The water was cold.

No, it was freezing.

The kind of freezing that knocked the breath out of you, the kind of cold that seized your chest and made your toes numb.

It was so unexpected that for a moment, I was paralyzed.

It wasn’t just the cold. It was also the vastness of the ocean.

The closest I’d come to swimming in open water was a lake, and it was nothing like the water of the ocean. The ocean water felt lighter, expansive somehow, and I could taste the salt on my lips, could almost feel it seeping through my skin.

I was sinking, and for a moment, I couldn’t tell which way was up.

Then my feet hit against the soft sand of the bottom, and I pushed myself up toward the light.

When I broke through the water, I was already facing toward the yacht club and the shore, away from the actual yacht. I didn’t turn around – I didn’t want to see all of them looking at me, watching me, wondering why the crazy girl had jumped off the boat.

Instead, I sliced my arms through the water and began to swim.

I was so intent on not looking back that when Liam’s hand grabbed my ankle, I screamed and tried to kick him off.

“Jesus, Emery, stop fighting,” he said, and then his arms were around my waist, pulling me toward him.

“Leave me alone,” I said. “I can swim just fine.”

He ignored me, instead holding me close to him with one arm while he guided us to shore with the other.

Once we hit water shallow enough to stand up in, I pushed him away and began to walk toward the shore.

People on the beach were pointing and staring – I couldn’t even imagine how I looked, my hair matted to my face, my couture gown ruined – but I didn’t care.

All I cared about was getting away from here, getting away from him.

I wasn’t sure where I was going to go or what I was going to do, and I really didn’t want to have to walk through the lobby of the Palm Bay Golf And Yacht Club in my current condition.

There was no way around it, though – the sides of the club were flanked by tall bushes, all of them expertly manicured.

So in order to get out of the club, I had to go through it.

“Emery,” Liam said from behind me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Away from you,” I growled. I was like a woman possessed, and I pulled open the door at the back of the club and began walking through the lobby toward the front entrance.

Behind me, I was dimly aware of Liam pulling out his phone, calling for his car, his shoes making slushing noises on the marble.

I’d lost one of my shoes in the ocean, and it wasn’t making it hard to walk, so I reached down and pulled the other one off.

The hotel was quiet this time of day – it was after check-in and too late for golf, so most people were out to dinner or events. As a result, the only weird looks I got were from two middle-aged women, both of them Botoxed and tanned to perfection.

When they saw Liam rushing after me, one of them whispered something to the other.

“Say it to my face!” I yelled at them as I barreled toward the front doors. It was a ridiculous thing to say, but I didn’t care.

Once I was out in the front of the club, standing on the cobblestones, I reached for my phone.

Shit.

My phone.

It had been in my purse when I’d jumped into the ocean, and I remembered having a moment where I’d thought to myself that I should raise my hands up over my head, to make sure my phone didn’t get ruined.

But as soon as I hit the water any thoughts I’d had went out the window. Even if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my phone safe anyway. There was no way – I’d sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

I pulled it out anyway and tried to turn it on, hoping that by some miracle it wasn’t ruined.

“It’s not going to work,” Liam said from behind me.

“I know it’s not going to fucking work, Liam, it was in the fucking Pacific Ocean.”

“Emery.”

“What, Liam?” I said, and I was almost screaming now. “You want my phone back? Even though it’s ruined, is that what you want?” I threw it at him and it smashed and bounced off the concrete. “Go ahead, have my phone, take it!”

I was crying now, and he rushed to me.

I beat my fists against his hard chest, but there was nothing to be done. He was concrete. He would always win.

My legs sagged in exhaustion underneath me.

Behind me, I heard the click of a camera, and turned to find a paparazzo taking a picture of us. My nails curled into Liam’s back, hating him and needing him to protect me at the same time.

The car Liam had called pulled up to the traffic circle.

Not the beat-up truck we’d driven here in, but a shiny black limo, complete with driver.

“Get in the car,” Liam growled into my ear, and before I could gather my strength to fight or protest, he’d slipped his hands under my knees, scooped me up, and carried me toward the limo.