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A waiter appears at my elbow, another bottle of champagne balanced on a silver tray, his smile already faltering. “Sir?”

“Fuck off.”

I drag a hand over my face. Every part of me wants to follow him. I take two steps toward the door before the slate goes off against my thigh again, and I don’t need to look to know what it says. Thirty minutes now, maybe less.

If I go after him, we’ll miss the berth. Then we’re stuck here while Vasco keeps circling, Dad keeps reaching, and Onyx keeps breathing air that nearly killed him last night. I could follow Jade into the dark and make him listen, or I could get them both off this fucking planet.

So I don’t chase him.

I could put four men on him before he reaches the lift. He’d be on that ship in twenty minutes, and he’d never forgive me. I’d have exactly what Granddad had. Forty hounds that came when he called because they’d been broken to it.

I don’t want a hound. I want the one with teeth.

So I take his brother instead because Jade will follow him anywhere, and I tell myself it isn’t the same thing.

I stand in the middle of a room I own, on a planet I own, and let the one thing I actually want walk away from me because the clock my family built won’t move for me any more than it does for anyone else. Fuck, I hate every step as he gets farther away.

He’ll go home angry, expecting everything to be exactly as he left it. By the time he gets there, what I’ve already set in motion will be done.

Done. Arranged. Out of his hands and mine, somewhere none of this can reach them.

He’ll understand. After. When they’re both safe, breathing clean air, and I can explain it without a knife in his eyes.

He has to.

Straightening my jacket, I head for the ship.

18

JADE

Ifeel like I can’t breathe, yet I keep running.

I run and run, out of the lift and past the doormen, until I reach the end of the street, panting. Then I look over my shoulder toward where the bar sits.

Would he come out? Would he come searching for me? Would he⁠—

Stop it. He’s a playboy. Part of the elite. He only wants to control you, play with you, hurt you.

I know that, I do, but I’m afraid it’s too late and I’ve already fallen for him. He’s all I can think of at night when I toss and turn in bed, and even during the day, deep underground. I think of when he hunted me through the forest, of how he looked when he injured himself, of how I carried him through the storm to the cave. His kisses. His marks. The way he took me apart until it felt like something we were doing together. What he did to me just now, dancing with me before dropping to his knees and taking me into his mouth.

My cock twitches at the memory. Snarling at no one in particular, I keep my glare fixed on the door.

When he comes walking out, I hold my breath.

Please see me.

But he doesn’t even look up, eyes glued to his slate, as he rushes out into the street and disappears in his obnoxious car.

I glance at my own slate, pathetically hoping that maybe he messaged me, but no. Of course not. He’s already moved on, and it hurts. It makes my chest ache and my eyes burn, even though I know it’s for the best.

He was lying when he said he wanted to marry me, and I know it.

I know that. But it hurts.

“Jade Mercer?” A cab sits at the curb, the driver’s arm lounging outside the open window. “Paid and waiting, whenever you’re ready, sir.”

“No, thank you. I’ll walk.”