I reached out and with shaking hands picked up the paper. “Oh my God. That’s why?”

“Fantastic reading, isn’t it?”

The front cover had a picture of me, the night of the dinner, on a stretcher outside the plantation, being carted to the ambulance, my white dress soiled by a mass of blood, an oxygen mask on my face, and Romeo gripping my hand tightly, his expression distraught, also covered in my blood. The parallel picture showed Mr. Prince in a suit outside Prince Oil headquarters.

The title read:

“Tide star QB’s girlfriend miscarries amidst Prince Oil money laundering scandal.”

My chest felt like a sprung coil, and I lifted up, rubbing at my sternum, trying to ebb the aching strain.

I couldn’t.

The picture… the picture of me losing my baby…

Pain devoured me from the inside out. I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t take the reality of the image, of Romeo’s crushed expression as he held my hand.

I heard a wicked laugh and Kathryn hovered over me. “That look on your face may have made it all worth it!” She closed in. “You’ve made a mockery of my family, you evil bitch. Leave. Leave Alabama and never come back. You’ve nothing left here. Rome won’t want you after this, after you tainted his reputation and destroyed his family’s business. If you stay, I’ll make sure I bring you down with me, so help me God! The Princes will be the laughing stock of all of Alabama because of you…”

“That’s why you were pushing him to marry Shelly? You wanted her father’s money, needed the legal connection before he found out what you’d done.” It suddenly all made sense. Romeo was right to have been suspicious.

“And that spawn of my husband’s tramp would’ve if he’d never met you! Now everyone knows. My husband’s been arrested. We’ve lost everything because of you! Everything!”

“No, you’ve lost everything because of yourself!” I snapped.

She lifted a hand in the air and rammed her fist into my stomach, causing me to shriek out in pain. My hand frantically felt along the side of the bed for the call button, but Mrs. Prince wrapped her hands around my throat, applying pressure as I desperately pressed the emergency button repeatedly. My neck burned and my vision turned blotchy when a nurse burst into the room.

“Help me… please,” I croaked. The nurse bellowed down the corridor for security and she wrestled Kathryn from my bed, restraining her arms behind her back. I coughed and sputtered as the security guards carried her away, kicking and screaming in her drunken state.

“I’ll ruin you if you stay, ruin you both! I’ve got nothing left lose!”

My head fell in my hands. The enormity of the last few days almost suffocating me, unrelenting grief tearing me apart from the inside out.

I couldn’t be here anymore. I needed to get away from all of the pain and sadness.

“Honey, are you okay?”

I peered up and a young, heavyset nurse was at my bed, her arm around my side.

I nodded.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Honey, the police are on their way.”

I tried to shift off the bed. “No, no! No more! I can’t—”

The nurse’s strong arm held me close and she spoke in a soothing voice. “That woman assaulted you, Molly. You need to report what she did.”

My body slumped against the nurse’s side. She was right and it would be the last thing I would do for Romeo. I’d help him by ensuring his reputation wouldn’t be run through the mud any more than I’d already caused. His parents were already going down; I’d help give them the final push. Romeo would finally be free.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Good girl. Would you like me to contact Romeo for you?”

I faked a smile and shook my head. “No, please don’t. He’s at a charity function at the stadium, for the championship game, and I don’t want to tear him away. His team and supporters need him.”

Squeezing my arm, she praised, “You’re good people, Miss Shakespeare, good people.”

She left the room and after a while, the police arrived. I gave my statement—truthfully, all the nitty-gritty parts—and felt as though my soul was shattering all the way through.

When the police left, I grabbed my phone from the side stand and hit call.

“Molly, are you okay?”

“Professor, have you left for the airport yet?”

“I’m just in my car now. Why?”

“Is my ticket still available?”

“Why, yes… but, Molly, you’re not well.”

“I’m fine. The doctor discharged me. Can you come and get me at the hospital?”

“Now?”

“Yes, now,” I snapped impatiently.

There was a long pause and a disappointed sigh. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be outside.” I hung up the phone, gritted my teeth, and ripped the IV from my hand. I reached for my clothes, flinching at a subtle pain in my stomach, dressed in my jeans and tee, and grabbed my packed bag. I walked out of the empty corridor and down to the front door just as Suzy pulled up, and I jumped in the front seat.

She eyed me sceptically. “You’re running again, aren’t you, Molly?”

“I can’t be here right now,” I said almost inaudibly.

Suzy pulled out of the hospital car park and onto the road. “Romeo doesn’t know, does he?”

“By the time he finds out, I’ll be forty thousand feet in the air. He’s better off without me here.”

She swerved to me, disappointment clear on her face. “No, he isn’t, Molly! You can’t—”

“I’m going, Professor! Please, I just can’t… I need to go!”

She ran her wrinkled hand over her forehead. “You have your passport?”

“In my bag. Luckily I needed it for my medical insurance.”

“Then back to Oxford we go.”

I laid my head back on the headrest and watched as the yellow fields of corn passed by in a blurry haze. Tears dripped from my eyes as I pictured Romeo’s face in my head. For a moment, I wavered in my decision, but when I remembered the images in the newspaper, all doubt slipped away.

I had to leave.

I had to run.

25