Page 43

I N THE DEAD OF NIGHT, I CAN’T SLEEP.

I slip into the hallway leading to the lobby, where I find the stairwell out to the Sonnfjord Inn’s observation deck.

The night wind hits me coldly when I exit the stairs onto the rooftop platform, but the chill is worth what waits above—the northern lights. They glow overhead in stunning pathways of illumination. Like gemstones impossibly dashed over the darkness in gleaming rays of color.

Under their emerald patterns, I find I’m not the only sleepless guest. Tom faces the lake, his lithe silhouette framed in the heavenly light.

My grandmother wanted idyllic Norwegian romance for me and Tom.

I intend to use the opportunity for the real heart of our relationship.

He needs to know I stole the ring. I need to know what he’s learned from Mia.

If Owens family members find us up here, the explanations write themselves.

Incriminating, just not in the right way.

“You know, I’m not easy to impress,” I admit, unable to take my eyes off the sky.

“Yes, well, I do select my winter wear dashingly,” Tom replies without hesitation.

I laugh. “Not what I meant.”

He smiles, saying nothing. I watch the unearthly colors dance over his features.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask.

“Needed to clear my head.” Finally, he looks to me. “I talked to Mia about the Knives,” he says.

I don’t know what to make of his tone or his comment about clearing his head. “Was she suspicious you brought it up?” I ask, hesitant.

“She was the one to mention it,” he replies. “She wants me to want her. She thinks wealth is the key to my heart.”

I watch him. Impassive, even now, with wonderment overhead.

“Isn’t it?” I ask. Suspicion doesn’t compel my question.

I’m genuinely curious. Tom hides himself well, I’ve noticed, not often permitting anyone glimpses into his inner workings.

Mechanisms of sarcasm and performance hold shut the doors of Thomas Pham’s soul.

He’s giving me the opportunity to infiltrate them now, whether intentionally or not, and the chance to pass locked doors is one I rarely forgo.

“Sometimes I even wonder if people like us have hearts,” he replies.

The insight is what I wanted. The response is not. It shocks me quietly.

“I have one,” I reply defensively.

Tom’s expression never changes. The wind gusts over us, ruffling his perfect hair.

“Maybe there’s one difference between us after all,” he replies.

His words whisper over me like the cold, and I feel suddenly…

so sad for him. Does he really think himself incapable of loving anyone in a real way?

He sounds like he’s rejected the idea. Closed himself off.

What if his sarcasm, his gentleman-impresario swagger, is just the ruse no one ever expects—a vault with nothing inside? What if past them he’s… empty?

Whatever else I feel for Thomas Pham, he is my friend. I can’t leave his confession undisputed. “I think you have a heart, Thomas,” I say softly.

He looks over. The hesitant warmth in his features isn’t performed.

Yet when he replies, only droll intrigue reaches his words. “And what would you have me do with it, Olivia?” he inquires.

I recognize his move—rerouting the conversation into one of our games, into the dynamic where I’m the unflinching mastermind and he, the roguish operative.

I understand the impulse, even. Pushing people away, replacing the risks of others’ kindness with frosty professionalism.

He wants to evade my efforts to care about him.

Unfortunately for him, Olivia Owens does not give up.

“Your heart isn’t one of my chess pieces,” I insist. “It’s not one of yours, either.”

Tom pauses. He gazes out into the darkness for a few moments while the enchanting lights shimmer on.

“Perhaps,” he finally replies.

With his concession, I feel like I’ve won more than a debate.

“Mia thinks I haven’t made a move on her because I’m a gold digger who lost interest when Leonie announced she’d be buried with her fortune,” he says. “So she showed me the cuff links.”

I frown. “Just… to flaunt her new friends?”

“Not exactly,” Tom replies. “Whatever this Knives Club is, I don’t think they’re in it for one another’s charming company.

Mia made it clear it’s worth so much more than whatever Leonie does or doesn’t leave to her descendants.

Enough to set her up for life. She’ll inherit money and power no matter what.

She encouraged me to think long-term about our relationship. Beyond this week.”

“Tempting,” I say with a scoff.

Tom doesn’t laugh. “She raises an interesting point,” he remarks.

“Yes, she does,” I concede slowly. “If Mia can use the resources of this Knives Club, she’s way more dangerous than we thought.”

“Right,” Tom replies. “Not what interests me, though.”

His intentional vagueness is enough to pull my eyes from the night sky—which is saying something. I find Tom surveying the green-hued ice, impassive in evaluation of the Norwegian mountains’ majesty.

“There’s more than one way for me to claim the Owens fortune,” he continues. “I could become one of them.”

My breath freezes in my lungs.

Not from the climate outside, either. No, the frost of our rooftop surroundings doesn’t match the impact of Tom’s implication.

He meets my gaze now. Instead of the cunning, self-interested Thomas Pham I expected to find, he’s… imploring. He’s not just strategizing, I realize. He means what he’s saying in ways I could never have predicted. He wants this.

Wants… me. I may have pried past his personal vault locks earlier. Now, for whatever reason, he’s opening the door himself.

“I fit in well with your family, Olivia. Better than with my own,” he insists. “You and I make a good team. We could rule this world. Their world. Our world, if we wanted.”

I don’t know what to say. What he’s suggesting…

“Tom,” I say, my voice incredulous but not unkind. “I’m with Jackson.”

“And what does that alliance give you, Olivia?” he asks.

There’s dangerous momentum in his reply—snow sliding down a mountainside with devastating speed.

“We’ve been living in a castle this week.

It’s… inspiring. Why shouldn’t we live like kings and queens?

” His eyes return to the horizon. “Not chess pieces,” he says. “Royalty.”

In the ice sword of his gaze, I don’t see him watching the lights.

I see him overlooking a frozen kingdom.

I wish I didn’t understand him. But… part of me does. The daunting cold of his logic doesn’t mean it isn’t logical.

Ever the opportunist, Tom considers my silence as an invitation to continue.

“Think long-term, Olivia. I know who has your heart. Forget your heart,” he murmurs.

“What about your mind ? Imagine,” he ventures, “someone who understood your every plan, your every intention, your darkest designs, innately. Like they were his own.”

His own. Tom is proposing something—impossibly— more than a relationship. Partnership. The duo of deceit I’ve imagined since my first heist entered my head.

“Tom,” I repeat, resenting my lack of rebuttal. Is reciting his name the only defense I have?

Tom hears my resistance. He knows I’m close to rejecting him. He plays his checkmate move.

“You would never be able to hurt me,” he says. “Not the way you could hurt him.”

Now my face crumples.

Tears freeze on my lashes. Because I know Tom is horribly, profoundly right. I can hurt Jackson. Ruin Jackson. Just as Leonie warned me.

Tom, though? Tom just told me he doesn’t have a heart to break. He would be safe. While I… could be whoever I want to be. Without risking the person who means more to me than a partnership in crime.

Surrendering to the reality of what he’s saying would protect me. It would be easy. Logical. Careful.

Except I…

I don’t want to.

While I’ve always known we were similar, looking into the incandescent night, I decide I don’t want to be like Tom.

I don’t want to wonder if I’m beyond love.

I’m not Jackson, not my grandmother, not my father.

I want to be someone new. Myself. Ruthless and giving, selfish and selfless, vengeful and merciful. The diamond and the darkness.

The resolution makes my next words easy.

“I love him,” I say, meaning it. “He doesn’t have to give me anything.”

Thomas studies me. Looking for the lie.

He doesn’t find it, which is because I’m not lying.

Then, with nothing more to say, he walks past me. He continues to the stairs leading down from the deck.

I wonder whether anything in Tom aches at my words. It would mean deep down Thomas Pham does have a heart.

I follow him in silence the entire way down. We don’t stop until we get inside the stairwell’s entrance room, designed for us to stomp off our snow boots on our return into the lobby.

“There’s more than one heiress to this family, of course,” Tom says quietly.

Instantly, I understand the threat in his words. I’ve always considered Tom my strongest alliance. Now he’s hinting he could switch sides.

He isn’t the only one with checkmate moves, though.

I unzip my jacket. Pulling aside my shirt, I reveal where the ring rests above my bra.

“Do what you want, but Mia won’t be inheriting anything but those cuff links,” I reply.

I notice how Tom’s stare lingers on my bare skin. But when his eyes lift to mine, there’s nothing but dark determination sparkling in them.

“Well played, King,” he says.