Page 7 of Voyage with the Reclusive Billionaire

“Fuck’s sake, Eliza,” he grits out, wrapping a protective arm around me as he inhales a shaky breath. “Are you ever going to learn to watch where you’re going?”

“Yeah,” I rasp, the realization of my almost-death fully sinking into me. “Yeah, I think that did it for me.”

Corey pulls us to a stop until the remaining clusters of people are ahead of us. He looks into my eyes with genuine worry shining in his. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. You’re the one who saved me,” I frown. “Somehow.”

“No—that’s not what I meant.”

“I swear to God, I’m not concussed. I just wasn’t paying enough attention.”

HIs mouth ticks up in the corner, but I can tell he’s still not quite over watching his cruise-buddy nearly plummet to her death. “Also not what I meant,” he murmurs softly. “Stop deflecting. Are you okay?”

My breaths are still shaky and so are my hands, and I can’t stop thinking about how close I came to having a funeral. Wouldn’t that really have stuck it to Adam, though? Having to be the guy who broke up with his fiance—and then, because of that, she died while on a vacation she only took to escape from him?

I laugh. I shouldn’t find that funny and I don’t think I do, really, but I almost fucking died and I’m allowed to laugh if I damn want to. “Yeah,” I get out between breathless laughter. “I’m okay.”

Corey blinks at me cautiously before breaking into restrained laughter himself. He uses the hold he still has on my waist to gently tug me over to his other side. Away from the overlook’s edge. “Just to be safe,” he says.

“I swear I know how to walk,” I reply.

“Sure,” he says doubtfully, more like he’s entertaining me than agreeing. “Better to play it safe though, yeah?”

“You asshole,” I say, though I have to try not to laugh through the words. “I’ll push you off.”

He shrugs. “I’d be okay.”

“You think you could survive that?”

The playfulness that was in his voice has been replaced with sincerity. “I’m sure I could.”

“How?”

Suddenly, Corey’s posture is rigid. He looks at me like he’s just remembered where he is. But then he smiles and tugs me along. “Come on,” he says. “We need to pick up our pace before they leave us behind.”

I want to insist he answer the question—but it’s a stupid question, isn’t it? Of course he wouldn’t survive that steep of a fall. No person could.

But then why did he answer so seriously? And why did he get so cagey when I asked how?

I shake my head and follow him down the hillside. Maybe I’m just reading into it. I probably just misinterpreted his tone, and he thought I was joking along with him or being stupid by asking how he’d survive the fall.

But still. It’s so easy to recall the look in his eyes, the sudden stiffness of his back…

I shake my head and let it go. Because it doesn’t matter. Or, at least, it shouldn’t matter. I refuse to let it. If he hadn’t been joking, I don’t want to know the answer, anyway. I don’t want to know what he’s done to be so sure he could walk away from such a brutal plummet. We’re cruise-ship friends only.

And the answer would probably be a hell of a lot more complicated than our dynamic allows for.

Chapter four

Corvan

Why is it so goddamn hard to be normal?

I’m not used to having to hide who—what—I am from anyone anymore. I’ve been alone too long. It’s easy to forget that I’m not supposed to be a shifter. That I’m not supposed to be able to sprout fucking wings and fly away from nearly a five hundred feet of open air.

But Eliza makes it easy to forget that I am not allowed to be me. Not completely, anyway. She makes it easy to forget the reasons I have boundaries, walls. The reason why I was trying to avoid her.

My secrets would sound so beautiful being whispered in her ear. Repeated on her gentle lips.

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