Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
But Emily pulls her hand away, her gaze still locked on Misty. “Misty,” she says, “just stop. Stop with the half-truths. Spit it all out before I pummel you myself.”
Misty shakes her head. “As if you could.”
Emily’s lovely porcelain face has gone hard. I’ve no doubt she could catfight with the best of them. And Misty? She’s a pampered heiress. I’m Team Emily for sure.
“Try me.” Emily breaks away from my grasp and walks toward Misty.
Brett steps in front of Misty to shield her. “Don’t even think about it,” he says. Then he turns back to Misty. “Tell us. Tell us what your father did to you. How were you able to hold your breath that long?”
“It might be quicker to tell you what my father didn’t do to me. He never sexually abused me. Correction. He never fucked me. But he did about everything else. He’s not a nice man.”
As much as I resist, I feel a touch of sympathy toward Misty...until I realize she’s probably lying.
The woman loves drama. I swear, she thrives on it. Still, if she truly suffered at the hands of her father...
But Emily’s fiery gaze doesn’t waver.
“Cut the crap,” Emily snaps. “I’ve seen you in action, how you manipulate people and situations to your advantage. Stop playing the victim.”
Brett steps back, letting Emily and Misty face off. But there’s a new tension in the air, like the climax of a high-stakes poker game about to be played out. Nobody wants to blink.
And then Misty does something unexpected—she laughs. It’s not a genuine laugh, but a hollow cackle that echoes out to the ocean. “My father made me swim every day until my lungs almost burst,” she says. “Survival was a game to him, and he always made sure I was losing. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Emily?” she asks. “Or are you going to keep digging until you unearth more of my past? More of my father’s sins?”
Emily is silent for a moment, her face a mask of contemplation. Then, with a sigh that seems to shake her very soul, “That’s just the tip of the iceberg, isn’t it?”
Misty’s smirk doesn’t falter. “You have no idea.”
Brett looks like he’s been punched in the gut. He steps back again, his gaze flickering between Misty and Emily. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asks.
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Misty replies, her voice not betraying a single emotion, “what my father did or didn’t do. I’m not him.”
Emily turns away from Misty, walks back toward me, and takes my hand.
A strange sense of dread hangs in the air, and it seems reflected in the look on Emily’s face. But there’s more. I sense it instinctively. It’s not just Misty’s dramatic display that has taken a toll on Emily. It’s something deeper, darker—something that I’ve failed to see until now.
“Let’s go,” she says to me. “I need to get away from this.”
I nod.
As we walk away, Misty calls out to Emily. “You’re right, you know,” she says. “It is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Emily stops in her tracks, turning back toward Misty with a defiant glare. “And maybe one day you’ll have the courage to face all of it.”
The night air grows cooler as we leave Misty and the men behind. I can only imagine the tense exchange that will follow our departure, but my concern right now is for Emily. Her hand is ice cold in mine, and she walks alongside me in silence.
The house comes into view and my mind fills with unease at how it stands tall and foreboding like some haunted mansion from a Gothic novel. This place was supposed to be paradise. A private Caribbean Island, a gorgeous mansion, eight young women with perfect pedigrees for four billionaires to choose from.
Paradise?
More like paradise lost.
I can’t think about it any longer.
Emily and I reach the mansion, and we walk in the back door and up the stairwell to the second floor that houses my suite.
I should go to bed. See Emily to her own suite and leave her there. Something dark is haunting her, and I have enough of my own problems.
But we both know where this is headed.
I raise my eyebrows at her. “Feel like a fuck?”
She sighs. “Like you can’t bloody believe.”
We enter my suite, and the door closes behind us with a soft thud, leaving the night’s drama on the other side. The tension in Emily’s body is palpable as she shrugs off her clothes and lets them fall to the floor in a discarded heap. She doesn’t say anything as she walks toward the minibar and pours herself a glass of bourbon.
There’s a rawness to her that I’ve never seen before—a vulnerability that makes me wonder what’s going through her mind. She takes a long sip and then turns to look at me with brilliant blue eyes that hide a thousand mysteries.