chapter 6

~ ISABELLA~

"Stay behind me," Isaac said quietly, and opened the door.

Phillip stood in the corridor in yesterday's clothes, his tie crooked and his hair perfectly, suspiciously neat. Two of the guys from the team flanked him. Marcus, our goalie, wouldn't meet my eyes. Danny was chewing his thumbnail. Behind them, a scattering of people from other teams had drifted out of their rooms with paper cups and coffee, and I noticed something else.

Half of them were holding up their phones.

Phillip's mouth opened, and then it stayed open. He had clearly expected to find someone else standing in that doorway.

"Captain?" he said.

"It's seven in the morning, Phillip," Isaac replied.

"I—this is Alan's room."

"Alan lent it to me last night."

Phillip's eyes slid past him and found me, standing there in Isaac's jacket with my hair pinned up and my shoes in my hand. I watched the calculations move behind his face.

"Isabella," he said, and put on his worried voice. "Thank God. I've been looking everywhere for you. You never came back to our table, and then somebody said they saw you going into a room with a man. I got scared."

"Somebody," Isaac said.

"A guy. At the party."

"His name."

"I... didn't catch it."

'Of course you didn't.'

"So I thought," Phillip went on, "someone should check on her. In case she was hurt. Or, you know, doing something she'd regret."

I looked at the phones. Nobody brings a camera crew to check on a worried boyfriend. This was the plan from last night, exactly as he had built it. Me in a stranger's bed, and a crowd with their cameras out at the door. It just hadn't arrived at the right room.

For once, I was very glad it hadn't.

"Well, she's fine," Isaac said. "She was with me."

Phillip laughed. Then the laugh died.

"That's not funny."

"I don't joke before nine." Isaasc responded sternly.

Nobody moved. Somewhere behind us, a coffee cup crinkled in someone's fist.

"With you?" Marcus said, so softly it was barely a question.

"With me." Isaac's voice was calm, cold, and completely final. "She spent the night with me. She's with me. Does anyone in this hallway have a problem with that?"

The silence stretched.

"Article nine is clear," Isaac went on. "The captain answers for it. If somebody wants to file a complaint, the committee sits at ten. I'll walk you there myself."

Nobody said a word. Danny found something fascinating on the floor. A girl at the back quietly lowered her phone, and then, after a look at Isaac's face, tapped her screen and deleted something. One by one, the rest followed.

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.

This was what it meant to have Isaac Moretti standing in front of you. Nobody dared to cross him. I had spent months hating that about him. Right now, I could have kissed it.

"Isabella." Phillip's voice cracked. He had dropped the act, and underneath it he just looked scared. "Tell me he's lying."

I looked at him.

I thought about the stairs. I thought about the blood in my mouth, and his face looking down at me while I lay there dying with his child inside me.

"He isn't lying," I said.

"You—" His face went red. "You can't do this to me!"

"To you?" I almost laughed. "You walked away from me thirty seconds after we got there, Phillip. You left me alone at a party full of strangers so you could go do shots with your friends. And then you knocked on every door in this hallway with an audience, just to find out who I was with." I tilted my head. "You didn't ask me once if I was all right."

"That's not—I was worried—"

"We're done."

"Isabella, come on." He took a step forward, hands out, using the voice that had gotten him out of trouble so many times. "Baby, you don't mean that—"

Isaac shifted. He didn't do anything. He just moved half a step to the left, and Phillip stopped like he'd hit a wall.

"She said done," Isaac said.

Phillip's gaze bounced between us. His mouth worked, but nothing came out. Finally, he turned and walked away, Marcus and Danny trailing after him. The crowd dissolved. Doors closed. Within a minute, the hallway was empty.

So much for keeping him close.

Well. I would just have to find another way to ruin him.

"Don't thank me," Isaac said, without looking at me.

"I wasn't going to."

"Good." He glanced down the hall, and then at me. There was something tight around his eyes. "Take the stairs. Go straight to your room. Lock the door."

"Yes, Captain."

"Don't."

But I could have sworn the corner of his mouth twitched.

I kept his jacket on, since my dress was a disaster and the elevators were full of people who would stare. The stairwell was at the far end of the corridor. I pushed the door open and had taken exactly two steps when a hand closed gently around my wrist.

I nearly dropped my shoes.

"It's me," Alan said. "Sorry. It's just me."

He had been waiting in the stairwell. His brown hair was a mess, his shirt was buttoned wrong, and there were dark circles under his eyes. The left one was amber and the right one was periwinkle, and both of them looked like they hadn't closed all night.

"I heard everything," he said. "I was at the end of the hall."

"Alan—"

"He said it was him. In front of everyone." His voice shook. "I asked him what I should do. That's all. I thought he'd tell me to keep quiet and let it go. I didn't think he'd stand in front of the whole team and say he..."

"It's what we needed. It saved you. It saved both of us."

"I should have been the one standing there." He looked at the floor, and his hand tightened on my wrist, then let go as if he'd just remembered he was touching me. "I let him do it because I was scared, Isabella. I'm always scared. I'm supposed to be perfect. I don't lose control. I've never..." He swallowed. "I couldn't stop."

"Someone drugged me," I said gently. "You did nothing wrong."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"Then what are you asking?"

He raised his head. For the first time, he looked straight at me, and the look was so raw I forgot what I was going to say.

"When you looked at me last night," he said, so quietly I almost missed it, "did you know it was me?"