“I don’t have to answer any questions,” she hisses. “I was invited here tonight.”
“I know, I made sure of it,” I say to her as I nod to the security guard. “Follow me.”
He takes her by the upper arm casually so that we don’t make a scene. I take Anna by the hand, and we move below deck until we are in the media room. In here there’s a large television with lounge chairs and couches. Once security has brought her into the room, they take her over to one of the chairs and wait for her to sit. She makes a huff of protest but finally does it.
“What the hell is all this, Rory? Just let me leave, okay? You’ve made your point.”
“No, I don’t think I have.” I pull Anna beside me as I lean up against the bar and take a long drink of my champagne. I’m trying to calm down when all I want to do is rage on her. Reaching into my pocket, I take out the remote for the video and hit play.
“What the hell is this?” she says as she watches the video of herself.
“This is security footage of you breaking into Anna’s old house,” I say casually and click to the next screen. “This is footage of you at four separate banks writing fraudulent checks on the old account I had set up for you.”
She swallows hard but doesn’t say a word.
“And these are the documents I gave to Shy a few hours ago.” I click the screen and pause on each one so that she can see everything I gave him.
I’d thought about recording Shy when he received it but decided not to because it would be a violation of his trust. Instead, I had Anna sit on the other side of the restaurant with a listening device so she could hear it with me. She didn’t record it, but I couldn’t do it alone. It took everything in me to not get up and go after Heather right that second, and I needed Anna to be there in case I did.
“This is bullshit.” Her face is red and angry as she glares at me.
“I’m going to have you arrested for trespassing and then sent to federal prison for check fraud.” Her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh, you didn’t know that messing with a government financial institution would send you to federal prison? I guess you should have looked that up before you blew through all the money I gave you in a matter of months.”
“You can’t do this.” She stands up and points her finger at me. “I’ll ruin you.”
I feel Anna’s hands on me tighten but I remain seated and cool. “You can’t do shit, Heather. You’re nothing to me, and even worse, you’re nothing to Apollo.”
Her face pales.
“I’ll make sure Shy is protected from you for the rest of his life.”
“He won’t believe you.”
I shrug. “That’s not up to you anymore. He has the facts. Now it’s his life to live.”
“Rory, please,” she begins to beg, and then the rage inside me spills.
“Please what?” I snap. “You left. You made the choice to walk out the fucking door on your baby.” Anna’s hand slides up my chest. “And not only with Apollo, but Shy too.” I shake my head. “You will never get near my family ever again, and that includes Shy.”
Movement out of the corner of my eye causes me to look up. And when I see Shy standing there, my stomach drops.
“Shy, do you hear how he’s talking to me?” Heather pretends to burst into tears, but I ignore her as I take a step toward him.
“Yeah, I heard all of it,” he says, his face unreadable as he looks at all of us in the room.
When Heather sees that he’s not falling for her trick, she turns an angry glare my way. “You’ll pay for this.”
“No,” Shy says simply, and Heather turns to him. “It’s over.”
I nod to the security waiting in the corner, and they come over to take her by the arm. “There’s a boat beside us waiting to take you back to the island. The police are there too.”
“You can’t do this,” Heather hisses as she tries to fight the security. She turns to Shy and begins to plead. “Come on, Shy, please. Tell them to let me go.”
He gives her one last look before he turns around and gives her his back. It’s the only answer she’ll get as security takes her out of the room kicking and screaming.
A deafening silence falls over the room before I walk over to where Shy is standing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to see that.”
“I know,” he says and his shoulders drop. “I followed my mom after I left the restaurant. I saw her getting on the yacht, and I followed her. I wanted to confront her, but I was still hoping that—” He blows out a breath. “I guess that it somehow wasn’t true.”
I nod in understanding as I place my hand on his shoulder and give it a squeeze. “I meant what I said. You’re part of our family now.”
“I’m not sure I know what that means anymore,” he says so softly that I almost don’t catch it.
“We’ll figure that out together.” My words are almost as soft as his.
When he looks up at me, there’s a sliver of hope in his eyes. Maybe all he needs is time, but for right now, this is enough.
Chapter Sixteen
Anna
I know I’m madly in love with Rory, but after today, there is no going back. To be without this man would kill me, and I know I wouldn’t be able to survive it. I didn’t realize there were men in the world like him, and I don’t know how I got so lucky that he’s mine.
“You’re a good man. You know that?” I tell him when we pull into the garage a few hours later.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew the things I thought about doing when you kept trying to get away from me.” He hits the button to close the garage door behind us.
“Are you sure about that?” I click my seat belt and crawl over into his lap. “I think it might be hot to live out some of those fantasies.”
“Might have looked into buying an island so I could kidnap you.”
“You’re not even joking.” I shake my head at him. Rory is a good man, but when it comes to me he’s more than willing to be bad to get his hands on me. I love and adore that I can bring out a different side of him. The lengths he’s willing to go shows me how much he really does love me. I’ll never doubt that.
“One way or another, I was going to make you fall in love with me.” He digs his fingers into my hair, getting a firm grip on me. I’m not going anywhere.
“I came to Craven Cove because of you,” I admit, and his face stills with surprise. “I wanted to find a place to settle down for Celeste to do her final year of high school. Then I saw you and I started digging. I found out you were here on the island and I needed to come see you for myself. You’re why I came here to begin with.” Without him I wouldn’t have known it existed.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of crazy, but I’d planned on you being a mark while I was here.” I shake my head as I let out a small laugh. It’s a bit crazy how this all unfolded along the way.
“Fate brought us together.”
“You really believe that?” I ask, pondering the idea.