Page 117 of The Hollywood Switch-up

The helicopter was already running when Lily walked her across the pad. The noise was deafening, a physical thing pressing against her skull. She climbed in because she’d said yes yesterday in her villa, and saying yes when the door was shut and the curtains were drawn was one thing, but actually getting into a helicopter while Martin expected her on set at dawn was something else entirely.

She’d told Lily she could do this. She was less sure now.

The seat belt clicked. Headphones clamped over her ears and the rotor’s thud dulled, and the ground fell away. Erika watched the island shrink beneath her—the trailers, the palm trees, the set where Martin was probably already reviewing tomorrow’s call sheet—and she thought about how she was supposed to be down there, performing, surviving, holding herself small enough that he couldn’t find her. Instead she was in the air heading toward a man she’d been pushing away for a week and she still hadn’t told him why.

In her headphones, Lily’s voice cracked through static: “You know your man never does anything small.”

The coastline arced beneath them, water catching the last light in copper.

The dock came up first. A narrow line of wood cutting into turquoise water. Then the yacht, white and absurdly beautiful. Then Stefan stood at the end of it. And her breath shortened, because the last time she'd seen him, she’d been walking away and he’d been standing in the doorway of his villa, letting her go.

The helicopter settled. She freed her belt. The blades rose again and took Lily with them. It was just Erika on a beach with the wind flattening her dress against her legs, and Stefan walking toward her at a careful pace that made her want to cry—not fast, not slow, just measured.

He stopped three feet away. Close enough to touch if she wanted. Far enough to refuse.

“You came.”

Two words, and his voice cracked on the second one.

“I almost didn’t.”

He nodded. Not hurt. Just taking it in.

He offered his hand. Not a grab, not a pull. Just his palm open between them. She looked at it and thought about every door she hadn’t opened, every text she hadn’t answered, the week of silence she’d built between them. She put her hand in his because she’d come this far. The helicopter was gone. The island was behind her. She was so tired of being afraid.

He closed his fingers around hers and they walked the dock toward the gangplank, and he didn’t say anything about what the weekend meant or what had happened or where they stood. He just held her hand. The yacht and the water and the distance from Martin did the rest.

Someone handed them champagne on the way aboard—she didn’t register the face, just the cool glass in her hand and her legs still shaking from the helicopter.

“To borrowed boats and bad ideas.” Stefan lifted his glass. He was trying.

“Stefan. After everything I said to you—you can’t just pretend it’s water under the bridge.”

“I’m not pretending. You burned the bridge. I brought a boat.” He clinked his glass against hers. “Fair’s fair.”

A laugh cracked free despite the tension in her chest. Something loosened—not the secret, not the truth, those were still lodged deep—but the muscles in her shoulders, the clench in her jaw, the brace she’d been holding for a week.

There were flowers everywhere. Peonies in water-filled bowls along the railings. She touched one. “Peonies?”

“I told the florist the situation and she stopped feeling sorry for me long enough to pick those.” He shrugged.

“So this is your Friday night routine?” She gestured at the deck, the rigging, the water stretching out in every direction. “Yacht, champagne, flowers you didn’t choose?”

“Borrowed.” His eyes crinkled. “My friend Nico’s boat. This is his smallest.”

“His smallest?”

“The bigger one’s got a helipad. Nico doesn’t do things simply.” He said it with the fondness of an old story.

He showed her around—the salon below deck with its leather sofas and dark wood, the galley where a chef was doing something with butter and garlic and thyme that made her stomach clench because she realized she hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning. Stefan noticed. He didn’t say anything, but he went quiet, and she knew he was adding it to the list of things he’d been tracking—the weight loss, the shadows under her eyes, the flinching at sudden sounds. And the list was getting long enough that one day soon he was going to ask her a question she couldn’t deflect, and she was going to have to decide whether to lie to his face or tell him about Martin.

He stopped at a door at the end of the hallway and opened it, and the master cabin was all warm light and dark ocean—amber lanterns, a bed she tried not to look at, and one entire wall of glass with the water moving behind it.

“The room is yours.” Stefan leaned against the doorframe. “I’ll be on deck. Come find me when you’re ready.”

He left before she could argue. The door clicked shut. She stood alone in a room that smelled like salt and clean linen and faintly, underneath, like him.

She opened the closet looking for something to wear and found a robe hanging next to a few button-downs and a pair of jeans, folded on the shelf—Stefan's, probably, or left over from Nico.