Chapter 13: Moonlit Confessions
The stillness of the Jade mansion after midnight had a different quality than the curated quiet of the day. This was hollow, a vacuum where the echoes of gala chatter and clinking crystal had finally faded. Sammy sat in a wicker lounger by the moonlit pool, still wearing the red dress.
The silk was cool against her skin now, the daring plunge a relic of a night that felt like it happened to someone else. Her black leather jacket was draped over her shoulders, a useless barrier against the chill seeping into her bones. Her phone rested face-up on the small glass table beside her, a rectangle of silent accusation.
Lindi’s name flashed on the screen again, the fifteenth call. Her friend would want a full debrief – the dress, the faces, the drama. Did you wear it? Did anyone's monocle pop out? What happened with Tim Balloon-Manager? Did you see Rebel? Sammy could picture her on the other end, wrapped in one of her kimonos, sipping tea and ready for the gossip.
Sammy’s thumb hovered over the decline button, but she didn’t press it. She just watched the screen go black. Let it ring. Lindi wanted the curated story, the amusing anecdotes about Marjorie Thistle and her cat-breeding condescension. She didn't want the raw, trembling truth.
Because the only truth that mattered was the one sitting in her throat like a stone.
The memory of the gala played on a cruel loop behind her eyes. The almost-kiss. The flicker of hunger in Rebel’s eyes before he’d shut it down. The way he’d lied about the smudge, creating a flimsy wall between them. The heat of his fingers at her spine. The cold withdrawal after. It was a symphony of whiplash, leaving her bruised and vibrating with an unresolved energy that bordered on sickness.
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and stared into the black, glassy surface of the pool. The mansion’s lights were dimmed, leaving only the moon and the faint, bluish glow of the underwater LEDs to carve her reflection in the water. A pale, dark-haired ghost in a splash of bloody red.She was alone. The staff had retired to their quarters in the east wing. Her parents were still in Crete. Caleb was… somewhere. Probably holed up in a penthouse suite with a model and a bottle of something expensive. The vast, opulent property was hers. And it felt like a tomb.
Her secret, the six-year-old crush, had been a comfortable, familiar ache. A private story she told herself. But tonight, at the edge of that crowded room, it had almost become a public fact. It had almost become real.
To tell him would be to burn the bridge. Not just the delicate, unspoken thing between them, but her relationship with her brother. Caleb would see it as the ultimate betrayal. My sister and my best friend. He’d joke about it, but the hurt would be profound, a fracture in his one uncomplicated loyalty. Rebel was his anchor. She was his sister. The two spheres were never meant to collide.And Rebel? He’d look at her with pity. Or worse, discomfort. He’d pull further away, retreat behind that professional wall for good. The late-night texts would stop. The casual, grounding presence in her chaotic life would vanish. She’d lose him completely.
But not telling him was killing her by inches. Every glance she stole, every casual brush of his arm, every time he used that low, private voice just for her—it was all borrowed time, a lie she was living. The weight of it was becoming physical, a constant pressure on her chest.
Her phone buzzed again, skittering an inch across the glass. Lindi. A text followed the call.
Lindi: Answer your phone. I’m eating my anxiety in gummy worms over here. Spill.
A sharp, sourceless sound made her flinch. A pebble, maybe, skittering across the patio tiles somewhere in the deep shadows beyond the pool’s glow. The estate was secure. Rebel’s own systems. Cameras watched every angle, every shadow. She knew that intellectually. But the feeling of being utterly alone in this vast, silent space triggered a primal itch between her shoulder blades.
She wrapped her arms around herself. The decision felt monumental, a fork in the road of her entire life. One path led to silence, to preserving the fragile, beautiful lie. The other led to confession, to potential ruin, to a truth that might set her free or destroy everything.
She picked up her phone. Her thumb traced over the text thread with Rebel. The last message was from him, sent hours ago as she’d ridden home in the silent car with Caleb.
Rebel: Perimeter secure. Get some sleep.
She stared at the words. Perimeter secure. He was checking in.Doing his job. Protecting.Always protecting.
Her fingers moved before her mind could formulate the thought, typing a new message, the letters stark and bright against the dark screen.
Sammy: Are you still on watch?
She hit send. The whoosh sound was obscenely loud in the quiet.
Her heart immediately started a frantic drum solo against her ribs. What was she doing? This was the opening of a door she might not be able to close. She watched the screen, her breath held. Three pulsing dots appeared. He was typing. Her stomach lurched.
They disappeared.Reappeared. Stopped.
The phone remained silent.
A full minute passed, the tension coiling tighter and tighter inside her. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he’d seen it and decided not to answer. Maybe he was with someone. The thought was a physical blow, a nausea-inducing image she couldn’t fully form.
Then, another sound. Not from the phone.Footsteps. Deliberate, unhurried. On the flagstone path that led from the main house through the manicured hedges to the pool terrace.
Sammy froze. It wasn’t the soft-soled step of a staff member. This was a boot. A familiar, weighted tread.
He emerged from the shadow of a towering bougainvillea into the milky pool light. He hadn’t changed either. Still in the black suit from the gala, though he’d shed the jacket and loosened his shirt further at the collar. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the dark ink coiling over his forearms. He looked carved from the night itself.
He stopped a few feet from her lounger, his eyes finding hers in the dim glow. He didn’t smile. He just held up his own phone, the screen illuminated in his hand.
“You rang?” His voice was low, rougher than usual, as if he hadn’t used it in hours.
Sammy’s mouth was dry. She couldn’t speak. She just nodded, a stupid, tiny movement.
He pocketed his phone and took a step closer. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Could you?” The question came out as a whisper.
“No.” He didn’t elaborate. His gaze swept over her, taking in the dress, the jacket, the bare feet tucked under her. “You didn’t change.”
“Neither did you.”
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth, there and gone. “Occupational hazard.” He gestured to the empty lounger beside hers. “Can I?”
She nodded again. He lowered himself into the chair, the wicker creaking under his weight. He didn’t recline. He sat forward, mirroring her posture, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely between them. The space between the two chairs was only two feet. It felt like a canyon. It felt like nothing at all.
The silence stretched, thick and electric. It was different from the silence in the car. This was a living thing, charged with everything unsaid from the entire night, from years of nights. The pool filter clicked on with a hum, sending a ripple across the dark water, distorting their reflections.
“Lindi’s been calling me,” Sammy said, just to fill the void. “Wants the gala report.”
“What’re you gonna tell her?”
She looked at him then, really looked. His face was half in shadow, the moon casting his sharp features into stark relief. He looked tired. And something else. Something raw, barely contained.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I don’t know how to describe it.”
He was silent for a long moment, studying his own hands. The tattoos on his knuckles seemed to shift in the low light. “Describe the dress,” he said finally, his voice barely above a murmur. “Tell her you wore the red. Tell her it worked.”
Her breath hitched. “And then what?”
He lifted his head, his eyes locking onto hers. The hunger she’d glimpsed earlier was back, but this time it wasn’t a flicker. It was a steady flame, burning away the usual guarded distance. “Then tell her a man almost kissed you in the middle of it.”
The air left her lungs. The world narrowed to the space between their chairs, to the intensity of his gaze. All the rehearsed speeches, the careful weighing of risks, evaporated.
“He didn’t,” she managed, her voice thin.
“He wanted to.” Rebel didn’t blink. “He’s wanted to for six years, Samantha. Watching you beg for it with your eyes every goddamn day tears him apart.”
The use of her full name was a shock. The confession was a seismic event. She felt the ground tilt beneath her. This wasn’t her secret anymore. It was theirs. He was saying it out loud, throwing the truth between them like a gauntlet.
“I don’t—” she started, the automatic denial forming on her tongue.
“Don’t.” He cut her off, the word sharp. He leaned forward, closing half the distance. “Don’t lie to me. Not tonight. Not after… everything.” He gestured vaguely, a tight, frustrated motion that encompassed the gala, the closet, the years of charged silence. “I saw you. In the bathroom hallway. You were deciding. I see you now. You’re deciding again.”
Her blood ran cold. “The… hallway? How could you—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He waved the question away, his focus absolute. “The point is, you’re sitting here in the dark, in that dress, because you’re trying to figure out if telling the truth will ruin you. So let me make it easier.”
He stood up in one smooth, tense motion. He didn’t offer her a hand. He just looked down at her, his expression a war of desire and despair. “The truth is, I’m in love with you. I have been since you were nineteen and told your father to go fuck himself for trying to shut down your first studio. It’s not a crush. It’s a sickness. And it’s why I can’t be near you without wanting to ruin everything good in your life, starting with your relationship with your brother.”
He took a breath, ragged and deep then continued, “ So there’s your answer. You don’t have to risk a thing. I just set it all on fire for you. Now you know.”
He turned to leave, his body taut with the effort of walking away.
“Rebel.” Her voice stopped him. It wasn’t a shout. It was the sound of something breaking.
He halted, his back to her, shoulders rigid.
She stood up, the leather jacket slipping from her shoulders to puddle on the lounger. The night air kissed her bare back. She took a step toward him.Then another. She stopped an arm’s length away, close enough to see the tension corded in his neck.
The words hung in the humid air between them, a live wire sparking over the chlorine-scented darkness. I’m in love with you. It’s a sickness. Her mind, so frantic with planning and fear, went utterly, silent blank.
This confession absolutely obliterated her ideas. She thought he didn’t like her. Sammy thought he saw her as a little sister. She thought he would never reciprocate her feelings, that he would hate her if he knew. But he knew the whole time. And he just told her that he loved her.
The foundation of her last six years cracked and shifted. Every guarded glance, every sarcastic remark, every time he’d pulled away—it wasn’t indifference. It was this. This monstrous, held-back truth.
“Six years?” The words were a breath, torn from her.
He didn’t turn. His back was a wall of tailored black linen and terrible tension. “Since the studio. When you stood up to your dad. Your hands were shaking, but your voice didn’t.”
She remembered that day. The heat of her own defiance, the cold fear. Rebel had been there, a silent presence leaning against the doorframe. She’d thought he was just Caleb’s friend, humoring her. She never saw the fuse that lit in him that afternoon.
“All this time,” she whispered, not to him, but to the revised history of her own life. “I thought you were just being you. Sarcastic. Removed.”
Finally, he turned. The raw pain on his face was a physical blow. “I was being a coward.” He shook his head, a short, sharp movement. “I am being a coward. Telling you like this, dumping it on you so I can walk away clean. It’s fucked up. I’m fucked up.”
“Stop.” The command shot out of her, sharper than she intended. She took the last step, eliminating the distance. Her bare feet were cold on the stone. “Stop telling me what you are. I’ve spent six years deciding that for myself.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. His eyes searched hers, wild and desperate. “And what did you decide, Samantha?”
“That you’re the only man I can ever love.”
The words fell into the space between them, simple and absolute. There was no theater to them, no dramatic flourish. They were just the long-held truth, finally released. “You’re the only man I have ever loved. For six years. It’s been sitting on my chest, Reb. Crushing me. Because I thought you’d never, ever want me back.”
A shudder ran through him. He looked like she’d struck him with something blunt and heavy. All the sharp edges of him seemed to blur for a second, his defenses atomized by her plain confession.
“You thought wrong,” he rasped. The admission seemed torn from him. He took a half-step back, then forward again, trapped. “Jesus, Samantha. You have no idea.”
“Then tell me.” She closed the final distance, her bare feet on the cold stone. She was so close she could see the faint scar through his eyebrow, the pulse hammering in his throat. “Tell me what I have no idea about.”
He shook his head, a tight, pained movement. His eyes searched her face, over every feature he knew better than his own. The conflict in them was a physical thing. He wanted to speak. She saw the truth fighting to get out, a dark wave behind his eyes.
But then his gaze flickered, just for an instant. It was a minuscule twitch, over her shoulder toward the second-floor corner of the mansion—her bedroom. A habit. A check. The professional part of him, scanning the perimeter even now.
The moment broke. The confession he was about to make—the one about the cameras, the silent watches, the screens in his dark loft—slammed back down behind his teeth. Telling her would shatter this. It would shatter her. It would paint his devotion as a sickness she couldn’t unsee.
He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t.
Instead of speaking, his hands came up. They framed her face, his touch startling in its gentleness against the rough calluses of his fingers. His thumbs brushed her cheekbones, wiping away tears she didn’t know she’d shed.
“I can’t,” he breathed, the words a raw apology against her lips. “I can’t tell you. Just know… you were never alone in this.”
Then he kissed her.
It wasn’t soft or tentative. It was a collision. Six years of wanting and watching and holding back exploded into a single point of contact. His mouth was hot and desperate on hers, stealing her breath and giving it back as a shared gasp. She rose onto her toes, her hands flying to grip the front of his crumpled shirt, the fine cotton tearing slightly under her fingers.
The world dissolved into sensation. The cool night air on her skin, the searing heat of his body against hers. The taste of him, faintly of whiskey and mint. The solid wall of his chest under her palms. Her back met the smooth, cold trunk of a palm tree as he pressed her into it, his body caging hers, one hand cradling the back of her head.
It was forgiveness and blasphemy and coming home all at once. It was the red dress finally fulfilling its promise. She melted into him, a soft sound escaping her throat, her fingers tunneling into the hair at the nape of his neck. He groaned against her mouth, the sound vibrating through her, his other arm wrapping around her waist to pull her impossibly closer.
He kissed her again, slower this time, a deep, aching pull that felt like drowning and being saved simultaneously. His hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, his thumb tracing the sensitive dip of her spine above the silk.
He was the only man she could ever love. He knew it now, felt the truth of it in the way she yielded to him, in the way she kissed him back with six years of pent-up longing. And he loved her with a devotion so profound it had curdled into something dark and watchful in the shadows.
He would keep that part buried. He would let her have this version of him—the best friend’s brother, the protector, the man who finally stopped lying about his heart. The other version, the one in the dark with the screens, he would lock away. For her. For this.
The kiss shattered something between them, something brittle and carefully maintained, leaving only a raw, exposed truth pulsing in its place. His forehead rested against hers, their breath mingling in the cool night air. The taste of him—whiskey, mint—was now imprinted on her, a brand she never wanted to fade.
“Caleb,” he muttered again, the name a dark anchor pulling him back from the edge.
Sammy’s hands, which had been fisted in his shirt, slowly unclenched, smoothing the wrinkled linen.
“I know,” she whispered, echoing him. The guilt was a cold stone in her stomach, but the heat of his body against hers was a furnace. She didn’t let him pull away. “Stay.”
He did pull back then, just enough to look into her eyes. The conflict there was a physical force. “I can’t.”
“Why?” Her voice was soft, but it cut through the hum of the pool filter.
“Because he’s my best friend.” The words sounded hollow, even to him. A tired mantra. “He’s in the house.”
“No, he’s not.” She watched his brow furrow. “He left with that blonde from the gala. The one in the sequined dress. They went to the Chateau. He’s not coming back tonight.”
Rebel stared at her, processing. The information changed the calculus of the situation entirely, stripping away the most immediate layer of risk. The mansion was empty. Truly empty.
“Just… stay with me. Upstairs. Until I fall asleep.” She reached up, her fingertips brushing the line of his jaw. “Then you can go. I just… I can’t be alone with my head right now. My own voice is… it’s too loud.”
The plea in her eyes undid him. It wasn’t a demand, it was a confession of weakness, and he was powerless against it. He wanted to say no. He should say no. Every moral fragment he had left screamed at him to walk away now.
But the idea of watching her sleep—not through the sterile, silent lens of a hidden camera, but in person, hearing the soft rhythm of her breath, seeing the flutter of her eyelids—was an undeniable, monstrous temptation. It was the culmination of a thousand lonely watches.
“Sammy…” His voice was ragged.
“Please, Rebel.”
He couldn’t say no. The word formed in his throat and dissolved. He gave a single, sharp nod, a surrender. “Just until you’re asleep.”
Her relief was palpable, a shuddering exhale that misted in the space between them. She took his hand, her fingers threading through his. The simple contact sent a jolt through his system. He let her lead him, their footsteps silent on the polished stone as they left the moonlit pool behind and slipped into the dark, sleeping heart of the mansion.