CHAPTER 10

It was deep. Deeper than Rob's. Deeper than Victor's, even. Low and unhurried and carrying easily across the still night air without being raised at all. It was the kind of voice that didn't need to try hard to be heard. The kind of voice that expected to be listened to.

There was something in it that I couldn't immediately identify. Not anger. Not alarm. Amusement, maybe. Faint, dry, barely there—but there.

I stayed frozen behind the plant for one more humiliating second, still clinging to the completely irrational hope that if I just didn't move, this would somehow resolve itself.

"I can see your shadow," he added simply.

I closed my eyes. Of course he could.

I straightened up slowly and stepped out from behind the plant, smoothing down the front of my t-shirt with hands that weren't entirely steady. My face was burning. I was grateful for the darkness.

He was at the edge of the pool now, his arms resting on the tiled rim, his body still in the water. His dark hair was pushed back from his face, wet and gleaming. Water ran down his jaw, his neck, the broad planes of his shoulders.

And his face.

I'd had a feeling. Standing there in the dark, catching those glimpses of his profile, I'd had a feeling. But nothing quite prepared me for the reality of looking at him directly.

He was, without any question, the most physically striking man I had ever seen in my life.

Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, a straight nose that looked like it might have been broken once a long time ago and had healed slightly imperfectly, which somehow only made his face more interesting. Dark brows pulled together slightly as he looked at me—not in anger, just in assessment. His eyes were dark too, nearly black in this light, and they held the same quality I'd noticed in Victor's gaze—that sharp, unhurried intelligence that made you feel like you were being read.

The family resemblance was suddenly, strikingly obvious.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

This was Dante.

Of course it was Dante. Victor's oldest son. Rob's older brother. The man who had painted the woman on the cliff. The one who had been delayed and was supposed to arrive late tonight.

He had arrived.

He was looking at me with those dark eyes, waiting, completely unbothered by the fact that he was half naked in a pool and I had just been caught hiding in a bush watching him swim.

"I wasn't—" I started. Stopped. Started again. "I came outside because I couldn't sleep and I saw the pool and I was going to come closer but then I saw you and I was going to leave but then—"

I stopped myself before it got any worse, pressing my lips together firmly.

There was a pause.

"But then?" he prompted, and there it was again—that faint, dry thread of amusement running just below the surface of his voice.

"But then you took your shirt off," I said flatly, because apparently my brain had decided that honesty was the only available option at this point.

Something changed in his expression. The slight furrow between his brows smoothed out. The corner of his mouth moved—just barely, just a fraction—in something that wasn't quite a smile but was clearly in the neighborhood.

"I see," he said.

He pushed himself up out of the pool in one smooth, effortless movement, water streaming off him as he rose. He reached for a towel that had been folded on a nearby chair and ran it over his face and hair, completely relaxed, making no effort whatsoever to make me feel less awkward about the situation.

Up close and out of the water he was even bigger than he'd looked from a distance. Tall in a way that made me aware of my own height immediately. The kind of build that suggested he didn't just look like this—he used his body for something. He was built for something real.

He draped the towel around his neck and held it loosely with both hands, and finally looked at me properly.

"You're Lia," he said. It wasn't a question.

I blinked. "How do you—"

"My father texted me," he said simply. "He said Robert had brought someone. He said her name was Lia and she was—" He paused very briefly. "—worth meeting."

Something warm moved through my chest at that. Victor had said that. Victor had thought that.

I pushed the warmth firmly aside and focused.

"You're Dante," I said.

"Yes."

I looked at him for a moment. "You painted the woman on the cliff."

Something shifted in his face then. Subtle, like a shadow passing over still water. His eyes moved over my face with a new kind of attention.

"You saw it," he said.

"I couldn't walk past it," I said honestly. "Your father found me staring at it in the hallway. It stopped me completely. It's—" I searched for the right word and couldn't find anything that felt big enough. "It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen."

Dante said nothing for a moment. He just looked at me steadily, like he was deciding something.

"Thank you," he said finally. Simply, with no performance attached to it.

A silence settled between us. Not entirely uncomfortable—or at least, not uncomfortable in the way that the silences with Rob were. Those silences felt cold, like being shut out of somewhere warm. This one felt more like two people who had just met and were figuring out the shape of each other.

He moved to the chair beside the towel and picked up a dark t-shirt that had been folded there, pulling it on over his head with easy, unhurried movements.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

"No," I admitted. "I took a nap earlier and now my body has completely lost track of what time it thinks it is."

He nodded slightly, like he understood this. "The island does that at first. The quiet is too different. Your body doesn't know what to do with it."

I looked out at the pool, at the glowing water and the dark sea beyond it and the sky full of stars. "I can see why you'd want to swim at midnight," I said quietly.

"I always swim at midnight when I'm here," he said. "It's the only time the water is completely still."

I looked at him. He was looking out at the sea, not at me, his profile clean and sharp against the dark sky. There was something settled about him. Something that felt like a man who had fought his way through something difficult a long time ago and come out the other side heavier but steadier for it.

He was nothing like Rob. The difference was so striking and so immediate that it sat in my chest like a physical thing, an ache I didn't want to examine too closely.

"I should go back inside," I said, mostly to myself.

Dante turned his head and looked at me. His dark eyes were steady and unhurried.

"You could sit for a while," he said simply. He nodded toward the chairs by the pool. "The quiet helps eventually. It's easier to sleep after."

I hesitated.

Every sensible part of my brain was screaming at me. I had a boyfriend. That boyfriend was asleep somewhere in this house. This was that boyfriend's older brother, who I'd met ninety seconds ago after being caught spying on him from behind a plant.

I should absolutely go back inside.

But my feet weren't moving.

Because sitting here in this warm dark next to this man felt safe. Not safe like nothing could hurt me. Safe like I could breathe. Like I didn't have to perform anything or prove anything or brace myself for the next hit.

He wasn't demanding anything. Wasn't looking at me with cold eyes or bored expression. He was just offering me a chair and some quiet. Nothing else.

And that simple human decency was apparently enough to make every cell in my body lean toward him.

Which was exactly why I needed to leave.

I recognized what was happening inside me. I was hurting and lonely and empty, and this man was warm and solid and real and he had looked at me like I was worth looking at. That was all it took.

If I sat down in that chair beside him, something would happen. Maybe just a conversation that stretched too long. Maybe just a silence that became something more. Maybe just letting someone see me when I'd been invisible for so long.

If I stayed, I would do something I couldn't take back.

I stood up quickly.

"Actually," I said, my voice steady. "I think the fresh air worked. I'm already feeling sleepy."

I smiled. Convincing. Like this had been nothing more than a pleasant two minutes.

Dante looked at me with those dark, steady eyes. For one terrible second I was certain he could see straight through me.

Then he simply nodded.

"Goodnight, Lia," he said quietly.

His voice saying my name did something to my chest.

"Goodnight," I said back, and then I turned and walked away.