Page 6

"I save my manners for people who deserve them." Her voice could freeze hell. She tries to step around me again, but I shift, maintaining the barrier of my body.

The emergency exit lights cast red shadows across her face, turning her hair to flame. This close, I can see the pulse jumping in her throat, the slight tremble in her hands. She's not as unaffected as she wants me to believe.

“Before I let you pass," I drawl, letting old bitterness seep through, "I should check my pockets. Wouldn't be the first time you took something that wasn't yours."

Color drains from her face. For a moment, I see her as that sixteen-year-old girl again, walking beside her grandmother as security escorts them from our mansion, shock written across her features. Then—

Crack.

Heat blooms across my cheek, but it's nothing compared to the inferno in her eyes.

"How dare you?" Her voice trembles with fury. "You entitled, arrogant—"

She raises her hand again, but I capture her wrist before she can land another blow. Pure instinct drives me—I don't recognize my own movements as I pivot, pinning her against the wall. Her captured wrist pressed above her head, our bodies a breath apart. The action shocks us both silent.

What the hell am I doing?

Bass thunders through the wall at her back, but it's nothing compared to the roar of blood in my ears.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly, each breath bringing her closer.

The scent of her—paint mixed with that watermelon—floods my senses, dragging up memories of stolen moments in the rose garden, of promises whispered against skin.

Her body feels both familiar and foreign against mine—the curves more defined than the girl I knew, but fitting against me with the same devastating perfection.

Electricity crackles where we touch, a current that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with something I've spent fifteen years denying.

"Let. Me. Go." Each word drips venom, but I catch the slight tremor in her voice, the way her pupils dilate as her gaze drops briefly to my mouth.

"Make me." The challenge falls from my lips before I can stop it. This isn't me—I don't do this anymore. I don't let people get under my skin like this. But one look at her and I'm seventeen again, burning with emotions I can't control.

Her free hand presses against my chest, meant to push me away, but the contact sears through my shirt like a brand. Our eyes lock—forest green clashing with dark brown—and the air between us crackles with fifteen years of unspoken accusations.

"You lost the right to touch me the day you stood there and did nothing." Her words are quiet, deadly. They hit their mark with surgical precision.

I lean closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in her irises that I'd almost forgotten. "Is that what you tell yourself? That I'm the villain in your story?"

"You're nothing in my story." But the slight catch in her breath betrays her.

My fingers flex around her wrist, feeling her pulse race beneath my grip. Emergency lights cast shadows across her face, dancing in the gold flecks of her eyes. One of us should move. Step back. Break whatever this is before it combusts.

Neither of us does.

"You know what I remember?" My voice drops lower, darker. "I remember seeing security footage of you taking my mother's jewelry from her jewelry box. Care to explain that?"

Her whole body goes rigid against mine, the warmth of her turning to ice. "I know what it looked like, but—" Her voice shakes. "Your family—"

"My family what?" I cut in, arrogance coating my words like honey-covered thorns. "Protected what was theirs? Caught a thief? Or are we remembering things differently?"

Your parents..." she starts, then stops and looks at me in a way that makes me step back and release her wrist.

"You really believe it, don't you?" she whispers, and there's something like dawning horror in her voice. "You actually believe—"

"What the fuck is going on here?" A female voice cuts through the tension like a knife. The blonde positions herself between us, all five-foot-nothing of protective fury in four-inch stilettos. "Back the hell up, Saint, before I make you."

I hold my ground, unable to tear my eyes from Isabella's face. The question in her unfinished sentence hangs between us, heavy with implications I'm not ready to examine.

"It's fine, Alisha." Isabella's voice sounds hollow, distant. She's still looking at me with that unsettling expression, like she's solving a puzzle she never wanted to find.

"I'm done here," Isabella spits, but her eyes—those familiar green depths—tell a different story. They're swimming with confusion, hurt, and something dangerously close to recognition. The disconnect between her harsh tone and vulnerable gaze makes my stomach twist.

I open my mouth, but the blonde steps forward, perfectly manicured finger jabbing toward my chest.

"Listen up, billionaire boy. You've got exactly three seconds to turn around and walk away before I introduce your family jewels to my stiletto heel." Her smile is sweet as poison. "And trust me, that's one headline your PR team won't be able to spin."

Isabella grabs Alisha's arm, her knuckles white. "Come on. He's not worth another second." But she glances back, that same bewildered horror flickering across her features. "Let's get back to the others."

I watch them disappear around the corner, her auburn hair the last thing to vanish from sight.

My fingers still tingle where they touched her skin.

The memory of her pulse racing beneath my grip makes me want to punch something—preferably myself.

After fifteen years, she still has the power to rip through every wall I've built, leaving me raw and bleeding.

The unfinished accusation echoes in my mind: "After all these years, you actually believe—"

Believe what? Security footage doesn't lie. I saw it with my own eyes—Isabella taking my mother's sapphire necklaces from the jewelry box. But something in her expression, in the horror that flashed across her face, plants a seed of doubt I can't shake.

I shove through the crowd, the bass pounding in sync with the rage coursing through my veins. The press of bodies, the thick air, the goddamn neon lights—it all closes in, suffocating. What had started as an escape now feels like another trap.

So when the VIP section comes into view, and I spot Ethan still entertaining his admirers, I growl.

"We're leaving."

Ethan's eyes snap to mine and instantly he switches from playboy to brother-in-arms. One look at my face and he knows this isn't a request.

"Ladies, I'm afraid the party's over." He delivers the news with a regretful charm that almost masks how quickly he's ditching them.

The brunette from earlier stops before me, letting her fingers walk up my chest. "Are you sure? I bet I could turn that sexy frown upside down." Her lips curve into what's probably meant to be a seductive pout.

I step back, breaking contact. "Not interested."

Her friend—the blonde—tries her luck with Ethan, pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek. "How about you, handsome? Night's still young."

"Darling, on any other evening, I'd be devastated to refuse." Ethan flashes that million-dollar grin. "But duty calls, and this"—he gestures between them—"will have to remain a beautiful what-if."

Night air hits my face as we exit while Boston's nightlife pulses around us—distant sirens, drunk laughter, music spilling from nearby bars.

The city feels alive tonight, mocking my internal chaos.

Ethan clicks the key fob, and his sleek rental Audi chirps in response, its black exterior gleaming under the streetlights.

"I'm driving," he announces, catching the keys when I reach for them. "You look like you might intentionally wrap us around a telephone pole."

The leather seat envelops me as I sink into the passenger side, the car's interior a sanctuary of climate-controlled quiet. Ethan navigates through late-night traffic with practiced ease, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping against his thigh to music only he can hear.

"So," he drawls, city lights streaming past our tinted windows like shooting stars. "Want to tell me what kind of nuclear bomb just went off? Because that face you're making? That's your 'I either need to hit something or drink myself stupid' face."

I lean my head back against the seat, closing my eyes. "I ran into Isabella."

"Oh, shit." The playfulness drops from his voice immediately, replaced by genuine concern. "Isabella as in—"

"The girl who stole from my family? Yeah. That Isabella." My hands curl into fists, nails digging half-moons into my palms. The leather seat creaks beneath me as I shift uncomfortably.

"I was going to say the girl who had you bawling your eyes out for weeks in boarding school," Ethan says, his voice softening with the memory.

"Remember how I found you on the roof that night?

Shared my secret chocolate stash with you?

And that bottle of scotch I'd been saving for graduation?

" He glances over at me, his expression a mixture of nostalgia and worry.

"First and only time I've ever seen Ares Saint completely fall apart. "

I shoot him a withering glare that would silence most people, but Ethan just raises an eyebrow, unfazed after years of friendship.

"Fifteen fucking years," I mutter, staring at the dashboard as the city lights dance across it, "and I still—" The words die in my throat, choking me with their weight and all they imply.

"Still what?" Ethan asks, his voice uncharacteristically gentle, no trace of his usual sarcasm. The question hangs in the air between us, demanding an answer I'm not sure I can give.

I turn to stare out the window, watching Boston's nightlife blur past in streaks of neon and shadow.

Street vendors hawking late-night food, couples stumbling arm-in-arm, the occasional police car's lights reflecting off glass storefronts.

The city I once knew intimately now feels like a stranger—familiar streets holding secrets I've spent years avoiding, corners where memories lurk like ghosts waiting to ambush me when I least expect it.

"Nothing," I say instead.

I close my eyes only to see her face again and have her words echo in my head, a broken record that won't stop spinning. "You actually believe—"

The unfinished sentence hangs in the air like a loaded gun.

Together with "Your parents—" What was she going to say about my parents?

The security footage flashes through my mind for the millionth time—grainy black and white images of her walking into my mother's closet.

Taking those two necklaces from the jewelry box.

My jaw clenches. She took them. End of story.

A knot forms in my stomach, hot and tight as those words "Your parents—" and "You actually believe—" claw at something buried deep in my consciousness. Something I've refused to examine since that day I sat in my father's study, watching the security footage play on a loop.

"You good?" Ethan's voice breaks through the spiral.

I rake my fingers through my hair, tugging until it hurts.

What if—

No. I shut that thought down hard. But Isabella's eyes flash in my memory, bright with that same fierce truth they held when we were teenagers. When she promised she'd never lie to me.

"You actually believe—"

The unfinished accusation echoes, and that nagging feeling transforms into something darker.

I press my forehead against the cool window, watching the city lights blur into streaks of neon. The doubt has taken root now, and I can't shake it.

This is the last thing I need right now. With the media circus around my broken engagement barely contained and my parents breathing down my neck, I should be focused on damage control, not chasing ghosts from fifteen years ago.

But Isabella's unfinished sentences haunt me, refusing to let go.

I need to know what she wanted to say.