Page 66 of Below the Deck

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Talia opened her mouth and closed it again, her words forming and then sliding away out of reach.He’s bluffing. He can’t be serious.

‘We could be together properly – you and me. Just say the word, and I’ll tell Eleni – I’ll tell her right now, and you can tell Rory. We’ll say we’re leaving them, and we want to be together. No need to worry about Sam then, either. We’ll get it all out in the open, here on the yacht, and then we can start our new life when we get back.’

At that, Talia found her voice. ‘No!’ She pulled away and jumped up to stand in front of him, a foot from where he sat on the bed. ‘Oh my God, no. That’s not what I want – it’s never what I wanted. I want this to be over! Now, today. I don’t want you to leave Eleni, I don’t want anyone else to know. I want it tostop!’

In less time than it took for her to blink, Nick lunged up in front of her, the stone-cold expression back on his face. He grabbed her by the shoulders, pushing her back, and further back, until, with a slam that winded her and sent rockets of pain shooting from her skull down to her hips, she hit the blank space of wall between the bathroom and the cabin door.

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She gave a sharp yell of pain, then fell silent as Nick’s hands moved from her shoulders to her throat, and began to squeeze – now she could only make gasping, choking sounds as she fought desperately for mouthfuls of air.

‘You don’t get to decide when it’s over,’ Nick whispered. She grabbed at his hands, tried to scratch them, force them off her – but he was too strong, far stronger than her. There was a grim twist to his mouth as he gripped her throat harder and tighter, crushing the breath out of her – it was almost a smile.He’s enjoying this. He wants to see me suffer.

There were stars in front of Talia’s eyes now; the edges of her vision were turning dark and closing in. A rolling animationof images flickered through her mind like an old-fashioned movie reel, one, then the next, then the next. The soft, doughy smell of her mother’s hugs; the girls’ gap-tooth grins in their primary school photos; Rory’s face lighting up, beaming, as she walked down the aisle on their wedding day.

And then her brain fast-forwarded, conjured visions of Rory finding her in here, dead; working out who’d killed her, and why; the girls at her funeral, sobbing …

From somewhere far away, a noise reached Talia’s ears, her head pressed close to the wall. Vaguely, she remembered there was just a wall separating her from the passageway outside – that’s where it was coming from.

Someone’s coming downstairs.

Talia removed her hands from Nick’s, curled them into fists and slammed them into the wall behind her –thump. She had no idea if it had been loud enough to attract attention, but the noise distracted him. His eyes flitted towards the door, for only a fraction of a second, but that was enough, enough for Talia to free one of her legs from the pressure of his body and use it to knee him in the groin with every ounce of force she had.

Nick groaned and loosened his grip around her throat. Talia dug her nails into the skin of his hands again and this time they loosened more – enough, finally, for her to take a deep breath. The inhale gave her a surge of strength, and she wrenched her body free of his grip, leaving him grasping at her hair – yanking out strands, making her howl – but at least he’d let go of her throat. She bolted towards the cabin door –I’ve done it, I’m going to get away– but no,no, he was already standing in the way, in her path – he was blocking her exit.Where do I go?

Without options, panicked, Talia darted instead into thebathroom, closed the door behind her and moved her body in front of it, trying to stop him from shoving it open while she fumbled at the lock, taking in a few gasping, painful breaths.

She wasn’t quick enough.

The door mustn’t have closed fully – his fingers had jammed through the gap – and he was pushing now, yelling at her to ‘Open the door, Talia, just fucking let me in,I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you’, and she wasn’t strong enough, she couldn’t hold him back, he was going to get it open and, and …oh God,he was going to kill her now, wasn’t he? She didn’t believe that he was sorry – he’d hate that she’d got away once, it would only fuel his rage.

She did her best to keep her weight against the door, but he was pressing against it now, and it was too late – it was opening, and now Nick stood in the doorway, face purple with rage and indignation, watching with a snarl as Talia edged backwards, only able to put a few feet between them before her shoulders were wedged into the corner of the bathroom, and then she was trapped – there was nowhere else to go.

I’m going to die here.

Here, in the en-suite bathroom of her elegant cabin on this luxurious superyacht. All her wealth and beauty and privilege and success meant nothing at all in the face of a violent man who wasn’t getting what he wanted from her.

He stood in front of her now. She closed her eyes as a rush of light-headedness washed over her, knowing she was powerless to stop him doing what he was about to do.

This is how it all ends.