Page 107 of High Sea Seduction

Fuck. Moving my mouth hurts and my eyes water when I blink. Every second for the past week, I’ve wanted to lie down and die. From the moment I revealed the true depths of my rotten soul to Mason, and saw the frozen shock in his eyes, I’ve been a piece of toxic driftwood, bobbing toward a great and final plunge into nothingness.

Except the nothingness hasn’t ever arrived.

Instead, tidal surges of pain keep me afloat, and while the occasional twisting current pulls me under, it’s never enough to do away with me.

Bethany has put her wedding preparations on hold to make me her personal project. I’m sure Zach hates the very mention of my name by now. All week, I’ve secretly hoped he would do something about it. Hire a team of hitmen to take me out so he can have his Bethany back. Instead, the big pussy indulged his fiancée, who in turn has stood by me, held my hand when tears defied me and dared to fall.

Her heart broke for me when I finally told her what I went through at nineteen, and I fought her to stop her getting Zach on the case when I told her about the emails. We cried in each other’s arms when I told her about the child I gave birth to, then gave away.

She grabs my hand now and squeezes it tight as the plane taxies and surges into the sky. Her face is a tableau of sadness and worry. “What can I do, Keels? I can’t stand seeing you like this.”

For a hot little second, I hate her for not throwing me off the edge of a cliff when our positions were reversed and I was smugly confident I knew what she was going through.

“You should’ve told me to go fuck myself when I tossed out relationship advice to you last year,” I murmur around a throat that refuses to work properly.

She smiles. “Are you telling me to go fuck myself now?”

I try to grip her hand, but my fingers are too weak, so I let them go slack again. “Of course not. What I’m saying is you haven’t judged me once this week, whereas I was Judgey McBitch when you were going through that stuff with Zach last year. I whined about you not telling me straight away, when I’d kept my own shit from you for years. Then I was an ass to Zach for daring to want you back after he hurt you.”

“No, Keely. You listened when I needed you to, and you encouraged me to take a chance with Zach. I don’t know what’ll happen with Mason?—”

“Nothing will happen!” Even the sound of his name is like a blowtorch to my skin. “You didn’t see his face, B. For God’s sake, he… he lost his child. I gave mine away?—”

“After you were violated so horrifically, you spent months in hospital.” Her fingers twist through mine and I see her heartache for me. “Perfectly healthy, well-adjusted women take that option every day. No one can judge you for that. No one hasa rightto. And if Mason thinks he can, well… he can fuck right off. There, I can be bitchy about him in return.”

A drop of liquid falls onto my white jumpsuit, and I realize I’m crying. Bethany’s face twists, and she swipes her fingers over my wet cheeks.

“Dammit. Sorry, B. I don’t mean to… I can’t… God, it hurts so fucking much!”

As soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, she unbuckles hers and pulls me into a tight, deep hug. The next minute, I’m bawling my eyes out, each sob ripping me to pieces all over again.

“I’m sorry,” she croons over and over in my ears.

I love Bethany, but in that moment I wish for other arms around me. I yearn for the stronger arms of the man I’ve fallen in love with despite all the signs pointing to it being the biggest mistake of all.

I was so stoned with shame and self-recrimination when I stumbled out of Mason’s suite, it never occurred to me that it would be the last time I’d see him.

Now, I wish I’d taken one last look at his face. Stayed a minute longer in his arms when he pulled me close.

Delayed my confession by another day?

I suck in a tortured breath. I would have ended up here, like this, wishing my every breath would be my last.

You have a hell of a fucking lot to live for!

Pain lances through me when I hear Mason’s voice. God, I bet he wishes he’d known the depths of my sins before he made that assumption.

More tears flow when that thought flares through my mind.

“Oh God, Keels. Tell me what to do,” Bethany begs.

I take pity on her and pull myself together. For one thing, if I return her to Zach as stressed as she is right now, he’ll serve my head on a silver platter. While that thought is palatable right now, the situation will stress Bethany out even more.

“You want to help me?”

She nods. “Whatever you need.”

“Get the stewardess to rustle up some Dom P. I’ll go clean up and we can get pissed in style. Yeah?” I croak.

---