on the water when I arrive, and I’m forced to wait until it comes back in. For two hours, I pace the deserted jetway. She has to be onboard. Because if she isn’t, then I’m fucking lost. Back to square one. If I thought I could swim there, I would. But it’s too far. And I’m not stupid enough to think that dying before I see her face would be classed as romantic.
The vessel approaches, gliding elegantly over the water like a giant shimmering white swan.
“Mads,” I yell once it’s close enough for the people onboard to hear. I make out two figures up on the top deck. I wave my arms in the air like a madman. “Mads!”
“Logan?” one figure calls back.
Relief bolts into my chest like lightning, and I bend at the waist, sucking in deep lungfuls of air as her voice blankets over me, soothing something I never knew could break. Until her.
“What the hell?” the figure shouts.
I smile at the fire in her voice. Thank fuck it’s still there. She’s still her.
“What are you doing here?” she yells again.
The second figure raises a hand and waves. I straighten and raise one back in greeting. Sterling.
I call back as loud as I can, “I need to talk to you.”
“No!”
My head jerks back. “What the fuck do you mean, no?” Irritation bubbles in my voice. “You don’t get to run away and not tell me you’re leaving.” I jab a finger into the air, pointing in her direction.
“Why?” she snips back.
Fucking hell, this woman. Even from this distance, I can tell Sterling’s amused as his faint chuckle carries. He moves away, further back along the deck, away from Maddy. Probably to give us space. But I don’t care who hears us. All I care about is the fact I’ve chased her here and she’s still being difficult.
“Why the hell do you think?” I shout and push my hands back through my hair.
“Didn’t you read my email?” she calls.
The blood boils in my veins. “If you mean that ton of shit you made up, then yeah, I read it.”
“It’s not—”
“Don’t you dare fucking lie to me again!” I drag in a deep breath until my lungs cry out. “No more, Mads. No fucking more!”
She’s silent, staring in my direction.
“What is this? You think because you hated me that I have to hate you back to make us even?”
“No,” she cries, the pain in her voice making my heart stall.
“Then what?”
“I-I thought if you hated me then you’d move on. Save the business. Be happy. I want you to be happy.”
“I could never be happy after reading that fucking article, knowing that you hated yourself enough to write it. That you didn’t think you deserved this.” I jerk my arm between the giant gap between us. “This thing that’s happening between us.”
“Log—”
“I’ve read your real article. Even if I hadn’t, I’d still be here. I’m not letting you push me away anymore.”
She shakes her head. “What else is there? This is what we do, Logan.”
She’s still too far to see clearly, but something tells me that she’s crying. My heart lurches.
“We change the story. We write our own fucking story. Starting right now!”
“Why would you do that? After everything?”
Fuck’s sake. I spin in a circle as I tear at my hair. She’s not listening to a word I’m saying.
“You know why!” I holler back until my lungs burn like they might fly out of my throat with the effort.
She freezes. “You shouldn’t be here, Logan.”
“No shit. Neither should you. You should be back in London. With me.” I bang my chest with my fist.
“You’re getting married.” Her hands curl around the railing on the yacht’s upper deck as she leans closer.
“Not unless it’s to you.” My chest rises and falls in desperate pants. “Can’t you see? It’s you or no one. Fuck, I’ll get down on one knee now and prove it to you.”
“Don’t you dare.” Panic erupts in her voice as she climbs the rail as if she wants to physically stop me. “I—”
“Don’t you fucking say you hate me, Mads. I swear to God!” I clench my hand into a fist and bring it to my mouth as my blood boils.
She freezes, both of her feet on a higher rung of the railing as she stares at me across the water. “You still think I hate you?” Her face is close enough for me to see it crumple as she lets go of the railing. “I don’t,” she chokes out. “I don’t Logan, I—”
Whatever she’s about to say is ripped from her lips and replaced by a scream as the yacht lurches and she’s sent hurtling over the rail headfirst.
“Mads!”
I’m diving through the surface of the water less than a second after it swallows her, breaking the surface again with burning lungs.
“Mads!” I yell.
I push through the water as fast as I can, pistoning my arms to swim to where she went under.
“Man overboard,” is hollered from above, and a life ring drops into the water, followed by a crew member.
I get to where I last saw her and swing my head side to side. What if the yacht hit her after she fell? She could have been knocked out. She could have been swept under the boat. I gulp in air and dive below the surface, my eyes stinging from the saltwater as I search for her and find nothing.
“Mads?” My voice is hoarse as I take another gulp of air, preparing to dive again.
Coughing and spluttering sounds erupt behind me. I spin, my chest caving at the sight of her dark curls plastered to her face as she surfaces a distance away.
“Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here.” She coughs. The fire is back in her voice, no hint of concern she just fell overboard and nearly caused me a fucking heart attack.
I swim toward her, blood rushing in my ears. “I just flew all the way here for a fully clothed swim. Isn’t it fucking obvious?”
She floats, staring at me as the crew member who jumped in after her calls up to the deck and tells them we’re okay.
“Jesus, cut the fucking crap. I’m here for the same reason you are. Because you don’t hate me anymore,” I grit, swimming closer to her.
“I don’t hate you anymore,” she echoes, all fight leaving her voice as her bottom lip trembles and her face pales.
The boiling blood in my veins switches to ice instantly, and I swim faster. “Shit. Are you okay? Did you hit your head when you fell?”
Her lip continues to shake, followed by her voice. “L-L-Logan.”
“I’m coming, baby.”
I rush to close the remaining distance and pull her into my arms. She wraps her legs around my waist and clings as I reach out and grab the life ring with one hand, keeping us both afloat.
“I don’t hate you anymore.” Tears stream down her face. “I don’t… I don’t…” She cries harder, her whole body shaking with the force. I shush her, pressing my face into her hair. “Not even close. I care about you so damn much.”
“Baby.” My heart swells at hearing her finally admit it. Finally—
“And I hate that I do!” she sobs.
“What?” I pull back to look at her tear-stained face and she shakes her head as she looks at me.
“I hate that I care so much. Because it means I have to do what’s right for you. Because I want you to be happy. I need you to be happy.” She sniffs. “Even if it means losing you.”
“You aren’t losing me.” I brush the wet strands back from her eyes with my free hand. “You could never lose me. No one makes me as fucking crazy as you do. And I need crazy to function.”
“You’ll lose everything,” she whispers.
I press my forehead to hers. “If I do, it’ll be worth it if I get you.”
She searches my eyes as the crew member who jumped interrupts us. “It’s not safe in the water here. There are too many other boats that could come past. We need to get back onboard.”
I nod at him and encourage Maddy to swim over to the boat where the crew are waiting to help us up the rear steps. Suddenly we’re surrounded by people, wrapping us in towels, passing us water, checking us for injuries.
Sterling waits until we’re given the medical all clear before he steps closer, gripping my upper arm as he looks directly into my eyes, concern mixed with warmth in his gaze. “Way to make an entrance.”
My shoulders soften, and I glance at Maddy before smiling. “Seems I like dramatic things.” My eyes trace the drops of water falling from her hair and down over her cheeks and I take my towel from around my shoulders and wrap it over the top of hers, giving her an extra layer.
“You need to get out of those wet clothes. We’ll get you something dry to change into,” Sterling says.
Maddy looks at him. “Thank you, but—”
“I insist. The crew will show you where you can shower and change. And then when you’re ready, you and I need to talk.” He turns back to me.
“We do.” I wrap an arm around Maddy’s shoulders and pull her into my side as I nod solemnly at Sterling.
You okay? Maddy mouths.
I take her hand in mine, watching the way our fingers entwine together. I pull them up to my lips and kiss hers, one by one. “I am now.”
“But…” She frowns as I tell her it doesn’t matter. None of it matters.
Sterling’s another investor about to pull out. I’m not surprised. But he was such a majority that his loss to the project will be the end of Vex. It’s well and truly over now without him.
“I’m thinking another ten percent on my initial return might do it,” Sterling says.
I whip my head toward him. “Excuse me?”
His eyes glint as he watches us both. Maddy stiffens, her fingers gripping mine tighter. “We agreed seven,” she says without a hint of hesitation.
Sterling chuckles. “Just checking you were listening.” He turns his attention to me. “You could have sent her alone the first time. Ruthless negotiator if ever I saw one. Now go get out of those wet clothes. We’ll talk later.”
“He’s investing another fifteen,” she says, keeping her eyes forward as he walks away.
“Why?”
She swallows slowly. “Because I told him he would be missing out on an amazing opportunity headed up by a brilliant man.”
“Spencer?”
She side-eyes me, then nudges my shoulder with hers. “Idiot.”
I smirk before my face settles into a frown. “You flew over here to ask him to increase his investment?”
She sighs, a sound so weighted with unhappiness that hearing it is like having broken glass forced into my ears.
“I couldn’t watch you lose everything. Especially Vex, something you care so much about. I thought if you got the extra money that Spencer would still help your dad. As long as you and Gabrielle still got marr…” She swallows again, as though saying the word is too difficult for her. “And then it would be okay. At least, that’s what I hoped.” She shrugs.
“You wrote that article to try and make me hate you.”
“I owe it to you.” She meets my eyes with tears building in hers again.
My gut twists painfully at the memory of the words she’d written. They were designed to hurt me. And they did. Just not in the way she intended.
“I know you’ve come here to find me. But you have to go back. The funding’s no good if you don’t have the backing of Spencer’s company to make it work. You lose if you stay.”
The stirrings of defeat weigh heavy in my chest, dragging my heart down.
“I lost the second you left London, Mads. I lost the fucking second you thought that there was a reality where we could be apart and still live like we aren’t just existing. Just fucking existing.”
She blinks through her tears and drops her head back to look at the sky.
“Why couldn’t you have hated me after what I wrote?”
“I could never hate you.” I reach up to cup her cheek. “Look at me. Please look at me.”
She closes her eyes and gives a tiny shake of her head. “I can’t.”
“You can,” I urge. “The heart knows when the search is over. What’s yours telling you? Listen to it.”
“I want you to be happy.” Her lower lashes are coated in thick, wet droplets. “I need you to be happy.”
“I’ll be happy when I know that you are. Now look at me, baby.”
“You need to go home, Logan,” she whispers. “Without me.”
She can’t meet my eyes. Can’t even look at me as she rips my heart to shreds.
“No. I—”
“Go!” she snaps, turning her back on me. “Get dry, get dressed, and then get back on a plane and forget you ever felt anything for me. Please.”
“So, that’s it? This is what you really want?”
She straightens her shoulders, keeping her back to me as she remains silent.
“Fucking hell. Mads, please.”
Silence.
My chest caves. Nothing I say is going to get through to her. Staring at her back makes my head spin, spots dancing in my vision.
I need to get off this yacht. I need a minute. I need…
I whirl around and stomp away, water dripping off my sodden clothes and onto the deck as I barge past a bewildered looking crew member and get off the yacht.
I storm up the wooden walkway away from the yacht.
Away from her.
I can’t chase her forever when she doesn’t want me. I want to… God, I want to. I don’t ever want to give up on us.
But she does.
It’s finally time to stop.
