Chapter 25

twenty-five

Isoldeand I take the speedboat tender to the yacht itself and then board the five-hundred-foot monstrosity. The porter shows us to our rooms—adjoining suites with a shared door. Which is when I realize I’ll be sleeping where Mark would have been if he’d come, a mere door away from his betrothed.

There have got to be other empty suites on the boat, and I make a note to ask the porter if I can switch. I don’t want Isolde to feel like I’m?.?.?.?I don’t know. Lurking.

And then we’re free to explore. Isolde tells us that she’ll unpack and then see me at dinner, and I go to meet the captain and ask her about emergency protocols.

The captain gives me a tour of the ship herself, showing me every fire extinguisher and life jacket station as we pass, as well as the stairs to the tender garage and the fastest routes to the helipad.

“There are six of us on deck crew,” she says when we reach the bridge, “six on interior crew, three on galley crew, and one engineer.”

“That’s a large crew for just two guests,” I say.

Captain Duval gives me a look. She has short, tight curls, light umber skin, and straight eyebrows that she still manages to arch whenever I make a comment that shows I have no idea how boats work.

“It’s a sizable craft,” she says dryly, and then adds, “and you haven’t even seen the library or spa yet.”

And indeed, she takes me to both of those places. There are also two pools, a shaded one and one near the prow—that one has a waterfall—three hot tubs, a spacious dining room the size of a restaurant, a library, a small space with candles and kneelers that looks like a chapel, and then a room fitted with mats, kick bags, and a wall full of practice weapons.

Captain Duval shrugs at my expression. “Mr. Trevena had this fitted when he bought the ship four years ago. It’s never been used that I know of. Same with the little chapel space.”

I think of Isolde’s uncle making the sign of the cross over her bowed head. “Maybe they’re for Ms. Laurence,” I say.

“The basketball court probably isn’t though.” The captain laughs and then leaves me to go back to the bridge.

I’m grinning like a kid when I find the court just two more doors down. It’s only a half-court, and the ceiling isn’t gym height or anything, but it has a regulation wood floor and a rack of orange-brown balls. I had no idea Mark liked basketball—maybe when I get back, I’ll have to see if—

No. I have to stop thinking of him as anything other than my boss now. Even if the idea of us playing together—his front to my back as I try to move, his large hands on the ball, him gradually pinning me to the floor and tearing my shorts to my knees—makes my mouth wet.

He’s just my boss. Just the person who pays my wages and gives me mysterious rings and who’s getting married in two months.

And who am I kidding? Mark Trevena playing basketball? Really? Next I’ll delude myself into believing he likes puppies or something.

Grow up, Tristan.

* * *

We setsail right before dinner, and as I reach the dining room, I notice that one glass wall has been rolled open so there’s only a glass railing between us and the sea. Through the opening, I can see the harbor slowly disappearing behind us.

I want to make sure that Isolde is comfortable and settled here, but then I’ll endeavor to leave her alone. Probably the last thing she wants is to be trapped on a boat for three weeks with a stranger.

And anyway, it’s my job to blend into the background, to disappear. Not to hover over well-dressed Columbia grads.

I wait by the dining room entrance until Isolde silently appears, wearing the same clothes as earlier. Several locks of hair have escaped her chignon to brush along her jaw.

“Tristan,” she says when she sees me. “You didn’t have to wait for me to eat.”

“I wanted to make sure you were doing okay and that everything was to your liking,” I say as we walk over to the table. I pull out a chair for her, but after she’s seated, I don’t take a seat myself. “If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just let me know, and I’ll make it happen. Or I’ll call Mr. Trevena and he’ll make it happen. Otherwise, I’ll be out of your way and you can enjoy the boat uninterrupted by me.”

There’s a small press at one corner of her mouth, which after three months with Mark Trevena, I recognize as an aloof person’s version of a smile. “Maybe I’d like to be interrupted. Sit, please. I’d rather not eat alone tonight.”

I hesitate. “Are you sure? Mr. Trevena had hoped this would be a relaxing trip for you, and it’s understandable if—”

She’s shaking her head. Pearly hair grazes her jaw as she does, and I am mesmerized. “It hardly makes sense for us to eat apart,” she says. “And anyway, I’d feel better getting to hear about Lyonesse from you before I get there.”

I sit slowly. “Don’t you already know about it?”

The server approaches and hands us the menu, which comes with wine pairings for each course. Normally, I’d refuse, but I decide there’s no harm tonight. We’re alone with Mark’s long-term yacht crew, and the only danger is from storms or Kate Winslet–hating icebergs. It’d be permissible to lower my guard a little.

After the server leaves, Isolde adjusts in her chair. Every movement of hers is graceful, deliberate. It seems like more than good manners because there’s an awareness to it that I’m not used to seeing from civilians, like she’s conscious of the distance of the chair to the table, of the table to the door, of everything to the open sea just beyond the dining room. It’s fascinating.

“I have been to Lyonesse a few times,” she says, finally answering my question. “But the visits were brief, and—” A pause. “Specific.”

I’m not proud of what flashes through my mind right then: Mark and Isolde, cuffs and wax and him inside her, her tight cunt stretched around him as he ruts into her without mercy?.?.?.

“And I’ve never had a chance to see his office or his apartment,” she’s finishing. “It’s just hard to imagine what it will be like to live there. Have a toothbrush there and eat breakfast there and wash my socks there. You know?”

“I live at Lyonesse, just a couple floors below Mr. Trevena,” I volunteer, hoping it wasn’t obvious what I was just thinking about. “I can tell you anything you’d like to know.”

She blinks at me with those sea-colored eyes. Outside the dining room, the Irish coast passes by in tattered dunes of green and black. “I want to know everything,” she says, her mouth curving apologetically. “Truly.”

“And you haven’t asked your fiancé?” I tease with a friendly smile back.

Before Tristan. That’s who I’m being right now. Playful and kind.

The server comes with our first course, scallop crudo with pink peppercorns, and frisée lettuce, served with a white wine that tastes the same as all white wines. But it meets with Isolde’s approval, I think, because she considers it after a small sip and then takes another.

“You know Mark,” she says after she’s set down her glass. “Casual conversation isn’t really his thing.”

No, I guess it isn’t. But still. “This is hardly casual, Ms. Laurence. This is about where you’ll live.”

“Call me Isolde,” she says. “Please. We’ll be together way too much for you to ‘Ms. Laurence’ me at every turn.”

“Okay, Isolde,” I say. “What do you want to know?”

It turns out that she wasn’t exaggerating when she said she wanted to know everything. What the food is like—delicious and creepy—and if it’s loud on the weekends—the apartments are extremely well-insulated from sound—and if it feels like the staff are everywhere—yes but in a way that feels efficient and friendly, like being on base. She wants to know where I do my laundry and if I’m in the hall with Mark at night and how busy he is during the day.

“Very busy,” I answer the last. We’re onto a course of lamb, kohlrabi, and wild garlic now. The wine is red—and tastes red, about as far as my beer-drinking palate will take me—but it’s beautiful in Isolde’s hand, a deep ruby color curling in the glass. “Although less busy since the stabbing, obviously. The doctor had to get pretty stern with him about resting and recovering, but I think Mr. Trevena’s listening now.”

She sets the glass down. She blinks. “I’m sorry, Mark was stabbed?”

“Well, yeah,” I say, perplexed. “Why did you think I came in his place?”

She opens her mouth. Closes it. “I thought maybe he was busy. We haven’t spoken in a while,” she says. And then adds at my expression, “I was hired on at an art and antiquities firm right after graduation, and I’ve been scrambling a little with my new remote-work schedule.”

It’s delivered easily, not defensively, but it’s still strange. Sure, they’re both busy, but being stabbed seems like one of those events that transcends busy. And then—oh God, I’m going to hell—there’s a flare of quick, selfish pleasure at knowing that I knew. I knew, and he’s been blowing up my phone all day, demanding to know our locations, if we were safely on the yacht, if everything seems to be to her liking.

It’s my phone lighting up in my pocket, and it was my hands that wiped the blood from his chest, and it was my mouth around his cock when he needed release and was still too injured to fuck.

And then as quickly as the pleasure came, it fades away. He’s texting me about her, he sent me to get her. And the whole time I was anything to Mark, he was engaged to Isolde.

I’m suddenly miserable. With myself, with Mark, with how I still ache for him. I’m miserable looking at the elegant woman across from me, seven years younger and yet with a natural self-possession I’ll never have. The woman who accepted a blessing from a cardinal like it was as normal as a pat on the back, who seems like she has no idea her fiancé was fucking the man sitting across the table from her.

“There was an attack on Lyonesse last week,” I explain. “Mark was stabbed in the shoulder. A businessman with Carpathian rebel connections was responsible.”

Isolde licks her lips and looks down. “I thought Lyonesse was secure.”

“It was an open house—lots of guests. We thought we’d vetted them all but apparently not. And we’re increasing all of our security, background checks, everything.” Seeking to reassure her, I add, “You’ll be safe there, I promise. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll take care of you.”

She lifts her gaze to mine, and there’s an openness to her expression, like I’ve surprised her. “That’s nice of you to say,” she says. “I don’t—it’s been a while since someone’s offered that.”

I’m surprised by her surprise. “It’s my job,” I state. “And Mark has told me that you’re the most important thing in the world to him. Of course we’ll keep you safe.”

It stings to say out loud as much as it stung to hear, but I don’t think Isolde notices. Her eyes have moved to the side, to the pinks and blues dimming over the dark and broken coast.

“And he’s okay?” she asks in a murmur. “Truly okay?”

“Yes,” I say, and her expression is too opaque now for me to parse, but I think she’s relieved. Of course she is. Mark is her fiancé.

“I’m glad,” she says softly, after a long moment. And then the conversation dies until we finish our meal, and she excuses herself to go to bed.