Pretended Riley wasn’t watching me in the reflection of the window.
Pretended the sky wasn’t shrinking around us like a tightening fist.
The cabin settled into a hum, soft, steady, claustrophobically calm. I tried to breathe evenly. To pretend Riley’s presence wasn’t a weight sliding over my skin.
His thigh brushed mine again.
Accident. Not accident.
I shifted away.
He didn’t.
My phone buzzed.
Again.
A faint vibration, muffled in my pocket, but in the compressed quiet of the cabin, it felt like a scream.
I reached for it and pulled it out, but before I could unlock it, Riley’s hand moved, fast, precise, a snake strike.
He plucked the phone out of my hands and out of my reach.
“Riley—“ My heart slammed against my ribs. “Give it back.”
He raised a brow, unconcerned. “Relax. I’m not reading anything private.”
“You just—“ My voice cracked. “You grabbed it.”
“Because you jumped like it was a detonator.” His tone was silk over steel. “Which makes me… curious.”
My breath tangled. Panic spiked hot and sharp.
But then I remembered.
My message previews were off. All he saw was my new wallpaper. A grainy picture of Chiara holding a bubble tea and making the world’s worst face.
Riley tilted the phone in his palm, amused. “Your friends are disasters.”
“Give. It. Back.”
He didn’t.
Instead, with infuriating ease, his thumb pressed on the screen and the phone unlocked.
My stomach dropped so fast I felt weightless.
No.
No no no.
“How—“ My voice strangled itself. “How did you—?”
He glanced at me, eyes gleaming with slow, wicked satisfaction. “You unlocked your phone when we were walking to the reception yesterday. You thought I wasn’t paying attention?”
My blood went cold.
He had memorized it.
