Page 27

27

SUTTON

I smile. There’s a punchline coming, I’m sure.

Because he can’t possibly mean…?

Except that Oleg doesn’t return the smile.

He turns his dark, moody gaze out onto the ocean, a hurricane spewing in those hazy, golden eyes.

“Oleg, you don’t mean that.”

“I do,” he says curtly, his voice betraying nothing. “I’m the one that killed my father.”

I take a deep breath and put my hand on his arm.

His eyes snap down, his lips curling over his teeth. “What are you doing?”

“I believe they call it ‘giving comfort.’”

“I just told you that I killed my father and you’re trying to comfort me?”

I refuse to recoil from his tone. This is the insecure, broken part of him trying to push me away—and I’m done being pushed away.

“If you killed your father, I know it wasn’t intentional.”

His eyes dim. “How can you be sure?”

“I’m not,” I say. “It’s just… a feeling. Maybe it’s instinct.”

“And your instincts can be trusted, can they?”

This time, I do flinch. A smart woman would take the cue and back down.

But as I’ve already established, when it comes to men, we Palmer women are far from smart.

“I don’t know. But they’re all I have to count on. Unless you’re going to stand there and tell me that you put a gun to your father’s head and pulled the trigger…?” I pause, waiting for him to jump in. He doesn’t. “Did you?”

He waits an unreasonably long time before he responds. “No.”

“I thought so.” I keep my hand firmly on his. “Do you wanna give me some context?”

“I killed his only daughter and that robbed him of the will to live.”

“Jesus, Oleg. You didn’t kill anyone! Stop saying shit like that.”

He turns to me, the full force of those eyes boring into my soul. “You don’t know the whole story.”

“Maybe you should tell me the whole story then.”

But still, he hesitates, uncertain in a way I’ve never seen from him before.

“If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t push you on it,” I tell him. “But if you’re going to confess to crimes, then be prepared to explain why. Because I don’t believe you killed anyone. Your sister and girlfriend died on a boating accident?—”

“They died because I was foolish, reckless, and arrogant,” Oleg barks. “Yes, they died in a boating accident. An accident that was caused by an explosion that I was directly responsible for.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“I thought I was some kind of mad scientist of the sea. I used to play around with the engines, making little tweaks here and there, trying to improve the system. I took things a little too far one day and… Boom.”

There are goosebumps covering my arms. I know he can see them, feel them, but I can’t bring myself to remove my hand from his.

“Elise and Oriana were below deck in their cabin. Which happened to be right next to the engine room.”

“Oh, God…”

“I can’t say for sure what their last few moments were like. But they must have smelled smoke… must have smelled that something was burning. Before they themselves burned.”

I blink. Tears I didn’t even know had collected are sliding down my cheeks.

“I didn’t— There wasn’t enough time for me to do anything. By the time I realized what was happening, it was over. The explosion took out half the yacht. When we found their bodies, I couldn’t even tell which one was Oriana and which one was Elise.”

I want him to stop. I can’t bear to hear this.

But the fact that he feels like he can bear to go on makes me feel like I can bear to listen.

“That night was the first and only time I saw my mother lose control. You know how frigid and unemotional she can be. That veneer never cracked—not even once in the eighteen years I’d known her. But that night, she ran onto the dock, barefooted in her nightgown, screaming so loudly that it felt like the sky was shaking from the sound.”

My nails tighten around his arm. I say nothing.

“She would have run right onto the burning boat if my father didn’t stop her. She scratched and clawed at him, but he didn’t let her go. He held her until all the fight had left her.”

“Where were you?”

“Stuck flat on my face. The force of the explosion threw me right off the yacht and onto the dock. I couldn’t move. I could barely see except for shadows. One half of my face felt like it was melting. It wasn’t until later that I realized that that’s exactly what was happening.”

“God, Oleg,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around him. “What you must have endured…”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Sutton. I don’t deserve your pity.”

“What about my admiration then?”

He rips away from my arms. “‘Admiration’?” he growls as though I’ve thrown an insult at him. “You admire me for murdering my sister and my girlfriend.”

“You murdered no one,” I say furiously. “You told me the whole story. I know what happened now and what happened was an accident.”

He looks out into the sea. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

“Only because you’re a decent man who loved his sister and his girlfriend!” I say fiercely. “You have survivor’s guilt?—”

“They would be alive if it hadn’t been for me, Sutton! I’m the one who made the changes to the engine that resulted in it combusting?—”

“I don’t care!” I practically scream.

He studies me. “Maybe you should.”

I shake my head. “I finally get it.”

“What do you get?”

“Why you need contracts and lawyers and NDA’s before you can have anything remotely resembling a relationship with a woman.”

“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me. Others have tried and?—”

Ignoring that, I talk over him. “It’s because you feel you don’t deserve anything real. So you hide behind your contracts to make sure that whatever you have with a woman is ‘fake.’”

“That’s me all figured out, isn’t it?” he deadpans. “You’ve got it sorted.”

“Not even close,” I whisper. “But it’s one part of the puzzle that makes a little more sense to me now.”

His eyebrows flatline as he turns from me. “It’s getting late. You should get some rest.”

“You’re just proving my point, you know,” I call out, following him towards the cabin. “But pushing me away isn’t going to work anymore, Oleg. I see you. I fucking see you. You’re not a monster and you’re certainly not a beast.”

He spins around, eyes flashing, nostrils flared. “Maybe you’re just seeing what you want to see.”

“Or maybe I’m seeing what you don’t want to see.”

“Which is what?”

“That you’re lonely !” I cry. “And you don’t want to be anymore!”

He veers back. “Christ, woman! Are you stupid? This is just you, grasping at straws, trying to turn the Beast into Prince Charming to fulfill this moony-eyed fantasy you have of a happily-ever-after.”

“That’s not?—”

“That’s the difference between us. We’re both fucked up. But at least I know I’m fucked up.”

Vengeful heat spreads through my body. I want to punch him just as much as I want to kiss him.

We stand there, squared off as though weapons are about to be drawn. There are a hundred different insults running through my head. A dozen different ways I can think of to wound him.

But fucked up as I might be—I’m still self-aware enough to know that I don’t want to wound him.

Not really.

Not in any way that matters.

“Okay.” I gulp and nod. “I’ll accept that. I’m fucked up. You say you are, too.” I slip a little closer towards him and take his hand. “So maybe… we can be fucked up together?”

Silence. He stares at me as though I’ve grown a second head.

If I have, I hope it’s more sensible than the one I’ve already got on my shoulders.

Then, finally, his eyes soften.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Fucking fuck.”

“We’re going to have this baby together, Oleg. We’re going to be co-parenting together. Wouldn’t you rather get along while we do it?”

He takes a deep breath. “You might be a lot smarter than I am, princess.”

I smile. “There’s no ‘might’ about it.”

He snorts with laughter, pulling me into his arms. “You’re not going to distract me this time,” he growls before his lips come down on mine like a storm.

Just as he pulls off my t-shirt, we’re interrupted by the sound of an alarm.

I bounce back, my pulse racing with panic. “What the hell is that?”

He curses and charges into the control booth.

I follow him to an innocent-looking phone settled beside the steering wheel. He answers and the alarm goes silent.

At first, Oleg says nothing at all. Then he growls something in Russian and hangs up.

“Was that actually a ringtone?”

“It’s the emergency ringtone,” Oleg explains. “It was designed to get my attention.”

“And scare the bejeezus out of everyone on board.”

Oleg doesn’t crack a smile. “I’m sorry, Sutton, but we’re going to have to turn this boat around. There’s been a situation back on land.”

“Is everyone alright?” I gasp, immediately jumping to the worst-case scenario, imagining Jesse or Teo, Mara or Sydney.

“It’s not what you think,” he says as though he knows exactly what I’m worried about.

“Then—”

“It’s Boris.”