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His voice trails. I reach up and touch his hair, running my fingers through it. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. Anyway. In case you haven’t noticed, this place…isn’t cheap. My dad had to sell the house. It ate up his savings. Everything we had, basically. Mr. King…took pity on us, I guess. He gave my dad a job at the marina as a way to settle his debts. And we’ve been working it off ever since.”
“So he got you out of debt? That’s generous.”
Donovan bites his lip. “Sort of.”
“What’s the sort of part?”
“Well…it makes you think. What does the guy value more than money? Control. My dad can’t make a move without Mr. King’s say-so. He’s in his pocket. For good. Which is fine, as long as you stay on Mr. King’s good side.”
“And if you don’t?”
Donovan lapses into a long, dark pause. “I don’t even want to think about the ways he could make me and my dad’s lives a living hell.”
And this coming from Donovan, the guy who is bullied on a regular basis.
A knot twists in my stomach and won’t come undone.
He glances back at me, those chestnut browns meeting my gaze. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” I purse my lips together and turn my head away from Donovan, staring off into the wide ocean below. A seagull swoops across the distance, and I feel instant envy.
Applications will be the death of me. I have a fire lit under my ass now, though. At least applying to internships keeps my mind off my little (big) problem.
“Kenzi!” Pearl calls from downstairs. “The phone for you!”
I pick up the landline in my room. “Hello?”
“Kenzi.” The voice on the other side sends my nerves on edge. Mr. King continues. “I heard you missed your appointment.”
I swallow. Hard. But better to be honest, right? “Yeah…I think I just need time. To think about it.”
“I see.” A lengthy pause. “Would a check help?”
“Sorry?”
“Money. I can help with your college fund, perhaps.”
“Oh, I’m not…I’m still waitlisted…I mean…” My head is spinning. Is he really trying to buy my pregnancy? I finally come out with, “No, thank you.”
“I’m disappointed,” he says. “I thought we were on the same page.”
“I just need to think about it,” I repeat. Dumb like a parrot, but at least I’m holding my ground.
The silence on the other end is so long, I think he’s ended the call. Then he finally says, “I’ll schedule a new appointment. I’d recommend you make this one.”
I hang up immediately. My hands are shaking, and I can’t catch my breath, like I’m breathing through a straw. I lie down on the hardwood floor and close my eyes until the spinning stops.
“Are you avoiding me?”
I look up, and there he is. The man I have been avoiding. Jason King.
In the grocery store, of all places.
It takes a minute for my mouth to work. Pearl is down the opposite aisle, and I stand there, like an idiot, with a jar of peanut butter in my hand, which I’ve been debating for the past five minutes because why this sudden craving for peanut butter?
He’s leaning against my shopping cart, wearing a green bomber jacket and a crooked grin. And…goddammit.
