Chapter 15

There’s no hiding my blush, especially from him.

A slow smile pulls at his lips. “Good girl.”

I let him draw his own conclusion. Let his assumption shield all the things I have to keep hidden.

“Now that you’re rested,” he says, shifting his weight on the mattress, “I thought we might get out of here for a while.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Dress warm.”

And that’s how we end up on the rocky coastline in the fog and rain.

The drive west from Portland passes easy enough. Three hours trapped in the back seat with him?

Not so much.

Within the first hour, moss-covered trees swallow the highway. Fog pulls loose between the trunks, like chiffon off a spool.

Oliver sits beside me, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, scrolling emails, oblivious to the beauty of nature blurring past us. Every so often, our gazes tangle, just a glance, before he returns to his screen.

And I can’t shake the feeling that he knows…something. That he senses the nervousness in my silence or the way I try not to flinch every time his elbow brushes mine.

Not because I find him repulsive.

That isnotthe problem.

Almost from the first moment I entered his house, something sparked between us, unwanted yet undeniable, refusing to be ignored.

But I have to.

Because I can’t slip up. He sees too much already, and the secret of Sebastian’s survival is too important to let it leak through the cracks.

Not even lunch offers the buffer of distraction. We stop at a café on the harbor, and Oliver barely touches his clam chowder. He’s too busy watching me eat mine. I gave up trying to slide the bowl away after the first three bites—all it took was a raised eyebrow and one finger pushing it back.

So I eat, and on our way back to the car, he rewards me with a small bag of taffy. Caramel and sea salt that teases my taste buds, sweet and useless against the unease shadowing me since breakfast.

Being trapped with him only makes it worse. Our driver does little to break the heavy tension or this stifling sense of isolation.

I need air.

A brown highway sign surfaces out of the drizzle, displaying a lighthouse silhouette over the wordsscenic viewpoint, and I reach for it.

“Can we stop at the lighthouse?”

His gaze cuts to the sign before settling on our driver. “Detour to the cape.”

The black sedan carrying our security detail follows us off the highway.

The cape sits at the edge of the world, or close enough to it, reminding me of Zodiac Island.

Oliver exits the car before the driver has a chance to push his door open, and an umbrella bobs over my head as he helps me from the back seat. His hand closes around mine, tripping my pulse, as if it doesn’t know better.

I hate that it doesn’t know better.

The second my heels find gravel, I pull free. Rain drizzles past the umbrella’s edge, obscuring a mountain of evergreens.

Ahead, a white lighthouse rises at the edge of the cliff, half-swallowed by the haze—a view that should inspire awe. Instead, all I feel is the weight of his gaze on me, and I’m gut-certain heknowshow the foundation of my world shifted last night…even if he can’t put one of his manicured fingers on the specifics.