I go still.
Learning to live with each other’s flaws. Learning to accept things that hurt because love is supposed to be stronger than that… right?
The question lingers.
Unanswered.
I don’t know.
Neither did you.
I just hope tomorrow is better.
I stare at the final line for a long moment, something hollow opening up in my chest.
Hope.
That’s what she had.
Hope that things would improve. That if she adjusted enough, softened enough, became enough—he would meet her there.
I swallow hard, my grip tightening on the journal.
Whitney wasn’t naïve.
She was beingconditioned.
And the worst part—she believed it was her fault.
I close the journal slowly, my mind already moving ahead, connecting threads I can no longer ignore.
Phillip isn’t just cold. He’s calculated. And whatever happened to Whitney—it didn’t start on that boat.
It started here.
Long before anyone was looking.
Chapter Nineteen
Ijolt awake with my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might bruise my ribs from the inside, my skin damp with sweat that cools too quickly in the darkness and leaves me shivering beneath the sheets. For a moment I don’t move at all, I just lie there staring into the dim outline of the ceiling, listening to the low, steady hum of the fan overhead and the quiet, even rhythm of Bennett’s breathing beside me, trying to anchor myself in something real.
I draw in a slow breath, then another, willing my body to follow the same calm cadence, but it doesn’t work. The dream clings to me, thick and suffocating, not fading the way dreams usually do but settling deeper, as if it belongs somewhere inside me.
I can still feel it, the subtle, constant sway beneath my feet, the air heavy with salt and diesel, and beneath it all, Phillip’s voice cutting clean through everything, loud and self-assured and impossible to ignore.
Carefully, I push myself upright, moving slowly so I don’t wake Bennett, and press my palms against my temples as if I canphysically force the images away, but they linger anyway, sharp and immediate and far too vivid to dismiss.
We were on the yacht.
Of course we were.
Phillip loved those outings, not for the quiet or the water or even the company, but for the performance of it all, the gleaming white deck, the curated guest list, the unspoken understanding that everything about it was meant to be seen and admired. In the dream, we were just off the coast of Marco Island, the Gulf stretching endlessly around us while the sky burned in soft streaks of orange and pink as the sun dipped toward the horizon, everything arranged into a picture of perfection that almost felt too precise to be real.
Whitney and I were stretched out on the deck with cocktails in hand, the condensation sliding down the glass and pooling against my fingers, while Bennett stood near the helm trying to talk business, something grounded and practical, something that belonged in the real world. Phillip, as always, had taken control of the conversation, his voice carrying easily across the open space, filling it, dominating it, leaving no room for anything else.
He was talking about a deal he had just closed, something large, something impressive, and the satisfaction in his voice was unmistakable, the kind that didn’t need acknowledgment because it assumed it already had it.
“That’s the thing about me,” he had said, his tone almost conversational, as though what he was saying wasn’t worth questioning. “I always get what I want. Money, power, whatever I decide I want, it ends up mine.”
