Freeing Calder: Seas of Seduction 2 Read online

  Contents

  1. 06/01/2018

  2. 19/01/2018

  3. 21/01/2018

  4. 23/02/2018

  5. 02/03/2018

  6. 03/03/2018

  7. 10/03/2018

  8. 11/03/2018

  9. 13/03/2018

  10. 14/03/2018

  11. 20/03/2018

  12. 24/03/2018

  13. 30/03/2018

  14. 05/04/2018

  15. 06/04/2018

  16. 10/04/2018

  17. 17/04/2018

  18. 20/04/2018

  19. 21/04/2018

  20. 24/04/2018

  21. 06/06/2018

  22. 10/06/2018

  23. 20/06/2018

  24. 25/06/2018

  25. 30/06/2018

  26. 01/07/2018

  27. 03/07/2018

  28. 12/07/2018

  29. 13/07/2018

  30. 17/07/2018

  31. 18/07/2018

  32. 25/07/2018

  33. 26/07/2018

  34. 14/08/2018

  35. 15/08/2018

  36. 13/08/2024

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by the author

  For Nadine Walkinshaw, for showing me this year what true friendship is all about. For holding on and believing in me when another let me go.

  I constantly feel like I’m being followed but Niall says it’s in my head. I suppose it must be. Since every time I turn around there’s nothing and nobody suspicious there. Besides, my paranoia is unwarranted, I’m always with somebody so I’m always safe.

  The captain is in prison, one far away from me, all the way on the other side of the UK. If he was any further he’d be in the ocean again, except in a cell, not on a ship. As promised the law nailed him with multiple charges, but from what I’ve heard, nothing they have evidence on. He’s being made to serve until his trial and I’m being pushed to press charges and give my statement.

  It’s hard to talk about. Too hard. I’ve been avoiding it. Not only speaking about it but writing it down, dreaming about it. The more time that passes the more I forget, and that suits me just fine because whenever I think of my tumble into the ocean, or the fact I was nearly raped, I start trembling like a rattlesnake on the defence.

  It hasn’t been long, only two weeks since I got home after that ordeal, and for the most part I’ve pushed it from my mind. I’ve been pretending things are normal but they aren’t. How can they be?

  Niall is being attentive, he’s being great, all six foot of him is being nothing but soft and loving and understanding. But how understanding will he be when he knows the depth of my guilt?

  I wasn’t just kidnapped and assaulted. I was lost. A part of me got lost in those deep, leaf-green eyes on that blue fucking ocean.

  “Babe,” Niall calls from the kitchen, startling me from my thoughts. “It’s your brother.”

  I race to the phone as I always do when my brother uses his few minutes of phone time on me. Skidding to a stop on the cold white and black tiles, I take the cordless from Niall’s large, soft hand and lean into him as I put it to my ear.

  He tickles my back and kisses my temple but remains silent.

  “River,” I breathe, smiling genuinely for the first time since the last time we spoke. “It has been forever.”

  “Three days, Rain, fucking drama queen.” There’s humour to the gruffness of his tone and so much love. My brother is my rock, my idol. He’s everything to me and so much more. If it wasn’t for him I’d be serving time in a women’s prison somewhere. “That cop boyfriend of yours looking after you?”

  I relax against said cop boyfriend. “He is.”

  “Good.” He chuckles. “Found me any pen pal bitches to write to?”

  “I’ve been stuck in the middle of the ocean; your bitches haven’t been a priority.”

  “Fucking pirate is lucky he didn’t end up in my prison.”

  I hum my agreement all the while wishing Niall didn’t tell him about what happened to me, but it was inevitable. Word got around, and if my brother found out before Niall told him… I dread to think. I’m confident that he made the right choice.

  His deep voice pierces my thoughts, popping them and sending them away like a balloon from a needle point. “You spoke about it yet? It helps to talk.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Niall said you’re suffering, you won’t let him in.”

  I roll my eyes. “Suddenly you’re the expert on suffering?”

  “No, but I’d say your cop boyfriend is.”

  Niall tenses, having heard basically everything. I look at him to shoot a glare his way but lose my gumption and sigh instead, sagging further into his body. “Let’s just change the subject.”

  “Say the word, sis, and I’ll have him gutted for you.”

  I laugh nervously. “I have no doubts that you will but… leave him alone, let him rot, focus on getting out sooner. I miss you. I need you on the outside, not on the inside for another ten years.”

  “Unless you have a time machine, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You can’t undo what we did.”

  “No, but I can run away faster.”

  We both laugh but it’s uneasy.

  “I’ll call you later,” he whispers, sounding more emotional now. “I miss you too, Rain.”

  The line goes dead with a clatter and I turn in Niall’s arms. He kisses my neck and rocks me, the bristle of his cheek against my temple.

  “Are you ready to talk?” His question is so gentle, like coaxing an angry bear to eat a scrap of food when he knows it’s not hungry. “You need to make a statement.”

  “I’ve told them how he orchestrated my kidnapping,” I reply, putting distance between us, using the orange juice in the fridge as an excuse.

  His almond-shaped grey eyes narrow. “You haven’t told them about the horrors you endured on the ship.”

  I look at him, wondering how I break his heart and admit that I’m a whore that has slept with the enemy.

  Softening, he takes a step to me and reaches out. “Whatever it is, I’ll love you regardless.”

  “Can we just leave it then? Never talk about it again? Please?” Tears spring to my eyes but the words won’t come. I’m terrified of losing him. He’s everything. “I… it was… just… please.”

  He nods, still saddened but still understanding. “Okay.”

  He won’t push me, not yet, but there will come a time that he’ll demand to know and I’ll have to tell him. I’m being selfish keeping it from him now but I simply do not have the courage to be that kind of honest.

  He really is everything to me, more so than Captain Calder ever was and ever will be.

  But unfortunately, even everything can shift to nothing in the blink of an eye and nothing… well, nothing can become everything.

  I knew the truth the moment I woke up and vomited into the toilet basin I cleaned the night before. It still reeked of bleach to the point I’m surprised my eyes didn’t blister over.

  I flushed and brushed my teeth. I didn’t need a test to confirm it but I took one anyway less than an hour later, while my knees bounced with anxiety.

  “It’s typical isn’t it?” I say to Niall as he looks at the test on the edge of the basin. “That the moment things start to turn normal again, everything crashes down.”

  He stares at the stick much like I did my vomit this morning. He looks as forlorn and as helpless as I felt that first week on that fucking ship. The Sea Whore, just like me.

  “It can’t be mine, we didn’t until last week,” he murmurs, looking at me now. “It’s not mine is it?”

  Ah, tha
t fateful night. The day I got my STI results back but my pregnancy screen came back inconclusive. I thought for sure that meant I wasn’t. I felt elated and like everything could be okay again.

  Niall and I finally made love, soft and sweet. He took his time, kissing me, caressing me, touching me in ways that used to light me up but now only make me remember the rough hands I truly crave in my dreams and fear in my waking moments. I needed it from him, I felt better afterwards, but now I feel so fucking devastated for both of us.

  “Probably not,” I reply quietly, waiting for him to lose his temper, something he doesn’t ever do.

  Still, even in this moment, he doesn’t falter. He just tosses the stick into the trash and lifts me from the toilet. His tenderness breaks the seal and I sob as he holds me and sob harder when he curls his body around mine in bed.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he promises and I can’t help but wonder why is he still here? “I love you, Rain. We’ll figure this out. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “It’s his, Niall… isn’t it? Fate just couldn’t have been kinder.” I hug my pillow as he hugs me. “This is karma, for everything I’ve done.”

  “You didn’t do anything. You tried to con a few people, so fucking what? You’re not a bad person, Rain.”

  “How can you still defend me as I taint our lives with the child of another man?”

  He shakes his head and then buries his face in my hair. “You didn’t ask for this any more than I did.”

  But I did. I didn’t practise safe sex with a fucking pirate. I didn’t say no. I didn’t walk away. I didn’t tell the truth.

  “I’m not going to abandon you either.”

  And this is why I love him, honourable, loving Niall. The man of so many women’s dreams. Once the man of mine. Now a man of my nightmares plagues my sleep.

  His green eyes, his smug grin, the confidence in which he stands, demanding respect.

  Will I ever be rid of him?

  “Maybe we can move away to a different country?” I suggest and his silence has me wondering if he’s considering it. Would he do that for me?

  Niall kisses my neck and moves away. “We should eat.”

  “You don’t want to discuss this more?”

  He shrugs and sighs heavily. “What’s there to discuss? It is what it is.” We pause and stare at each other, the man who saved me twice. Once from a life of villainy and once from a life of piracy. I don’t deserve him. “You’re not getting an abortion.”

  I search his eyes. Is he against abortion? I didn’t know that about him. He’s never opened the conversation before. Kids aren’t something we’ve spoken about in great detail yet.

  “It could be an option?” I suggest, testing the waters.

  His soft gaze rolls over my face. “You’d never go through with it so what’s the point of entertaining it? Besides, it could still be mine.”

  I really, really hope it is.

  “I love you, Niall,” I say, searching his troubled eyes for strength. “I really do.”

  “I know, Rain, the feeling is mutual.”

  “Come to me,” he insists and I turn in his bed, the blanket slides over my skin, creating a pocket of cool air around me. I shiver and pull it up over my head and nuzzle my face into his chest. He smells beautiful, like soap and the ocean and just a slight spray of his expensive aftershave.

  He chuckles at my movements and pulls the blanket over his head too so we’re both in the dark together. I can just make out his silhouette and feel his warm breath across my cheek.

  “Let’s stay under here forever,” I murmur, tired, cold, but safe in his arms that are slowly gathering me in.

  He sighs softly and rolls onto his back a fraction until my leg is hiked up and over one of his. My bare sex touches his soft thigh and I almost want to have sex with him again. “You’re beautiful, Rain. Does he tell you enough?”

  “What?” His words startle me…

  …straight out of my comfortable slumber.

  I sit up and throw the blanket off myself before harshly rubbing my eyes.

  It was him again, Captain. Why won’t he leave me be?

  I look around my shared room with Niall, at the pictures on the top of the chest of drawers. One of them has fallen onto its face, a picture of me and him at my brother’s engagement party five years ago. Back when my brother and Selina were happy.

  She was expecting too, much like I am.

  My heart breaks from the memory of the loss and my hand goes to my stomach. I should be as happy as they were at the news.

  Niall doesn’t want us to talk about the pregnancy, not yet. I know that for all of his gallant behaviour, he’s likely hoping the pregnancy resolves itself. He’d be a martyr if he wasn’t thinking that, though I know he’d never voice it. This can’t be easy for him.

  I have booked an appointment for next week just to discuss my options and find out what sort of things I should be taking to keep my body viable and healthy. It’s the scan I need more than anything. I am praying above all things that it’s Niall’s, there’s still a very small chance it could be. That would change everything, we could both be happy and celebrate. The time is going to drag, and until we know who’s fathered it, things are going to be tense between us.

  I look at the man sleeping soundly beside me and trail my fingertips around his small ear. His breath falters in slumber, making my lips tip up at the edges with a smile. Weeks ago, I begged to be back here with him in this very moment, and now I am, I feel out of place, like an imposter in my own home, in my own body.

  “You’re sad,” he murmurs, his eyes still closed. “It hangs around you like a dark cloud, stifling you… and me.”

  “I’m sorry.” His words slice me open, nearly penetrating the layer hiding my secrets. “I don’t know how to be happy right now.”

  “I know.” He pats the bed and pulls the blanket open, creating a space for me to burrow into, much like in my dream with another man. I absorb his heat and safety, grateful for both. “It’ll take time and therapy.”

  Therapy, the taboo word in this house.

  I’ve been going to see a man ever since I returned, he was recommended after my psyche evaluation but mostly we play chess as he asks me questions I daren’t give him the answers to.

  “I hate therapy.”

  “You aren’t even trying.”

  “I don’t want to remember it, okay?” I admit, turning away from him so he has to press his chest to my back.

  He leaves it and I feel him eventually drift back to sleep. The moment he does I climb out of bed and shower in preparation to see my brother at Belmore Prison in London. A rather high-security prison that he was transferred to because he escaped the last two places they held him in. Not for very long did he taste his faux freedom, but he still escaped and that’s what worries them. It’s one big game to him. He loves the thrill of the chase. Unfortunately, that thrill gave him an extra four years on his already hefty sentence.

  I wake Niall as I’m drying my hair and he finally climbs out of bed and drives me to where I need to be.

  Entering the large white room, I ignore the stares of the beige-clad inmates and move to my brother. He stands to his full six-foot-three height and wraps me in his massive biceps. I spot new ink on his bulging arm and prod it when he releases me for long enough to move.

  “Watch the ink,” he murmurs playfully.

  “No touching, inmate!” a guard bellows but River flips him off and sits back in his plastic chair as I take the one opposite, putting a table between us.

  I look him up and down, from the top of his dark hair, hair which is tied back into a short ponytail, to his hands on the table. His new ink is stunning, a puzzle piece that looks to be standing on the side of his arm, not flat against it. I wonder if it’s symbolic as it is a corner piece with no joining puzzle buddy in sight.

  “Best friend tat with the guy that bones you in the shower?” I jest and his electric-blue eyes narrow on me with
humour. Eyes that mirror my own.

  “How you holding up, sis?” He flexes his biceps as he stretches his arms above his head and yawns.

  “Better than you probably. You’re working out too much. Look at the size of you. You’re a bear.”

  Chuckling, he offers me his hand to wrestle. I ignore it. There’s no way I can beat him and he knows it. “The ladies will love you when you get out.”

  “That’s the plan, but in ten years I might not be this good looking.”

  “Just behave, do what you can,” I whisper, placing my hand over his. “I need you now more than ever.”

  We share a familial look until he breaks the connection by rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. “How’s Mum?”

  “She wants to see you.”

  “She’ll break down if she sees me in here.”

  Mum is very fragile mentally. Our childhood with her was a sheltered one, she panicked over every little thing. Every bump, scrape, fight, etc. We were swaddled too tight but she meant well. She’s not brave, she can’t handle stress and she has a bad heart to throw into the mix. “That’s why you need to get out.”

  “I’m working on it, Rain. It’s going to take more time than I thought. I need somebody I can trust on the inside.”

  We share another look and I want more than anything to just hug him again. I’m a hugger. I like hugs. I feel better when I’m being held or holding someone.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he mutters, scratching his freshly shaven jaw. “It’s hard for me too.”

  “I know,” I blurt, taking his hand over the table as my eyes fill with tears. “I don’t mean to guilt you… I just…” My lips pinch together. I want to tell him, I want to explain it all to him. He’d understand, but maybe not.