Between Two Brothers

CHAPTER 11.

ISLA'S POV

The clock on my screen glowed past nine, the penthouse suite wrapped in the quiet hum of late-night London. Most of the floor had emptied hours ago, leaving only the low thrum of the air conditioning and the distant pulse of the city below. I should have gone home. Mum had texted earlier, her voice bright over the phone about a sudden clean bill from the health inspectors—“A miracle, love!”—but the relief felt hollow. I knew better now. Nothing with the Blackthornes was a miracle.

I worked anyway, fingers flying over the keyboard as I finalized the Tokyo merger briefs. Exhaustion pulled at my bones, but stopping meant thinking. Thinking meant facing the photo I’d found in Dare’s drawer—the one that cracked open every certainty I had left.

The soft click of his office door pulled me from my thoughts. Dare had been unusually present all evening, a silent shadow in the glass-walled suite. He’d dismissed his evening security detail but stayed, watching me from behind his desk or pacing the perimeter like a caged predator. Now he emerged, jacket long gone, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing the corded strength of his forearms. His dark eyes found me instantly.

“Still here, Harlow?” His voice carried across the empty space, low and rough. “Trying to outlast me?”

I didn’t look up immediately. “The briefs need to be perfect. You made that clear this morning.”

He crossed to my desk, leaning against the edge with deceptive casualness. The cedar scent of him wrapped around me, familiar and dangerous. Up close, I could see the faint shadows under his eyes—the toll of whatever war he was fighting inside.

“Perfect,” he echoed, picking up a printed page and scanning it. “You always did have a talent for proving people wrong. Even when the odds were stacked against you.” He set the paper down, his gaze lingering on my face. “Like that night in the greenhouse. Rain hammering the glass, you telling me you’d wait forever. Did you mean it then?”

The question hung between us, heavier than any command he’d issued today. I met his eyes, my pulse quickening. “Why ask now? After everything?”

Dare’s jaw tightened. He pushed off the desk and rounded it slowly, stopping behind my chair. His hands gripped the backrest, caging me without touch. “Because I see you here, night after night, fighting for a mother who deserves better. Fighting me, and I wonder…” His voice dropped, a rare slip into something almost vulnerable. “Did you really stop waiting, Isla? Or did Julian make it easy to forget?”

The air thickened. I turned in the chair, forcing myself to face him fully. Our knees brushed. “You disappeared, Dare. Six years of silence. What was I supposed to do? Keep writing letters to a ghost while my mother’s health failed and Victor treated me like trash? Julian was there, steady and real.”

“Real,” he repeated, the word laced with bitterness. He leaned down, one hand bracing on the desk, the other still on my chair, boxing me in. His face was inches from mine, dark eyes burning with a storm of possession and pain. “He was real while I was buried in Victor’s games in Spain. Real while he fed me photos of you two together. Tell me, Isla—did his hands feel like mine? Did he know exactly how to make you tremble the way I did?”

Heat flooded my body despite the anger. The s****l tension spiked, sharp and undeniable. His breath ghosted my lips, and for a heartbeat, I remembered everything—the desperate kisses, the promises, the way his body had felt against mine under those string lights. My gaze dropped to his mouth, then back to his eyes. I hated how my breath hitched.

“You don’t get to ask that,” I whispered, but my voice wavered. “Not when you came back with Serena on your arm, treating me like I was nothing.”

Dare’s hand moved, fingers brushing my jaw—light, reverent almost—before his thumb traced my lower lip. The touch sent electricity straight through me. “You were never nothing. You were everything. And it destroyed me thinking you threw it away.” His voice roughened. “I still see it when I close my eyes. You, soaked in the rain, laughing at my terrible jokes. Promising me the world.”

The vulnerability cracked through his armor, subtle but there—a flash of regret in the way his eyes softened for half a second, the slight hesitation in his touch. He wasn’t ready to beg forgiveness. But it was there, buried under layers of revenge and control.

I leaned into his hand for a fraction of a second before sanity returned. “Then why the games, Dare? The impossible tasks? The threats?”

He pulled back abruptly, as if burned, straightening to his full height. The loss of contact left me cold. His mask slammed back into place, cold and commanding, but that flash of regret lingered in the tightness around his eyes. “Because watching you here, fighting, reminds me of who I lost. And I don’t know how to stop wanting her back while punishing the woman who replaced her.” He turned away, raking a hand through his hair. “Finish the briefs. Then go home. Before I do something we’ll both regret.”

I sat there, heart hammering, the chair still warm from his grip. The s****l tension hummed in the air like live wires, unresolved and dangerous. He disappeared back into his office, but I felt his eyes on me through the glass.

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