Pepper sat bolt upright at those words.

Masculine. Fierce. Shiver-inducing.

Unfortunately the wrong kind of shudder.

“An-Andy,” she said. The expression on his face made her immediately scoot backward, nearly toppling herself off the edge of the dock. “What are you doing here?”

His face somehow went even darker, crueler. “No knight in shining armor to save you this time.”

Her throat went dry. “I—”

In the movies her father produced, there would have been a huge buildup of music, some cuts between her face and Andy’s—obviously the villain in this piece. All would have served the purpose of driving up the tension in the flick.

That tension was unnecessary.

Her heart already pounded. A cold sweat had broken out on her skin. She quaked when a cold gust of ocean air sluiced across the moisture.

So yeah, she was fine on tension.

Carefully, Pepper pushed to her feet. “Did you need something?”

Andy laughed, but it wasn’t a nice one. “You’re kidding, right? You embarrass me, and that’s what you’re asking? I needed something six months ago when I lost the contract with your father.”

She frowned, took a cautious step sideways, trying to inch herself away from the end of the dock.

Her ex was unhinged, and there was no other word for it. Aside from the facial injuries, courtesy of her man Derek—not her man, she reminded herself—Andy’s hair was mussed, his shirt wrinkled.

Uncle Ike had nothing on him when it came to alcohol breath.

The moonlight showed all of that clearly.

The other thing it illuminated was the fucking cray-cray-crazy town expression in his eyes.

Choo-choo! All board the nut-job train. And anyone can say what they want to say, but Andy had a one-way ticket on that express.

“I don’t know anything about my father’s contracts,” she said and then hurried to add when his eyes sparked angrily, “But I’m sure I could mention something and—”

“What? I’d be forever grateful?” Andy sneered. “You screwed me out a deal that would have brought millions, and now your new fuck buddy is getting the benefits? No.” His fingers went to the waistband of his slacks. “If fucking you is all that it takes to secure O’Brien funding then—”

“There’s nothing between Derek and me, Andy. We’re just friends.”

“Lies!” He unbuckled his belt, sliding it from the loops and tossing it to the dock. It landed with an ominous rattle. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. It’s obvious he’s stuck his—”

“Andy!” she snapped. “Enough. We were over when you cheated on me. I can’t be with someone who isn’t faithful.”

“No one in our circle is faithful.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“That doesn’t make it all wrong, either,” he said. “I can forgive you for sleeping with the lawyer, but when we get back together”—he undid the button on his slacks, slid down the zipper—“that needs to be over. I’m not sharing with him.”

And the screwed-up-knowledge-of-the-year award went to . . . ding, ding, ding, everyone guessed it! Andrew Graveton.

His hands found the buttons of his shirt

“What are you doing?” she asked, taking another step sideways. She was in the middle of the dock, five feet from freedom, and yet she would have to pass close to Andy to gain it.

The pier was narrow and rickety, a row of simple wooden slats where the fishermen cleaned their catch after a long day at sea.

Andy’s shirt landed in a crumpled pile on the dock.

And Pepper knew she had to act. Well, it was either that or just stand there and wait for whatever idiocy he thought made sense.

She made a run for it, darting past Andy for the beach.

“Hey!”

She watched as he whirled. His slacks fell from his grip, bunching at his ankles, gathering above his shoes.

“Goddammit,” he said, trying to toe the loafers off and move after her.

Loafers, such a terrible fashion choice for men. So uppity. So—

Splash.

“Holy mother of tampons,” she blurted.

One second Andy had been stumbling along the dock after her, the next he was in the water.

A drunk man was in the water.

He’d drown.

She took a step toward the edge of the dock, ready to jump in after him.

A pair of firm hands stopped her.

That was when the screaming began.

* * *

The only good thing to come out of the aftermath of Summer and Paul’s wedding was that the aforementioned pair had already departed the island.

They didn’t have to deal with police reports. Or dead bodies.

Because Andy had stumbled upon shark-infested waters.

Quite literally had fallen into them.

Turned out that the fishermen tended to throw the unfavorable bits of their catch into the water next to the dock at the end of the day. Just past sunset, most every day.

The sharks had been trained to return to the dock day in and day out. And even on those days when the fishermen weren’t allowed to clean their catch.

Like event days.

Like wedding days.

Andy, unfortunately, had stumbled into an aggressive, hungry group of tiger sharks.

And Andy hadn’t found his way out.

Pepper felt guilty.

Okay, she didn’t feel horribly guilty. He hadn’t been stripping down for innocent reasons. He hadn’t been about to make an attempt at wooing her through naked moonlight dancing.

He would have pressed the issue.

His fall meant he hadn’t had the chance to do so.

Which—and this made her the most horrible of persons in all histories of persons—she was almost grateful he’d done it to himself.

Especially when the news came out of his embezzling.

His company was tanking because he’d gambled away funds from contracts with production groups, O’Brien films included. The money was supposed to have gone to script development.

Turned out, the writers he’d contracted had never been paid.

She could only assume that he’d been either hoping to coerce or bully her back into a relationship. One that would allow him new contracts, new cash to fuel his addiction.

He hadn’t counted on Derek. And he hadn’t expected her to have moved on.

Considering the pathetic creature she’d been in their relationship, that wouldn’t have been too far off.

Thank God, she’d finally found her backbone.