Page 131 of Worth Every Moment

The restaurant.Holy fuck. Diana’s father’s restaurant.

I jerk upright, causing Diana to jump.

“What did you mean when you said your father watches everything? What does he watch?”

She blinks, tilting away from my overzealous questioning. “I meanteverything. He has cameras everywhere. Recording devices. He stores them in the basement at home. It’s full of recordings of all the famous people who have ever stepped inside one of his restaurants. There are devices in the booths—”

“In the booths?”

“Yeah. Like I said, he’s extremely paranoid, and when I did the interior design, I had to take all of it into account. There’s not an inch of that place that isn’t covered. He stores all the recordings in case he needs them to… you know…” She does a little head shuffle.

“Bribe people?”

“Yeah.”

“So, when we came to meet you at lunch—”

“All recorded. Definitely. I don’t think he trusts your father.”

“That’s totally illegal.”

She turns her palms upward, sand trickling through her fingers. “I don’t know how often he uses any of it.”

My heart thumps. “Could we get hold of it?”

“What for?”

“I have an idea, but I don’t know if it will work. In theory, could you get hold of the footage and recordings from that lunch?”

“Yeah. Easy.” She gives a coy smile. “I’m very friendly with one of my dad’s bodyguards.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Veryfriendly?”

“Yeah.” She wafts the back of her hand in my direction. “We had a thing. It’s over, but he’ll do whatever I ask him to do. He manages Dad’s digital stuff. He’ll know where it is.”

“Brilliant. When we get back to London, let’s work out how to use it to get the fuck out of this engagement.”

She dusts the sand off her hands. “I’ll do anything to make that happen. I don’t want to spend my life shackled to a lovesick puppy like you. I deserve to be with someone who loves me. And so do you.”

I don’t believe it, but I hope to God she’s right.

She gives me a half smile, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “So tell me, is it true your dick is pierced?”

46

ERICA

Five days after the wedding, I got my period. I’ve never been so upset to see the blood. I felt so stupid, feeling sadness over a streak of red on a tissue. Did I really want to carry Seb’s child and raise it alone? Without him?

I want to say no. My head says no. But my heart… it ached the week of my period as though I was losing something precious… some last piece of him and me. Which, of course, I wasn’t. I’d never been pregnant. There was no child to lose, but that tiny flicker of hope that maybe I’d taken some part of him with me—that some lasting piece of me and him existed within me—was dashed with that first spot of blood the week after I got home.

It signified that it was really,truly, over between us. There was nothing left at all. Nothing but tormented dreams where he kissed me on the beach and tossed me aside, leaving me lying in the sand.

I sent him one message that read,I’m not pregnant, in case you were wondering.

His reply came instantly.I was. I’m sorry.

I don’t know if he meant he was sorry about everything that happened, or sorry that I wasn’t pregnant. I didn’t ask, and he didn’t send anything else.