30DaystoSyn (42 page)

She watched his mouth open and close but he
seemed incapable of speech. He looked dumbfounded. His blue eyes betrayed his
shock, his forehead crinkling. He was staring at her as though she had stabbed
him in the heart with a dull blade. It was almost painful to see the astonishment
building on his handsome face.

“Why are you doing this?” he whispered in a
voice she swore held a slight break.

“The food smells great and I’m sure it is
the best money can buy but I’ll just get a burger when we get back to the
marina,” she said, twisting the blade deeper and—while feeling good about doing
so—it did give her some satisfaction to see the realization on his face that
his plan was crumbling around him.

“Melina, why?” he asked, and to give him
credit, he put hurt into his voice.

“I’m not a champagne and caviar kind of
gal,” she said. “I’m more a beer and pretzel person, myself.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,”
he said and she heard resentment creeping into his tone even though he still
looked as though she’d gutted him. “Why did you take the check?”

“The check is why I’m here, remember? I did
a job and now it’s finished,” she said, lifting her chin. “You bought the
rights to my cherry. You popped it. I stayed the full thirty days and now it’s
time to move on.”

“That’s all it meant to you? That’s all you
wanted from me?” he asked. “The bloody check?”

“Did you think there was anything else?”
she countered, wanting to wound his pride, to teach him a lesson before he
crushed her heart any further. “I signed on for the money. That’s what I
needed. Now I have it and that’s all she wrote. I don’t have to worry about
having your hands on me or enduring you fucking me again.”

His eyes widened. “What did you say?”

“You heard me,” she said. “Have the captain
take us back to shore. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“A plane?” he questioned, his fists opening
and closing at his sides.

“I booked it this morning,” she said. “It
leaves at—”

“Shut up,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I don’t want to miss the flight,” she
said.

“
I said shut the hell up
!” he
shouted at her.

“Not the outcome you had it mind, eh,
Kiwi?” she said, rubbing salt into his wounds. “You like being in charge,
shoving a woman out on her ass when you’re done with her, tossing her away like
yesterday’s garbage. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way this time, did it,
stud? Now you know how it feels to get the shaft. Doesn’t feel good, does it,
you conceited bastard!”

He stared at her for a long time then his
face turned hard as flint. “You bitch,” he whispered.

She gave him a mean smile. “No worse a
bitch than you are a bastard,” she said.

He took a step toward her, raised his hand
but she held her ground. She didn’t really think he would hit her and he
didn’t. Instead, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the saloon.

Exacting, crippling agony raced through her
as she stood there. She wanted to cover her face with her hands and cry but she
wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He was a player but this time he’d been the
one to get played and she knew he would take some kind of revenge on her. That
was his nature.

He might try to stop payment on the check
in her back pocket but it didn’t matter. She’d never wanted the money for
herself, anyway. It meant nothing to her. She could make do.

She’d have to.

A call to Ann-Louise Holloway-Lutz earlier
that day had reassured her Drew’s place at Cedar Oaks was not in danger. He
could stay there for the rest of his life and be taken care of the way she had
wanted for him. She now knew beyond any doubt the Kiwi would see to that. He
liked Drew and he had made permanent provisions for her brother. He would not
go back on the commitment he had made to a young man who was innocent in this
thing between her and the man from New Zealand.

She had made up her mind to leave Atlanta.
It would hurt too much to even be in the same city with the man to whom she’d
so unwisely given her heart. She wasn’t even sure she should visit Drew again.
He didn’t know her anyway and the last few times she’d gone to see him, he
acted as though she was annoying him. She refused to think the Kiwi was behind
the change in her brother’s attitude toward her but it would make sense if he
wanted to get rid of her completely. Take the brother; throw the sister away.

“Miss Wynth?”

She tensed, turning around to confront the
only other woman on board the yacht. She squared her shoulders. “Yes?”

“Mr. McGregor asked me to tell you the
launch is on its way out to pick you up. They should be here in about thirty
minutes.”

Suzanne’s green eyes were filled with
venomous delight.

“Another one bites the dust, eh?” she
asked.

The stewardess smiled meanly. “He is a man
with myriad appetites,” she said.

“Apparently for the same food or haven’t
you taken notice we all look alike?”

“I’ve noticed but as long as it makes him
happy…” She shrugged. “That’s all that matters.”

“Where is he?”

Suzanne frowned. “He doesn’t want to see
you.”

“I have no intention of going looking for
him,” she told the stewardess. “I just didn’t want to run into him when the
launch gets here. I really don’t want another confrontation.”

“I assure you he doesn’t want to speak to
you, either.” Again the venomous smile shifted into place. “Now, if you will
excuse me I really must see to his…comfort.”

“Hey, knock yourself out,” she told the
stewardess. “He’s all yours.”

“And he always will be,” Suzanne said with
a smirk.

He stood on the deck as the launch swung
away from the ship in a lazy arc and motored out into the oily, black water. It
was pouring rain and he was soaked through but he didn’t care. He would stay
where he was until the running lights of the launch were no longer visible.
Lightning flared overhead and lit the launch in relief as it sped back toward
Savannah. The yacht was now anchored and would remain that way for as long as
he desired it.

Through the downpour he had watched the
only woman he had ever loved walk calmly, sedately to the ladder as though the
pounding rain was no more of an inconvenience than a chip of her fingernail
polish. She hadn’t even looked back toward the yacht.

Her hand on his shoulder wasn’t unexpected.
She’d been hovering in the doorway to the saloon for the last twenty minutes.
Idly he had wondered how long she’d wait before getting drenched in order to
ingratiate herself with him.

“Can I get you anything, Synjyn?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Two bottles of scotch.”
He shrugged off her hand. “Take them to my cabin.”

Night Thirty

Part Two

“You have to
do
something,” Suzanne
told the captain with exasperation. “I can’t stand another hour of that
goddamned song!”

Capt. Mick Fitzgerald was as tired of
hearing the same song being played over and over again as were the other
crewmembers—most of whom were wearing earplugs. The melody of the Irish ballad
would be stuck in his head for days. He used to love the song but now if he never
heard it again it would be too soon.

“
What
should I do?” Fitz asked. “I
knocked on the door and he told me to piss off. In New Zealand jargon I took
that to mean
fuck off
. I tried to open the door and he threatened to
kill me if I didn’t go away.” He shrugged. “The man’s tying one on. He owns
this boat. He pays our salaries. What do you think I should do, Suzi?”

“I took two bottles of scotch in to him,”
she said, chewing the cuticle of her thumb. “I’m worried that he’s drinking
both of them.”

Not a drinking man, the captain didn’t
understand the danger of consuming so much alcohol in such a short length of
time. “So?” he inquired. “He gets a particularly nasty hangover. You play, you
pay.”

“There’s more to it than that. Guzzling
that much booze is a good way to get alcohol poisoning,” the cook said. He was
on the bridge with Fitz because the song playing on a loop in the master cabin
was giving him a brutal headache.

“He could go into a coma, Fitz,” Suzanne
warned. “If something happens to him on your watch what do you think Jono will
do?”

“She’s got a point,” the cook said. “Maybe
you should call Jono and ask what he thinks needs…”

One of the stewards came rushing in. “Cap,
I think the boss is demolishing his cabin. I heard breaking glass and loud
thuds. He’s fucking taking that room apart.”

“You see?” Suzanne said. “You have to do
something, Fitz!”

“All right,” the captain said. “Have
Reynolds get Jono on the horn. Suzi, you tell Jono what’s up. I’ll go down and
see if I can’t get Synnie to open the goddamn door.”

* * * * *

He’d drunk the first bottle of scotch in
between masturbating for as long as his cock cooperated. By two a.m., he was
raw and couldn’t get it up if his life depended on it.

After having belted down the first bottle
of hooch on an empty stomach he was shit-faced drunk and feeling meaner than he
ever had in his entire life. It hadn’t helped when Fitz came to the door to
check on him.

“Synnie, are you okay?”

“Piss off!” he commanded.

“I just want to make sure you’re all
right,” Fitz said, trying the door handle, jiggling it as though that would
miraculously unlock the portal. “Will you open the door, please?”

“
I told you to piss off
!” he
bellowed.
“Or I’ll have your guts for garters!”

He’d picked up the closest thing at hand
and threw it at the door. Unfortunately, that missile had been the second
bottle of scotch. The bottle exploded—sending shards of glass across the deck.

“Will you call me if you need me?” Fitz
asked.

“Piss off!”

He staggered over to the bed—so numb from
the booze he didn’t realize he was cutting the bottom of his feet on the broken
glass—and flopped down, his head sinking to his chest. His gaze went to his lap
and he plucked at his cock.

“Fucking useless pud!” he complained. He’d
tugged at it but it just lay there like the limp dick it was.

He giggled at the thought and got up to
turn on the CD player. He had to put one hand over an eye in order to see the
titles on the jewel cases for his eyesight was doubling and tripling. When he
found the CD he was looking for, he put it in the player and pushed reloop on
track five. The song started. He hung his head for a moment then cursed
savagely before turning around. Mumbling to himself, he lost his balance and
stumbled into the desk.

“Get the fuck out of my way!” he snarled
and shoved the offending piece of furniture but since it was bolted to the
deck, it didn’t budge—despite him trying again and again to push it away from
him. His bloody bare feet skidded across the polished deck and he did a face
plant on the teak surface.

And knocked himself out.

The entire crew minus Suzanne was hanging
out in the corridor outside the main cabin. Other than the song playing at full
volume—over and over and over again—there was no longer the sound of breaking
glass and furniture or the cabin’s lone inhabitant stumbling about and cursing.

“He’s probably destroyed everything that
wasn’t battened down,” Fitz told them. He looked around at Suzanne as she came
down the ladder. “Did you get ahold of Jono?”

“No, but I talked to Spike and she’s coming
down with their security chief and that doctor friend of theirs,” Suzanne
reported. “That native fellow. What’s his name?”

“Craigie,” Fitz provided.

“Yeah, him. She asked about the bird.”

“What did you tell her?”

Suzanne cocked a shoulder. “That she took the
check and left like all the rest of them. I think that surprised her. She said
they’d take care of everything when they got down here.”

“Jono knows how to deal with him,” Fitz
said.

“They couldn’t reach Jono and Spike said to
tell you not to let him have any more liquor.” She bit her lip, her eyes
worried. “She said to remind you he has a gun or two in there so not to try to
break the door down or anything. He might shoot you.”

“Fantastic,” Fitz muttered. “Just how the
hell are we supposed to get to him?”

“She said Kit—you know the security
chief?—will handle it when they get here.”

“And in the meantime?” the cook asked.

“We’re to try to keep him engaged,” she
reported. “Her words, not mine.”

“Engaged?” Fitz said. He put his hands on
his hips, hung his head and blew out a ragged breath. “Okay.”

He went to the door—careful to stand to one
side just in case his boss felt the need to use it for target practice—and
knocked.

“Synnie?” he asked. “Are you all right in
there?” When there was no answer, he knocked again. “Synnie?”

“Get away from my fucking door, you
asswipe!”

The sudden thunderous bellow from behind
the locked panel—punctuated by a heavy fist slamming into the wood with each
word—startled the crewmembers.

“He’s gonna wind up hurting himself if he hasn’t
already,” the cook said.

“Maybe he’ll just pass out,” Fitz said.

“While that sounds good in theory, we don’t
want him doing it without someone being in there with him,” the cook said.

“Because?”

“He could pass out on his back and drown in
his own vomit,” one of the stewards said.

“Or fall face down in his puke and drown
that way, too,” another put in. “Saw that happen in Shanghai once.”

Something really heavy slammed against the
door and they all heard wood splintering, glass shattering.

“The boss is really pissed,” Larkin, the
first mate, commented. “What the hell happened this time that was out of the
ordinary?”

“You mean other than the bird flying the
coop before they even had supper?” the cook inquired. He looked at Suzanne.

“How should I know?” she asked.

“You were with him after she left. Did he
say anything?” Fitz asked.

“All he did was curse at me,” she replied.
“That’s not like him. He’s always been a gentleman.”

“Well, something set him off, that’s for
sure,” the cook said.

“He stood out there in the rain watching
her leave and he’s never watched one leave before,” Fitz remarked. “It’s always
been out of sight, out of mind with him.”

“Maybe he wanted to make sure she was
gone,” Suzanne suggested.

“Nah,” the steward said. “He looked
miserable as all get out when I passed him on deck. I could have sworn there
was tears running down his face.”

Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like that
would happen.”

“I don’t know, Suzi. He looked like someone
had just run over his little dog,” Larkin said.

“Shit. I can’t take another repeat of that
fucking song,” Fitz said. “All right, cut the power to his cabin.”

“He’ll be in the dark,” Suzanne said.

“It’s better than—” Fitz began

“No,” she said firmly. “He can’t abide
darkness. He’s afraid of it. He has to have a light on somewhere in his
bedroom.”

“Then get me some fucking earphones before
I go postal!” the captain ordered.

* * * * *

The room was in shambles.

Broken glass lay like confetti on the
floor. The mirror over the vanity as well as the two in the sleeping area were
cracked—the surfaces spider-webbed with traces of blood from his fists. In his
blue-vinegar fit he had crushed the lampshades and smashed the bases. The bed
pillows and cushions from the chairs and loveseat expelled batting like oily
gunk from giant pimples. Feathers floated in the air whenever he moved. A leg
from the destroyed desk chair had made a great cudgel to scar and score and
scrape wooden things that could not otherwise be reduced to rubble. He’d used
the leg on the flat screen—hitting it over and over again as though he were
swinging a bat at a baseball until it fell from the wall. Ripped fabric
littered the floor along with the bent vanes of the window shades and CDs and
DVDs that had been snapped in half. What could be turned over had been and what
could be ruined was.

The only thing he hadn’t put his stamp of
obliteration on was the CD player and only because he wanted—needed—to hear the
music that blotted out the voice in his head.

Now he sat in the middle of the demolition
taking in the butchery he had wrought and laughed. Stark naked with only wisps
of batting and feathers clinging to his sweaty body, he hummed drunkenly along
with the song as his feet and fists bled.

He had no idea what time it was.

Hell, he didn’t even know what day it was!

He was so stinking drunk the room kept
twisting and turning around him.

Perhaps had he not been sitting on the
floor, he would not have spied the bottle of tequila that had rolled unscathed
under the desk when he’d wrecked the mini bar beside the bathroom door.

“Hello, love,” he said cheerfully and wiped
the back of his bloody hand under his chin to rid it of the drool that was
streaming there.

On all fours, he crawled across the
carnage—gouging his knees with the remnants of the demolition—and mindlessly
flattened his chest over a jagged piece of lamp in order to reach under the
desk to retrieve the bottle. He winced as the pain registered for a moment but
so intent was he on getting to the booze he refused to acknowledge the hurt.

The bottle rolled away from him twice
before he was finally able to corral it. Dragging it out from under its hiding
place, he pushed himself to a sitting position and cradled it against his
chest.

“My precious,” he said then chuckled as he
snapped his thumb across the cap and the lid went flying. It had been a trick
he’d learned in college and it never failed to impress the ladies.

Not that he had to worry about impressing
them, he thought as he brought the bottle to his mouth. He paused with the rim
of the bottle against his lips, his breath as he spoke whistling into the neck
of the bottle.

“Give ’em a million fucking mangoes and
they’ll love you long time, GI,” he said with a laugh.

He took a long pull on the tequila then
rested the bottom of the bottle on his bare thigh, the liquor that hadn’t made
it into his mouth dripping down his chin and through his chest hair.

“Me like you, you very handsome. Me love
you long time. You like sucky-sucky?” he said in a sing-song voice. “You want
fucky-fucky, big boy?”

He chuckled as he took another drag on the
bottle and got choked. Coughing violently, he found it hilariously funny.

* * * * *

The launch came roaring out of the fog like
an avenging angel. It came alongside the yacht and one by one Spike, Kit and
Craigie climbed the ladder.

“He’s been quiet for the last half-hour,”
Fitz reported. “I finally turned the power off in the cabin to stop that
infernal song he was playing. We can hear him snoring so we know he’s all
right.”

“We’ll sort it,” Craigie said.

“Thanks, Fitz,” Spike said.

“Do you need our help?” Larkin asked. “I’m
afraid we don’t have a stretcher or…”

“I’m going to sling the dickhead over my
shoulder and take him down in a fireman’s carry,” Kit said. “I assume he is
incapable of making it on his own.”

“I seriously doubt it,” Fitz said. “And he
may be hurt.”

“That’s a fucking given with him,” Craigie
said with a twist of his mouth. “He can’t play tiddlywinks without hurting
himself. He’s got a brain like a cow’s udder.”

“Ah, right,” Fitz said, his brow furrowed.

“We’re wasting time,” Spike said. “Get A
into G, mates.” She headed below decks.

“What’d she say?” Larkin asked.

“Arse into gear,” Kit said.

“Glad you understood her,” Fitz said.

Kit laughed. “It’s a cultivated education.”

Spike was at the door to the cabin when
they got there. She tried the knob. “Synnie? Open the fucking door.”

“Bugger off,” came a mumbled reply.

“Well, at least the booze rooster’s alive,”
Craigie said. “Do your thing, bro.”

Kit stepped back, lifted his leg and kicked
the door in on the first try. It splintered and flew open.

“Fucking shite!” he said as he surveyed the
destruction.

“Holy Mother of God,” Fitz whispered from
his place behind Craigie.

“What a fucking mess,” Spike said with
disgust.

Craigie walked over to where his friend was
lying sprawled on the floor with his back to the overturned mattress and
hunkered down. He grabbed the half-empty bottle of tequila out of his hand and
threw it across the room.