POV: Elena Vasquez

The mansion’s guest suite was too quiet, the ocean’s roar muffled by thick glass and my own racing thoughts. I sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, still in the emerald dress, my duffel untouched on the floor. Alexander’s words from the car, ‘I’m falling for you’, looped in my head, warring with the betrayal of that email. Tame the spitfire. I was nobody’s prize, nobody’s game. But Mamá’s call, her warning about the job, Marco’s silence, and that shadow ...