“The way he stared at her—”
“You were stone cold for all these months, but now that she’s back in your life, you’ve undone all your hard work,” Shane admonished. “What if a real enemy knew this reaction? What then, Leo? Will you fly off the handle? Are you a thug like those bikers, or are you a gentleman that schemes and plots and has a level head? What man are you choosing to be?”
Leo didn’t answer.
*
He felt like he’d been injected with poison.
Something sickly ran through his veins.
Leo would spend every night pacing around Skye, talking gibberish to himself. One part of him admonishing his actions to the Galloways, the other spewing promises to bury that man alive for looking at Skye the way he did.
He felt torn into two men.
And he tried desperately to cling to the conditioned man that he knew he should be.
But his father was coming at him in that quiet way he loved to do. And he wanted to dethrone him, but at the same time, he needed to deplete his resources, he needed to make a source of income for himself—and that was where the Dungeon came into play.
Except that required time.
To boot, he had the bikers breathing down his neck, and he had made a promise to Abram that he could not back down from.
Things were fucked.
“Are you alright?” Skye asked more than once, watching him as he sat there, distant and cool.
He smiled every time, making sure his eyes smiled, too. “I have you, don’t I?”
She nodded once, looking assured. “You do.”
“Then I’m the best I’ll ever be.”
*
With just a week left of their trip, it wasn’t the sandy beaches Skye was going to miss the most, or the yacht voyages around the island. She would miss the people, and she wept that she would never see them again.
“Next year,” Leo promised. “We’ll be back here next year.”
Unusually emotional, Skye repeated, “Next year.”
They were on the veranda, her wine glass nearly empty, his whiskey untouched. She was curled in his lap, her face buried in his neck as he looked out into the ocean. The salty breeze was in full force tonight, and the air felt thick with the promise of rain.
“Our problems don’t exist out here,” she mused quietly. “We’re just a piece of the scenery.”
“Is that a good thing?” Leo wondered.
“To be so insignificant? Yes.”
He stroked her back, not entirely understanding what she meant. In his world, being insignificant was a curse. Looking at her intently, he said, “You’ve been quiet lately. Is it leaving that’s bothering you?”
“In some ways,” she replied. “But I’m eager to get back.”
Leo didn’t have the nerve to ask her if that was because she would be closer to Hunter.
Even here, in the middle of paradise, he felt Hunter’s presence hanging over them. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Sometimes he wished Hunter was here with them, other times he wished—
He cleared his throat, shaking his head to himself.Not this again.He had Skye right here in his arms, he reminded himself, and he wasn’t even halfway into their time together.