CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

L ATER T IGER WOULD wonder how they got back to the island. He had a vague memory of walking downstairs, of shouldering his way through the crowds of partygoers, but beyond that nothing. Except Sydney’s hand curled around his neck, limply, like a rescued animal.

He had felt a new kind of anger then. Not hot, but cold, cold enough to shatter everything it touched because he wanted to raze cities, wipe out populations, smash a world that could hurt a beautiful young woman and still keep spinning in space.

Remembering that blind flinch, he felt a dark heaviness spill through his chest. The pain he had felt as a child was nothing to this.

But his pain could wait. His anger too.

He slipped off his mask, then hers. ‘Do you want me to get Silvana?’ he said gently as Sydney sat down on the bed, staring past his shoulder, her freckles standing out against the paleness of her face.

She shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’

Except she wasn’t. Even if he hadn’t heard the hollowness in her voice, he knew she wasn’t fine. She looked exhausted and frozen to the bones, and she probably was in that dress. Getting up, he closed the shutters and then the curtains and then he crouched beside her. ‘I think you should get into bed. I can help you undress or I can leave?’

She didn’t answer, which he assumed meant that she wanted him to leave and he was about to stand up when her hand caught his. ‘I don’t want you to go.’

Her shoulder blades looked small and sharp like the wings of a moth as she leaned forward so that he could unbutton the back of her dress. He helped her into the T-shirt he assumed she wore in bed when she slept alone and then he undid her hair. And all the time he was helping her, he talked to her about nothing because he wanted to make it feel normal. Wanted to make her feel safe.

As she slid under the covers, he tucked her in. But she was still shivering.

‘Let me get you something warm to drink.’

‘Could you just stay for a bit?’

He nodded. ‘I can stay. I can stay right here.’ He stretched out beside her, still fully clothed, his head on the pillow beside her. ‘Just close your eyes and try to get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.’

Her chest lifted and fell and then quite suddenly her eyes closed and she was asleep. He had planned on staying awake like some guard dog, but he must have fallen asleep too because he woke with a jolt and thought it was morning. But then he realised the lights were all still on and that Sydney’s eyes were open, her face expressionless and watchful.

‘Did I wake you?’

Shaking her head, she inched up against the pillows. ‘I think I woke you.’

Her fingers were pleating the sheet and his heart felt as if it were going to slam through his ribs, but he had to ask. ‘Did something happen there? Did someone hurt you?’

‘No. No one did anything. It was my fault. I thought it would be okay. It’s been so long, but—’

There was a silence and he could see her trying to marshal her thoughts and he wanted to pull her closer and hold her, but then he remembered how she had felt so limp and diminished when he’d carried her to the boat, and he knew that doing that would be for his benefit, not necessarily hers.

‘You don’t need to talk about it now. You don’t need to talk about it ever.’

‘I want to... It’s been such a long time... I didn’t think it would feel the same, because it was just a bit of fun. The hide and seek, I mean—’

‘But it wasn’t fun for you?’ He knew it hadn’t been, but he was terrified that she would shut down again if he pushed her.

She was shaking her head, shaking everywhere. ‘I used to hide from him when he was really angry. Which was stupid, because I knew it would make him angrier, make him hurt me more.’

A wave of rage streaked through him like lightning. There was an excruciating pain in his chest, as if someone were snapping his ribs apart.

He looked at her still, tense body. Last night, she had helped him face the shame he had felt all his life. She had made him see his father in a different way and it had loosened the knotted ball of fear and distrust and anger so that it was easier to breathe. And all she had done was let him speak.

‘Who hurt you, Sydney?’ he said gently.

Her hands stilled against the sheet and for a moment she didn’t respond. It looked as if she weren’t breathing even, and he knew that she was reluctant to go back there. ‘His name is Noah,’ she said at last. ‘Noah Barker and he was my husband.’

Husband. Tiger stared at her, his heart beating slow and hard in his chest, the air tilting around him. Sydney had been married? ‘But not any more?’

The air in the room seemed to ripple as she shook her head. ‘I left him five years ago, and then I divorced him.’

He could see then what he hadn’t wanted to see in New York. What he hadn’t been able to see because of his anger and confusion. Her defiance was an armour. That need to push back was self-defence learned the hard way.

‘How long were you with him?’

‘Just over a year. I should have left him after the first time. The first time he hit me. But he was so upset and he said it wouldn’t happen again, that he would never let it happen again, and I believed him. Or maybe I wanted to believe him. I wanted what I thought he was offering.’

Tiger stared at her, light-headed with shock, his stomach lurching, the world exploding around him. He could hardly hold onto the thread of his thoughts.

‘And he was my first. My only, until you.’

Her voice was scratchy and she seemed young then. He had a sudden, bruisingly clear memory of the two of them out in the hut by the beach. He remembered her hands pulling clumsily at his zip. He had put it down to the urgency of their hunger, but it had been her first time in five years.

‘We were in this tiny flat and he thought we needed space, so we moved out to this house way out in the desert, and it was okay for a bit. And then it happened again and it kept happening. Only we were miles from anywhere and he had taken my phone and my credit card.’

She rubbed her forehead with her fingers as if it was hurting. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You think that I’m making excuses. That I should have left, that if I really wanted to, I would have left.’

Actually, he was thinking of all the ways he could ruin Noah Barker’s life. Slowly, painfully.

He shook his head. ‘Leaving is a process, not a single act. I sat next to the head of a women’s refuge charity at some dinner. She told me it takes an average of seven attempts before a woman can leave.’

‘It took me three.’ She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘The first time he dragged me back into the house by my hair. The second time I tried to take the car and he smashed my face into the steering wheel and knocked out a tooth. This one is an implant. The real one is in the desert somewhere.’ Her voice trailed off and she pressed her fingers against her mouth as if she was remembering the pulpy feeling and the taste of blood.

‘It kept bleeding so long Noah got worried and he took me to hospital. There was this nurse and she took me off on my own and she asked me if my husband had hurt me. I should have said yes, but I was so muddled and scared. After that I stopped running. I used to hide but that was worse. He used to get so angry.’

She made a small, tense gesture with her hand.

‘Did your family know?’

He felt sick. The idea of hurting a woman was appalling but letting her be hurt was just as bad.

Her eyes skated away to the door. ‘I didn’t want them to know. I know it sounds crazy, but I was ashamed. I felt so stupid, and I thought it was my fault, that I was doing something to make him that way. That I deserved it.’

‘Why would you ever think that?’

‘Because for so long I hated being a Truitt. I love my family, but they don’t make it easy. They’re lazy and messy and they do dumb things.’

She sucked in a sharp breath. ‘When I was growing up, we never had any money and they were always in and out of trouble, and I wanted to be different. I thought I was different, better than them, and I thought Noah was better because he dressed well and he had an expensive car, and an actual job, a good job. But he was a monster and it was my dumb, lazy brothers who rescued me.’

Her cheeks were shining with tears and Tiger reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief.

‘The last time he hit me, he was so out of control. I remembered that nurse at the hospital and I stole his phone and I called Connor. I was so scared Noah would find out. He was always checking his phone and in the end I panicked and I dropped it into the oil tank.’

He hesitated a moment then put a hand on top of hers. ‘And your brothers got there before he found out?’

Scrunching the handkerchief into a ball, she nodded.

‘When Connor saw me, he wanted to kill Noah. They all did, but I wouldn’t let them do anything, only then when I went to get my things Noah told me that I was a nothing. He spat in my face.’

Her face was wet again but there was a flicker of light in her eyes, a clear, unfaltering fire that he recognised.

‘I punched him and I kept punching and Connor had to pull me off.’

He wanted to laugh, because of course Sydney had punched him, but instead he pulled her against him, kissing her face. ‘Good for you,’ he murmured, burying his face in her hair.

She looked up at him, smiling weakly.

‘I didn’t really hurt him but out of spite he must have called the police at some point and told them my brothers had assaulted him. They didn’t tell me at first and then when I found out, they wouldn’t let me go and tell them what really happened because they knew I didn’t want anyone to know about Noah, and they didn’t want me to get into trouble.’

‘That’s why you agreed to work for Harris,’ he said slowly.

Her mouth was trembling, her hands too. ‘I let them lie for me.’

Leaning back, he took hold of her wrists.

‘Look at me, Sydney,’ he said gently, but firmly. ‘I don’t know your brothers but I’m guessing they wanted to do that for you. And, yes, as a consequence they now have a criminal record for assault. But you didn’t make them run a chop shop, did you? That’s on them. And I won’t let them go to prison. Whatever they need, I will make it happen, okay? You don’t have to deal with this on your own any more, because you’re not on your own. I’m here.’ He softened his grip. ‘Have you talked to anyone else about your marriage, like friends or counsellors?’

She hesitated, then shook her head.

‘I went to a couple of DV support groups, but I didn’t speak. I thought speaking about it would make it all come back and I just wanted to forget about it. You’re the first, the only person I’ve told.’

Knowing that she had chosen him as her confidant made everything inside him spin like a pinwheel. ‘If you need someone more qualified—’

‘I don’t think I do, but thank you. It’s taken a long time but I can see now that Noah was the problem.’ She swallowed. ‘I think he knew his own limitations, and because of that he was angry at the world, and he took that anger out on me.’

‘He did. He was a bully and a coward.’ His gaze held hers, steady and direct. ‘But just so we’re clear, you did not deserve what he did to you. And you are not a nothing. You are brave and beautiful and loyal, and I am in awe of you.’ He traced a line along the curve of her cheek. ‘And, as you know, my opinion is the only opinion that counts.’

He pulled her back into his arms and held her tightly, and she tilted her face up to his and kissed him softly on the mouth. Then she pulled back and looked into his eyes and she kissed him again, this time with heat and longing.

‘We don’t have to.’

‘I want to,’ she said, finding his mouth again and pressing her lips to his. ‘I want you.’

He rolled sideways, taking her with him so that she was on top.

‘And I’m yours.’

Sydney stared down into Tiger’s beautiful face, the air leaving her body. He meant here, now, in bed. And that was enough, she told herself. He was enough. In some ways, he was too much. Like his nickname, he changed the world as he moved through it.

Look what he had done for her.

Noah had broken her and she had put herself back together but nothing fitted, everything jarred and, because it hurt, she was reminded of the ugliness and the pain and fear. And it wasn’t that she wanted to pretend that her marriage hadn’t happened, but she couldn’t move on.

But who couldn’t face their fears with a tiger by their side? Thanks to him she felt whole and strongest along her fault lines. Whole and strong and freer than she’d ever felt before. It was as if she were filled with a golden light.

Her gaze moved shakily to his face, her pulse pounding in her head because it was him. Tiger. He had pushed back the shadows inside her, his strength and certainty, so different from the kind she had known before, pouring into her, hot and pure and clean like sunlight.

She felt dizzy. Her heart felt soft and vulnerable, no longer just an organ beating blood around her body but a rose, petals bursting apart, because that was what love felt like. And she had fallen in love with Tiger.

But how? When? The answer to all those questions was the same. Who cared? She was in love.

‘Why are you smiling?’

She jolted back to him, glancing down at his gorgeous, golden face, feeling the press of his gorgeous, golden body, so gorgeous and male it made everything inside her feel sweet and honeyed.

Because I love you.

The words were there ready and waiting to spill from her lips, but how could she say them out loud?

They had known each other for such a short time that it could be counted in days. And he wasn’t looking for love or even commitment.

‘Because I’m happy.’

Small muscles creased around the corners of his eyes and he touched her face then, lightly, and, caught in his glittering gaze, she felt suddenly almost desperate to feel his mouth on hers, and his hands, and the hard length of him clenched between her legs.

Reaching down, she pulled her T-shirt up and over her head, feeling him still beneath her, and beneath the stillness a pulsing, predatory hunger that matched the hunger that was beating through her like a gong.

‘I’m happy too now,’ he said softly, and she laughed when she saw him smile, and she thought that if she could have one wish it would be that this moment would last for ever. Then he was reaching for her, stroking the swell of her breasts, and she was no longer capable of thinking.

They woke late again and took a long, warm shower together and then wandered downstairs. Smiling at two of the maids as they made their way out to the terrace, Sydney wondered if anyone could see the difference in her. It felt as if it should be visible because it felt like fireworks exploding beneath her skin. This was love, the thrilling, miraculous, absurd, mysterious, dreamlike, beautiful kind that was only supposed to happen in fairy tales.

And now that she knew what love really was, she knew that what she had felt for Noah was a pale, bloodless imitation of love, a delusion, a cruel trick. When she was eighteen, he’d seemed to represent all that glimmered only for the gilt to flake off and reveal dull lead beneath.

But Tiger, he was a ride on a roller coaster, all dips and tumbling turns and soaring upwards into a never-ending blue. He was also a safe haven, a lagoon in a stormy sea, and when his strong hands touched her skin, she could feel her scars healing. And his hands were touching her constantly. Even while they ate lunch out on the terrace, he kept reaching out to touch her almost as if she were necessary to him, like oxygen or daylight.

His phone buzzed and, pulling it from his pocket, he frowned.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s the office. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to deal with these emails.’ He pressed her hand to his mouth and kissed it and she felt an intense, almost unbearable tug of hunger ripple through her body as she imagined leading him back upstairs to bed.

‘Unfortunately, the business doesn’t stop when I do.’ He kissed her on the mouth then, and she tried not to read too much into his words. Tried to ignore the way it made her feel when he said things like that.

She’d thought he would disappear into his office, but he had lolled beside her on a lounger with his laptop and the fact that he had chosen to stay by her side simply added to the soft-focus happiness that seemed to burst from her skin every time they touched.

‘I’ve been thinking about tomorrow,’ he said slowly, sliding the laptop under the lounger.

The happiness oozed out of her. Tomorrow was always going to be her last day. On the flight over she had actually written those exact words in her diary and put a smiley face beside them. But now my last day sounded like an epitaph and she didn’t feel like smiling any more.

‘What are you thinking?’ She lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, but also to make it harder for him to see what she was thinking. His gaze seemed even more intense and golden than usual today.

‘I’ve been planning a little surprise for Harris, retribution, you might say, for his meddling in our lives. But he will come out fighting, so I’d rather you weren’t in New York when it goes live.’

‘That’s fine. I was going to go back to Los Angeles anyway.’ Her throat tightened, but there was no reason to stay in New York. Or not one she could share with Tiger.

‘You don’t have to feel responsible for me.’

Her chest felt oddly tight. Or full, maybe that was a better description. But then she was breathing so much more easily today, maybe it was just all that extra oxygen.

‘But I am,’ he said slowly. ‘So just stay in LA. Keep your head down. Maybe move back home for a while.’

‘I can handle myself.’

‘I know.’ His eyes moved over her face. ‘So how would you like to spend our last day?’

Sunlight was skimming across his face so that it was hard to see his eyes but all too easy to imagine him stretched out above her.

‘So what would you like to do? I want you to choose. We can do anything you want, go anywhere...just tell me what you like.’

‘I know you’ve probably done it a hundred times already, but I’d really like to see Venice,’ she said after a moment. ‘Properly, I mean. You know, do the touristy things? Only, would that be too boring for you?’

Tiger stared down into her face.

Boredom was the secret curse of the super-rich. To a normal person a palace or a private jet was something you dreamed about. But to the top one per cent, they were assets, the adult equivalent of trading cards that you played with at school. With nothing out of reach, it was perilously easy to get bored.

But he couldn’t imagine anything getting boring with Sydney.

It wasn’t just the sex either. Right from the start, she had challenged him, challenged his status, and she was curious, which he loved. She wanted to learn, to explore, to lift up stones and see what was underneath. Character traits that made her such a good hacker. Such a good person.

‘I can’t think of anything I’d like to do better. Except go to the moon, but maybe we can do that next,’ he said softly, and he felt his heart beat out a complicated rhythm as she smiled.

Making Sydney smile, making her happy, was not a burden but a pleasure, he thought as they made their way to St Mark’s Square the following morning.

The hand that wasn’t holding hers tightened into a fist. He couldn’t understand how anyone could have hurt her, and with such systematic brutality. He hated to think of her alone and scared and trapped. Her ex deserved to be hung, drawn and quartered. And Sydney?

She deserved so much better. She deserved to be safe and happy, and more, so much more, and he couldn’t give her everything she deserved but he could give her this.

He could give her Venice.

He gazed up at the Basilica with its great arches and Romanesque carvings and the four horses that presided over the whole piazza.

When he’d first made enough money to be able to leave the States and travel comfortably, he’d had a tick list of places to visit. All the usual suspects... London, Paris, Rome. But it was Venice that had fascinated him. There was a stubbornness to the city he liked, and an ingenuity that clicked with something in his brain. Then of course there was the architecture and the art and the food.

Since then, he had visited Venice as a ‘tourist’ on countless occasions, mostly on his own with a ball cap pulled down low over his face, his security detail discreetly matching his stride.

Visiting with Sydney was a whole lot more fun.

The landmarks felt less like scenes from postcards or backdrops to a thousand bloggers’ selfies and she was wide-eyed with excitement, wanting to know everything. He had bought her a guidebook and he let her tell him the facts. The names of the buildings. The year they were built, and why. But then he told her the stories behind them.

‘Casanova once escaped a tryst with the French ambassador and a couple of nuns by climbing across those rooftops,’ he said, as they squinted up into the sunlight to admire the Doge’s palace.

‘And that house there,’ he said, pointing to a long, low building on the Grand Canal. ‘That’s the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. It was Peggy Guggenheim’s home. She collected thousands of works of art during her time here, and thousands of lovers.’

Venice was not just a city, he thought as they sipped mimosas in Harry’s Bar. It was a world of water, dappled and delicate, of reflections in tarnished mirrors, and each time he visited, he discovered something new. And Sydney was the same. With each corner they turned, he saw another, different side to her, each one more fascinating than the last.

And for once, he didn’t try to navigate the confusion of side streets and sudden unexpected piazzas, because today the city itself seemed to be leading him somewhere.

They ate lunch in a trattoria . Vongole and red wine, watching the vaporetti glide past. And then, because he knew she wanted to, he suggested a ride in a gondola .

‘Really?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not too much of a cliché for you?’

He shrugged. ‘I can’t remember the last time I did this, so it feels new to me.’

No, that was her. He watched Sydney’s face light up as he helped her into the gondola . She made everything feel new and fresh and possible.

‘Do you really want to go to the moon?’ she asked him suddenly.

‘Ever since I was a kid.’

‘So the world isn’t enough? You have to conquer space.’

Here, now with Sydney, it felt peerless but—

‘Not conquer it. I supposed I just wanted to be someplace far away where I wouldn’t have to deal with my dad’s messes.’

She squeezed his hand.

‘What do you think?’ he asked as they glided down the Grand Canal, past the floating palaces with their filigreed, shuttered fronts.

‘I think it’s the loveliest place I’ve ever been.’ Her expression was so open and sweet it hurt to look at her. ‘Maybe it’s the water but there’s something about the light here, it feels magical. I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. I love it.’

‘They say that other cities have admirers,’ he said softly, responding to the happiness in her voice. ‘But Venice has lovers.’

Their eyes locked. Lovers. The word hovered in the air between them and his blood began pounding fiercely through his body.

Was that what they were? Yes, but only in the physical sense, he told himself, because it was obvious that they were no longer just having sex. They were more than bodies fusing in mutual need. What they felt in each other’s arms was more than pleasure. More complicated, but also less. There was understanding there and acceptance. Sydney had helped him face up to the pain of his past and address his anger with his father, and, frankly, that astonished him. She astonished him more and more with every passing hour, and he cared about her.

But love—

Not being angry didn’t mean he was ready or capable of loving anyone. His childhood had left scars, and they would always be there and no matter how he and Sydney fitted together in bed and out of it. That wouldn’t change.

He didn’t want to admit that to himself, but Sydney needed, deserved, more than he could give. She deserved to be loved.

And he had a business to run and scores to settle. That was what mattered, that and not letting a week of intimacy and possibilities make him risk turning into his father.

She was staring at him, her hair loose around her face, brown eyes wide. She looked like a Titian and he had to kiss her then. Leaning forward, he pulled her closer and fitted his lips against hers gratefully, letting himself vanish in the kiss.

As they broke apart, he couldn’t look away from the softness in her eyes.

‘Shall we go back?’ she said quietly.

Back at the island, they spent the rest of the day in bed, exploring, teasing, seducing one another. Finally, they lay, muscles relaxed, bodies warm and damp, their limbs intertwined, at ease with each other in a way that seemed both natural and miraculous. And yet something was different. He seemed distracted, as if his mind was split. Her heart squeezed a little. Could he be thinking what she was?

‘Tiger.’

‘Sydney.’ His eyes gazed down on her, pupils darkening.

‘Actually, hold that thought.’ She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’

In the bathroom, she turned on the taps, scooping up the lukewarm water, to splash her face. Straightening, she stared at her reflection. Her heart was pounding. She hadn’t needed the bathroom, but she’d had to leave. She needed some distance because it was getting harder and harder not to tell him that she loved him.

She wanted to, and she would, but she couldn’t just hijack him with her feelings. He had been hurt, and just because she was ready didn’t mean he would be. And that was fine. This was all still so new for her and she wanted to hold the feeling close and private. This feeling of love, of loving with knowledge and understanding, of loving a man who was worthy of her love, it made her feel strong and as if she were a bird soaring high and free.

For now, though, kissing him was easier.

‘What was it you wanted to say?’ he said, pulling her against him. She wriggled round so that her head was resting on his shoulder.

‘I just wanted to thank you for taking me to Venice. It was the most perfect day.’

His eyes stilled on her face as if seeing her for the first time. ‘It was. And thank you for being there for me this week. And I haven’t forgotten about your brothers. I’ll get in touch with my legal people on the flight home.’

Flight home.

She’d always known that they would be flying home this evening but hearing him say the words out loud was like having a bucket of cold water tipped over her head.

‘So we’re leaving this evening,’ she said slowly.

He didn’t speak or nod but he was already starting to sit up, shifting his weight. Retreating, she thought, her throat tightening.

‘I have a meeting tomorrow with the lead on the space agency project. To talk numbers.’

He was standing now, and had already pulled on his trousers. ‘And maybe finalise my piggybacking on one of the exploratory missions.’

‘So you really are going to go to the moon? That’s amazing. I’m so pleased for you.’ Her smile was instant and genuine. His face softened a fraction and he pulled her closer, his hand curving around her waist.

‘Hopefully, yes.’

He let go of her then without even kissing her and she stared at him in confusion.

‘Don’t look so worried. You kept your side of the deal and I’m going to keep mine. I’ll make sure your brothers get the best legal counsel.’

The deal. She stared at him, trying to breathe past the frozen lump in her chest. He must be trying to reassure her because there was more to this week than the deal they’d made in New York.

‘I just thought—’

‘Thought what?’ he said impatiently. ‘Look, Sydney, I know things have got a little blurred between us but this was only ever a temporary arrangement. ‘

Her heart stumbled. He was looking at her in the same way as he had a moment earlier and she felt a chill scamper down her spine because she wasn’t the stranger here. He was. There was a tension in him now, and a distance.

She cleared her throat. ‘Maybe I could come with you,’ she said lightly. ‘You know, watch your back. Support you.’

He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Where is this coming from, Sydney? I don’t need supporting. What I need is for you to stick to the terms of our arrangement.’

Glancing down, she realised she was naked and she reached for her robe. As she slipped it on, something flickered in his eyes, desire, and something else she couldn’t name.

‘I don’t care about the terms of our arrangement. I care about you. And I thought you cared about me. You said you did.’

Tiger was staring at her, his eyes not that clear, light gold any more, but opaque, guarded.

‘I did say that, and I meant it. In the context of you being here. With me. Now.’

The room seemed to sway a little. Here. Now. The terms of the deal had been clear from the start. Nothing had changed, and everything had. She watched him shrug on his jacket to complete his transformation back into the billionaire tycoon she had met in New York.

He glanced over at her, his forehead creasing. ‘I can make sure you’re taken care of. I can make things happen for you. Good things. You have excellent skills so maybe so if you still want that job at McIntyre—’

‘You’re offering me a job?’ She felt dazed, drunk almost. ‘I don’t want to work for you, Tiger.’

‘That’s fine. If you’d prefer to work for another company, I can make a few calls, put in a good word for you.’

She was shaking her head. Her whole body was shaking. ‘I don’t want to work for you and I don’t want you to put in a good word for me. I love you.’

She had said it before but not understood what it meant. Now she did, and she felt it spinning inside her like sugar turning to candyfloss. ‘I love you,’ she said again. Because he was worth the risk. They were worth the risk.

But Tiger was staring at her as if she had said a different kind of four-letter word. A shadow slid across the curve of his cheekbone. ‘I’m sorry, Sydney. I think you are an incredible woman—’

‘Don’t do this, don’t pretend—’

‘But this is pretend,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s only ever been a pretence, a performance.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ Her chest felt tight, and heavy. ‘I know you. I know this is real.’ It was difficult to breathe, to speak, but she had to try. ‘You’re not your father, Tiger.’

‘Maybe not, but I can’t be what you need, what you deserve.’ His eyes were dull like beaten metal. ‘I’ll call my lawyers en route .’

‘No, I’ll find another way.’

His gold eyes were darker than a solar eclipse. ‘Do me a favour. Maybe stay here until the stuff with Harris blows over.’

He stared at her for a moment and then he turned and walked swiftly through the door. Outside, she could hear the waves splashing against the shore. The world was still shifting, moving, breathing. But as she slid to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, she knew she would never be a part of it again.