Guilty Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 1) (27 page)

There, a small boat carrying myself, Mai and the five courtesans was dragged by a rope through a corridor of fire.

Khan arrived from the opposite shore along a jetty lined with flaming torches.

I glanced behind at the shore. It was lined with hundreds of guards. Even if I could walk on water, there seemed no escape.

Khan waited on the harbor. We entered the temple where a priest ordered my courtesans to kneel with me and wait as a dozen blindfolded priests banged drums to summon the Fire Dragon.

Mai whispered, "The high priest is asking the Sun Dragon to bless the marriage. When the Sun Dragon gives a sign of his blessing, the high priest will stop talking."

Khan knelt opposite me.

Finally, as the Sun Dragon's first flames reached for the sky, a thousand tiny Chinese paper lanterns were lit. The hot air form the candles lifted them into the sky.

As a drum slowly banged, the high priest spoke a prayer and then placed Khan's hands over mine.

Khan looked across to me. "It is done. You are now my queen."

The high priest and the other dozen priests were led away by a courtesan to the shore. There they stepped into the boat and were dragged to the shore.

The courtesan returned and together with the others pulled a silk screen around the altar. We could no longer see the shoreline.

Khan rose to his feet. Two courtesans pulled me to my feet.

Mai stood and bowed to Khan. She whispered to me, "It is done."

She went behind the screen and knelt before a flaming torch.

Two courtesans bowed before Khan and removed his kimono. They sank to their knees and moved their lips across his cock.

Two more courtesans bowed before me and removed my kimono. They led me to a bed and sat with me as we watched Khan being pleasured.

After a few minutes he pushed the courtesans away and walked toward me. His stiff cock throbbed. He knelt at the bed and his gaze fell on my necklace. He reached out for it and examined the pendant.

"What is the meaning of this, Robyn?"

"It was given to me by Harry."

His eyes were ablaze. He tore it from my neck and hurled it into the lake.

He stood a moment, as if watching the ripples where the necklace hit the water.

He pointed out two dark buzzing shadows skimming over the surface of the lake like dragonflies. Khan turned to me with wide eyes.

"You betrayed me! Guards! Guards!"

He turned on his heels to face Mai. She held up a flaming torch and thrust it into his face.

Khan let out a blood curdling scream. He clutched at his burning face as he fell to his knees. The buzzing shadows spit fire across the lake.

The shore line exploded.

Mai cried out, "Helicopter!"

I looked up at rotor blades whirling above. The silk screens collapsed under the ferocious wind from the blades. Four ropes fell from the helicopter and men in black sailed down the ropes.

One landed by my side. He wore a black balaclava covering his face. Over the noise of the rotors I could barely hear him shouting.

He was pointing up. He shook his head and pulled up his balaclava. Even though his face was blacked out with camouflage paint I could never forget those eyes. Harry.

I wondered if Mai had slipped me a hallucinogenic after all. "Harry?"

He seemed to read my lips. He nodded.

"Harry? It can't be you."

He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me hard on the lips. He slipped my arms into a harness and shouted in my ear.

"Hold on tight."

With a sharp jolt we lifted up into the air.

CHAPTER EIGHTY FIVE

Below us, the temple burned.

Harry wrapped a silver foil blanket around my shoulders. I stared at Harry and next to him Brad who held Mai in his arms.

Harry placed a set of headphones with a microphone over my ears. Suddenly I could hear his voice clearly. A masked man tapped Harry on the shoulder. He lifted away his balaclava. It was Special Agent Jackson.

"ETA for strike force, five minutes."

He turned to me. "Welcome back, Loxley."

"But how did you find me?"

"You can thank Harry for that."

Harry smiled. "The necklace. It had a miniature transmitter inside the pendant."

"You tracked me here?"

He nodded.

"I don’t understand. Why would you do that? How did you know?"

Jackson said, "It was a precaution. We learned from Harry that Khan had a deep interest in you."

"So I was bait to trap Khan?"

Jackson shrugged. "Worked didn't it?"

I turned on Harry. "But I saw you die."

"The day I left you, Khan's assassin was hiding on my back seat. He waited until I was out of sight. We fought. I won. Then I realized he had armed a bomb. I got away."

"So the body I buried was the assassin?"

He looked hesitantly at Jackson.

The F.B.I's special agent-in-charge patted Harry and Brad on their shoulders. "I knew then that the only way to stop Khan and protect you would be if we allowed everyone to think Harry was dead."

I glanced at Brad. "You knew about this?"

He shrugged. "Not until your disappearance. We tracked you here, and here we are."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Harry smiled, "Told you I'd be back."

"You bastard. I hate you."

I punched him in the chest. Over and over. He leaned forward, grabbed my arms and crushed me in his embrace. I shuddered uncontrollably in his arms. I soaked his face with my tears.

Over and over he repeated, "It's OK, you're safe now. I will never leave you again."

CHAPTER EIGHTY SIX

An hour later we landed on the deck of a US warship. I was led to a cabin where a doctor checked me over and gave me something to calm me down. It worked too well. Within seconds I fell asleep.

I woke in a strange bed. Echoes of a dream. Words from a Shakespearian sonnet slipped through my mind like a morning mist evaporating under the first rays of sunshine.

Harry was sat at the end of the bed.

"Where am I?"

"Coast of Japan. From there we fly home. Should be back in Kimberley by day break."

He tried to get me to eat, but I couldn't hold anything down.

"You'll get your sea legs soon."

I sat up. "Harry. Those words on your wall."

"Which words?"

"The sonnet. It was you who sent me the message, wasn't it?"

He sighed and ran his fingers through his thick hair. "Jackson banned me from contacting you. But I had to get a message to you. Try to make you understand that from wherever I was, I was looking after you. I'll understand if you can't forgive me for what I did to you."

"But it was you at the window when Ben and I..." I fell silent with shame.

He avoided my eyes. But I could see him reliving the same pain as the night he saw Ben and I fucking in his bed.

"Harry, I can forgive you if you can forgive me."

Robyn, there's nothing to forgive you for. I put you in an impossible position and you did whatever you needed to do to survive."

I understood the cost of true love now.

I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around him and whispered in his ear.

"We can forgive each other if you promise me one thing."

“Name it."

"Make love to me every day like it’s the last time."

He clasped his hands around my face and tilted my head so my lips touched his. We kissed like it was the first and last time. An endless cycle of death and rebirth of our love.

CHAPTER EIGHTY SEVEN

One week later I sat in Mai's living room with Mai and the Wilson sisters, Charity and Virtue.

Charity twirled her pink fluffy bunny ears mufflers.

"So Robyn, what's next for you? Wedding bells, kids with Harry and the white picket fence?"

I'd had time to think about it and all I could think was the craziest idea. "Harry hasn't proposed."

Charity snorted. "Oh, he so will."

I flushed hot. I hoped so. But I wanted more than the dream of domestic bliss. I needed validation that something good could come from this whole nightmare.

Charity took a stick of gum from Virtue and together they blew large pink bubbles. Charity seemed restless as she shot a quizzical look at Virtue and Mai before fixing me with an intense stare. "So Robyn, if we're not here to discuss your wedding plans, then why did you invite us?"

I took a deep breath and let it out.
Here goes.

"Since my latest article was published in the Kimberley Times, I've been inundated with calls and emails."

"From who?"

"Students mostly. Some Staffers. All with one thing in common."

"What?"

"Secrets. Blackmail. Extortion. And worse. They are trapped with no one to help them. So I was thinking they need the help of fellow students who understand the dark side of life on campus."

The bunny ears shook from side to side. "We're not a charity." She chewed her bottom lip. "OK, well technically I am Charity by name, but obviously not by nature. So it's a no from me, unless..."

I could guess where Charity's mind was leading her.

"Not a charity," I said, "but I do see a business opportunity."

Mai leaned forward and touched my knee. "What exactly are you proposing?"

"A private detective agency. Run by students. Actually, by us," I said. "A Sorority of private eyes."

Charity stopped stroking her fluffy ears and smiled, "
Sorority Eyes.
I can see the app on every student's cell phone. Swipe to the right for help from Sorority Eyes..."

Virtue nodded. "Will it be pink?"

I caught Mai's smiling eyes. "You know, Robyn, I have a bottle of white chilling for just this moment."

And so Sorority Eyes Detective Agency was born with many, many weird, dangerous and above all
romantic
adventures for us and the newbie 'Sorority Eyes' recruits who would later join us.

<<<<>>>>

THE END

Robyn’s adventures continue in:

Sorority Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Book 2)

Keep reading for an excerpt!

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SORORITY SECRETS - CHAPTER 1

“Nathan, you son of a bitch, where’s my money?”

Nathan avoided my eyes. That was never a good sign.

“I don’t know what you mean, Alice, honey. What money?”

I stared through the glass partition at Nathan.

The gorgeous two day stubble across his chiseled jawline and those full butterfly kissable lips that I could never resist. My heart back flipped. I fought back tears with the realization he wasn’t ever going to change.

“You stole it,” I cried out, “you stole my life.”

“Stole what? I told you I don’t know what money you’re talking about.”

“You emptied my college fund and for what?”

He shot a sideways look around the jail’s visiting room. He leaned in close and whispered, “I’m sorry, babe, but Mickey ‘The Hammer’ Burrows was going to smash my knee caps and dump me a barrel of oil, weld it shut and float me out to sea. I had no choice. You understand that, right?”

“I would have lit the blow torch.”

“You don’t mean that, babe.”

As if an electric current had been switched on and traveled through my seat, I stood up abruptly and looked down at him with a new born contempt.

“Babe, you got to stick by me,” he said with pleading eyes.

Even if the effort killed me I wasn’t going to fall for that act again.

I caught my reflection in the glass and saw a fresh faced twenty one years wilting and crumbling like ashes.

“Nathan, you promised me you quit gambling.”

“It wasn’t my fault. I was set up by the Bruskey brothers. It was a sure thing. Until it wasn’t.”

“When you stole my money, you stole my last chance to make a better life,” I said and sneered.

He rolled his shoulders as if shaking off the accusation like a duck shakes off water.

“So what about getting me bail?”

My sneer turned into a smile.

“Give Mikey ‘The Hammer’ a call. I’m sure he’s dying to get his hooks back into you.”

“But we’re in love, Alice. You got to get me out.”

The idea that I could ever love someone who could be so cavalier with another person’s hard earned money was ridiculous.

“Nathan, you killed our love. I’ll never be able to love again.”

“Is that your way of saying you’ll stay faithful to me until I get out of this place?”

“Go to Hell.”

“I’ll be out in a matter of a few months. Maybe I can make a deal with Mickey and get you that money.”

“Months? The fees are already overdue. Forget it.”

Nathan shrugged as if I was a selfish bitch for rejecting his offer.

“Babe, face it,” he said in that soothing and patronizing voice of his I’d grown to loathe. “It just wasn’t meant to be for you. But you don’t need to better yourself for me. You’re perfect the way you are.”