Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Watching Preston sneak off after the women on the walk he insisted was just for the female authors was annoying. He would go after Bella now, make his ultimate move. I couldn’t follow, though.
She would be safe. It wasn’t just that Bree, Hayley, and Taffy were with her either. Bella was strong enough to take care of herself. She always had been. She just needed to remember that.
Now that she had—and I was convinced she was about to eviscerate Preston, for hopefully the last time—I was ready to do my part.
Heather hadn’t gone with the other women.
She thought she was being sneaky when she exited the main building—which she’d entered under the pretense of hitting the bathroom and then catching up.
She didn’t even look at the lake when she appeared again.
She was focused on the cabins. Our three cabins.
Brody moved in beside me. “You know what she’s doing, right?” He looked frustrated but was too loyal to chase after her and stop what was to come.
“I know,” I confirmed, exhaling heavily. “She’s about to find a surprise in there.”
Brody smirked. “Yeah, that will be fun.”
“Totally.” I looked around. There were only a handful of us left. For whatever reason, there were far more women authors than men in our group. “I guess it’s time to make myself scarce. This won’t work if I’m standing here when they get back.”
“Go to our cabin,” Brody instructed. “I’ll let you know when it’s time.”
I pursed my lips and nodded. “I just want this over with. It sort of feels as if we’re trapped in a Scooby-Doo episode.”
Brody burst out laughing. “Do you think we’ll be able to pull a rubber mask off Preston when it’s all over?”
“Unfortunately, his mask isn’t detachable. It’s always there for us to see.”
“Dude.” Brody’s voice was low. “We can end this now. We can catch up with Bree and Bella and take off.”
“And break the contract, which will reflect poorly on all of us as authors.”
“Yeah, but when we tell them what’s been going on, they’ll have no choice but to understand.”
“You don’t think it will be blamed on Bella anyway?” I pinned him with a serious look.
“It’s not her fault,” was his automatic response.
“They won’t care. They’ll just know that she was the reason Preston did all of this and maybe decide she’s not worth the drama.”
Brody fell silent, and I could see that possibility rolling through his head.
“I won’t let him hurt her,” I said in a low voice. “Not this way. Not something that could derail her forever. It has to be the way we planned.”
Brody blew out a sigh. He didn’t like the drama but understood what I was saying and agreed. “Go to our cabin. Keep the lights off so nobody is suspicious. It shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes or so.”
I nodded in agreement. “I’ll be ready.”
SITTING IN brODY’S DARK CABIN WAS excruciating. I did it though, filling my head with images of Bella’s smile as I waited. When Brody’s text finally came through, I was more than ready. The message was simple.
Brody: It’s time.
I left through the back door of the cabin and skated close to the structure. The lights were on in my cabin, and I could hear raised voices. Before I could move in that direction, I heard footsteps on the path to the left and froze in place.
“I’m not done talking to you,” Preston snapped as Bella hurried ahead of him. “I’m nowhere near done.”
“You’ve been done talking to me, at least in a way that matters, for years,” she shot back. “I don’t want to talk to you. Ever.”
“You’re going to change your mind,” he sang out as she hit the steps that led to our front porch. “You’re going to be begging me to come back in exactly thirty seconds.”
Bella didn’t bother to look over her shoulder. She moved forward, toward the sound of raised voices, and threw open the door with enough dramatic flair that all I could do was grin.
“What the hell is this?” she demanded.
From somewhere behind the cabin, in an area I couldn’t see, Hayley did what came naturally. “Language!” she barked.
I smirked but didn’t say anything. I didn’t move a muscle, knowing Preston would hear me when I finally broke cover. I took a moment to study him, the smug way he stared in Bella’s wake filling me with amusement.
He was about to get his.
“This is so gross!” Bella said with a bit too much emotion. She was not a good actress. I was fine with that. I didn’t want her to be anything but her authentic self.
Preston let loose a little chuckle. He didn’t know he was the one being played. He had a spring in his step as he started for the stairs. He obviously assumed he was going to walk in on Bella’s heart breaking and scoop up the pieces.
He was about to be very, very disappointed.
I left the shadows and followed him, keeping my steps light. I wanted to reveal my presence at the exact right time.
Preston swept through the door with exaggerated movements—all he was missing was a cape—and I heard the moment he realized his plan had failed. “Who are you?” he practically screeched.
I allowed my smile to stretch across my face and took the steps two at a time. When I got inside the cabin, the scene I saw playing out was pretty much how I’d imagined it. The reality was surreal, though, despite those expectations.
Heather stood in a slinky lingerie set, staring at my father, who was shirtless in our bed. He had a book—one of Bella’s, which made me laugh internally—and he looked like a man who was enjoying the performance he was putting on.
“You’re sleeping with Heather?” Bella demanded, her performance becoming slightly more restrained. It still wasn’t enough to appear natural, but that part didn’t really matter. Not anymore. “Mr. Cooper, I don’t think Nathan invited you here for that.”
“Andrew,” he replied, not missing a beat. “I told you to call me Andrew.”
Technically, he hadn’t told Bella to call him anything. There hadn’t been time for that before he left. It was the only way we could ensure that Preston didn’t know about his presence.
“Andrew.” Bella managed a shy smile, which was just so Bella. “You should know that Heather has a terrible reputation. You don’t want to have sex with her. You don’t know what you might catch.”
“Hey!” Heather took a menacing step toward Bella, but my diminutive girlfriend—yes, she was my official girlfriend even though we hadn’t had that conversation yet—didn’t shy away from her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hissed.
Bella blinked and I gave her a moment to decide how she wanted to respond.
Ultimately, she showed her teeth in a smile, the expression almost feral.
“I know that you snuck in here under orders from Preston,” she replied.
“You were supposed to crawl into bed with Nathan just in time for me to come back to the cabin and assume the two of you had been together.”
“I…” Heather shot her gaze to Preston. This clearly wasn’t what she’d signed up for. “You said this was going to be easy.”
Preston’s poker face wasn’t the worst I’d ever seen. He was obviously thrown by the turn of events, however. “I have no idea what any of this is about.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his fingers on his elbows. “Where is Nathan? I’m sure he’s here somewhere.”
That was my cue. “I am,” I agreed, moving in behind him.
Preston practically jumped out of his skin. “Where did you come from?”
“Oh, I’ve been around,” I replied. My eyes moved to my father, and warmth suffused me.
For the first time since my mother had died, I felt as if we were on the same page.
This was the father I’d always wanted, the one who had willingly stripped down to his boxer shorts to play his part in a very elaborate trap. “Dad,” I said dryly.
“Nathan,” my father replied, matching my tone. “I honestly don’t know what’s going on here. I was just reading one of your fiancée’s books—she’s quite talented, by the way—when this woman came in through the back door. She seems quite scantily dressed.”
Quite scantily dressed. Only Andrew Cooper could phrase it that way and get away with it.
“I believe that’s how she garners attention,” I replied, refusing to look at Heather.
This wasn’t her fault. Not really. I had no doubt Preston had offered her something big, like a lucrative publishing contract, to play her part.
I wasn’t the prize for her. No, that was something else.
In the grand scheme of things, her part could have been played by anybody.
Preston was the issue.
Preston was the one who had to be knocked out of the game.
“I don’t need this abuse.” Heather made a huffy noise and stomped toward the back door. “None of this is my fault, Preston,” she seethed. “You will be holding up your end of the bargain.”
That was enough to have Preston snapping. “I’m not holding up anything. You’re the one who fouled this up.” That would have been enough to end this, but he wasn’t done.
“You had one job,” he growled, glaring at Heather. “All you had to do was be in that outfit in that bed with Nathan when we got back. How could you not get it right?”
I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. I wanted to do great bodily harm to this guy. That wouldn’t be what made Bella whole again, though. I had to let her handle this part.
“Because we knew what the plan was and made sure it wouldn’t happen,” Bella replied in a soft voice.
The way she looked at Preston told me she was seeing him clearly.
Not for the first time, but for the last time.
She’d always known he was a monster. How big a monster was finally obvious.
“Do you really think that Nathan’s father and my mother are here by accident? ”
Preston looked taken aback. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said finally, smoothly sliding back into denial mode. “She’s lying.”
“We all heard you.” The new voice had come from the doorway behind me.