Page 26 of Voyage with the Reclusive Billionaire

The words are out of me before I can stop them. “You have?” I shake my head, and add, “Sorry. That sounded mean.”

“No,” she laughs, “You’re good. But yeah, I’ve been hoping to see you.” Her eyes flicked to Corvan. “And Ryker has been wanting to see you, too,” she tells him. “He thinks you guys might have… a lot in common.”

Corvan’s brows shot up. “Like what?”

She shrugged and said, voice nonchalant, “Like your heritage, yeah?” The look in her eyes told me that she meant more than what she said.

It hit me as soon as it hit Corvan. “Yeah? What’s his bloodline?”

Sylvie glanced around the ship, then said, voice low, “Clever as a…”

Fox.

Ryker was a fox shifter?

“And what about you?” I asked her, unable to stop myself from voicing my curiosity. “Are you…”

“Different bloodline,” she says. “I’m not like them. But that’s actually kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Shoot, then.”

“Not here,” Sylvie says quickly. “It’s just… kind of private, okay? I’d really appreciate it if you and I could maybe go somewhere quiet?” She looks at Corvan again. “And Ryker is over on the east side of the pool. Maybe you guys could… talk? I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to know another guy like you.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Corvan mutters. His knuckles brush the back of my hand, and I face him. There’s a question in his eyes.

He’s asking me if I’m okay with this. If this is what I want—and I know, just by that single glance, that he’ll respect my decision no matter what it is. At this moment, his choice is mine.

“Please,” Sylvie says after a moment.

I turn back to her slowly, taking in her pleading expression, before nodding. “Sure. I’d like that.”

“Great!” Sylvie chirps. “We’ll see you later, Corey. But for now, I’m taking your girlfriend for a little while.”

Girlfriend. That word again. Earlier, he could have just been saying it to really bring his point home, to strike a chord in Savannah, to make it clear to her that I wasn’t to be fucked with. Which was, admittedly, hot, but when Sylvie said it and he didn’t bother correcting her, and instead brushed a hand across my cheek before kissing my temple, I knew I was more than a cruise-long friend to him. We’d talked, and I understood that he liked me like I liked him.

But I didn’t realize he could have possibly liked me as much as I like him.

“Talk later?” he murmured.

I nodded slowly, caught up in everything about him.

Corvan stared at me for a long moment before reaching into his back pocket and sliding what he pulled out into my hand. A flat rectangle. His keycard. “That’s my spare. When you’re done, wait for me in my room, okay?”

I nodded and whispered back, “Okay.”

It took everything in me to turn away from his piercing, concerned gaze when Sylvie wound her arm with mine and led me away.

When we were finally alone, tucked in a cozy corner of the ship with our legs crossed beneath us and our faces turned toward the expansive ocean, Sylvie said, “I’m glad he told you about the shifter thing. It’ll make everything else I have to say a hell of a lot easier.”

I couldn’t hide my confusion or my worry. “I’m sorry?”

“What, exactly, is he, by the way? Ryker can always tell if someone’s a shifter or not, but he can’t always seem to make out what kind of shifter they are.”

“Oh,” I say, my voice falling flat. “Um, a raven.”

“Hm,” she says thoughtfully. “He’s the first with wings we’ve met.” She laughs. “Ryker is going to ask so many questions that your mate will inevitably lose his shit.”

My brow furrows. “Mate?”

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