Page 9 of Secret Seduction

“And?” she breathes, worry laced in that one word.

“He said he’ll make a deal with me.”

“Oh, thank God, Eric,” Mom whispers. “What does he want?”

“Vanessa.”

Hearing my name, confirming it was me he was talking about, has me struggling to breathe. My hand goes to my throat, and I silently count to ten, trying to calm myself down. My antianxiety meds are up in my room, and I need to hear the rest of this conversation.

Until he said my name, I was hoping I’d misunderstood. But I hadn’t. My stepfather, the shady mayor of Harbor Point, has made a deal to sell me.

“What do you mean?” she asks, confusion in her tone.

“He’s in the market for high-quality women. With the Antonovs refusing to let any cargo in and out of their port, it’s made things difficult for him. He said that he’ll wipe away my debt and leave our family alone if I give him Vanessa.”

Mom gasps. “Eric, there must be another way. She’s my daughter. I can’t just give her to a psychopath. What will people think?”

Holy shit! She’s more concerned with her reputation than my life?

I choke back a sob, the reality of my life hitting me. I’ve always known my mother resented me for being born—even though she had chosen to give birth to me and keep me instead of aborting me or giving me away. But I never realized just how much she hated me.

When I was growing up, every time she struggled—which was pretty much all the time—she’d remind me that it was because of me.

She thought she was going to marry a wealthy man, only to learn he was in debt and in the middle of losing everything. She left him once she found out, but it was too late. She discovered a few weeks later that she was pregnant, and when she asked him for support, he told her he couldn’t afford a child and gave her enough money to get an abortion.

But for a brief moment, her heart won over, and she kept me. And she’s made sure to remind me every day since as far back as I can remember that it’s because of her keeping me that she not only struggled, but also couldn’t find a man to support her.

“No respectable man wants to take care of another man’s bastard child.” Her words, not mine.

“They won’t know,” Eric says, shaking me out of my thoughts. “We’ll report her missing, paint the picture of a troubled young woman. Nobody will ever find her, and she’ll become one of the millions of unsolved cases. I hate to do it, darling, but it will mean saving us. I sent him the pictures I had taken of her in the shower⁠—”

“What?” she shrieks. “You were watching her in the shower?”

Oh my God! He was watching me in the shower and took pictures? Did he sneak in? Or does he have one of those creepy cameras installed in the mirror? It doesn’t matter now. I’ll never get undressed in this house again.

“Only so that I could send them to him,” Eric explains, like it’s totally okay to take pictures of his twenty-one-year-old stepdaughter since it’s for a good cause—selling her to pay off his debt. “It’s why I had you insist she come home. He needed to see the product before agreeing to accept it as payment.”

Holy shit, I’m going to be sick.

I swallow back the bile that’s rising in my throat.

“Okay,” Mom agrees. “When?”

“Tomorrow. The Antonovs will be out of town for that bitch’s wedding, and Nicole is going, so she won’t be around to possibly witness anything. I hate that she’s friends with them, and I’m going to handle that soon, but for now, it will work out in our favor.”

“Okay,” Mom says again. “Is there anything you need from me?”

“Just act normal,” Eric tells her. “Go to lunch and make sure she doesn’t know anything. I’ll handle the rest.” I hear shuffling, and then he says, “Soon, this will all be over, and our lives will go back to normal.”

“I’m so glad you changed your mind,” Nicole says a few hours later.

After I had lunch with my mom, where I put on the show of my life so she wouldn’t suspect I was aware of what they were planning, I went back to Nicole’s coffee shop to tell her that I’d decided to go on the trip with them.

I considered going back to Seattle, but Eric could easily find me there, and while I make a little bit of money from the clothes I create for my friends in college, I don’t have anywhere near enough to take off and hide out.

So, until I figure out my next move, my next best option is to get on a yacht to the Bahamas, where Eric and this Santiago guy won’t be able to get to me.

“The wedding is going to be beautiful,” Nicole says, handing me another cup of coffee.