His brow creased.

"Penny, we can't keep this baby. Not now."

"Seraphina's pregnant too. She has severe depression. She can't take any kind of shock."

I stared at the man in front of me, unable to believe it.

She was pregnant too.

So they'd been together all along.

A wave of nausea rose and I doubled over, retching.

He rubbed my back.

I pushed him off. "This is my baby. It has nothing to do with you."

Val brushed away the tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

"Be good. Get rid of it."

He sighed, like he was coaxing a child who didn't know any better.

"We'll have others later. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

I stepped back, out of his reach.

"I already told you. I want a divorce. This baby is mine."

Right on cue, Seraphina clutched her chest behind him and let out a low, pained gasp.

Val's face darkened, and he waved his hand at the bodyguards behind him.

"Take the young Mrs. James to the operating room. Get her the best doctor."

The bodyguards moved at once, seizing my arms and hauling me up.

I fought with everything I had. It made no difference.

In the end they shut me into a VIP room to wait for the operation.

Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes. Fear and helplessness closed over my head.

The door opened. It was Seraphina.

I glared at her with everything in me.

She smiled at me, cold and sly.

"You think a dirty twice-married woman like you could give birth to the James heir? Keep dreaming."

"If you didn't have a face that looks like mine, do you really think you'd ever have gotten your claws into Val's brother?"

The words were barely out before she swung at my face again.

This time I bit down hard on her hand and didn't let go until I tasted blood.

She screamed for the doctor. "Don't give her any anesthesia!"

The operation began.

I screamed, a raw, tearing sound, watching my baby torn out of my body alive.

Body and soul in agony, I coughed up a mouthful of blood and passed out.

When I came to, a cramping pain twisted through my lower belly, wave after wave.

I stared at the ceiling, and the tears wouldn't stop.

My baby was gone.

In the next room, Val and Seraphina laughed and talked, looking forward to a new life coming into the world.

I wiped my face dry and made a call. "I'll work with you. Meet me at the coast."

Numb, I went home and walked straight into Val's study.

I took a tiny flash drive from my pocket and plugged it into his private computer.

I thought for a moment, then keyed in a number.

The password was right.

It was the day Seraphina nearly let him drown in the sea.

But there was a second password.

I tried several. None of them worked.

In the end, on some impulse, I typed in our wedding anniversary.

The screen unlocked completely.

I couldn't help laughing. What a ridiculous kind of devotion.

The progress bar raced through James Group's core confidential files.

I went out alone to the beach on the edge of the city.

Whenever I was hurting, I came to look at the sea.

Then footsteps sounded beside me.

"It really is you, Penelope. He wasn't lying to me."

A greasy man's voice slid into my ear.

I turned my head, and my pupils shrank.

Calvin Sanchez.

The nouveau-riche bully from Riverton, my ex-husband, the one who'd treated me as something to take it out on.

I backed away on instinct.

"What are you doing here? How are you here?"

Calvin looked me over, a lewd grin spreading across his face.

"Penelope, long time no see. You've only gotten prettier since you left me."

"I hear Val James dumped you. Why not come back to me? I promise I'll have you begging for more every single night."

I turned to run, but he was faster.

He caught me by the hair and dragged me toward a private yacht moored not far off.

"Let go of me—help!" I kicked and clawed, but I couldn't break free of those thick arms.

He forced the mouth of a bottle between my teeth and poured something unknown down my throat.

In an instant my whole body went hot and weak.

He threw me down on the deck and bore down on me with a leer.

I pushed at him with everything I had, but my limbs had gone soft, every ounce of strength drained out of me.

Despair and helplessness swallowed me whole.

In that razor's edge of a moment, an SUV smashed through the guardrail and screeched to a stop at the water's edge.

It was Val James.

He saw the scene on the deck, and his eyes flooded red.

He charged onto the yacht and kicked Calvin clear across the deck.

Fist after fist landed in flesh. He was going to beat Calvin to death.

I lay curled on the deck.

Limbs limp, face burning, I couldn't even force out a cry for help.

Seraphina Crawford strolled up the gangway, and something unsatisfied flickered through her eyes as she looked at me.

"Val, stop. You'll kill him."

She clung sweetly to Val's arm.

"Penny was probably just lonely... after all, you've been with me."

"Going to her ex-husband on her own—that's only human."

"Still, this is a little desperate, isn't it? She just lost the baby."

His fists stopped. He turned and stared at me, hard.

At my glazed eyes and the flush burning across my face.

The fury in his eyes came laced with disgust.

"Penelope, have you no shame at all?"

Before I could say a word, he bent down and swept me up into his arms.

"Since you're so eager to be in heat, let me sober you up properly today."

The words had barely left him before he carried me to the rail and jumped, no hesitation at all.

A crash, and seawater poured into my mouth and nose.

The drug's burning heat and the bite of the cold water tore my body in two.

Under the water, Val clamped his hand around my wrist and held me down, would not let me surface.

The suffocation made me thrash on instinct, but there was no fight left in me.

When the pain had almost dragged me under into unconsciousness—

he finally pulled me up.

He looked at me, broken like that, and something like reluctance, like ache, crossed his eyes.

A huge wave slammed in, and the yacht rocked hard.

Seraphina, who had been standing at the deck's edge watching the show, lost her footing and tumbled screaming into the shallows.

"Val, help! I can't swim!"

He heard her cry.

And he turned to me and ordered:

"Swim back to shore yourself and wait for me. Don't you dare run off again."

He let go of the wrist he'd been gripping.

Without a moment's hesitation he turned and swam hard toward Seraphina.

With nothing to hold me up, I dropped straight down into the sea.

No strength left to struggle, I let the water flood my mouth and nose.

Over in the shallows, Val hauled Seraphina onto the sand.

Then his eyes swept the surface of the water.

"Where's Penelope?"

He frowned.

"Hasn't she made enough of a scene?"

The waves beat against the rocks. Nothing answered him.

His face darkened. He shoved Seraphina aside and threw himself back into the sea.

"Penelope, come out!"

He searched like a man gone mad, and found nothing.

Panic took him completely. He called in a search team and they dragged the water through the night.

A whole night, and they found nothing.

From the marks on the scene and the direction of the current, the police ruled it a drowning. Penelope Henson was dead.

When Val heard the news, all at once—