Between Two Brothers

CHAPTERS 21.

ISLA'S POV

Monday morning arrived grey and reluctant. I stood in my room, staring at the suitcase yawning open on my bed, half-packed with the business attire Dare had commanded me to wear and the single black dress I'd added out of spite—not for him, I told myself. But for me. Because I refused to walk into his world looking like I needed his approval.

My phone buzzed. It was Thea.

"Are you actually doing this? Spain? With him?"

I typed back with shaking fingers. "It's business. I'll be fine."

"Isla. You've never been fine where Dare Blackthorne is concerned. Not once."

She wasn't wrong, but I didn't have the energy to admit it. I zipped the suitcase shut and dragged it to the door, the wheels catching on the threadbare carpet I'd meant to replace for months. Everything in this flat was held together with good intentions and not enough money. Spain, at least, would be a different kind of cage—gilded, cold, but not mine to maintain.

Mum called just as I reached for my coat. "You'll ring me when you land?"

"Of course."

"Isla." Her voice softened, the way it always did when she saw straight through me. "Be careful with your heart. It's the only thing of yours he hasn't managed to buy or threaten."

I swallowed hard. "I know, Mum."

"Do you?"

I didn't answer. Because, I didn't have one.

The car—sleek, black, unmistakably Blackthorne—was waiting outside at exactly eight, the way everything about Dare's world insisted on precision. The driver took my suitcase without a word, and I climbed into the back seat, bracing myself.

Dare was already there.

He looked up from his phone, and for one unguarded second, something flickered across his face—relief, maybe, or surprise that I'd actually come. Then it was gone, replaced by the composed, unreadable mask he wore like armor.

"You came," he said.

"I said I would. On my terms." I settled into the seat, putting as much distance between us as the car allowed. "Business only. Remember?"

"I remember." His jaw tightened, but he didn't push. That, more than anything, unsettled me. The old Dare—the one from six years ago—had worn his heart like an open wound. This Dare measured every word like currency he refused to overspend.

The drive to the airport was quiet, filled with the hum of tires on wet asphalt and the distance between us that felt more like a held breath than actual space. I watched London blur past the window—grey rooftops, a flash of the Thames, the ordinary world I was leaving behind for a week in his.

"Julian called you back," Dare said suddenly, not looking away from his laptop. It wasn't a question.

"Does it matter?"

"It matters." His voice was low, controlled. "Everything you do matters to me, Isla. Whether you believe that or not."

I turned to look at him properly for the first time since getting in the car. "You don't get to say things like that. Not after everything. Not when I still don't know which version of you is real—the boy who promised me forever, or the man who let Serena humiliate me on my first day."

Something shifted in his expression, guilt flickering beneath the ice. "I was wrong about that. I've told you—"

"Telling me isn't the same as it not happening." My voice cracked despite my resolve to stay composed. "You don't get to hurt me and then expect gratitude when you stop."

He was silent for a long moment, jaw working like he was chewing on words he didn't trust himself to say. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost some of its edge. "I know what I did. I'm not asking you to forget it. I'm asking you to let me show you the truth. That's all Spain is."

"And if the truth changes nothing?"

"Then at least you'll know." His eyes met mine, dark and steady. "I'd rather you hate me for who I actually am than love a lie built by someone else."

The words landed harder than I expected, echoing Julian's warnings, Victor's threats, my own exhausted heart. I turned back to the window before he could see how much they'd shaken me.

We boarded the private jet in silence, Dare disappearing into a stream of calls the moment we were airborne—clipped, efficient, every inch the CEO the tabloids feared. I used the hours to work through files, grateful for the distraction, though I caught myself watching him more than I meant to. The way his brow furrowed over spreadsheets. The way his hand tightened around his pen whenever a call mentioned Victor's name. He was still the boy I'd known, buried under all that armor. I just didn't know if I was allowed to want him anymore.

Somewhere over France, he closed his laptop and looked at me, the mask slipping just slightly. "Do you remember the greenhouse?"

The question stole my breath. "Don't."

"I think about it more than I should." His voice was quiet, almost raw. "The night before I left. You cried, and I told you I'd come back for you no matter what happened. I meant it, Isla. Every word."

"And then you disappeared for six years." My hands twisted in my lap. "Do you know what that did to me? I wrote you letters. I begged Julian to make sure you got them. I waited until waiting became its own kind of grief."

His face went rigid. "I never got a single letter."

"That's not possible. Julian said—"

"Julian said a lot of things, apparently." Something dark crossed his expression, calculation replacing pain. "What else did he tell you, Isla? Word for word. I need to know."

The intensity in his voice frightened me a little—not for my own safety, but for what it might mean. If Julian had lied about the letters, what else had he twisted between us? I thought of six years of certainty crumbling, brick by brick, and felt suddenly unmoored.

"Why does it matter now?" I whispered.

"Because if I'm right," Dare said, low and dangerous, "then everything we lost wasn't distance, or time, or you falling out of love with me. It was him. And I want to know exactly how deep that betrayal goes before we land."

Outside the window, the clouds broke apart to reveal the coastline of Spain, gold and merciless in the afternoon sun—the place, he'd told Finn, where he'd lost pieces of himself. I wondered, watching it rise to meet us, how many pieces of me I'd lose there too.