His Mistress Filmed While My Fiancé Killed Me

I dropped. My knees hit the teak deck and the sound was flat and hollow, like something breaking that nobody heard. My hands went to his leg, fingers curling into the fabric of his pants, and the words came out wrong, all broken up and gasping. "Please. Please, Jett, you know I can't. You know why I can't. Please don't make me—"

He didn't move. Just stood there with his champagne glass in one hand, looking down at me like I was something he'd stepped in.

Around us, the deck got quieter. Not silent. The music still played. The water still slapped against the hull. But the voices changed, went softer, uncertain. Someone cleared their throat. I heard a shoe scrape against wood.

Trevor Wade laughed. It was a short sound, sharp and mean, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye, phone angled down at me, thumb moving across the screen. He grinned at whatever he'd just typed and slid the phone back into his pocket.

I kept my eyes on Jett. "Please."

His jaw moved. A tiny shift, the muscle jumping under his skin. He was reading the crowd. I could see it happening. The way his gaze flicked left, then right, measuring something I couldn't see but could feel pressing down on both of us like weight.

Blair's voice floated over from somewhere near the champagne tower. "Oh my god, is she serious right now?"

Someone laughed. Someone else didn't.

Jett's hand came down and caught my chin. His fingers were warm and his grip was firm and he tilted my face up until I had no choice but to look at him. He leaned in close, so close I could smell the champagne on his breath, and when he spoke his voice was quiet. Calm. Practiced.

"If you don't get in that water," he said, "the engagement is over. Tonight. Right here." His thumb pressed into my jaw. "And I will make sure every person in this city knows you were nothing before me. And will be nothing after."

He let go. Straightened. Smoothed the front of his jacket like he was brushing off dust.

I couldn't move.

My body had stopped listening. My legs were locked, knees grinding into the deck, and my lungs kept pulling in air but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. I wasn't on a yacht. I was on a muddy bank with my shoes sinking into the silt and my father's back disappearing under the current, the whistle hot in my palm, his voice still echoing — *hold onto this for me, sweetheart, Daddy's coming right back* — and then the water closing over him like a door slamming shut.

I tried to stand. I couldn't.

I tried to speak. Nothing came out but a thin, airless sound.

Jett stared at me. One second. Two. His mouth tightened into a line.

Then he grabbed my arm.

The grip was hard enough to bruise. He yanked me up off my knees and I stumbled, feet barely catching under me, and he started walking. Dragging me. My shoulder wrenched and I tried to pull back but his hand was iron and I was nothing, I weighed nothing, I was just a thing being moved from one place to another.

The guests parted.

I saw their faces slide past. Some looked away. Some watched with wide eyes and open mouths. One woman — I didn't know her name — pressed her hand to her chest like she wanted to say something but didn't. Trevor Wade raised his phone again. Blair stood near the railing with her champagne glass tilted in her hand, head cocked, watching like this was a show she'd paid to see.

No one moved.

No one said a word.

Jett pulled me across the deck and the railing got closer, the dark water beyond it spreading out like a mouth, and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. My father's tune was in my head, humming under everything, the only sound that made sense, and I clung to it because it was all I had left.

"Jett," I whispered. "Jett, please—"

He didn't look at me.

He just kept walking.

And the water waited.