Chapter 65 Unfortunate Situation

• “Crap, crap, crap…” I pace around the dining table, my arms hugging my stomach in an attempt to quell the nauseating turmoil as I think about the contents of those emails. The confidential ones that Diego told me not to read under any circumstances. Now I know why. Diego is a… what, a rapist? Is that what his lawyer, Dyson, meant when he said Kiera is pressing criminal charges for forced sexual relations? What the hell did Diego do to his last assistant? His married assistant.
• Whatever it was, it was enough to try to buy her off with a couple hundred thousand dollars and a gag order. That’s what Diego and his dad were talking about that day I overheard them on the phone. Kiera is the “unfortunate situation” that Diego was sure got resolved, which means Diego’s father knows all about this. Is it true? Is it possible that this beautiful and complicated man who made sure I didn’t end up at the bottom of the bay that first night, who didn’t even kiss me back when I drunkenly threw myself at him, is the kind of man who forces himself on a woman?
• I don’t know Diego at all. I can think I know him. I can sigh over those intimate moments: him carrying my drunk self home, him in the woods that day with his protective arm around me, the worried look on his face when I was sick on the boat… and I can convince myself that he would never force a woman. I can picture his beautiful face and perfect masculine form and tell myself that he would never have to impose on anyone because no woman would refuse him. But I really don’t know him. I’ve known him for what, a week? I’d be an idiot to convince myself otherwise. I’d be the dumb farm girl everyone thinks I am.