Page 74 of Promise Me Never

“The discussion’s over.” I turned around to go down below when I felt his arms on my shoulders. He pushed me against the cold metal of the railing, his eyes bulging, his face red.

“Did you show this to anyone else?”

“What? No, I was hoping I was wrong. Let go of me!”

He yanked the tote from my shoulder and threw it to the deck. “You can’t tell anyone about this. We’ll be ruined.”

“No, you’ll be ruined! And you deserve to be.”

A look of pure rage passed over his face. Before I could say anything, with seemingly superhuman strength he lifted me over the railing and pushed. The sky tilted, I screamed, white pain exploded as something slammed into my head. And then…darkness.

| Seventy-Six |

Savannah

“What are you talking about?” Savannah asked. Poppy’s words were not computing.

“Bennett pushed me off that boat. He was trying to kill me.”

“He tried to kill you?” Savannah stared, reeling.

“Yes. He’s not the man you thought he was. I learned he’d used an older bestseller to write his last book. I found the AI prompts and was hoping he’d tell me it was for some kind of experiment to use in a book. But it wasn’t. He was out of ideas.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Isabel told me she was the one who gave him that killer twist for Promise Me Never, but I thought she was exaggerating,” Poppy said.

“I don’t understand. Just because of that, he tried to kill you?”

“I threatened to expose him. To tell his publisher. And I was going to leave him. He lost it.”

Savannah felt like she was being gaslit. First Isabel, now Poppy. Maybe she was lying. “I don’t believe he would kill you just because you wanted to leave him. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“I have the medical records. There are pictures. Bruises on my arm. Clean tox screen. A head injury. I wasn’t drinking that night. I wanted to be clearheaded when I talked to him. He did try to kill me. And that’s not all. I found Isabel’s diary. He’d been sleeping with her on and off over the years. That’s why she was so obsessed with him. He had been playing with her heart forever.”

Suddenly everything became clear to Savannah. Bennett’s controlling behavior, the way he would belittle her work, praising her in one moment and tearing her down in the next. How could it have taken all this for her to see the truth? All her anger at her sister evaporated.

“I’m so sorry, Poppy. That’s…monstrous. It’s so hard to believe that he was capable of that.”

Poppy leaned back against the sofa and closed her eyes for a moment. “I know it sounds insane, is insane. But he couldn’t handle being found out. His entire identity was tied up in being an author. He couldn’t let his family know that he’d failed. But still, I never thought he was capable of murder. I’d never have gotten on that boat with him if I had.”

Savannah was quiet as she digested what she’d just learned. Had she ever really known him?

“How did you survive? He threw you from the boat and kept going? That must have been terrifying.”

“You know how Mom never let us take swimming lessons?”

Savannah nodded. “Of course. Another weird thing about her. Afraid the teacher wouldn’t pay attention and we’d drown.”

“I didn’t want Bennett to know, so I bought one of those auto-inflating flotation devices. It was like a flat fanny pack. I’d wear it under my shirt.”

“How long were you in the water? Did someone find you?”

“A fisherman. Not sure how long I was knocked out. I was out cold from hitting my head.”

“It’s unbelievable. How could I not have seen who Bennett really was?” Savannah shook her head. “I guess I was so enamored by what I thought was his talent and that whole author persona. And he made me feel so untalented. Talking about what a great writer he was. What a fraud!”

“You didn’t need him to be successful, Savannah. Look at you now.”