Page 72 of The Silent War

None of it touched me.

All I cared about was her.

Emilia stood near the rail in a dress that was almost not a dress. White. The bikini beneath was faint and enough to make my jaw tight. I hated that anyone else could look.

I hated it more that I didn’t have permission to use my fists to stop them or that my fists weren’t a deterring factor to stop people for looking.

I moved through a group of heirs, glasses raised, jokes about Oxford on their tongues. I didn’t hear one word. I grabbed a glass from a passing tray, and walked towards her.

She noticed me before the drink. Her beautiful eyes, locked with mine. Then that soft lift at the corner of her mouth—the one she gave when she let herself be warm. Not dynasty-warm. Her warm.

I offered her the glass. She reached her fingers just brushed my knuckles. I chose to believe it wasn’t by accident.

She looked at me when she took it.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked.

“Mm.” I followed her eyeline across the bow.

“The boat?” I said.

She inhaled like I’d offended her on purpose. “Do not call this a boat like it’s a piece of tin. It’s a palace.”

I played dumb. “Is it?”

Her eyes lit. She turned a half step so the whole thing was hers to point at. “Look at this finish. That staircase—custom. No vendor does those balusters off-the-shelf. And the lines. God, you can tell she was designed to sit there—see the rescued curve at the stern? It’s soft, not a cut. Whoever commissioned her wanted people to linger. And the sound—listen?—”

I listened. Not to the yacht. To her.

“You can’t hear engine up here,” she went on, soft, happy. She listed the helipad we would rarely use. The suspended lap pool cut on the top deck. Crew circulation path that kept staff invisible—and I let her talk like I didn’t know every spec by blood.

Luca and I had signed on the line for this ship last winter, built into the ledger under a shell so dense our accountants cried.

We bought the super yacht because we couldn’t buy the sky. In case she ever wanted the water to be quiet under her feet.

But I didn’t tell her that.

I liked hearing her talk. Full sentences. Not dynasty answers.

“So,” I said, just to keep her going, “you think whoever built this knows what they’re doing.”

She side-eyed me. “I think whoever owns it knows exactly what they like.”

“Mm.” My mouth tipped. “Heard they’re assholes.”

A laugh slipped out of her fast, surprised. Real. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, then seemed to remember it wasn’t pinned and let it fall again.

The see-through dress tried to make a liar of the word modest. I pretended I wasn’t praying for wind.

Background noise didn’t stop trying to grab our attention.

“Do you ever turn it off?” she asked, soft.

“What.”

“The… weight.” She didn’t look at me when she said it. She looked at the horizon like it might answer first.

“No.”