CLAUDE
OUR TIME WAS up. It was as simple as that. The words didn’t make it any easier. No. What I wanted, what I had always wanted, was Nikolai. Even though we barely knew each other. Even though we were on opposite sides of the world, with lives that could never truly align.
My fingers gripped my bag tighter, my pulse picking up as I felt Nikolai beside me. I didn’t dare look at him—not yet. “The money’s been wired to your account,” he said, his voice low, sending a shiver down my spine. The heat of his breath brushed my neck, even as the sharp sting of the ocean wind battered us both.
The account he spoke of wasn’t mine. The money wasn’t even going to me. It was going to the real Tate, but in that moment, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
The deck was alive with people, eager to
