Chapter 1

Samantha’s POV

Gentle hands prodded me awake. They were large hands, wrapping around my jaw with fingers long enough to almost reach my temple, and a thumb that brushed against my opposite earlobe.

Damian.

“Buckle up, princess.”

Nothing more.

I stretched like a cat and reached for the belt, doing as he told me, because over the course of the last few days I’d gotten used to just doing what Damian said when it came to security, and it earned me a faint twitch of his mouth.

Like he was pretty pleased with himself.

I turned my head and looked out of the window. Underneath me were turquoise waters and blinding white beaches, palm trees and a city strangely scattered between patches of green that I didn’t recognize.

It looked offensively like somebody had turned saturation and brightness up for Instagram and it was so fucking beautiful I felt my mouth gape a little.

Tobias inevitably sat down at my side, casually buckling his belt too. He followed my gaze, and because he was him, he was calculating the expression in my eyes, and it was already too late to smooth my forehead to hide that I had no clue where we were.

He grinned at me insolently.

“Nadi.”

I rolled my eyes at him, and he huffed a laugh, completely aware that didn’t help me at all. I narrowed my eyes at him, glaring so he was aware he was stretching his luck. From opposite the effortlessly elegant table that had no business being furniture in a private jet, Adrian caught the exchange—and did nothing.

Classic.

“Tobias.”

He deliberately ignored the warning in my voice. His stupidly beautiful eyes focused on mine, and then his lashes lowered.

Just once.

A flutter intended to make me melt, and it fucking worked, like every single time he deployed this exact gaze at me.

Fuck, you’d think I’d grown out of it since we were seven. But nope—I was still as catastrophically down for it as I had been almost twenty years ago.

“Fiji,” he elaborated, and then—because he still had at least some survival instincts left—he added, “Island? South Pacific.”

My eyes blew wide at that. “Oh my God, you mean like in Cast Away?” I inquired, and Kieran cackled.

“Please don’t start talking to a volleyball, sweetheart,” he teased, and I couldn’t even be properly pissed at their antics, because I was really, really excited now.

“Wilson at least properly listens,” I murmured.

Kieran’s smile got that sharp, pleased edge to it that told me he was about to turn insufferable in approximately three seconds, and thank fuck the jet dropped lower and the speakers crackled, saving me from whatever inappropriate joke he’d been about to crack.

The pilot informed us we’d landed perfectly on time.

No wish for a pleasant stay, nothing, because apparently billionaires didn’t require hope to have a pleasant stay.

They just had.

They took me into their middle as we exited the jet. The heat hit me halfway down the gangway, humid and startlingly soft after hours of conditioned air. Even underneath the sharp smell of jet fuel, the air smelled different—saltier, greener somehow.

Then they immediately ushered me into a car waiting just past the landing strip.

We didn’t even properly pass customs.

Holy fuck, that had to be illegal.

I had my freaking passport in a document safe around my neck, and nobody was waiting to check it. No customs. Nothing. No stamp.

I wouldn’t even get a stamp to prove I’d left the United States for the first time in my freaking life.

I found that highly unfair—and madly convenient. And for a brief moment, I wondered if there was anything their money could not buy.

Probably not, and that was exactly why I stopped thinking about it approximately half a second later.

The setup caused flashbacks to another ride with these four men in exactly the configuration we all assumed like it was mandatory.

Kieran, me and Tobias in the back. Adrian shotgun. Damian in the front.

Kieran threw his arm around my headrest and shamelessly spread his knees right into my space, turning toward me. His strange, intense, pale-green eyes sparkled with utter delight.

“I’m not the only one thinking this is kinda hot, right?” he demanded, and I slapped his thigh.

“Kieran!”

He smirked.

“One hundred percent yes, sweetheart.”

I felt my cheeks warm slightly.

“Ass,” I said, which only coaxed out his signature smirk.

Kieran Rutherford, professional menace, had apparently eroticized last week’s kidnapping by now, and when Toby’s knee deliberately pressed against mine, the fabric of his expensive-ass dress pants rubbing against my bare skin, I had to admit Rutherford wasn’t the only person with questionable erotic appetites in this car.

Adrian’s eyes met mine through the rearview mirror. The pleased amusement twinkling in his gaze wasn’t lost on me.

The corners of my mouth started to twitch.

Not with me, Penrose.

I wouldn’t ask.

Damian’s eyes flicked up to the mirror briefly as well.

They narrowed at me.

“Harbour,” he drawled, and for once it was my turn to smirk.

Ten minutes later, the car was parked, and the heat wrapped around me again the second I stepped outside. The harbour smelled of salt, sun-warmed wood and fuel, ropes creaked somewhere between the boats, and sunlight bounced off the water hard enough that I had to squint.

Damian was already carrying my suitcase and travel bag, and that was the only luggage we had.

Apparently I had spent too much time with them already, because it didn’t even puzzle me any longer.

They steered me toward the end of a long-ass pier, past boats that got progressively larger and shinier until I stopped trying to guess which one was ours.

Palm trees moved lazily beyond the marina. The water underneath the pier was so clear I could see flashes of pale sand beneath it, and everything—the white boats, the violently blue sky, the ridiculous green in the distance—looked so aggressively AI generated it wasn’t even funny.

Like somebody had designed Fiji specifically to make Chicago feel inadequate.

And then we stopped in front of a yacht.

Of course we did.

I boarded it without so much as blinking.

Kieran stared at me like I’d stolen his favourite plushie.

Adrian’s fingers interlaced with mine, and he guided me up a narrow flight of stairs, then stepped with me to the rail.

The engine roared to life underneath our feet.

The harbour slipped away behind us, slowly at first, then faster as the yacht picked up speed and the water opened around us into a bright, mysterious blue. White foam churned in our wake. Wind tore loose strands from my sleep-in-a-private-jet messy ponytail and whipped them across my face, and salty spray rained against my skin in tiny, sharp drops before settling there.

I didn’t even care.

There were little islands scattered across the horizon, absurd eruptions of green against turquoise water, some no more than strips of white beach crowded by palm trees. Every time I thought I’d found the prettiest one, another appeared farther ahead.

Holy shit.

I was in Fiji.

Actually, properly, halfway-across-the-fucking-world Fiji.

I grinned before I could stop myself and turned to look behind us, where the main island was already shrinking into the distance.

Adrian wasn’t looking at it.

He was watching me.

Of course he was.

I narrowed my eyes at him, but that only deepened the faint curve of his mouth.

Penrose waited until the main island had turned into a small, insignificant dot before his hand lazily caught my ponytail and tilted my head back.

His lips found mine, and apparently he’d decided we were past the courtship phase by now, because he kissed me with a deep, hungry focus that made me gasp into his mouth when his tongue claimed mine and glided against it in a sensual, demanding rhythm.

“Ready for what’s to come, darling?”