“You’ll feel better after you sleep,” he added, and when I didn’t immediately close my eyes, he sighed and brushed his thumb across my knuckles.
The gesture was so gentle, so startlingly intimate, it felt like a wound opening.
And then his phone rang.
The sharp sound cut through the quiet of the cabin, shattering the strange, fragile stillness between us.
Kieran stiffened. His gaze flicked toward the bedside table where the device buzzed insistently, screen flashing with a name I didn’t need to see to recognize.
Celeste.
I felt it like a punch to the gut.
He’d made me leave my phone back in LA and warned me not to give anyone the number of the encrypted phone-for Daniel’s safety.
And yet…
Kieran didn’t move at first. His jaw tightened, his hand still warm around mine. For a heartbeat, I thought he would ignore it-that he would stay.
But the ringing continued, as insistent and demanding as Celeste herself.
Finally, with a muttered curse under his breath, he eased my hand back onto the sheets and stood. His expression was unreadable, but I could feel the tension radiating off him in waves.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and it sounded like a promise I wasn’t foolish enough to hold on
He left the cabin, closing the door behind him, and the silence that followed was deafening.
I should have let myself drift into the medicated haze, let sleep claim me, and wash the sickness from my body.
But instead, I found myself pushing weakly upright, straining to hear through the thin barrier of the door.
And I heard everything.
Kieran’s voice was low at first, clipped in that way he spoke when he was dealing with unpleasant business.
“Celeste,” he said, by way of greeting, and he must have put the phone on speaker because though I couldn’t hear her words clearly, I could hear the sharpness of her tone, a barrage of sound that spilled through even the wood and metal.
And then, I pushed myself out of bed and shuffled closer.
“How’s the trip going?”
“Good. We’re on the yacht now.”
“Ashar’s pride…” Her voice trailed off wistfully. “I haven’t been on it yet.”
“You will soon. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go, just you and me.” Kieran’s voice sounded cold and distant, not like he was promising the love of his life a romantic cruise.
Celeste’s voice sounded lighter. “Good, I can’t wait.”
A loaded pause.
And then: “Are you keeping your promise?”
“Yes,” Kieran sounded like he was gritting his teeth.
“Really? You’re keeping your distance from her?”
I didn’t need to wonder who ‘her’ was. Celeste’s cold disdain said it all.
And then came the lie.
“Yes,” Kieran said. “We’re keeping our distance. I haven’t seen her since we boarded.”
The words landed like ice in my chest.
Celeste’s laughter rang faintly, pleased, smug. I imagined her-perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect ambition-reclining somewhere with a glass of wine, secure in the knowledge that Kieran Blackthorne belonged to her.
“That’s good,” her voice carried faintly. “I just hope Sera and Daniel’s…complication is resolved soon. When you come back, we’ll finally officially get engaged. I can’t wait, Kieran.
I want children-several. Daniel will love being a big brother, don’t you think?”
My stomach, already unsettled, lurched violently. Not from seasickness this time.
At first, Kieran said nothing.
“Kie?”
Then, a harsh chuckle that sounded like it had been wrenched from him. “Yeah, I can’t wait.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth, bile burning the back of my throat.
So this was what we had come to. This was what our fractured, bitter history had led me back to: lying in a bed on his ship, listening to him promise a future with someone else.
I wanted to hate him. I wanted to despise him with the kind of fury that burned clean through the bones.
But beneath the anger was something softer. Something far more dangerous.
It hurt.
It hurt that for the first time, he had touched me with care, and yet his heart-or whatever passed for it-was already spoken for.
It hurt that after all the years of indifference, now he suddenly looked at me as though I mattered, only to step outside and prove I didn’t.
I sank back against the pillows, closing my eyes tight as tears threatened. The medicine blurred my edges, pulled me under, but not fast enough to drown out the echo of Celeste’s voice.
“Several children,” she had said.
The words rang in my skull as the ship rocked me into fitful sleep, the ocean’s endless sway as merciless as the words I had overheard.
KIERAN’S POV
Celeste’s words clung to me, long after I hung up, like a stain I couldn’t scrub out.
‘We’ll finally officially get engaged.’ ‘I want children-several.’
She’d rattled them all with such bright certainty, as if my agreement were already carved into stone.
And I’d said what Celeste wanted to hear just to get her off the line.
But the moment I’d hung up, I found myself pacing the narrow stretch of deck outside the cabins, restless, the briny wind doing little to cool the uncomfortable heat pressing down on me.
I didn’t understand why I was feeling this way.
Marriage, children-they were all things I wanted with Celeste, so why did the thought make me consider getting seasick medication of my own?
Not because I didn’t want more children. Gods, I wanted them-a bigger family, a home alive with laughter. But…
I couldn’t understand why the image of Celeste swollen with my child felt…wrong. Foreign.
Hollow.
I ran a hand through my hair, letting out a frustrated curse.
How could something I’d wanted for so long suddenly leave a sour taste in my mouth?
I shook my head. I didn’t have to think about this until I went back to LA. Until then, there
( were other pressing matters to attend to-like making sure Sera survived this trip.
When I finally calmed my raging thoughts down enough to step back inside, I moved toward Sera’s cabin, rehearsing what I might say, what excuse I might give for taking so long.
But the words slipped away when I saw her. She was curled on the bed, the medication I’d forced on her lulling her into what looked like an uneasy sleep.
Her skin was pale, her hair damp at the temples, but her chest rose and fell steadily.
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