“Thank you for being exactly who you are,” I murmur, rising onto my toes to kiss him softly. Then I pull back and add, “But just so we’re clear—if you ever suggest buying a boat, the answer is absolutely not.”
Bennett laughs, loud enough to ripple through the backyard. “Got it, babe. Message received.”
And even as I smile, my eyes drift back to Phillip.
He is hiding something.
I know it now with the same certainty I know my own name.
And sooner or later, I’m going to make him prove it.
Chapter Seventeen
“Do you think he’s dead?”
Moonlight glints off McCullough’s tear-streaked cheeks, catching in the wet tracks like something fragile, something already breaking beyond repair.
“I don’t know,” I murmur, my gaze fixed on the body at our feet.
Stephen lies face down in the grass, unnaturally still, the shape of him already beginning to feel less like a person and more like a problem.
“What are we going to do with him?” she asks, her voice thinner now, stretched tight with panic.
I don’t answer right away.
My mind moves through the possibilities with a kind of cold efficiency that surprises even me. If we leave him here and he dies, it becomes something worse—something we lose control of. If we call the police… I can already hear my mother’s voice, sharp and horrified, talking about reputation, about headlines, about everything that matters more than the truth.
We are a pillar of this community.
She’s said it my entire life.
My father donates millions to the right places. My mother smooths over every misstep before it can become a scandal. Our name appears in glossy features and charity galas, never in police reports.
That is how this world works.
That is how it survives.
My gaze drops back to Stephen. Blood has soaked into the grass beneath his head, dark and spreading, far too much of it. I crouch slowly, forcing myself closer, and only then do I see it clearly—the angle of his fall, the sharp edge of the decorative stone where his temple must have struck. The skin there is split open, the wound deep and wrong.
Teeth—God—a few of them are scattered in the damp grass.
My stomach twists, but I don’t look away. I can’t afford to.
My hand curls into a fist, the same one that struck him. All those hours of rowing, of building strength, of pushing myself harder than anyone else on the team… I never imagined I would use that strength like this.
But I would do anything for McCullough.
Anything.
And then, just as quickly as the panic rose, something else settles over me.
Clarity.
I straighten slowly, the decision already made before I fully register it. “You need to go back to the hotel,” I say, my voice steadier now. “I’ll take care of this.”
“What? No—Whitney?—”
“Yes.” I cut her off, sharper than I intend, but there isn’t time to soften it. “Go. Trust me. I’ll meet you in the room in a few minutes.”
