Semua Bab Stranded on an Island with Mr. CEO: Bab 21 - Bab 30

Ariana's POV A week on a deserted island doesn't feel like seven days. It feels like one long, blurry cycle of heat, salt, and the smell of smoke. By day twelve, the routine had settled into our bones. We woke up, checked the signal fire, hiked for water with our bamboo canteens, and scoured the lagoon for anything that wasn't a bitter tuber.We had our moments of "fun," if you could call it that. One afternoon, we spent two hours trying to name the different types of birds that nested in the cliffs, eventually giving up and calling them all "The Board of Directors" because they looked judgmental and made a lot of noise. We even had a contest to see who could skip a stone the furthest across the calm water of the lagoon. I won. Mr. Coop claimed he had a "rotator cuff injury" from the crash, but I knew he just hated losing.But the fun was a thin mask. Most days, the loneliness was a physical ache. I would catch myself staring at the horizon, wishing for something as simple as a flush

Nathaniel's POV Darkness was a thick void that I had been drowning in for hours. I remember the white-hot, jagged agony of the stonefish sting and then the world narrowing down to the sound of my own heartbeat.I had been drifting. I felt the heat, the searing, localized fire of the leaves Ariana pressed against my skin. I wanted to tell her to stop, but my tongue was a lead weight and I could only shout. I felt her cool hands on my forehead. I heard her voice, a desperate, melodic anchor in the storm of my fever. I tried to tell her I was there, that I was fighting, but I was trapped in the basement of my own mind.Eventually, the pain faded into a deep, heavy exhaustion. My heart slowed. My lungs felt too tired to expand against the pressure of the air. I let go. I didn't mean to, but the effort of being alive became too much. I slipped into a silence that felt like peace.Suddenly, a jolt of air forced its way into my throat. It tasted of salt and mint and it hit my lungs like a s

Ariana's POV The memory hit me as I stared into the dying embers of our fire. I was twenty-two, standing in the cramped kitchen of my father’s apartment in Greenwich Village. The air smelled of stale coffee and the lemon-scented floor wax he made me use every Saturday."I got the internship, Dad," I had said, holding my phone out. "It’s with Coop Enterprises. It’s one of the biggest logistics and tech firms in the world."My father didn't look up from his ledger. He was a man made of angry scowls and gray hair, his eyes always scanning for a mistake. "And how much does it pay?""It’s a stipend, Dad. But the experience—""Experience doesn't pay the rent on this place," he snapped, finally looking at me. His eyes were cold, reflecting the bitterness he had carried since the day my mother walked out. "You think you’re going to run off to some fancy office and forget where you came from? You owe me, Ariana. I stayed. When she left you, I was the one who kept a roof over your head. I was

Nathaniel’s POV I am a man who deals in facts, but the fact I was facing right now was unbearable and it was that I was a fucking coward. I had used a young woman’s deepest trauma as a weapon because I couldn't handle my own failure.I stood in the middle of the jungle, my lungs burning. Ariana had been gone for nearly three hours. I had tried to follow her immediately, but my leg—the one the stonefish had claimed as its trophy—was dragging. I was slow, and the jungle was a maze of deceptive paths and thick undergrowth.The air was changing. The humidity had reached a saturation point where the oxygen felt like it was being replaced by steam. To the west, the sky was bruising, turning a deep, charcoal gray. This is what happens in the afternoon on the Island. After three weeks, I knew the pattern. The sun would bake the earth until the clouds couldn't hold the weight anymore, and then the sky would let down rain."Ariana!" I roared, my voice echoing off the limestone cliffs.The only

Ariana’s POV The air between us was so thick it felt like I was breathing in water. I was pinned against his chest, my heart hammering against his. I looked at Nathaniel’s lips. They were slightly parted, his breath warm against my skin.Before my brain could talk me out of it, I leaned down and planted a soft, quick peck.The moment I did it, horror flooded me. I hurriedly pulled back, my face burning so hot I thought I’d melt. "I—I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I’ll just—"I tried to scramble off him, but his hands tightened on my waist. He didn't let go. He held me right there, flush against him, and that was when I felt it. An unmistakable, hard length pressing firmly against my thigh. My breath hitched."Ariana, stay still," he said, his voice a low, rough growl."Nathaniel, I shouldn't have—""It’s fine," he interrupted, though he sounded anything but fine. He closed his eyes for a second, his jaw working as if he were trying to solve a complex equation in his head. "Bu