Crossed Lines

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:MADDIE ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Caleb stumbled backward over the expensive cabana rug, tripping hard over his own bare feet. He avoided my gaze, gripping the denim fabric of his jeans to yank them up over his hips. The animalistic grunts from seconds ago vanished, replaced by the pathetic stammering of a coward waking up from a dream.

He choked the words out while fumbling with his zipper. "Maddie. Shit. I thought you would be on the phone longer."

Camilla stepped off the plush couch cushions. She did not bother to search for her discarded underwear or adjust the twisted fabric of her skirt. A soft, breathless laugh slipped past her lips.

She tilted her head, watching Caleb panic like he was the punchline to a joke. "Oh, so that is why you rushed? You thought you could get off in time to pretend this never happened? That is so fucking sweet."

Caleb snapped his head toward her, his face flushed red with panicked sweat. "Stop it, Camilla."

My chest tightened until my ribs threatened to crack inward. This was Caleb. The boy who sat on the steps of my rusted trailer for ten years. The boy who helped lift my disabled brother into his wheelchair when the ramp froze over in winter. The boy who held my hand six months ago and promised he loved me. He was standing there with sweat shining on his chest from grinding into my best friend.

He reached a hand out toward the shattered pieces of my phone on the floor. "Maddie, please listen to me. It is not what you think."

I let out a raw, guttural roar that ripped through my throat. "There is a condom on your dick!"

Camilla picked up the hem of her skirt and shook out the expensive fabric. She blew a stray blonde curl out of her face, sighing like she had just been asked to do an annoying chore.

She leaned back against the armrest of the couch. "Oh my God. Please do not make this bigger than it is."

I stared at her bare, flushed skin, let down by my own disbelief. "You just slept with my boyfriend."

Camilla dragged her manicured fingers down her cheeks, sounding bored and exhausted by my tears. "I was tipsy from the champagne. I do not even remember how it started."

Hot tears spilled over my lower lashes and carved tracks down my cheeks. This was not a mistake. This was a calculated execution.

The betrayal burned like acid in my empty stomach. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

She shrugged one shoulder, her tone casual and light. "I actually did you a favor. You were about to lose your virginity to someone who clearly does not want you. You just heard him say it."

Caleb took a desperate step forward. "Maddie, wait, please."

I held up my hand and stumbled back a step. The puzzle pieces locked together in my mind, forming a picture so ugly my stomach dropped into my shoes. My gaze snapped back to Camilla.

I pointed a shaking finger at the walls around us. "You told me Caleb and I had the east cabana for the night."

Her beautiful face remained an unbothered, perfect mask. She did not look away. She did not blink. A chilling lack of remorse radiated off her flesh. Somehow, that made the knife in my back twist deeper.

My voice shook with a mix of fury and heartbreak. "You knew I would come straight back here. Did you give me this room number specifically so I would walk in and see this?"

Camilla groaned out loud. "God, Maddie, you are so dramatic. Stop acting like I planned some evil mastermind thing. I told you I was tipsy. It was just a quickie."

There it was. She used that tone. The condescending, pitying tone she used when my trailer park roots flashed too bright for her country club world. She spoke like I was overreacting to a spilled drink, acting like I was the problem for ruining the mood.

I screamed, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "He is my boyfriend!"

Camilla folded her arms across her chest and stared at me. "And?"

The single word hit me like a physical blow to the chin. I searched her cold, blue eyes for any trace of the girl who bought me coffee every morning and forced me to study for my exams. It felt like my ears were ringing.

I whispered the words, hoping some part of her would register the destruction she just caused. "You are my best friend."

She offered another careless shrug. "What can I say? They always want me."

Bile rose in my throat, burning the back of my mouth. "You were supposed to say no to him. My boyfriend should be off-limits!"

Camilla stepped forward, closing the distance between us. The lazy boredom vanished from her expression. In its place was a sharp, familiar viciousness. She stepped right into my personal space, towering over me with the natural authority of someone who owned the air I breathed.

Her voice dropped to a soft, dangerous threat. "I am Camilla Prescott. Nothing and no one is off-limits to me."

Something inside my chest snapped clean in half. The pain vanished, swallowed whole by a sudden rush of blind agony.

I shoved her shoulders as hard as I could. "You know what they call girls like you? Girls who fuck anything that looks at them? Slut."

Camilla caught her balance in an instant. She closed the distance between us before I could blink, her face inches from mine.

She hissed the words like venom, her eyes flashing with calculated cruelty. "You are on my island. At my party. You exist because of me. Your brother exists because of my family's money. So choose your next words carefully."

She used Nolan's medical survival as a blade to press against my throat. She weaponized her wealth, reminding me of my place. I was the charity case. She was the queen.

I stepped forward until our noses bumped, refusing to let her see me shatter. "Fuck you, Camilla!"

I spun around and sprinted for the door. I threw it open and ran out into the night before the sobs could break through my teeth.

Caleb shouted from inside the cabana. "Maddie, wait!"

I kept walking. The humid night air hit my face, but it felt toxic. Everything on this estate tasted like her. I needed distance. I needed oxygen that they had not touched. I walked away from the east cabana, my sneakers hitting the stone pathway in a frantic rhythm. Faster. Then faster.

The muffled bass of the party music faded behind me. My eyes burned. My throat burned. My chest burned. I broke into a blind run, scrambling away from the chaotic main grounds, desperate to escape the neon lights and the drunken laughter. I darted down an unlit stone corridor of the sprawling mansion.

My shoulder slammed hard into a heavy wooden door.

I stumbled back with a sharp gasp, clutching my aching collarbone. Through my watery vision, I looked up at the brass plaque glaring back at me in the dim lighting.

PRIVATE: DOMINIC PRESCOTT.

My stomach plummeted. I forgot how to breathe. My lungs spasmed, refusing to pull in air. My heart hammered against my ribcage, mimicking the frantic beat of a trapped bird. Everything inside me nosedived at once.

This was Camilla's father's private penthouse. The one sanctuary on the island strictly forbidden to every single guest. Camilla told everyone her father was away on a business trip. This door was supposed to be locked tighter than a vault.

My trembling fingers pushed against the brass handle. The latch clicked open.

My body went numb. My brain screamed at me to turn around and run back to the party, warning me that crossing this threshold was a dangerous mistake. My feet refused to obey. Fueled by pure adrenaline and the feverish heat of the betrayal, I stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind me, sealing myself in the quiet dark.

I climbed the sweeping, endless staircase. Each step carried me further away from the nightmare below. I reached the top and walked into a sprawling, multi-million-dollar space. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls framed the black ocean. Dark wood floors gleamed under the moonlight. The silent wealth in the penthouse felt heavy, a sharp contrast to the bass-thumping party I just escaped.

I cannot go back down there. I cannot leave this private island without Camilla's boat. Mr. Prescott is away on business. I just need a place to cry until the sun comes up.

I wandered through the lavish living space, my mind replaying the devastating image of Caleb gripping Camilla's hips. I moved toward the open terrace doors. The cool ocean wind spilled inside.

I stepped out onto the wide, open terrace. Sitting in the center of a glass table, as if waiting for a disaster like me, was an unopened bottle of wine. The label was written in elegant French script, probably worth more than the rusted trailer my family lived in. I did not care.

I grabbed the bottle by the neck. I twisted the cork off and tipped it directly past my lips. I drank deep. The expensive liquid burned a fiery trail down my sore throat, warming my freezing chest.

Fuck Caleb. Fuck Camilla. Fuck all of them. Fuck my parents for giving me up. Fuck the drunk driver who took Nolan's legs. Fuck me for starting that fight, and fuck me for still being this stupid.

I paced the length of the stone terrace, the heavy bottle sloshing with every step. Guilt gnawed at the edges of my anger as I wrestled with my suffocating debt to the Prescotts. When the heavy winter snow caved in the roof of our trailer, the Prescott Foundation moved us into a warm guest house. When Nolan's medical bills threatened to put us on the street, Camilla's father paid every cent. I would not be in college without them. My brother would not walk again without them.

I recited that list of debts in my head every single time Camilla dug her claws into me. But how many times does she get to break me before I am allowed to hurt her back? I am human too.

A loud splash shattered the suffocating silence.

I froze mid-step on the stone tiles, the heavy bottle hanging halfway to my open mouth. Panic spiked in my chest. The terrace overlooked an infinity pool that bled directly into the dark ocean waters below.

A massive figure broke the surface, slashing through the water with powerful strokes.

Dominic Prescott.

He was not away on business. He was right here.

He reached the edge of the infinity pool and gripped the stone coping. He pulled his massive frame out of the water in one terrifying display of physical strength. Water cascaded off his broad, sculpted shoulders. The moonlight caught the sharp, unforgiving lines of his jaw. The magazine photos flattened his presence, stripping away the raw, suffocating power radiating off him right now. He was intensely, terrifyingly attractive.

I gripped the bottle tight, watching the water slide down the hard planes of his chest. It traced the deep ridges of his abs and disappeared straight into the low-riding waistband of his wet swim trunks. It made perfect sense why every woman wanted him.

He picked up a glass from the poolside table and took a slow sip.

I glanced down at the absurdly expensive wine in my bruised hand. I was drinking his liquor. My mouth went dry.

Suddenly, the fear evaporated. It was replaced by a reckless, burning fire fueled by the alcohol and the profound humiliation I suffered in the cabana. Camilla took my clothes, my time, my dignity, and tonight, she took the only boy who claimed to love me. She owned my life. She broke my rules. If nothing of mine had ever been off-limits to her, why should anything of hers be off-limits to me?

My gaze dragged upward toward the pool deck.

Dominic lifted his chin. He locked onto me.

Shit. He saw me. He did not blink. He refused to look away.

Everything locked in place, even the trapped air in my lungs. His eyes were a terrifying, layered shade of blue. They looked like violent ocean ice, cutting right through the shadows to pin me down. His icy expression promised absolute ruin. Every survival instinct I possessed screamed at me to turn around and run.

I tipped the bottle back and took another long, burning swallow. Liquid courage.

I marched toward the spiral staircase connecting the terrace to his private pool deck. I descended the metal steps, stepping boldly onto the wooden deck. He did not move. He stood rigidly still by the edge of the water, watching my descent with a dark, calculating intensity.

I walked straight toward him, stopping close enough to see the pool water clinging to his tanned skin and pooling in the hollow of his collarbone.

A slow, warning smirk curled the corner of his mouth. "You have ten seconds, little girl, to give me a reason I should not have you dragged off my island in zip-ties. And I would think carefully if I were you."

His gravelly voice dropped with deliberate menace, hitting heavy and dark against my ears. I stared up at the ruthless tycoon. A dark, twisted thought sparked to life in the back of my mind.

What if Camilla's terrifying father isn't off-limits to me?