The CEO Unwritten Rule

006 | The Island Of Salt And Silk

​The private jet hummed with a luxury that made Gisel feel nauseous. Across the aisle, Adrian was buried in his laptop, his face back to being a mask of cold efficiency. The moment in the library the heat of his hand, the confession about Elena felt like a dream that had evaporated the moment the sun came up.

​"The island is private," Adrian said, not looking away from his screen. "No press. No staff except for the caretakers. My grandmother has her spies, but they won't be able to reach us there. We stay for three days, take enough photos to satisfy the 'romantic getaway' narrative, and then we return."

​"And the journal?" Gisel asked softly, clutching her backpack where the leather book was hidden.

​"Keep it safe. If she finds it, the leverage I have over her disappears."

​The island was a speck of emerald in a sea of sapphire. The villa was carved directly into the white cliffs, with infinity pools that seemed to spill into the ocean. It was beautiful, but to Gisel, it felt like another stage.

​By sunset, the caretakers had vanished, leaving them alone with the sound of the waves. Gisel stood on the terrace, sketching the way the orange light hit the salt-crusted rocks.

​"You're doing it again," Adrian’s voice came from behind her.

​She didn't turn. "Doing what?"

​"Looking at things as if they have a soul," he said. He was leaning against the doorframe, his white linen shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He looked less like a CEO and more like a man exhausted by his own shadow.

​"Everything has a soul, Adrian. Even this rock. Even you, though you try very hard to hide it."

​Adrian walked toward her, standing at the edge of the terrace. The wind caught his hair, softening the sharp lines of his face. "Elena used to say the same thing. She told me that the Dirgantara blood was made of salt it looks like crystal, but it only makes you thirstier the more you have."

​Gisel looked at him, her charcoal pencil poised over the paper. "Is that why you brought me here? To see if I'd thirst for it too?"

​"I brought you here because I couldn't breathe in that house anymore," he admitted, his voice barely audible over the surf. He turned to her, his eyes dark with an intensity that made her breath hitch. "I look at you, and I see her. But then you speak, and you’re so... frustratingly yourself. You don't fit the mold I made for you."

​"Good," Gisel said, her heart starting to gallop. "I'm not a replacement for a ghost, Adrian. I’m the girl who broke your vase. I’m the girl who lives in a studio with a leaky ceiling. If you want a shield, use the contract. But if you want a person, you have to look at me."

​Adrian took a step closer. The air between them was thick with the scent of salt and the heat of the dying sun. He reached out, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw not with the coldness of a creditor, but with the curiosity of a man seeing color for the first time.

​"I am looking at you," he whispered.

​The kiss wasn't in the contract. It wasn't for the cameras. It was sudden and desperate, a collision of ice and fire. Adrian’s lips were hungry, as if he were trying to draw life from her, and Gisel found herself responding, her hands tangling in his hair.

​For a moment, the debt didn't exist. The 100 days didn't exist. There was only the crashing of the waves and the man who was finally, painfully, starting to melt.

​He pulled away just as quickly as he had started, his chest heaving. He looked at her with a mixture of shock and something that looked like terror.

​"This is a mistake," he rasped, backing away toward the villa. "This was never supposed to happen."

​"Adrian..."

​"Go to sleep, Gisel," he commanded, his voice regaining its icy edge. "Tomorrow, we take the photos and we leave. Forget this happened."

​He disappeared into the shadows of the villa, leaving Gisel alone on the terrace. She looked down at her sketch. The lines were blurred, the charcoal smudged by the wind. She had wanted to melt the Ice King, but she realized now that once ice melts, it becomes a flood.

​And she wasn't sure if she knew how to swim.