Page 86 of The Honeymoon Hack

“I thought so.” He didn’t ask why, just nodded once and guided me to his quarters. They mirrored mine and Will’s layout, but with a single bed and only one of everything wehad two of. The same neutral furnishings in muted blues and grays, the same elegant bathroom, the same high-end finishes designed to make this underground bunker feel like luxury accommodations.

I collapsed into his desk chair, my fingers finding the wedding ring I’d hurriedly picked out less than a week ago. It was one more lie, but now, it was a physical reminder of everything that had happened with Will.

I should have ripped it off and thrown it across the room. Instead, I twisted it around my finger like a meditation.

Rav moved to his mini-fridge without a word, pulled out a bottle of water, and removed the cap. He handed it to me. “Drink.”

I accepted the bottle and did as he said.

“Mission stress?” Rav asked, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

I nodded quickly, grateful for the out. “It’s a lot. The constant lying, the pressure.”

“Mmm.” His noncommittal hum said he wasn’t buying it, but he wouldn’t push. That was Rav’s way—patient, observant, waiting for you to come to him. He’d been the same when I was eleven, Scarlett’s intimidating friend who wound up like another protective big brother, always knowing when I needed someone to stand between me and the world.

“The hurricane’s not helping either.” The ache in my chest made my words tumble out faster. “Being trapped down here, losing access to Little Haven, not being able to contact the team…”

“Brie.”

I met his eyes and immediately regretted it. Rav had always been able to see through people. Even when we were kids, he somehow always knew when people were hiding something. He read people almost as well as Mum did.

“Is everything all right with Will?” he asked quietly.

Something inside me cracked. “We had a fight. A bad one.”

“About?”

I stared at the carpet, tracing the subtle pattern to avoid meeting his gaze. “He said he wants to be more than friends.”

If Rav was surprised, he didn’t show it. “And that’s a problem because…?”

“Because it would ruin everything!” The words burst out louder than I intended. “We’ve been friends forever, Rav. He’s my best friend. He’s… he’s everything.”

“I know,” Rav said simply. “I watched you two grow up together.”

I shook my head frantically, my hands gesturing as if I could physically push away his understanding. “Then you know why this can’t happen. Why we can’t risk what we have.”

Rav was quiet for a long moment, studying me with those dark, perceptive eyes. “What are you actually afraid of?”

I didn’t have an answer. My mother taught me not to have weaknesses. To meet every challenge head-on. To always be in control.

Swiveling the chair, I placed the water bottle on his desk and pressed my palms against my eyes. No tears. They weren’t going to help anything except help me avoid talking.

But it was useless. The truth was clawing its way to the surface, whether I wanted it to or not.

“If we try this and it doesn’t work out, I’ll lose him completely,” I whispered through my fingers. “I can’t survive that, Rav. I just can’t.”

“And why are you so certain that will happen?”

What was I going to say? Why did I come here in the first place? I should have found a quiet maintenance closet and sat by myself.

“Brie.” This time, he nudged the desk chair with a foot, turning me to face him.

Part of me wanted to maintain the fiction, to keep this secret buried where it couldn’t hurt anyone. But another part—the part that was so tired of carrying this alone—was desperate to tell someone the truth, finally.

“We slept together once. We were nineteen and we were… you know. Everything was awkward and strained and wrong afterward. It was awful. And we agreed it was a mistake.”

“You told him it was a mistake, or he also thought it was a mistake?”