My words fall into nothing because I’m not even sure what I’d say.
I gave up my right to anything with Sloan when I walked out.
I might have done it for her, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
“Without being able to what?” She reaches across the table, and I let myself imagine, for one stupid second, that she’s going to wrap one of those perfect hands around my forearm, but she grabs the glass of scotch instead.
She sits taller in her chair, swirls the scotch, and sends the ice cube knocking against the sides of the crystal.
“It’s a special kind of hell, being this close to you and not even being able to talk to you.”
“Not to beat a dead horse, but ...” She quirks a brow with her shoulder lifted, taking a small sip.
I almost laugh, even though there’s nothing funny. “I know. It’s my fault.” I press my fingers to my temple, out of habit more than anything, and I catch the way her eyes widen, almost imperceptibly, like maybe she’s worried. “I’ll get off at the next port, if you don’t want me here, Sloan. Talon’ll get over it.”
I watch her set the glass down, careful, measured movements, before she slides her clutch off her arm, where it was resting in the crook of her elbow.
She unzips it, hand fishing around for a minute before she drops something on the table beside the glass.
My cup ring.
The giant turquoiseSinlaid with diamonds, and the words spelled in gold.
“Why’d you bring that?” My words lift, buoyed with hope—and it’s stupid, because it’s not like she brought it to make some grand gesture with it. She didn’t even know I was going to be here.
Sloan taps her finger against the edge of the ring.
Six times.
I press my eyes closed, feeling a bit like each tap was a cut.
“It didn’t feel right ...” she starts, shaking her head before she turns and stares out at the ocean, watching the last rays of the sun disappear beyond the horizon.
Sloan tips her chin up towards the sky before she turns back to me, lips tugging to the side in a sad, rueful line. “I wasn’t going to leave it in a box, sitting in a storage unit until I got around to unpacking it. It felt sort of like it ... wouldn’t be safe there or something. I just wanted to make sure ... it was the most important thing in the world to you.”
“It wasn’t the most important thing.”
Her nostrils flare with a dry laugh, and she closes her eyes.
“Sloan—” I start, but she cuts me off with the flash of her palm.
“I’ll make you a deal.” She puts her finger into the centre of the ring, lifting it and twirling it around before dropping it back into her open clutch. “When I walk away from this table, we call a truce. For the rest of the cruise. We can speak, but we don’t fight. You don’t get to touch me, not even a helping hand on my back when I’m going up the stairs, and you certainly don’t get to talk to me like you have a right to know what’s going on in my brain anymore. No counting for me. No telling me to take up space. And certainly nothing like what you said at dinner.”
Her cheeks pink, and I know she’s talking about what I said—how I knew everything about her body. I scrub my jaw. I hate myself more than I ever have right now. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t. What you said wasn’t a lie. We were ... good together.”
A colossal understatement.
I don’t think a man has ever been lit on fire the way I was with her in the entire history of our sorry civilization.
“You do know me, in all the ways you can know a person.” She looks down, picking at the leather strap hanging around herwrist, and when she flicks her gaze back up, tears pool in her eyes. “And I know you, but I won’t survive knowing you twice.”
Confused, I jerk my chin. “So you want to pretend we don’t know each other? That we’re fucking strangers?”
“However you need to make sense of it. If you can follow the rules, you can have the ring back at the end of the week.” Sloan shrugs, tapping her clutch, before she looks up at me, full lips parting and her words dropping into a whisper. “But I want something in exchange.”
I’d scale the side of the ship and try to jump to the fucking moon if she asked. I swallow. “Whatever you want, Sloan.”
