Glorious Rivals(89)

She was right. That was exactly what he should have done. What he would have done had it been even the slightest bit bearable to do so.

Savannah walked past him toward the shore and then turned back around, trapping him at the end of the dock. “I see you, Rohan.” She smiled—a glittering, knife’s-edge kind of smile. “Do you remember the lengths you went to, at the start of this game, to make me feel seen?” She tilted her head to the side, her eyes locked on to his. “Do you remember me telling you to save the wolfish smile and the quips and the charm and all the rest?”

He did.

“I am not a person you can manipulate.” Savannah placed herself firmly in his way, though she had to be aware that was never a safe place to be. “And you do not get to decide,” she continued, “whether or not I betray you.”

All the cards were on the table now.

“All you get to decide,” Savannah Grayson said, “is whether you are really that scared.” That word was a fighting word. “Of me.”

Rohan had never been able to resist parrying with her. “Hate to break it you, love, but I’m not capable of feeling much of anything at the moment.” He meant that. He knew it to be true, knew that in his current state, there were no lines he would not cross.

And yet… he’d called her love.

“Oh really?” Savannah challenged, and then she walked toward him and past him, all the way to the end of the dock this time.

And then, she stepped off into the water.

Chapter 77

ROHAN

She didn’t come back up. It had been more than a minute and two strikes of lightning in the distance, and Savannah had not come up.

Rohan had done everything he could since the yacht to shove her into Brady’s lap, to hasten the demise of their alliance, to give her the courtesy of the first betrayal, and in return, Savannah Grayson had given him the photographs he now held in his hands—the leverage she’d had, such as it was, over Brady.

I see you, Rohan.

He was the one who said things like that, the one who preyed upon the very human desire to be seen and recognized and known. He was the one who pulled the strings, the one who threw down gauntlets and backed opponents into corners.

Damn her. Rohan stripped off his jacket and tank top. The ocean was dark and undoubtedly cold, the water surrounding the docks of indeterminate depth. The last thing—the very last thing—that Rohan wanted to do was go in after her.

But she’d left him no choice.

He secured the photographs along with his jacket, and then he pulled the trigger, going in feet first. Dark water. His body plunged downward into its freezing depths. His ability to swim was strong enough for this, at least, but beneath the ocean’s surface—how is it so damn deep this close to shore?—memories circled like sharks.

Like there was chum in the water.

The sound of gentle humming came first. The smell of his mother—and then the weight of stones tied to his ankles.

Strong arms grabbed him, pulled him up. Rohan sucked in air, the way he had so many times before, and that was when he realized: Savannah Grayson had just pulled him up and under the dock.

She treaded water beside him. “Aren’t you going to sign the ledger?” she said, her voice echoing in the small expanse of space. It was well-lit in the hollow beneath the dock, and Rohan came fully back to himself—to the view of Savannah, wet and mostly submerged.

And triumphant.

Rohan followed Savannah’s gaze to an open ledger, attached to the bottom of the dock. Keeping himself afloat with his legs, Rohan lifted the arm bearing his watch and pressed it to the page. His name appeared, the third in the ledger, after Savannah’s, which appeared right under Lyra Kane’s.

“I suppose that answers that,” Rohan said. They weren’t the first.

“Lyra beat us this time,” Savannah replied, and the word us rang in Rohan’s mind. “But I am going to beat you both to the end.”

That was a promise, a familiar one, and Rohan thought about the way that Savannah had declared that he did not have her permission to end things. He’d pushed, and he’d pushed, cutting at the rope, willing her to walk away.

And still, she hadn’t. She hadn’t betrayed him. She hadn’t even tried to.

You do not get to decide whether or not I betray you. All you get to decide is whether you are really that scared. Of her. She’d accused him of being scared of her.

Fear was weakness, as bad as affection, not nearly as dangerous as trust.

Being here, with Savannah Grayson beneath the dock, in dark and freezing water, their bodies wet and far too close together was a threat on many fronts.

Rohan looked past her, searching their surroundings until he found what he was looking for: the next clue. No charm this time, he registered, just words. They were written in glowing script on the underside of the dock.

Respect the grayest pile For the departed creature’s sake That hovered there a while

“When I win,” Savannah declared forcefully, treading water beside him, her gaze locked on those same words, “I’ll give you the money you need.”

He would have rather she come at him with a knife. “Now why would you do a thing like that?” he challenged.

They were in freezing water—in a storm. Neither one of them had any business lingering there.

“Because,” Savannah said, “a key part of my strategy for winning this—on my terms, my way and no one else’s—is by wanting it more.”