The apartment was smaller than she remembered. Or maybe it was just smaller than she needed it to be right now, with the walls pressing in and the whitewash still radiating the day's heat like a slow exhale. Tisha dropped her bag by the door, let it fall from her shoulder with a thud that felt louder than it should have, and stood there in the middle of the room with her sandals still on, her skin still salt-crusted from the walk back from the airport.

She hadn't taken a taxi. She'd walked. Three kilometers along the harbor road with Santiago on her hip, his small hand fisted in her hair, his voice piping questions she couldn't answer. Why couldn't the man come? Where was the airplane going? Was Alaska cold? She'd answered the ones she could and let the others dissolve into the wind off the water, into the smell of grilled fish and diesel and salt.

Now the apartment was silent. Kaira had taken Santiago to the beach—her old friend had shown up at the airport before Tisha could even process what had happened, had seen the look on her face and taken the boy, murmuring something about sandcastles and ice cream. Tisha had let him go. Had watched his small legs kick as Kaira carried him away, his gray eyes—Pete's eyes—looking back at her over Kaira's shoulder.

The phone was still off. She'd turned it off at the airport and hadn't turned it back on. It sat on the counter now, a black rectangle of silence, and she stared at it as if it might bite.

She paced. The marble floor was cool under her bare feet—she'd kicked off her sandals somewhere between the kitchen and the bedroom, couldn't remember when—and the coolness was a relief against the damp heat of her skin. She'd showered when she got back, scrubbed the airport off her, the sweat and the fear and the humiliation, but she could still feel it. The polite firmness of the security guard's hand on her elbow. The way her passport had been handed back to her with a smile that didn't reach the man's eyes. The way Pete's name had been spoken quietly, almost apologetically, by a man in a gray suit who'd appeared at her gate like a ghost.

Miss Reyes. Mr. Bianchi sends his regards. Your travel plans have been changed.

She'd argued. She'd raised her voice, which she never did, and Santiago had started to cry, and the gray-suited man had just stood there with his patient smile until she'd had no choice but to take her son and walk away from the gate. From the plane. From Alaska.

The passport was still in her bag. She could see the corner of it poking out of the side pocket like a wound that wouldn't close, and she crossed the room and shoved it deeper, felt the canvas give under her fingers.

Two days. It had been two days since the airport, and Pete hadn't come. She'd spent the first day waiting for the knock, for the phone call, for something, and nothing had come. The second day she'd started to breathe again, started to think maybe he'd let her go, maybe seeing Santiago had changed something, maybe—

The restaurant. She'd heard the news from Kaira, who'd heard it from a neighbor, who'd heard it from someone who worked at the harbor. The grand opening. The ribbon cutting. Pete Bianchi, the American investor, shaking hands and smiling for the cameras. He'd been on the island the whole time, and he hadn't come for her.

She didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified.

The bass from the cliffside club thudded through the floor, a distant heartbeat she could feel in her heels. It had been going all afternoon, that low pulse, and she'd stopped noticing it hours ago. Now it was back, louder somehow, or maybe she was just more aware of her own body tonight. The dampness of her skin. The way her heart kept skipping. The way her hands wouldn't stay still.

She poured a glass of water. Drank half of it. Set it down and watched the condensation bead on the glass, run in small rivulets down to the counter. She picked it up again, drank the rest, and set it down so hard the glass clinked against the marble.

Her mother. She hadn't called Rosa since the airport, hadn't been able to pick up the phone and lie again. I'm fine, Mama. Everything's fine. Santiago is growing so fast, you wouldn't believe it. The lies were getting harder to tell, and her mother was getting harder to fool. There had been a pause on the line last time, a silence that stretched too long, and then Rosa had said, very quietly, Is it him? Is he there?

Tisha hadn't answered. She'd changed the subject, talked about the weather, about the fish market, about anything except the man who'd bought the restaurant next door to her office. But she'd heard the fear in her mother's voice, and she knew Rosa heard it in hers.

She stopped pacing at the window. The sun was going down over the harbor, painting the water in shades of gold and rose, and she watched a fishing boat chug its way back to port, its lights just beginning to blink on. Somewhere out there, Pete was in his new restaurant, shaking hands and drinking wine and pretending to be a legitimate businessman. And she was here, in this apartment, waiting for him to decide what to do with her.

The knock came at eight o'clock.

Three deliberate taps. A pause. Then two more.

Tisha's hand froze on the glass she was refilling. Water spilled over the rim, pooled on the counter, and she didn't move to wipe it up. Her breath caught in her chest, and she stood there, one hand on the glass, the other gripping the edge of the counter, listening.

The knock didn't come again. But she could feel him out there. Could feel the weight of him on the other side of the door, the heat of his presence bleeding through the wood. She'd known he would come eventually. She'd just let herself pretend otherwise.

Her feet carried her to the door before she'd decided to move. The marble was cool against her soles, and she could feel the bass from the club vibrating up through her heels, through her spine, settling somewhere in her chest. She stopped in front of the door and stared at the latch, her hand hovering over it.

She could open it. She could refuse. She could stand here until he went away, and he would go away—he'd given her two days, hadn't he? Two days of space, two days of not pushing, two days of letting her think she had a choice.

But he was still out there. She could feel him.

The knock came again. Harder this time. And then a voice, low and familiar, muffled by the wood but unmistakable.

"Tisha."

Her name. Just her name, spoken in that gravelly baritone with the faintest New York accent, and her hand was on the latch before she could stop it. Her fingers curled around the cold metal, and she stood there, frozen, her breath held in her chest, the knock itself the charged crossing—

And she didn't open the door.

Her fingers stayed curled around the latch. Cold metal biting into her palm. She could feel him through the wood—not see him, not touch him, but feel him all the same, the way she'd always been able to feel him, even across oceans, even across years. The bass from the cliffside club thudded up through her bare feet, and she wondered if he could feel it too, if the same vibration was running through his polished shoes on the other side of the door.

She pressed her forehead against the cool wood. The whitewash was rough against her skin, and she closed her eyes and breathed in. Salt. Grilled fish from the taverna two doors down. The faint, sweet smell of the jasmine that grew wild over the neighbor's wall—and underneath it, something else. Something that made her stomach clench.

Cologne. Sandalwood and something darker, something that had no business lingering on her doorstep. He'd been here before. Not today—the scent was too faint, too settled—but he'd stood on this landing at some point in the last two days, and the heat of him had soaked into the wood like the afternoon sun.

Her hand dropped from the latch.

She stepped back. One step, then another, her bare feet silent on the cool marble, and she stood in the middle of the room with her arms wrapped around herself, watching the door as it might open on its own. The light from the kitchen spilled across the floor. The water she'd spilled earlier still pooled on the counter, catching the glow, and she didn't move to wipe it up.

Silence. A long one. She counted her heartbeats—seven, eight, nine—and then she heard it. A soft sound. Almost nothing. The scrape of a shoe on stone, a shift of weight, and then a sigh that seemed to come from the other side of the door, low and weary, like a man who'd been standing in one place too long.

She knew that sound. She'd heard it in hotel rooms and mansion hallways and the back of a black car that smelled of leather and gunpowder. It was the sound Pete made when he was deciding something. When he was weighing his options and finding them all unsatisfactory.

And then, quiet enough that she almost missed it, his voice again. Not her name this time. Not a command. Something softer, rougher, spoken to the wood like a confession.

"I'm not leaving."

The words landed in her chest like stones. She pressed her hand flat against her sternum, felt her heart beating against her ribs, and stared at the door. He wasn't leaving. Of course he wasn't leaving. He'd never left. Not in two years, not in the way that mattered. He'd been a ghost in the corner of her eye, a weight on the edge of her thoughts, a name she'd trained herself not to say out loud because saying it made him real.

And now he was here. On her doorstep. In the evening heat of Mykonos, with the bass thudding from the cliffside club and the jasmine blooming over the neighbor's wall, and he was telling her he wasn't leaving.

She turned away from the door. Walked to the kitchen on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. Picked up the glass she'd spilled and set it in the sink with a clink that sounded too loud in the silence. She could feel him still, through the walls, through the floor, a presence like the pressure before a storm, and she didn't know what to do with her hands.

She opened the fridge. Closed it. Opened it again and took out a bottle of water she didn't want, twisted the cap off, and let the cold condense against her palm. She drank. The water was cold and clean, and it did nothing for the heat in her chest, the tightness in her throat.

Two days. He'd given her two days, and she'd spent them convincing herself she was safe. That he'd seen Santiago and something had changed. That the man who'd bought the restaurant next to her office had done it for business, not for her, and the airport had been a coincidence, a warning, a message she could choose not to read.

She'd been lying to herself. She'd known it at the airport, known it when the gray-suited man had handed back her passport with that patient smile, known it in the long walk home with Santiago's small hand fisted in her hair. Pete Bianchi didn't give two days out of kindness. He gave two days because he could afford to. Because he knew she had nowhere to go that he couldn't reach.

The phone was still dark on the counter. She'd left it off for two days, and the silence of it was a weight in the room, a third presence between her and the door. She picked it up. Held it in her palm. The screen was cool and black, and she thought about turning it on, thought about the messages that would be waiting, the missed calls, the voicemails from a number she'd deleted and still knew by heart.

She set it back down.

She walked to the window instead. The harbor lights were coming on, stringing gold across the darkening water, and the fishing boat she'd watched earlier was docked now, its crew unloading the day's catch. Normal. Ordinary. A world that had no idea a man like Pete Bianchi was standing on a doorstep three streets away, waiting for a woman who couldn't decide whether to run or open the door.

Behind her, the knock came again. Three taps. A pause. Two more. The same rhythm, patient and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world.

And then his voice, lower this time, rougher, carrying through the wood like it was nothing at all.

"Tisha. Open the door."

Her hand found the latch again. She didn't remember crossing the room. Her fingers curled around the cold metal, and she stood there, barefoot on the cool marble, the bass from the club thudding through her heels, her breath held in her chest, the knock itself the charged crossing—

And she didn't open the door.