He Used Our Sex Tape To Blackmail Me Out Of Harvard Chapter 07
He seized one of the men, frantic. “Where is she? Did you find her?”
The man set down what he was holding, frowning. “What’s your relation to the victim?”
“Boyfriend—no, fiancé. We were going to get married after graduation.”
The rescuer shook his head heavily and gestured behind him, toward the black SUV being winched out of the water. “Son, there’s nobody in the car. The river’s deep. Our divers have already been down twice.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully. “You should prepare yourself…”
*Boom.*
Something in Preston’s mind blew apart at those words.
He stood there like a hollowed-out shell, a body without a soul, staring blankly at the roiling water.
Then, all at once, he lunged and clutched the rescuer’s arm. “No. She’s not dead. She promised me. We’re getting married. She wouldn’t leave me.”
“Go back down. Please. She’s afraid of the cold, and the river’s freezing—she’s waiting for me somewhere, she has to be.”
His grip nearly knocked the man off balance. It took several people to restrain him.
But Preston came unglued—sobbing, wailing, dropping to his knees, pressing his forehead to the ground. “Please. Save my little moon. I’m begging you. I can’t live without her—”
In that moment, every small, sweet memory of them together seemed to weave itself into a thread and pull tight around his heart.
The laughter. The tears.
Every “forever and always” he had ever promised her.
All of it splintered, in a single instant, into nothing he could hold.
He collapsed to the ground, unable to stop crying.
Just then, a figure came to stand in front of him.
His heart leapt. He raised his head—only to catch a boot square in the chest that sent him skidding several feet backward.
Richard Sinclair stood in silence, fists clenched, the veins on the back of his hands raised and blue.
“Is this how you kept your promise to me?”
“You said you’d protect her. You said you’d take care of her. You said you’d never let anyone hurt her. That’s the only reason I agreed to let you be with her.”
Richard’s rage boiled over. He kicked Preston again.
“Is this how you protected her? Because of you, the entire internet was tearing Luna apart. Because of you, Luna is dead.”
“Preston Ashford. *You* killed my daughter!”
“You murderer. Where do you get the nerve to sit here and play the grieving lover?”
“Get out of my sight!”
Preston scrambled forward on hands and knees, sobbing. “Sir, I can’t leave. I have to wait for my little moon. She’s not dead. She’s still alive—”
Richard closed his eyes, his voice shaking.
“Don’t think that because I’m always traveling, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Where did Luna’s Harvard spot go? Why did those rabid trolls hunt Luna down and drive her into the river?”
“If you have even a shred of conscience left, you go and find out. You give my Luna justice.”
“My Luna was such a gentle girl. Such a kind girl. How dare you—all of you—do this to her?”
By the end, Richard’s chest was heaving, his eyes rimmed with red.
He didn’t look at the ruined heap that was Preston again. He turned and walked away.
As though a second longer would soil his sight.
—