage.
I wanted to hit Rewind, reverse time by a few moments and take back my actions. I’d always known Haithem was dangerous. Looking at him now, his features tight and cold, bristling with fury, I knew again for sure. He wasn’t a man you’d want to cross.
But I had.
I’d messed up. I just prayed I had it in me to survive the penalty.
Yet I’d wanted this. Wanted to watch him explode. I guess I could call this buyer’s remorse. I fell against the railing. He still gripped my wrist. My throat tightened, but I needed to speak, needed to be the one to crack through the silence.
“What are you going to do to me now?” My voice didn’t shake, but my body did.
Haithem raised his brow. “Do to you?” His voice dripped with honey, laced thick with a false sweetness that was perhaps more terrifying than if he’d yelled at me.
Not that I wanted to hear him yell.
Not at all.
“I’ll pay for this, won’t I? You’ll punish me some way... I know you will.”
He turned closer to me, trapped me between his body and the railing. He didn’t let go of my wrist, nor did he hurt me. He could’ve. He could’ve squeezed, exerted just enough pressure to make me a little more afraid.
He didn’t.
Maybe that counted for something.
“Because you know me so well?” He finally dropped my wrist. He didn’t need to hold me anymore. He had me right where he wanted me. “Who am I, then?”
Who is he?
I stared at the stubble on his neck, black spikes that ran toward his chin. His skin didn’t move, didn’t jump at the base of his throat the way he must’ve seen mine flickering like crazy. I gripped the railing.
I had no idea who Haithem was.
Someone up to no good, sneaking around in secret, afraid to let me go. I could only speculate. Spy, secret agent, mobster, criminal? Who knew... Maybe he was even a pirate, after all?
But the one thing I did know was that at that exact moment, I was no one to him. Not a lover, not a friend, not an ally—just a sexual conquest gone wrong.
A problem.
Something told me I wouldn’t like the way Haithem dealt with problems.
He touched my face. I flinched, but he just guided my chin up, forced me to look at him. “I’m not going to punish you.”
I swallowed. “You’re not?”
He brushed his thumb against my chin as though he was wiping a smudge. “No, you did me a favor.”
“A favor?”
“Yes, a very big favor.”
His words didn’t relax me, didn’t reassure me. If anything, my skin pulled tighter around me as all my hairs stood on end.
“Don’t you want to know what that necklace was worth?”
I shook my head, and his hand stayed on my chin throughout the movement.
“It was worth a million dollars.” He leaned in and whispered. “It was worth a million dollars, and I let you drop it into the ocean.”
My heart had never beat that fast. Through all the shock of the past few days, that moment was the worst. I couldn’t get in enough air; I gasped as though I were breathing at an ultrahigh altitude.
“I let you do that.” He removed his hand from my face and stepped back. “So you see now, there’s no price I won’t pay to win.”
He didn’t smile now. His features were even, contained, his words almost businesslike. “There’s nothing you can do to bribe me, nothing you can threaten me with.”
Every movement of the yacht made my stomach turn, made the world spin.
“There’s nothing you can do at all.”
The swaying was too much, and my knees gave way. I slid to my backside, and the world grew quiet.
Haithem
P
ERHAPS
ANGER
FUELED
my ruthlessness. I left her huddled on the ground and sought the solitude of my office. She’d fooled me for an instant. They’d chosen her so well. A sleeper no one would suspect, living in the bosom of her family, waiting for that one mission only an asset like her could fulfill.
She was smart, opportunistic, resourceful.
Not to be underestimated again, no matter how wide she could make her eyes. I placed the notepad she’d written on in the locked drawer of my desk. I’d promised to send an email to her family. Promised to alleviate their worry.
I lied.
Because the thing about my little stowaway was she had everything to lose. Assets like her always did. She might be groomed to place her mission above family—but that didn’t mean weaknesses could no longer be exploited.
That was the difference between them and me.
None of my weaknesses survived. And if I didn’t defeat her, neither might I.
I flipped open the folder Karim had left me and examined the contents. The headlines and articles tugged a knot beneath my sternum. I’d known after she’d passed out from fever that this was a possibility. Another day on top of the twelve hours she’d hidden away, they’d be looking for a missing person.
Now we could add the eyes of the world to those who hunted me. I slammed the folder shut, then jammed it back in the drawer. She’d almost won that round.
We were on.
There was a reason they gave prisoners with life sentences the prospect of parole—hope. Incentive drives a person.
I’d give her incentives. I’d give her promises.
Angelina would have hope—even though there was none.
I went to the window and peered through the blinds. She’d crawled onto a deck chair and curled onto her side. I rubbed the place between my ribs, because something deep inside ached just at the sight of her.
She’s mine now.
* * *
I
FELL
.
Through darkness. Through gray-blue. Just like that necklace, I sank clean through the water without causing a single ripple.
Down, down, down.
I didn’t scream. Didn’t cry out. It was like flying. Freely flying toward my own death. I wasn’t even afraid. In a way, it was a relief.
I breathed in deep. Water filled my lungs but didn’t drown me.
“Angelina.”
I kicked my legs, pushing up toward the sound of the voice. Light shone above me. I shot toward it then looked up to the surface and froze. A face looked down at me, obscured by rippling water.
I blinked, and the ripples cleared around the face. My face. Except not. Me...but male. As if I was a boy. As though I’d been torn in half and made into two parts.
“Angelina.”
Memory pushed at the edges of my mind, and I swam closer. I knew this face. I’d tried so hard to lock it away behind layer upon layer of repression.
He
was there, above me, just on the other side of the water. He reached for me, his hand plunging through the water, stretching toward me. Urgency exploded through my system. Kicking my legs, I strained for him. My arms flung out—my legs flailed. I had to get to
him
. Before it was too late.
Before he was gone again.
The space between me and the surface grew. I screamed beneath the water, my voice a warbling roar. “
Josh.
”
The name left me, not from my mouth but from somewhere deep in my chest. The name almost forgotten by my tongue.
“Angelina.”
The surface opened, and I sprang forward. Air rushed into my lungs, and I was once again on the yacht.
Haithem, in all his terrifying gorgeousness, leaned over me. “You shouldn’t sleep in the sun—you’ll dehydrate.”
I rolled off the deck chair I’d curled up on and landed on my hands and knees. My joints shuddered with the impact.
“Fuck, you’re dehydrated already, aren’t you?”
Was that why I shook so hard I couldn’t make it to my feet? My mouth pooled with water. I wasn’t dehydrated.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Footsteps receded.
I couldn’t move from my hands and knees. My limbs seemed locked in place. An image filled my thoughts, sent memories rushing through me.
A lifetime of memories.
I’d just invented time travel. Because my life from the first moment I could remember streaked though my vision.
Except all my memories centered around one person.
Josh
.
His name filled my brain, right there with his image. His name, which I’d banished from my vocabulary.
Footsteps approached, and a hand rested on my back.
I shook harder.
Because now the name reached my lips. The face swam in my mind. The soul loomed so close I could feel it next to me like a phantom limb.
So close, somewhere between here and memory.
Josh
, my twin.
There was his name again. The name I’d not spoken, not once, not even in therapy, where I’d upheld my vow of silence. But somehow on the floor, shaking so hard I don’t know how I kept my stomach from spilling, the name curled on my tongue, waiting for me to release it out loud.
“Here,” Haithem said, and a glass of water appeared below my face.
A sob rattled my chest.
“Angelina?”
Another sob shook me, dragging painfully from my belly, up my ribs and into my shoulders. Strong hands pulled me up, helped me to sit, then hauled me against a chest as hard as steel, but warmer than the sun’s rays beating on my back. His arms wrapped around me, and I couldn’t resist his embrace. I cried. I sobbed, heaving and ugly, jerking and shaking.
A year’s worth of tears.
Haithem stroked my back, held on to me so tightly that he kept me tethered to sanity. I said nothing, just hiccupped and croaked, yet I could feel my secrets flow from me to him.
Evil bastard.
Holding me while I cried. Making me share things I didn’t want to share. Apparently my heart wasn’t as resistant to him as my mind was.
I cried harder.
He held me tighter.
Eventually, there wasn’t anything left to cry. I didn’t know there was a limit to how many tears one person can produce, but they did run out.
He held the glass of water to my lips, and I sipped. My head pounded with the onset of a migraine. No more tears flowed, but my breaths still shuddered.
“You’ve hardly eaten.” He pulled me to my feet, let me lean against him. “Let’s get you something.”
He guided me into the cabin, sat me on the couch and draped a throw over me. I tipped to the side, lying against the soft pillows. Haithem walked to the intercom and barked something at the person at the other end of the line. I pulled the throw to my chin. My teeth chattered, but I wasn’t cold.
Damp hair brushed from my face. His fingers smoothed over my temple and dipped behind my ear. Then his thumb swiped my cheek, pushing away the remaining wetness.
I hiccupped.
Asshole
.
Wiping away my tears. Acting like my friend. Acting like someone I could trust. I couldn’t trust him.
Yet he was the only one I’d entrusted with my tears...
Stupid
.
Now he had a new power over me. The power of knowing I could cry. The power of having held my pain and seen just how heavy that bitch was.
“You know I’m not keeping you here simply for my own pleasure, don’t you?”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see his bastard face. I had no freaking idea why he kept me. Only what he’d told me, which wasn’t much, and I still didn’t know what I could believe from him, anyway.
“I’m doing my best to get you home.”
Home
.
I shuddered again. My parents. Now that I’d started thinking, I couldn’t stop. About Josh, about how we’d lost him. About how they wouldn’t be able to take losing me, too.
I had to shut it down, turn off this thinking crap.
I’d done just fine the past twelve months—well, most of the past twelve months—blocking everything out. I still hurt. Still hurt every day. But I could make myself not acknowledge the source. I just needed to figure out how to do that again. Footsteps entered the room, and I opened my eyes.
Karim set a tray on the table, nodded to Haithem and walked back out.
Haithem collected the tray, returning a moment later with a bowl and spoon. “Eat some soup.”
I shook my head.
Anything that went down now would definitely not stay down.
“You’ll feel better after you eat.” His voice went a little quieter. “I promise, just try some.”
Damn him. Why’d he have to go and sound all caring?
Mind games.
He knelt beside me. I looked at him. His face reflected the warmth of his voice. The cool around me thawed. It was as easy as that—his eyes looking at me all softly, his lips pursed so tenderly.
As if he was someone else. As if he was someone who actually had a heart.
Where had that caring person been before?
How risky it was, how foolish I’d been, to give in to this softer side of him. I wanted to know what it’d be like to have him hold me now. Fondly, comfortingly. When I wasn’t crying. But that would be taking foolishness too far.
I sat up and took the bowl from him. He rose then sat across from me. I lifted the spoon and brought it to my lips, sucking in a mouthful of hot, salty broth. The soup hit my empty stomach like a bucket of lead. I dropped the spoon back into the bowl. My stomach turned, hungry yet rebelling. I reached over and put the bowl on the side table next to the couch, then curled up against the pillows.
Haithem sighed but said nothing, only stretching his legs out in front of him. He watched me. Except his watching me didn’t make me nervous. His watching me made me want him to come sit with me and let me rest my head in his lap instead of on fluffy pillows.