Another day passes and I worry that Diana doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Marie’s developed some kind of infection and she hasn’t been released, either. Nothing seems to be going well.

Wanda’s and Marie’s families have spent so much time together they’ve become one. Quiet chatter highlighted with occasional laughter creates ambient noise in the room. They keep an eye on us and I love every one of them. They’re free with their hugs and kisses for me.

I try to cheer Diana up with a story of Timothy, the bartender and manager, throwing some drunk college kids out of The Green Frog. I barely earn a smile before she closes her eyes and falls asleep again. I don’t know if she really needs all this sleep to heal her body or her heart.

The next time she wakes, I ask her what I’ve been dreading. “Tell me what happened.”

She takes a sip from the straw I hold to her lips. “I just want to forget it.”

“I know.” To be honest, I don’t want to know. “But we can’t let Don get away with this. What’s his last name so I can at least get the cops to detain him?”

She closes her eyes. “Don isn’t even his real name.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I’m determined now. I’m not letting this go. “I’ll track him down through his parents at the Blue Heron.”

“No, you won’t.” She opens her eyes and stares at me, those gorgeous mahogany eyes so full of hope now looked lifeless. “That’s why he did this to me. He was waiting to catch a taxi to the airport. He was flying out and we were making plans for when he’d bring me to California. Just being playful, I grabbed his passport and flipped it open. I barely had time to realize he’d lied to me about his name when he grabbed it back and started to hit me.”

I flinch at the thought of his fists bashing into her beautiful face, creating those awful bruises, the blood vessel broken and spider-webbed red in her right eye.

Her voice cracks but she keeps talking. “I only saw his last name was something Eastern European, full of consonants. I’d have had to study it to pronounce it or remember it.”

I hold the straw to her mouth again and wait while she sips. “That son of a bitch.”

“Between the punches and kicks, I figured out he wasn’t here with his parents. He lied about it all.”

I set the water down, instead of throwing it into the wall like I want to do. “I’m so sorry.”

A little of the old Diana flashes in her eyes. “You tried to tell me, but I was so stupid.”

I shake with rage. There’s nothing we can do. No way to get justice for Diana. Fucking Don Fucker with no name is already on his way back to wherever he came from, almost certainly not California.

With as much tenderness as possible, I push her hair from her forehead. “That asshole broke you and stole something from you. I can’t fix it. But I won’t leave you. Blake and I will help you get better.”

She closes her eyes and tears creep out the corners to slide down her face to her hairline. I pat them with a tissue until they stop and her breathing evens out.

“Ms. Sawyers?” The voice startles my contemplation of Diana’s bruises.

I wipe eyes scratchy with fatigue and clear my throat. “Yes?”

A tall, wiry man the color of night, wearing all white, dips his head toward me. “I am here to collect you.”

Collect me? That’ll be a trick since I feel scattered as wide as the ocean.

“Mac?” Wanda’s oldest son hurries from her bedside.

The Collector’s grin broadens. “Nelson. What’cha doin’ here, man?”

Nelson grabs Mac’s hand and drags him to Wanda’s side and the whole congregation breaks out in rapid-fire island patois. This goes on for some time before Mac breaks away and steps toward me.

I feel as though he’s left a few holes in the message. “Who sent you to collect me and why?”

His grin is equally as warm for me as it was for Wanda’s family. “Jonas Knightly sent me but I couldn’t tell you why.”

Jonas Knightly? Why would he want me?

It’s curiosity that has me checking my phone for the time. Blake will be here in a couple of hours. Diana will probably sleep that long. From spending all those hours with Mom in the hospital, I’ve developed a fear of leaving someone I love in the hospital without supervision. I stand and speak to the driver. “Just a sec.”

I approach Marie’s sister, the one who makes wonderful fried plantains. “I need to take off for a little bit. Our friend will be here to stay with Diana soon. Can you keep an eye on her until then?”

Kisses and hugs and pats and curious glances at Mac accompany the message that yes, of course, they’ll take care of Diana, but am I sure I’ll be okay?

I assure them I’ll be fine and that I’ll be back in the morning.

The driver, Mac, answers my questions as I ride in the passenger seat of the BMW sedan he drives. He’d opened the back door for me, but I hop in front.

Mac tells me he’s worked for Jonas for several years while driving a cab on the side. He likes driving and running errands. We talk about our favorite beaches on the island and who makes good conch fritters. Mac is partial to his aunt’s fish shack well away from Seven Mile Beach. I make note of the place, promising to try it out.

I think Mac knows my nerves are stretched and wrapped so tight they practically sing. His voice seeps through the car, slow and melodic, working like a gentle massage. When he pulls up in front of JK Investments, he hurries to race around the car to open my door. I make myself wait for him, not wanting him to feel awkward by standing on the sidewalk doing nothing.

I place a hand on his arm when I jump out of the car. “Thanks, Mac.”

There’s something in his returning smile that sends me a warning. “You come to my auntie’s place, miss. We’ll get you fixed up. I promise.”

I step into the canned air of the glass-walled building. My shorts and t-shirt feel inappropriate. I square my shoulders and force my chin up. Fuck Jonas. He called me here without reason or warning. He can take me as I am.

The receptionist gives me a slow inspection from flip-flops to ponytail. It must be tough for her not to look down her nose from the height of her stilettos. “Mr. Knightly is expecting you.”

The welcome is better than the first time I appeared in her lobby, but it doesn’t make me feel any more relaxed than I had then. With feet growing heavier with each step, I approach the elevator and push the button, climb in, and it dispatches me to the receptionist clone upstairs. She gives me an identical once-over, with the same bland disapproving air. And, surprise, the exact same, “Mr. Knightly is expecting you.”

Only this time, she glides in front of me toward the paneled office. She opens the door and holds her arm out to indicate my entre into the inner sanctum.

Jonas sits behind his desk tapping on his computer. He doesn’t look up as the door snicks closed behind me.

I stand on carpet plush enough I feel the pile on the sides of my feet as my flip flops sink into it. I count.

1-Mississippi,

2-Mississippi.

3-Mississippi.

4-Mississippi.

5-Mississippi.

Fuck this.

I whirl around and fling the door open.

“Where are you going?” Jonas’s languid voice hits me before I walk out.

I speak over my shoulder. “Obviously, I was mistaken. I was under the assumption you wanted to see me.”

He gives me an arrogant chuckle that instantly sets my teeth on edge. “I called you here for a reason. Close the door.”

I hesitate one second, step into the hallway and calmly close the door behind me. With straight shoulders and my head high, I march down the corridor, heading past the generic stiletto-girl.

My finger taps the elevator button when she clears her voice behind me. “Ms. Sawyers. Mr. Knightly would like you to return to his office.”

“Mr. Knightly can go fuck himself.”

His booming laugh hits the lobby before he does. “That’s exactly what I’m counting on! You are going to be a star.”

I turn to look at him, trying to find something about him that might have attracted Mom. Even subtracting twenty-three years, I can’t see it. Maybe he’d seemed worldly to Mom, paid for expensive dinners or been generous and fun on the dives. Maybe she’d been desperate, like Diana, but had grown up fast when she found out she was pregnant.

Whatever she’d seen in him, I had a hard time tolerating the arm he plops around my shoulders as he escorts me back down the hall.

In his office, he directs me to a chair in front of his desk and he bops around to land in his throne. He settles into the leather and grins at me. “So. How long have you been on the island?”

Small talk? Okay, I’ll play the game. “About a year.”

He doesn’t respond, almost as if he knows the answer and isn’t interested, anyway. “I know the area you’re living in. Quaint.”

“I think you mean dumpy.” I know what it is and I know what a man like Jonas would think of it. Maybe it isn’t a mansion on the beach but it’s home.

“I understand you lost your job as a dive master at Dive Love. Mike’s a good guy. Bet it bugged him to have to let you go.”

He’s had me checked out. Make sense since I came here waving DNA results in his face. I wait, wondering where this is leading.

“Funds must be dwindling, huh?” He gives me the kind of blood-thirsty grin I imagine a shark would have, right before he took his first bite. “It’s expensive to live on the island. Did you have a plan for income?”

“I’m working at The Green Frog and I have two roommates, so we’re getting by.”

He temples his hands under his chin. “Getting by. That sucks.”

I shrug. “That’s life.”

He suddenly sits back. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m prepared to offer you more money than you ever thought possible.”

What?

“Money?” Butterflies bang around inside my stomach. “You want to give me money?”

“Yup.” He gives me that toothy shark smile again. “It’s going to be easy and it will change your life. Privilege, access, experiences you’ve only dreamed about. How does that sound?”

It sounds too good to be true.

“You’re ready to admit that I’m your daughter.” It’s a statement, not a question and god help me, when I say it, some small, sad part of me wants it to be true. After everything he’s done, I still want this man to look at me and admit that he’s my father.

His eyebrows dip in question, then rise as if he’s figured it out. “Oh. You think…” The silence is awkward but it’s worse when he laughs. “No. That’s not happening. A random sperm connecting in a short-term hook-up is never going to make you a Knightly.”

“Then why?” It hurts, just as much as the first time he said it. “I don’t understand why I’m here.”

“I admit, it took me longer than it should have to figure it out. Probably because of the whole daddy issue I had put you out of my head entirely.” He shows me his teeth again and I have this overwhelming urge to knock them down his throat. “But then, there was that footage at the Blue Heron, when Zach looked like he’d been t-boned by a truck.”

Jonas stands and walks over to the wet bar by the window. “Can I get you something? G&T?”

I can’t speak.

I can’t breathe.

All I can do is shake my head.

No.

I don’t want a G&T.

I don’t want anything.

Not from him.

“Come here.” Ice cubes clink from a bucket into two crystal glasses. “I want you to show you something.”

I stand and walk over to where he’s standing. Not because I want to comply or to please him. Because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

He splashes gin into glasses and reaches into a small refrigerator to pull out a bottle of tonic. “Get a load of that view, would you? See the ocean wall?”

I look without seeing as he finishes mixing the drinks and I blindly take the one he hands me, even though I said no earlier.

He takes a sip. “I was standing here yesterday, having my afternoon pick-me-up, like I’m doing right now.” He sips again. “And what do you think I saw out there. On the wall?”

Then I know why he called me here.

Maybe I inhale sharply or stiffen, but however I react, Jonas picks up on it. He brays like a jackass. “That’s right, I saw you—shower girl.”

Oh my god.

I gulp my drink, letting the gin burn my throat.

“I saw it from here—the sexual tension between you two was hot enough to steam my windows.” He tips his drink at me in salute. “That spark is going to make us a ton of money.”

“I’m your daughter.”

He doesn’t confirm it. Doesn’t deny it. He just shrugs his shoulders like I asked him what he wanted for lunch.

“No.” I feel my fingers tighten around the glass in my hand. “No.”

He steps back, like he knows I’m seconds away from smashing my glass against his face. “Easy work. We show the footage in the shower, being discrete and using beeps and blurring the body parts the FCC won’t let us show. Liesa does her thing with the tears and threats and the whole shebang. Then we bring you on for some scenes. Get the longing looks between you and Zach, set up the whole thing. Season ends with Zach committing to Liesa and next season is the wedding.”

I stare at him while my stomach swirls and I wonder if I’m going to throw up on his six-inch deep carpet. “No.”

He doesn’t seem to hear me. “You give it some thought. We’re talking percentage of the take, which could net you a cool million for a couple of weeks work.”

“How can you be my father?”

His amused expression makes me want to punch him. “If you want, you can spin it like I’m looking out for my little girl. I’m offering you a chance to make more money than is decent. And hey, it’s not like I’m asking you to fuck him on tape.”

I give in.

Gin and fizzy tonic, a few ice cubes, and then the crystal smashes into Jonas’s face.