Chapter 8: Across the Creek

By noon three shrimp boats were stuck inside the creek with their catch going warm.

Their captains stood on the dock at the seafood shack shouting at the tug.

The tug didn't move.

"He's waiting for you," Ida said, and nodded at me. "Not him. You."

"I know."

Jasper turned around.

"No."

"He wants to talk to me. If I don't go, he'll sit there until the yard starves."

"Then I'll come."

"If you come, it's a fight. He wants a fight. He'll have the cameras out in five minutes."

He stood there with his jaw working.

"Thalia."

"I'll row."

"You'll swim."

"I'll row," I said. "I want him to watch me come."

Ida's old aluminum skiff had two oars and a hole patched with a road sign.

I rowed it out of the creek in Ida's jeans and Jasper's gray shirt, with my hair tied up in a dish towel.

Every man on that tug lined the rail and watched me do it.

A deckhand threw down a ladder without being told.

I climbed it.

The tug's deck was clean and wet. Eight men in black company shirts stood around it.

Corbett came out of the wheelhouse in a navy suit.

"Sweetheart," he said. "You rowed."

"Move your boat."

"It's not my boat. It's the company's."

"Move the company's boat."

He smiled.

"Let's talk inside."

"We'll talk here."

His crew shifted their feet.

Corbett's smile went thinner, just a little.

"Fine," he said. "Here."

He held up his right hand.

The pearl shone black and wet in the sun.

My whole body leaned toward it. I couldn't help it.

"You want this," he said softly.

"It's mine."

"It can be. Come home. Say the words, properly, in the chapel, and I'll put it on your finger myself."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Forbidden Game: Seducing the Bride at the Altar from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.