Elena's eyes open at the sound of Marta's voice, an unusual interruption through the morning air. She lay still for a moment, regaining herself. The lamp she'd fallen asleep under was still burning, a pale ghost in the daylight bleeding through the curtains.
Her phone screen glowed from where she'd dropped it beside her hand. Three percent battery left. The last photo she'd been staring at — a page of Liam's coded notebook — was still open, the columns of numbers and symbols burned into her retinas.
She'd gotten nowhere last night.
Elena pushed herself up, the sheets falling away, and squinted at the image. Stern Inc. and Valmont Biologics. Those were the only two recognizable strings she'd managed to extract from the entire notebook, and she'd never heard of either of them before. The rest was a maze of dates, times, and symbols that might as well have been written in a language she'd never learned.
"¡Más rápido!" Marta's voice again, sharp and demanding. "¿Quieres que se mueran de hambre?!"
Elena swung her legs over the edge of the bed and crossed to the window. Below, a small army of staff was moving boxes and coolers down the path toward the docks. Marta stood at the center of it all, a clipboard in one hand and the other waving like a conductor commanding an orchestra.
Today. The trip was today.
She'd known it was coming. She'd had two days. And she'd spent both of them getting nowhere, chasing a code she couldn't crack, while the truth about Liam Thorn sat in her chest like a stone she couldn't swallow.
She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until she saw stars.
Get up. Get ready. You don't have time to fall apart yet.
The shower was quick — hot water that did nothing to untie the knots in her shoulders. She dressed in the simplest thing she could find: a pair of cutoff shorts, a loose white tank top, sandals. Practical. Cool. Nothing that said I spent all night trying to figure out how to destroy you.
Her duffle bag sat open on the floor, already packed. She'd prepared it last night between failed attempts at cracking the code. She had her outfits. A swimsuit. Toiletries. A book she planned to read. She slung it over her shoulder, the weight settling against her hip, and took one last look around the room before heading for the door.
The hallway was quiet. The shouting from outside was muffled here, absorbed by the thick walls and the carpet runner. She made her way down the stairs. The dining hall was empty, the long table bare, the morning light glowing through the windows.
She pushed through the back door and stepped outside.
The air hit her—salt, the green scent of freshly cut grass, and a faint trace of diesel. The lake stretched beyond the dock, flat and silver beneath the morning sun. The Briar Rose bobbed gently at her mooring, where a man in a navy aloha shirt directed the loading from the deck. It took Elena a moment to realize who she was looking at. Liam. Without the armor of tailored suits and polished shoes, he looked younger. More relaxed. More dangerous in a way she hadn't expected.
Elena almost looked past him. Liam? It took a second for her mind to catch up. She'd never seen him in anything but impeccable suits and pressed dress shirts. Seeing him dressed for a weekend on the lake felt oddly disorienting, as though someone had rewritten a familiar photograph.
Marta stood at the top of the path, clipboard still in hand, her dark hair escaping from a messy bun.
"Elena." Marta looked up, and her face softened. "You're awake. Good. I was going to send someone to shake you."
"The shouting did the job." Elena smiled despite herself. "What is all this?"
"Food." Marta gestured at the boxes. "For the trip. Do you know how hard it is to stock a boat for a week when the man you're stocking for has the palate of a gourmand and the patience of a toddler?"
"I can imagine."
"He wanted three types of cheese. Three. For a week on a boat." Marta shook her head, but there was warmth in it. "I told him he could have two and be grateful."
Elena laughed, and it felt strange in her throat, like a muscle she hadn't used in days.
"I'm going to have no one to appreciate my food while you're gone." Marta's voice dropped, and for a moment she looked almost vulnerable. "He eats like he's fueling a machine. No savoring. No pleasure. Just fuel." She met Elena's eyes. "You eat like you mean it. Like you taste every bite."
The words landed somewhere deep in Elena's chest. "I'll be back before you know it."
"You'd better be." Marta's gaze lingered on her for a beat longer than necessary, and Elena wondered what exactly she saw. Then the older woman clapped her hands together and turned back to her clipboard. "Now go. He's been checking his watch every five minutes. Bad for his blood pressure."
Elena adjusted the strap of her duffle and started down the path toward the dock.
The wooden planks creaked under her sandals. The lake lapped against the pylons, a steady liquid rhythm that seemed to slow time. As she drew closer, she could make out details she hadn't noticed from the house: the faded lettering on the hull, the coiled ropes, the way the morning light caught in the windows of the cabin.
Liam turned as she approached.
And Elena stopped breathing.
He wasn't in his usual suit. No tie. No pressed shirt. No polished shoes. Instead, he wore a cream-colored swimsuit that hung low on his hips, and over it a pair of shorts in a faded olive green. The shirt — she had to look twice to believe it — was an aloha shirt. Bright patterns of hibiscus and palm leaves against a white background, the first few buttons undone, revealing a strip of his chest that she absolutely did not stare at.
She stared at it.
The sun caught his shoulders, the line of his collarbone, the dark hair that traced down his sternum and disappeared beneath the fabric. He looked — there was no other word for it — human. Less like a man who owned boardrooms and more like a man who might actually own a boat for pleasure, not just for appearances.
"You're early." His voice carried across the water, low and easy. "I expected you to drag your feet."
Elena forced her gaze up to his face. "I thought the sooner we leave, the sooner we come back."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "That's one way to look at it."
She stepped onto the boat, the deck shifting slightly under her weight. Up close, she could smell him — salt and something herbal, like sun-warmed skin and the faint musk of his cologne. Or maybe that was just the lake air playing tricks on her.
"Your bag goes below deck." He nodded toward the cabin door. "First door on the left is the galley. Through that and forward is the sleeping quarters. Pick a shelf in the cupboard."
She didn't argue. She just ducked through the doorway and descended the short set of stairs into the belly of the boat.
The galley was compact but clean: a two-burner stove, a small sink, a wooden table bolted to the floor with bench seating on either side. To her right, a narrow doorway led into what looked like a storage area — she caught a glimpse of life jackets and coiled rope. To her left, a door stood ajar, revealing a bathroom barely larger than a closet: a toilet, a tiny sink with a mirror, a shower head mounted on the wall.
She crossed through the seating area and pushed through the door at the forward end of the galley.
The sleeping quarters were dominated by a single bed.
It was large — a queen, maybe, or something close to it — taking up nearly the entire space. A standing cupboard stood against one wall, its doors closed. A small porthole above the bed let in a circle of light, illuminating the rumpled sheets and the single flat pillow. The mattress was thick, the bedding a soft cream color that looked expensive.
One bed.
Elena stood in the doorway, her duffle bag still slung over her shoulder, and felt the reality of it settle into her bones. One bed. For one week. On a boat in the middle of a lake.
She opened the cupboard. Empty shelves. She placed her bag on the top one and closed the door, her hand lingering on the handle.
It's large, she told herself. You could keep to your side. He could keep to his. It didn't have to mean anything.
But even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie. Nothing with Liam Thorn was ever that simple.
She turned and looked at the bed again. The sheets were mussed, as if someone had already slept in them — or as if someone had deliberately made them look that way. She couldn't tell which would be worse: the intimacy of his presence already imprinted on the fabric, or the calculation of setting a scene.
Behind her, she heard footsteps on the deck above, then the heavy thud of more supplies being loaded. Voices called back and forth — Marta's sharp instructions, a younger man's responses, the low rumble of Liam's voice cutting through the rest.
Elena took a breath. Then another.
She could do this. She had to do this. If she wanted proof — if she wanted to find out what he'd done to Marco, to her company, to her life — she had to stay close. She had to play the role he'd assigned her: the reluctant companion, the woman who didn't know the truth.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the cupboard door, feeling the smooth wood under her skin.
And she remembered Alexander's face last night. The way he'd leaned in close, his voice dropping to a whisper: He planned it. From the beginning.
She didn't trust Alexander either. But she trusted her own instincts. And her instincts said that somewhere in this boat — in this room, in Liam's words, in the careful way he moved through the world — there was a thread she could pull. If she pulled hard enough, the whole thing might unravel.
She just had to survive the week first.
Another breath. She smoothed her tank top, ran a hand through her hair, and turned toward the stairs.
Time to play the part.
Her hand found the railing as she climbed back up into the morning light. The sun struck her full in the face, warm and merciless, and she had to blink against it as her eyes adjusted. The deck had transformed in the few minutes she'd been below — boxes were stacked against the cabin wall, a cooler sat secured near the helm, and a coil of rope had been neatly looped over a cleat.
Liam stood at the stern, one hand resting on the polished wood of the railing, his back to her. The aloha shirt hung loose on his shoulders, the fabric moving in the breeze, and she caught herself watching the way the light played across the muscles of his back. He looked different out here. Softer. Or maybe that was just the context — the lake, the boat, the absence of polished floors and oil paintings.
"Find everything?" His voice came over his shoulder, casual, as if he'd known exactly when she'd emerge.
"There's one bed."
He turned, and there was something in his expression — not quite a smile, not quite a challenge. "I'm aware."
"One bed, Liam. For a week."
"It's a queen. Plenty of room." He stepped toward her, and she held her ground, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a retreat. "Unless you're worried about something."
"I'm not worried." The lie came easy. "I'm stating a fact."
"Good." He stopped a few feet from her, close enough that she could see the stubble along his jaw, the way his collarbone caught the light. "Because I don't plan on making you uncomfortable. The bed's yours as much as it's mine. We'll figure it out."
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that the man standing here in an aloha shirt, talking about shared sleeping arrangements with something almost like decency, was the same man who'd orchestrated her brother's ruin. But she'd seen the other side of him. The boardroom side. The side that calculated every move before he made it.
"We'll figure it out," she repeated, and the words tasted like ash.
He studied her for a moment, his blue eyes unreadable in the bright light. Then he turned and gestured toward the helm. "We'll be underway in about twenty minutes. Marta's bringing down the last of the supplies. After that, it's just us and the lake."
"No crew?"
"I know how to handle her." He patted the railing, and the gesture was almost affectionate. "The Briar Rose and I have history. She doesn't need anyone else."
Elena leaned against the cabin wall, crossing her arms. "You're going to pilot a boat for a week. In an aloha shirt."
"I have a captain's hat somewhere." The corner of his mouth twitched. "I was saving it for a special occasion."
She laughed before she could stop herself — a short, surprised sound that escaped like it had been waiting for permission. Liam's eyebrows rose slightly, and she looked away, suddenly self-conscious.
"There it is," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Your laugh. I was starting to think I'd imagined it."
She didn't know what to say to that. The silence stretched between them, filled only by the lap of water against the hull and the distant calls of Marta's voice from the house. Elena focused on the horizon, on the line where the lake met the sky, on anything that wasn't the weight of his gaze on her skin.
A seagull wheeled overhead, its cry sharp and lonely. The breeze picked up, carrying the smell of diesel and damp wood, and she felt the boat shift beneath her feet as someone stepped aboard.
"Last box," a young man called out, setting a crate near the cabin door. "Marta says if you run out of anything, it's your own fault."
Liam nodded. "Tell Marta I'll bring back a fish."
"She said you'd say that. She also said to tell you that fish doesn't count as a meal."
Liam's expression flickered — something between amusement and irritation — and Elena found herself smiling again. It was strange, seeing him like this. Human. Almost approachable. She filed it away, a piece of the puzzle she was still trying to assemble.
The young man jumped back onto the dock and began untying the mooring lines. The Briar Rose shifted, restless, ready to be free of the shore.
Liam turned to her, and for a moment, the mask slipped. He looked at her like she was something he hadn't expected to find — a question he hadn't thought to ask.
"Ready?" he asked.
Elena looked out at the lake, at the endless blue water stretching toward the horizon. Somewhere out there was a week of close quarters, shared meals, and a bed she'd have to share with a man she couldn't trust. Somewhere out there was the truth she was looking for, if she could find the courage to pull the right thread.
She turned back to him and met his eyes.
"Ready."