“They settled into what outsiders might consider an ordinary life, but they never lost that fire for each other even after I was born.” Most people dreamed of the kind of love his parents had, but he spoke about it like it’d been a curse, not a blessing. “Yet you don’t believe in love,” I said.
How was that possible? Most people’s cynicism toward love came from seeing it stripped down to the barest skeleton of what it once was. Ugly divorces, broken promises, tearful fights. But it sounded like his parents had been a shining example of what it could be. “No.” The caustic cut of Christian’s smile across his face raised goosebumps on my arms. “Because what my parents had wasn’t love. It was ego and destruction disguised as affection. A drug they kept chasing because it gave them a high they couldn’t get anywhere else. It clouded their judgment to the detriment of themselves and everyone around them, and it gave them cover to do all these irrational things because no one questioned them if it was for love.” He leaned back, his face hard. “It wasn’t just my parents. Look at the world around us. People kill, steal, and lie in the name of this abstract emotion we’re told is supposed to be our ultimate goal. Love conquers all.
Love heals all. Etcetera, etcetera.” The curl of his lip told me how much respect he had for such platitudes. “Alex gave up a multibillion-dollar company. Bridget almost lost a country. And Rhys gave up his privacy, which mattered more to him than any amount of cash. It’s completely illogical.” “Alex got his company back,” I pointed out. “Bridget made it work, and Rhys didn’t give
up all his privacy. Sometimes, sacrifices are necessary for happiness.” “Why?” I blinked, so startled by the bluntness of his question that it took me a minute to respond. “Because it’s the way the world works,” I finally said. “We can’t have everything we want without making some compromises. If humans were robots, I’d agree with your assessment, but we’re not. We have feelings, and if it weren’t for love, the human race wouldn’t survive. Procreation, protection, motivation. It all hinges on that one emotion.” It was the least romantic and therefore the most effective answer I could’ve given. “Perhaps.” Christian’s shrug expressed the depth of his skepticism more than words could. “But there’s a second issue, which is that people use love so often it’s lost all meaning. They love their dogs, cars, happy hours, and their friend’s new haircut. They say love is this grand, wonderful thing when it’s the opposite. It’s useless at best and dangerous at worst.” “There are different types of love. The way I love fashion is different from the way I love my friends.” “Varying degrees of the same disease.” Dark amusement filled his face when I winced at the word disease. “Is this where you’ll try to change my mind?
Convince me that love does, in fact, make the world go around?” “No,” I said truthfully. “You’ve already made up your mind. Nothing I say will change it. The only way you’ll change your mind is through experience, not words.” Surprise coasted through his eyes before it submerged beneath something heavier, more slumberous. “And do you think that will happen?” His low drawl condensed the air between us. “That I’ll fall in love and eat my words?” I shrugged, the casual movement at odds with the rapid beats of my heart. “Maybe. I’m not a fortune teller.”
Secretly, I hoped he would. Not because I had delusions of being the one who could quote-unquote change him, but because everyone deserved to experience true love at least once in their lifetime. “One of the clauses in our contract,” Christian said, watching me with those all-knowing eyes, “is that I don’t fall in love with you.” My mouth dried. “Yes.”“Why did you put in that condition, Stella?” “Because I don’t want you to fall in love with me.” He didn’t smile at my quick quip. A long silence passed before he spoke again. “You and I, we aren’t so different,” he said softly. A spark ignited and burned up all the oxygen between us. The sound of my pulse faded into a distant whoosh. Say something, Stella. But his gaze held my voice captive, and before I could free it, his phone rang and shredded the moment to pieces. Christian’s eyes lingered on me for a fraction of a second longer before he took the call. He walked out to the lanai, where the distant roar of the waves drowned out his end of the conversation. The weight on my chest eased, leaving me lightheaded and dizzy. I felt like I’d been submerged beneath the ocean for the past hour and only just came up for air. It was always hard to breathe around Christian. One night in Hawaii down, two more to go. I thought the trip would be a simple one.
Arrive, do the shoots, leave. But, as I was quickly realizing, nothing that involved Christian Harper was ever simple.
*
CHRISTIAN
“Someone hacked into the Mirage’s security system,” Kage said, sounding grim. “Our cyber team confirmed it was the result of a device similar to Scylla.” I bit back a colorful curse. The last thing I wanted was to discuss work this late at night in fucking Hawaii. Granted, it was even
later for him, but Kage worked all hours and his update was a mindfuck. I’d developed Scylla two years ago. Named after the legendary Greek monster who devoured men off ships that sailed too close, the device didn’t require a download or a USB port to hack into a system. It only needed to be within a few feet of the target for the owner to remote control into the device and fuck shit up as they saw fit. No one knew Scylla existed except for the people at Harper Security and Jules, whom I’d lent the device to last year. She didn’t know what it was when she used it, and even if she did, she didn’t have the schematics for it, which meant one thing. The traitor was still at Harper, and they were somehow connected to Stella’s stalker. Cold fury rippled through me. I’d run a second round of checks on everyone I employed after the Mirage surveillance hack with a special focus on those closest to me, including Brock and Kage. They came back clean. I’d let go of a few mildly suspicious employees, but they hadn’t been high-level enough to know about Scylla. Plus, unless Stella’s stalker was a developer himself, it should’ve been damn near impossible for them to replicate Scylla’s schematics…unless they got their hands on the blueprint hidden in my office. My mind spun with a thousand possibilities, but when I spoke, my voice was calm. Rock solid. “Pull all the security footage from the area around the building. I want video from every single corner and storefront that has a camera within a five-block radius of the Mirage. Unless the hacker can fucking teleport, he had to have gone somewhere after the breakin. Find him.” I hung up after Kage’s grunt of affirmation. The footage wasn’t my top priority. My top priority was finding out who in my company was trying to sabotage me, but until I returned to D.C., gathering and screening the footage would give my men something to do while I hunted down the traitor.
Between the Scylla news and the stalled progress on Stella’s stalker, May was shaping up to be a shitty fucking month. Aggravation mounted in my chest while I calculated my next move. If I were here for any reason other than Stella, I would fly back to D.C. first thing in the morning, but I couldn’t leave her alone when there was a psycho on the loose targeting her. I’d lied when I’d told her there was no news. I’d intercepted three more notes from him in her mailbox. They contained basic threats, nothing new, and they were still untraceable—for now. The chances of him following her here were slim, but they weren’t zero. At least, that was what I told myself. I returned to the living room and locked the sliding glass door behind me. It was already midnight.