Baited (18 page)

God. She couldn’t even find it within herself to check where the boat was anymore.

Will had cuddled her head in his lap and stroked her wet hair, avoiding any questions for the time being. He knew what she needed. Peace. Just for now.

“I knew you’d do it,” was all he said as they waited for their rescue.

As if to make up for deserting Kat, Dr. Hopkins had taken Chris away from the fire to separate him from Duke when the teen awakened. She crouched near him, holding a kitchen knife near his throat. But Kat wondered if she had guts enough to use it.

Meanwhile, Nestor was kept from both Duke and Chris, so as not to enrage matters. He’d taken up the mirror-flashing tasks, useful for once.

Soon, Kat felt well enough to sit up. Noticing that the fire could use some attention, she went to it, picking up the last of their dried wood, and fed the flames. It put her in direct eyesight of Duke, who made a feeble
motion with his bound hands indicating that he needed a drink.

Coughing, she prepared a coconut with one sharp edge of the broken mirror and undid his gag. After he finished, he shook his head, refusing to take the canvas bit back into his mouth. Kat relented because she figured Chris was out of hearing range and couldn’t be influenced by Duke anyway.

“Please,” he said, “just let Chris go. Look at him. He’s as peaceful…as a lamb.”

“He wasn’t a half hour ago.” Kat coughed some more, shivering, sapped.

Again, Duke’s eyes turned dark. The mean, diseased Duke. “You,” he bit out. “Dammit…you break my heart.”

She steeled herself, knowing that this wasn’t the same man she’d first met. Or was it? Had his tumor only brought out the worst, most manipulative parts of him? How much had she
really
known about him, anyway?

A project, Duffy had said. You’re just a project.

“And you damn well break my heart, too, Duke.” She set the coconut on the ground.

“I’m not the one…who made a slut of myself in front of everyone with the captain.”

She held up a finger in his face, shutting him up. “
You
were all hot to see if Will and I would get back together, some sick thing you had in mind—”

Duke closed his eyes, anguished. “I never wanted him to have you, Kat. I’m the one…who loved you. Would do anything for you.”

Anything.
She couldn’t listen to him anymore. His
anything
involved murder and bribery, things she hadn’t ever imagined being a part of.

She couldn’t forgive him.

She glanced over at Will, who was reclining listlessly against a few life jackets. He was watching them. She smiled, but he remained stone-faced.

Was he afraid that she would discard him and ultimately give in to Duke? If that was the case, they didn’t know each other very well at all.

With a crumbling blow, she wondered if they ever would.

When she looked back at the older man, she realized that he was still hoping she’d come around. And why not? This was Edward Harrington III, a powerhouse who was used to getting what he wanted. It must’ve been killing him to know she was the one thing he wasn’t entitled to.

Maybe, if he’d stayed the man she thought he was, things would’ve turned out differently. She could’ve remained fond of the integrity she thought he’d possessed, the support he’d always given her, the love he’d shown his grandson. But all of that had been false.

All of that had washed away with the tide.

Duke’s eyes got a little lighter, the hazel from their days of sunsets and surf.

“Kat…forgive me,” he said thinly. “It’s hard to…realize that there’s only one person in the world…who loves me unconditionally. And that person…is being taken away.”

“You both earned it.”

“Do you know what
your
love…could’ve earned?”

Here it was. The manipulation she’d expected. But she could take it, no problem. She’d taken so much worse.

Kat pressed her palms together. They still stung from the salt water. “Just shut up, Duke.”

Okay. Truth be told, she was afraid that, if he didn’t, her very human greed might rear up again. She might see the money falling from the sky, covering her in luxury. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to withstand the temptation of saying three emotionally meaningless, yet oh-so-gold words to him.

I. Love. You.

But then she realized that she’d seen greed in its worst form, and there wasn’t enough freakin’ money in the world. And one look at a vulnerable Will only confirmed that.

“You could’ve…had it all.” Duke sighed, the sound of a white flag whispering in a breeze. Slowly—he seemed to be losing energy by the moment—he said, “But I understand. You’ve…always been too truthful and stubborn…for your own good. Yet I see you struggling…you need the money. Don’t deny it. So think about this…Chris needs a defender…when we get back—”

“
Never
.” Brusquely, Kat got to her knees, looming. “I would never lie about what you and Chris did, so don’t you even make an offer.”

Silence. His gaze was hopeless. She’d crushed something in him.

All he’d wanted was to hear some words, Kat thought. From me…from his family.

But he’d sure as hell guaranteed that wouldn’t happen.

Gradually, a tone of betrayal seethed over him, claiming him, taking the place of the brokenhearted old man. He moaned, closed his eyes…

Another headache.

Kat reached for the gag, knowing that he would react to the pain with meaningless gestures. But she was too late.

He opened those dark, clouded eyes.

“I take everything back,” he said, voice low and ragged as he jerked to avoid the gag. “I feel…nothing for you, Katsu. You’re just…a goddamned
mutt
who doesn’t know any better—”

She backed away in horror, frozen by his slur.

“—a confused suck-up who…never gives anything back. And…after all the places…I wanted to take you…after all I did for you…”

Even though Duke was nothing to her now, her heart had stopped beating at the word
mutt
and most of his words after that weren’t heard. A man who’d often said he’d valued her, who’d seen the wonderful things she was capable of and had raised her dreams above all the limitations she’d set for herself after she’d left Will…that this man could so completely try to remove all of that…It left her without air.

But she breathed anyway. He couldn’t rob her of survival.

A tremble had started in her throat, but now she
knew she wasn’t going to cry, not for a murderer. She wasn’t going to fall down and weep because she was just now realizing that she’d been trying to force this unworthy man into the place of her father, someone who would see past all her barriers and just love her.

It was like hearing about her dad’s death again and knowing that every chance to get him back had failed.

Will raised his voice, but it was still weak. Only the undercurrent of a threat revealed strength. “Don’t ever talk to her like that.”

Duke turned toward Will, avoiding the gag Kat was trying to put into his mouth. “How about you…Captain Ashton? I’ve heard you…have a yen for upward…mobility. What would it take to buy you? Five percent of…billions?”

Kat’s five percent. Now he was toying with them, seeing if he could wedge them apart. With surprising strength, Duke bit her when she tried to gag him again.

“What would it take,” he said, growing more agitated, “to have you…save Chris, Captain? Fifty percent? No one back on…the mainland would have to know…what happened here—”

Too late for a gag. Kat looked over at Will to see him hesitate in an answer that should’ve been instant. She saw it in his eyes. He craved that money.

There, in the eternal tide of one moment, was the beginning of it: all Will’s fantasies coming true. Reclaiming his family’s name. Feeling like a true man because he’d become
somebody
.

God, it was happening again. Kat was drowning in suspicions, lost in his hesitation. Her power—her
ocean—was slipping away, its flow cut by this one, all-important pause.

A replay of that night, his shock and regret at the pregnancy, all the things he’d denied later.

All the things she’d seen go through his naked gaze. She recognized them so well because she’d felt them, too.

The fear was back. The doubts. The underwater threat that had almost killed her earlier.

She glanced away, unable to watch, unable to swim in the depths of suspicion that were covering her and pinning her under. Even if he really did love her, he’d never gotten over his thirst for redeeming himself—his hunger for the money that promised to save him.

“Cram your offer,” she heard him say to Duke in a rough, embattled voice. “And don’t ask again.”

It should’ve lifted her up, relieved her, but when she looked at him again, she was crushed, unguarded in the wake of the silent truth.

Now, in his eyes, all she found was hurt, because he knew exactly what she was thinking. That she’d gone right back to suspecting him of the worst.

“Kat…?” He sounded like he’d lost everything.

With sudden clarity, she realized that Will hadn’t been the reason they’d broken up in the first place. It’d been
her.
She’d been the producer
and
victim of doubts, creating and succumbing to them, running away from them as she invited them along.

But that also meant that
she
had the power to save herself again. She wasn’t at the mercy of his hesitations, real or imagined.

Not anymore.

She
could
finally take herself back.

During Will’s pause, Duke had grown increasingly frustrated. A vein was pulsing in his temple.

“Duke, calm down,” she said. “Don’t—”

“Please!” He raged against his bonds. “Help Chris! He’s…a good boy! Please let me—”

He choked to a stop, eyes bugging out, face the color of embers.

“Duke?” She flung the blanket off him. “Duke!”

Will began to crawl over.

Kat’s first instinct was to start CPR, but then she hesitated. Duffy, Alexandra, Eloise, Louis. It was like they were keeping Kat’s hands tied…

But who was she to watch him die? How could she just sit here…?

Remembering herself, she pressed her palms to his chest.

But it was already over. His breathing whistled in his throat, his face a mask of surprise and denial. Tears gathered in his hazel eyes as he gazed at Kat.

His mouth wrenched as he tried to talk.

She bent down in time to hear him speak.

But the words dissipated like spray, misting away before she could grasp them.

No matter how hard she tried to fight it, sadness attacked her, breaking her down to the girl she’d been before she came to the island. The girl who’d sincerely adored this man who’d wanted to help her. The girl who’d been played for such a fool.

Looking at him, she saw her father, the man who
hadn’t even been able to afford a funeral for her to weep at. The man she’d lost touch with—the man she’d just plain lost.

As Duke’s eyes sheened over with stillness, Kat didn’t say a word. No
I love you
. No deathbed forgiveness. She hoped he was seeing all the faces she herself would picture during all the midnight hours to come: all the death masks that would haunt her.

Numb, she joined Will, who’d moved by the fire. She felt cold with every loss suffered on this island.

Over the flames, Will gazed at her. She saw his heart in his eyes, destroyed by the reawakened doubts both of them were having about each other.

Swallowed by grief, Kat was afraid to jump into him again, afraid she might drown in the alien liquid-blue of doubt.

And, soon, when the rescue helicopter roared overhead, Kat tried to be happy. But one thing kept her moored.

The suspicion that she and Will were floating on an ocean that she wasn’t sure she could beat this time.

O
n board the Coast Guard cutter, Kat closed her eyes against the pale walls of the sick bay and rested her head against her pillow, giving in to the meds that were supposed to make her feel better. An IV poked out of her arm—the better to fight pneumonia with, the health service technician had told her.

But what was going to chase away those faces—the masks, the patterns—from her mind?

Pushing the images away, she opened her eyes again, turning her head to the side and training her gaze on the curtain that separated her from the rest of the room. She told herself everything would be okay: her roommate, Tracy, had already been contacted. Her best friend, the closest thing that Kat had to family, was waiting for her in San Diego, and she’d probably fuss over Kat endlessly.

Yeah, everything was fine now, she kept telling herself. Nestor was in isolation, and the ship’s commanding officer had promised that he, himself, would see that the last Delacroix would be delivered ashore to face the music for his attempted shark-cage murder of Chris. Dr. Janelle Hopkins had been separated from everyone else, too, seeing as the CO considered her association with Nestor suspect. And, of course, Chris was under strict watch.

Yet present circumstances weren’t what was really bothering Kat. Part of her feared that Chris and Duke might somehow get away with murder, that their crimes would be kept under wraps because of the Harrington legacy.

But she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that didn’t happen. For the sake of everyone who’d died. For the sake of anyone who might get hurt by Chris in the future.

A cough welled up in her chest, as tight as her heart felt whenever she started to think about what was weighing her down the most.

Will.

She lay there some more, trying to imagine the ship slicing its way though the ocean back home, to a place where terror wouldn’t hide behind the dark of a storm only to be lit by jags of lightning.

Just as she was forcing away the unsettling memories again, she heard the separating curtain open with the scrape of metal rings against the bar. With a start, she faced the intruder.

Her heart clutched, adrenaline racing as she took in Will’s pale skin, the shaded red beneath his eyes, the
sling that assuaged his wounded arm and shoulder. She’d been told that they’d patched him up and he’d been instructed to rest until they arrived in port.

He’d never been great at following orders, though.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

Kat chanced a smile, too overcome to speak.

Almost shyly, he gestured to a chair at the end of her bed. She nodded, and he collapsed into it, just like he’d spent his last ounce of energy making his way over to her.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything, just fixed his gaze on her. A soft, apologetic gaze.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“Mmm.” She worked up some saliva to talk. “Better.”

“Good. I’m…” He trailed off, swallowing hard.

All the agony of the last time they’d talked, on the beach before Search and Rescue detected them, came rushing back. A lump jammed in her throat, making her eyes sting.

“You hear what the CO said?” Will continued, glancing at the floor instead of her, making small talk to ease their discomfort with each other.

“No.” A whisper. It hurt.

“Freak storm.” A slight smile touched his lips as he continued his assessment of the floor. “That’s what started all this. They’re researching what happened, and I know they’re chomping at the bit to ask me a million questions—”

“Will?”

He finally looked at her, light illuminating the blue-green of his eyes.

A deep haven colored by the fear of what was keeping them apart. But there was something like hope there also. Wasn’t there?

He’s waiting for you, she thought. Waiting for you to test his temperature to see if it’s okay to go all the way in.

But all her safety alarms went off, buzzing with the questions she’d always had about Will, suspicions, barriers.

Dammit, wasn’t she strong enough to survive anything now? What was stopping her from taking this one little chance when it was nothing compared to all the others she’d endured?

The tightness in her throat ached. Making the first move wasn’t “nothing.” That’s what was so scary. Taking another risk on Will was everything right now, especially after she’d lost so much.

Hadn’t she made just as many mistakes, hesitations as Will? Hadn’t
she
paused after Duke had offered her money to confess her love?

Yeah, she had. God, yeah. Neither of them was perfect.

At the foot of her bed, Will’s eyes shone under a glassy surface, steeped with emotion. And Kat took a deep, deep breath, finally ready to plunge in.

To dive toward him, ready for whatever the unknown would bring.