he waited on the verdict. He’d thrown a lot of money at the best lawyers in the country to represent him and they’d negotiated lenient bail terms.
Typical Nolan. Some people never changed.
Yet it didn’t matter how much money he’d spent or that his team of lawyers were used to protecting their clients and winning their cases. The number of people who came out to testify against him was staggering. Nolan appeared to have made more enemies than friends. During his trial he’d been exposed as a fraud and an exploitative, deceptive and unscrupulous individual who didn’t give a damn who he used or damaged in his quest to get to the top.
To think that I was nearly tied to him for life. My stomach did a strange whirl and I had to swallow down the bile that rose to my throat. Seems I need more therapy sessions.
I kept reading. I wanted to know how he died.
Speculations were that he’d committed suicide, but I didn’t buy it. Nolan was way too much of a narcissist to ever contemplate doing something like that to himself. Chances were much higher that somebody had decided it was time for the self-involved politician to meet his maker.
Gazing into the distance, I hardly registered the deep blue of the ocean or the squawking of seagulls as my mind processed the new information. Relief washed over me that Nolan would no longer be able to affect my future.
In spite of Harrison’s assurance that he would protect me with his own life, I couldn’t help the small seed of fear that had planted firmly inside my mind. As long as he was alive Nolan could always come back to threaten my family.
Even prison couldn’t stop him if he wanted to get to me. Or Harrison.
Once the therapist I saw twice a week convinced me that Nolan derived erotic gratification from admiration of his own physical and mental attributes, and that he was most likely incapable of loving someone else, I’d found it a lot easier to deal with what had happened to me on that island.
It was always about Nolan, and only Nolan. He’d simply used me as a tool to feed his ego.
Proud that I was finally able to dissociate myself from the way he’d used my body, I’d tried my damn best to move on. Yet in spite of everything, that small seed of doubt would always have remained.
I grimaced as I thought back to the grueling time I’d been through after we returned from the island. Statements, testifying about what I’d been put through, examinations and tests . . . on and on for weeks, yet now it all seemed like a blur in my mind.
Reliving the hell Nolan had put me through caused me to wake drenched in sweat, screaming as nightmares invaded my sleep. Every time Harrison had comforted me, held me tight and reassured me that it would all be okay.
Every time he’d rock me in his arms and whisper one specific word repeatedly. “Karma, baby, karma.”
If it weren’t for Harrison, I could easily have lost the plot.
My man had saved me not only physically but in every way that really counted. It had taken a while to come to grips with it, to get over the emotional hurdles and mental distress, but I’d done it with the help of Harrison, Ryder and Jade.
Even the Scorpio Stinger men had played a part in helping me heal. They held a barbeque at the compound in my honor and Razor even had a bunch of flowers for me when we arrived.
At first I’d found it difficult to forgive my father for his part in the nightmare, but he assured me that he’d only had my best interests at heart and never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined Nolan to act the way he did. I couldn’t have predicted it and I’d lived with the man, so I decided to simply let it go.
Plus, Bill had taken care of my darling Mui-mui, so I had to give him credit for that. Mui-mui moved to the house with us, but she hated the ocean so we never brought her with us if we planned on swimming.
Chapter 51 – Eva
Jerked back to the present by a whistle, I turned my head and watched Harrison running toward me from the house carrying a cooler bag and an umbrella. God, he looked gorgeous and as usual butterflies swarmed my belly. His muscles flexed in the gleaming sunlight