Page 107 of Glorious Rivals
She held something up between her middle and index fingers.The photographs.
Rohan watched as Savannah walked slowly to the end of the largest dock slip, staring out at the storm, seemingly impervious to the water blowing in off the ocean.She lifted the hand that held the photographs of Calla Thorp and those damning invisible messages from Brady’s sponsor, and then her fingers parted.“Take them,” she told Rohan, as the photographs dropped to the dock.“If you want them.They’ll improve your case against Brady.”
The wind caught the edge of the pictures, and Rohan moved in a flash to catch them just in time.
“What game are you playing, Savvy?”Rohan had not meant to use the nickname, but there it was.
“All of them.”Lightning flashed behind Savannah.“You thought I was going to take Brady’s offer.”Her voice was measured.“Given that, the most strategic move on your part would have been to bide your time and wait, to pull your enemy closer than any friend.But you didn’t.”
She was right.That was exactly what heshouldhave done.What he would have done had it been even the slightest bit bearable to do so.
Savannah walked past him toward the shore and then turned back around, trapping him at the end of the dock.“I see you, Rohan.”She smiled—a glittering, knife’s-edge kind of smile.“Do you remember the lengths you went to, at the start of this game, to make me feel seen?”She tilted her head to the side, her eyes locked on to his.“Do you remember me telling you to save the wolfish smile and the quips and the charm and all the rest?”
He did.
“I am not a person you can manipulate.”Savannah placed herself firmly in his way, though she had to be aware that was never a safe place to be.“And you do notgetto decide,” she continued, “whether or not I betray you.”
All the cards were on the table now.
“All you get to decide,” Savannah Grayson said, “is whether you are really thatscared.”That word was a fighting word.“Of me.”
Rohan had never been able to resist parrying with her.“Hate to break it you, love, but I’m not capable of feeling much of anything at the moment.”He meant that.He knew it to be true, knew that in his current state, there were no lines he would not cross.
And yet… he’d called herlove.
“Oh really?”Savannah challenged, and then she walked toward him and past him, all the way to the end of the dock this time.
And then, she stepped off into the water.
Chapter 77
ROHAN
She didn’t come back up.It had been more than a minute and two strikes of lightning in the distance, and Savannahhad not come up.
Rohan had done everything he could since the yacht to shove her into Brady’s lap, to hasten the demise of their alliance, to give her the courtesy of the first betrayal, and in return, Savannah Grayson had given him the photographs he now held in his hands—the leverage she’d had, such as it was, over Brady.
I see you, Rohan.
Hewas the one who said things like that, the one who preyed upon the very human desire to be seen and recognized andknown.He was the one who pulled the strings, the one who threw down gauntlets and backed opponents into corners.
Damn her.Rohan stripped off his jacket and tank top.The ocean was dark and undoubtedly cold, the water surrounding thedocks of indeterminate depth.The last thing—thevery last thing—that Rohan wanted to do was go in after her.
But she’d left him no choice.
He secured the photographs along with his jacket, and then he pulled the trigger, going in feet first.Dark water.His body plunged downward into its freezing depths.His ability to swim was strong enough for this, at least, but beneath the ocean’s surface—how is it so damn deep this close to shore?—memories circled like sharks.
Like there was chum in the water.
The sound of gentle humming came first.The smell of his mother—and then the weight of stones tied to his ankles.
Strong arms grabbed him, pulled him up.Rohan sucked in air, the way he had so many times before, and that was when he realized: Savannah Grayson had just pulled him up andunderthe dock.
She treaded water beside him.“Aren’t you going to sign the ledger?”she said, her voice echoing in the small expanse of space.It was well-lit in the hollow beneath the dock, and Rohan came fully back to himself—to the view ofSavannah, wet and mostly submerged.
And triumphant.
Rohan followed Savannah’s gaze to an open ledger, attached to the bottom of the dock.Keeping himself afloat with his legs, Rohan lifted the arm bearing his watch and pressed it to the page.His name appeared, the third in the ledger, after Savannah’s, which appeared right under Lyra Kane’s.
