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“Can I have a moment?” she asked. “Like, in the bathroom. I need to shower and I haven’t even brushed my teeth.”
“Sure. Take your time.”
“It’ll only be a minute,” she said. “Just need to think this over. You can wait here if you want.”
“Yeah. I’ll do that.”
Emily flashed me an uneasy smile before rushing into the bathroom and shutting the door. Seconds later, the noise of rushing shower water sounded.
I stepped out onto the balcony, spotting Emily’s barely-touched breakfast. A carafe of coffee was there with an empty mug. I poured myself a cup as I leaned onto the railing and watched the surf come in, the conversation I’d had with Charles only a few moments ago still fresh in my mind.
“You’ve got three seconds to tell me what the fuck happened, Charles.”
I’d been in my office, the call coming through my computer. He’d called me with the video turned off—I was almost certain that he didn’t want me to see him sweat. Being the coward that he was he probably didn’t want to make eye contact, either.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck happened!”
I chuckled. “You think I’m going to buy that? If you’re going to try to sell me a load of bullshit, at least try to put a creative spin on it.”
“There’s no creative spin to put on it because I’m telling you the truth, boring as it might be. I have no fucking idea who those men were, and why they were trying to get to my little girl.”
“So, let me get this straight—Marta connived her way onto my island working with a team of men whose identities you have no clue of.”
“That’s what happened. Listen, I’m just as shocked as you are. Marta’s been working with me foryears, longer than Emily’s even been alive. She was the last person I figured would stab me in the back like this.”
“And you had no clue she had ulterior motives when she told you she wanted to come to the island?”
“Why would I? She’d told me she wanted to be with Emily, to make the transition a little easier to handle. Seemed perfectly fuckin’ reasonable to me.”
I wanted to chew him out, to keep telling him that he was full of shit, maybe even threaten him a little, until he finally gave up the act and told me what was really happening. However, strange as it might’ve seemed, part of me actually believed him. He’d called me, and I’d been able to detect the fear in his voice from the first word he’d uttered. Either he was a hell of an actor on top of being a total scumbag, or Charles was telling me the truth.
“Why the hell would I do this?” he asked, as if sensing my conflict. “The whole point of this arrangement was to smooth things over with you, to prove to you that you can trust me. Why would I jeopardize that?”
Another good point. Did it make sense that he’d put his daughter at risk in that way?
“Ah ha!” he said. “See? I can tell by your silence that you’re thinking it over. You know I’m right!”
“Don’t tell me what I am or am not thinking, Charles. Even if, and I meanif, you’re not the one responsible for this, the fact of the matter is that a woman under your employ put the lives of me and my staff, not to mention Emily, at risk. One of the first rules of running any sort of organization is that ultimate responsibility lies with the person on top. In the case of my company, it’s me. In the case of your household staff, it’s you.”
“I get it, I do, I really do. And trust me when I say that I’m going to find Marta and get to the bottom of what happened.”
“I take it that means you haven’t heard from her yet.”
“Nope. Dropped off the face of the fuckin’ earth. But I’ve got ways of tracking people down.”
“For your sake, I hope you do.”
He sighed. “I want to talk to her. I want to talk to my daughter.”
“Funny thing about that. Emily hasn’t once mentioned any desire to speak to you.”
Charles snorted. “Little brat, little ungrateful brat. It doesn’t matter what she wants. I want to talk to my daughter and make sure she’s OK.”
“She’s a guest onmyisland at the moment, and I’m not into making my guests do anything they don’t want to do.”
“Please, Stone, I just want to talk to her.”
“I’m going to hang up now. Then I’m going to go talk to Emily and tell her that you want to speak to her. Ifshewants to speak toyou, I’ll call you on this line. Understand?”
