TWENTY-SEVEN

BELLA

I was exhausted. It had been a hell of a flight. More hours than I could keep track of including the last leg on a private plane, just me and Jack sat together, watching the endless ocean beneath us. I’d been able to get an email off to Claudia, telling her I was safe, but that I might be gone for a while. I didn’t tell her anything else, just in case.

We finally landed on a tropical island, the heat the first thing that hit me when we stepped off the plane. The sun was high in the sky, though my brain was certain it was the middle of the night. All I wanted to do was sleep but there was no way I was stopping, not when I was so close.

Jack sat bolt upright in the ancient taxi, the engine growling and grumbling as we bumped along the dusty track that barely counted as a road. “You look like you’re on honeymoon,” the driver said in a thick accent. “You two lovebirds?”

“Just drive,” Jack said as I grinned across at him, enjoying his embarrassment.

The taxi stopped in front of a gate marked PRIVATE in huge black letters. “As far as I can go,” he said.

Jack paid him, holding the door open for me to climb out. “You ready?” he asked.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Pushing open the gate, he waved me through. On the other side the track continued, curving lazily through tall palm trees that seemed to bow down, their limbs beckoning us on. We walked more than a mile until a house came into view. It was a tall white stone mansion and it was right next to the beach. The closer we got, the more I could see of the beach itself. It was a long flat expanse of sand that led out to gently lapping azure blue waves. There was only one person on the beach, laid back on a sun lounger, facing the ocean.

“Is that him?” I asked.

Jack nodded.

I squeezed his hand before leaving him behind, walking off the track and onto the sand, my feet sinking as I made my way across to the sun lounger. The man was wearing white, the only sound that of the waves. Everything came to a standstill. I stopped just behind him. He seemed to know I was there, sitting up, turning to face me.

His face was older, wrinkled and weather worn. His hair was as white as his mansion. But there was no doubting who it was. “Hi, Dad,” I said as a smile spread across his features.

“Hello, Bella,” he replied, getting to his feet. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes it has.” I didn’t know what to say. All the way here, I’d been rehearsing what I would say to him but now the moment had arrived, I was dumbstruck.

He walked towards me, wrapping his arms around me. “I’ve missed you,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry.”

Ten minutes later, Jack came over. I had stopped crying by then and so had my father and we were sitting together on the sun lounger, saying nothing, just being together. “Dad, this is Jack,” I said when he reached us.

“Hi, Jack,” my Dad said. “I think I owe you my thanks.” He held out a hand.

“You’re looking pretty good for a dead man,” Jack said.

“Yeah, it’s surprising what a few years here will do to you. I guess I should give you an explanation.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m sure you had your reasons. Did she tell you Zoe’s dead.”

“I found out. I still have contacts. You know what that means, don’t you?” he asked, turning to me. “It means you’re safe, Bella.”

“Why was she after me?” I asked. “What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything. She wanted to use you to get to me. When I found out she was alive, I knew it was only a matter of time. She always told me she would get me for taking you off her.”

“But why? I don’t understand.”

He tapped the top of my hand. “I could spend hours explaining. Tell you everything about how I got custody and she was furious, how they found her clothes on the top of the cliff where we first met. Everyone was sure she was dead apart from me. I knew she’d be after me and she was, so many attempts on my life, I lost count. So when that job with Jack went wrong, I took my chance, I let them all believe I’d died in the explosion. I thought it was the best way. I had no idea she was insane enough to go after you. But there’s no point rehashing the past. The important thing is that you’re safe.” He smiled but there was a pain to it. “Some people are just bad, Bella. You should be careful who you choose, don’t make the same mistake I did. Choose someone good, Bella, don’t end up like me, hiding out for decades.” He squeezed my hand. “Choose someone good.”

“I will,” I said.

“I should be going,” Jack said. “I need to get back.”

He was walking away before I got my hands out from under my dad’s. I got to my feet, running after him. He was already on the track, marching along like he couldn’t wait to get away from here.

“Where are you going?” I asked, grabbing his arm to stop him. “Come back.”

“You heard your father,” he said. “You don’t need someone like me in your life. You need someone good.”

“You are good,” I said, staring up at him. “Now you come back with me right now.”

“Are you telling me what to do?”

“Just this once.”

A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth as he let me slip my hand into his. “He’s going to kill me,” he muttered under his breath.

“He’ll have to kill me first,” I replied, leading him back to the sun lounger. “Dad, I want to tell you something.”

Dad bristled, glancing down at our entwined hands. “Oh, yes?”

“This is Jack.”

“I know.”

“And I love him.”

He turned to look at Jack who was staring at me. “I warned you to keep your hands off her. I told you what would happen if you didn’t.”

It was my turn to be furious. “You don’t get to decide about this,” I said, my voice louder than before. “You chose a woman who tried to kill me, who tried to kill him, who would have killed me. You’re not exactly the greatest judge of character are you?”

His shoulders sagged a little and he sighed, not saying anything for a long time. Finally, he sat on the sun lounger, blinking up at me. “I guess I’m not.”

“I take it you approve then?”

He looked across to Jack. “You love my daughter?”

Jack looked at me and then at him. “I do,” he said at last.

“Then I guess I better tell the cook to set an extra place for dinner, hadn’t I?”

He got up and walked off towards the mansion leaving the two of us alone.

“Wow,” I said, sitting on the sun lounger and tapping the space next to me. “Care to join me?”

Jack sat next to me, his hand in mine. We sat looking at the ocean, neither of us saying a word. We didn’t need to.