“Stella, are you sure about this?” Felicity asked. “Once the ferry leaves, you’re here. This is the last one going out.”
“I told you, I’m staying.”
“Okay.” Felicity shrugged. “Then I guess I’m staying too.”
Jackson turned to her, his face a mask of concern. “Are you serious? You’re going to stay?”
“I’m not leaving Stella here alone,” she said.
“I won’t be alone,” I said. “Cole’s staying too.”
“Even worse,” Felicity said. “I’m definitely not leaving you here alone with him.”
“Okay. Fine, then,” Jackson said. “I’m staying too.”
Taylor
I did a final sweep of my bungalow, glancing furtively through the wall of glass at the landscape of turbulent seas and leaden skies, growing darker with every passing minute. Rick had warned me when he left this morning that the weather would change quickly, but this turn was much faster and earlier than expected. God, I hoped we still had time to make it to the plane. I unplugged the satellite phone he’d loaned me so that I could call him from Guyana, confirming that it was fully charged before I turned it off and slipped it into the lower pocket of my cargo pants.
One last thing to do before I left. Steeling my nerves, I rolled my bag out the door and let it slam behind me. A gust of wind nearly knocked me off-balance as I stepped onto the rain-slick pier and turned toward the horizon, the opposite direction of the last stragglers hurrying toward the shuttle. The boulder in the pit of my stomach grew heavier with every footstep. I hadn’t told Rick I was going to confront Cole this morning. I hadn’t told anyone. But I had to do it before I got on that plane, because I planned never to see him again after, and I wanted to look him in the eye when I stood up to him.
At the far end of the pier, I rang his bell and waited. He opened the door almost immediately, frowning when he saw me. “Not who you were expecting?” I asked.
“What do you need?” he asked.
I could still tell him I was just checking on him and walk away. But that wasn’t the woman I wanted to be. “I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”
I ignored the snide glance he cast at my cargo pants as he opened the door wide, forcing my feet to follow him into the bungalow. Some kind of hard electronica was playing loudly over the surround-sound system while the sea pitched outside, but I could hear what sounded like the yapping of a dog coming from behind the door to his bedroom. “Is that Mary Elizabeth?” I asked, confused.
“No,” he said. “Aren’t you gonna miss your ferry?”
“This won’t take long.”
He flopped onto the couch and turned his attention to the baseball game playing silently on the television. “Spit it out.”
My heart in my throat, I walked around the couch and stood in front of him, blocking his view of the television. “I’m quitting.”
Unfazed, he craned his neck to look around me at the television. “You’ll have a hard time getting hired anywhere else.”
“I don’t care.”
He shrugged. “Your loss. I only hired you to piss off your dad anyway.”
So I’d been right about that. But it didn’t matter. “You should ask why I’m quitting.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why are you quitting?”
I crossed my arms and steadied my voice. “I’m pregnant with your child.”
That got his attention. “Impossible. We didn’t have sex. It must be your townie boyfriend’s.”
I stared daggers into him, rage pumping through my body, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. “It’s yours. It couldn’t be anyone else’s. You lied to me.”
He sighed. “To protect you. You threw yourself at me. You begged for it. What was I supposed to do?”
“You drugged me,” I said as evenly as I could muster, “the same way you did Stella, the same way you did all your—sleeping beauties, was it?”
His square jaw tightened. “Fucking Stella,” he muttered under his breath.
“You raped me.”
“You’re accusing me of raping you?” He finally met my gaze, his pale eyes cold.
“Yes.” I laid a shaking hand on my belly. “And I’m carrying the proof right here.”
“Proof we fucked isn’t the same as proof of assault.” He rose to his feet, towering above me. “No one will believe you. With your reputation? All you’ll do is dig your hole deeper.”
I wanted nothing more than to turn and run, but I rooted my feet to the floor, adrenaline coursing through my veins. “I’m sure I’m not the only woman you’ve assaulted over the years.”
“How much?” he spat.
“What?”
“The number. There’s always a number.” He rubbed his fingers together in front of my face, his eyes full of rancor. “How much money do you want to shut the fuck up and go away?”
I shook my head, holding back tears. “All I want is for you to never be able to do this to someone else.”
At this he roughly grabbed my arm. I tried to wrest it away, but he only tightened his grip, bringing his eerily symmetrical face so close I could smell the whiskey on his breath. “I have the best lawyers money can buy. You’ll never get past them. I’ll sue you for libel. You’ll go bankrupt fighting it.”
Again I tried to wrench my arm free, this time using my opposite arm to dig my fingernails into the skin of his wrist. “Let go of me,” I demanded, trying to keep the terror out of my voice. “They’re waiting for me on the ferry.”
The corner of his mouth twisted upward. “Not if I call them and tell them you decided to stay.”
Dread gripped my throat. “Fuck you. Let me go.”
“Afraid I can’t do that.” Without warning, he drove his knee into my belly. Sharp, deep pain. The air went out of me. I tried to gasp, but there was his knee again. The acrid taste of vomit
