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No. Not again. She was not going to fold in on herself. Or let his low opinion of her matter.
Ten years ago stuff had happened that had been beyond their control. Her father’s interference... The miscarriage... But there had been so much more they could have controlled but hadn’t. And anyway the past was over now. Dane Redmond didn’t mean anything to her any more.
Maybe she should have told him about the will as soon as she had disc
overed he hadn’t abandoned her. She could see now that hadn’t played well when he’d figured it out. But he was the one who had assumed she’d had an abortion, who had never trusted in her love, and he was the one who was threatening to take her company away from her. Why? Because she’d had the audacity to protect herself?
This was all about his bull-headed macho pride. Dane, in his own way, was as stubborn and unyielding as her father.
Well, she wasn’t that timid, fragile, easily seduced child any more. And she was not going to sit around and let him crucify her and ruin everything she’d worked for.
She had the guts to stand up to him now. He was in for a shock if he thought this ‘princess’ wasn’t tough enough to get him to sign the damn divorce papers and eliminate any threat to her company—even if she had to scour Manhattan to find him.
* * *
Four hours later, after a frantic trip to his offices and a fruitless interrogation of his tight-lipped PA, she discovered it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Sitting in the first-class departure lounge at JFK, en route to St George, Bermuda, she felt a knot of anxiety start to strangle her as she contemplated how she was going to stay strong and resolute and indomitable if she was forced to confront her taciturn and intractable ex-husband on a yacht in the middle of the Atlantic...
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘THERE, ON THE HORIZON—that has to be it.’ Xanthe pointed at the yacht ahead of them and got a nod from the pilot boat operator she’d hired that afternoon at the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island, Bermuda. She pushed back the hair that had escaped her chignon and started to frizz in the island’s heat.
The punch of adrenaline and purpose had dwindled considerably since her moment of truth at the hotel the day before—now the snarl of nerves was turning her stomach into a nest of vipers. The boat sped up, skipping over the swell. She held fast to the safety rail. The sea water sprinkling her face was nowhere near as refreshing as she needed it to be.
At least her madcap chase to find Dane and confront him was finally at an end, after a two-hour flight from JFK, a sleepless night at an airport hotel in St George, scouring the internet for possible places he might have harboured his boat, and then a three-hour taxi journey criss-crossing Bermuda as she checked out every possible option.
She’d arrived at the Royal Naval Dockyard on the opposite tip of the island, the very last place on her list, at midday, with her panic starting to eat a hole in her stomach. The discovery that Dane had been there and just left had brought with it anxiety as well as relief at the thought of confronting him.
She gripped the rail until her knuckles whitened as the pilot boat pulled closer to the bobbing yacht.
At least her frantic transatlantic call to London at four that morning had confirmed Dane had yet to start any legal proceedings against her. So there was still time—if she could talk sense into him.
The gleam of steel stanchions and polished teak made the sleek vessel look magnificent as the blue-green of the water reflected off the fibreglass hull.
Her heart stuttered as she read the name painted in swirling letters on the side.
The Sea Witch.
The teasing nickname whispered across her consciousness.
‘I’m under a spell...you’ve bewitched me, Red...you’re like a damn sea witch.’
The muscles of her abdomen knotted as she tried to erase the memory of his finger circling her navel as he’d smiled one of his rare smiles while they’d lain on the beach at Vineyard Sound together, a lifetime ago, and he’d murmured the most—and probably the only—romantic thing he’d ever said to her.
Beads of sweat popped out on her upper lip as she spotted Dane near the bow, busy readying the boat’s rigging. She’d caught him just in time. His head jerked round as the pilot boat’s rubber bumpers butted the yacht’s hull and the boat’s captain shouted to announce their arrival.
She shook off the foolish memories and slung her briefcase over her shoulder. She had a short window of opportunity. She needed to get on board before Dane could object or the pilot boat’s captain would realise the story she’d spun him about being a guest who had missed the sailing was complete fiction.
Grabbing hold of the yacht’s safety line, she clambered into the cockpit. She quickly unclasped her life jacket and flung it back to the pilot boat.
‘I can take it from here—thank you so much!’ she shouted down to the captain.
The man glanced at Dane, who had finished with the rigging and was bearing down on her from the other end of the boat. ‘You sure, ma’am?’
Not at all.
‘Positive,’ she said, flinching when Dane’s voice boomed behind her.
