Stella struggled to process the barrage of instructions. She couldn’t be pregnant. Not by—
Bile rose, burning the back of her throat. Did they know who she’d met in that mad moment? Who it was who’d made her cast aside every inhibition as if it was as of little importance as a chocolate wrapper? Who it was who’d sparked that intensity and had her acting in a way she’d never done before? Did they know that she’d been the biggest idiot on the planet?
Pure panic threatened to derail her completely, but then her defences kicked in with a last spurt of survival instinct. She rallied, fighting to keep her thinking clear. To keep hold of her own future.
‘Shouldn’t I be court-martialled?’ she asked, ignoring the catch in her voice and hoping he would too. ‘Shouldn’t there be a soldier present, recording this conversation?’
She did not want preferential treatment. Not because of what she’d done and who she’d done it with.
Or because of who she was.
The General muttered something incomprehensible. Not a regulation response. It was his first slip in this meeting—a flash showing he might actually be human. She thought she saw a fleeting expression in his eyes before he looked down at her paperwork again.
But the expression wasn’t the one she’d wanted.
‘We thought it best to save your blushes,’ he said curtly.
His abrasiveness dashed the last of Stella’s hope.
Who was the ‘we’ who’d made this decision? And was it really to save her blushes? Or someone else’s? Someone much more important than her.
Did they want this swept under the carpet and for her to disappear quietly? For this ‘incident’ to go away? For a moment rage blinded her. She wanted to scream this betrayal to the world. This unfairness.
But she couldn’t. Because it was her own fault that her life had been totalled. Her poor choice that afternoon. But this preposterous claim that she was pregnant... It had to be false.
‘I’m not pregnant,’ she reiterated forcefully. She refused to believe it.
‘You’re dismissed.’
The blunt order stopped her cold. He’d made it clear her career was destroyed and he wasn’t interested in her reaction or her defence. He didn’t care. He just wanted her gone, quickly and quietly.
She stared at the greying, ageing man who wielded so much power. He couldn’t know who it was she’d been with, because if he did he’d be angrier than this. He would care more.
Run, her instinct screamed. She needed to run before he did find out. Before anyone found out.
But she had nowhere to go. She had no permanent home of her own. When on furlough she travelled. Often on shorter periods of leave she stayed on the base and volunteered for extra shifts. So where? She couldn’t go to him. And as for her childhood home...
She looked again at the older man who was now studiously ignoring her with that utterly impassive face. She tried to ask him. ‘Sir—’
‘You’re dismissed.’
His emotionless repetition stripped the last veneer of confidence from her. All she had left was a plea.
‘Father...’
General Carlos Zambrano, operational leader of the San Felipe Armed Services and Stella’s sole parent, didn’t respond. He merely put the paperwork back into the thin manila file that was all that remained of the military career she’d worked so long for.
She’d done the one thing she’d vowed never to do—had never done until now. She’d broken that barrier between professional and private. The barrier both she and her father had enforced.
Defeat twisted and she didn’t try to speak again. Unbearably hurt, she turned and walked to the door. With every step she hoped her father would call to her. Stop her. That he would want to help her.
But he never had before, and today there was nothing but the inevitable disappointed silence.
Disappointment on both sides.
Glancing back as she closed his door behind her, she saw him still sitting at his desk. Still looking away. Still refusing to acknowledge her.
Once more she’d let him down. And there was no coming back from something this catastrophic. She’d never redeem herself in his eyes. She’d lost everything she’d worked so hard for.
She paused, clutching the door handle for support. She had no idea what to do or where to go.
Slowly she became aware of the surreptitious, speculative glances from the personnel working in the room. It was unusual for someone of her rank to be called into the General’s office. They probably thought it was preferential treatment because she was his daughter.
But perhaps they already knew. That thought horrified her. Did they all know what she’d done and who she’d done it with?
And it was preferential treatment. She should have been dishonourably discharged or, at best, formally warned and demoted. Instead her father had used his rank to ensure her removal from the service was done in secret.
So there was no embarrassment for anyone.
Except she was left with nothing. No job. No home. The reputation she’d worked so long and so hard to build had been burned with the strike of a single match.
Everything was gone because of that one hour in which she’d lost herself. The one hour that no one was ever supposed to know about...
‘I’m ordered to drive you back to the barracks.’ The Sergeant from earlier materialised in front of her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, but the words barely sounded.
She sat in the back seat of the car and wound down the window, trying to get fresh air to clear her head. Her gaze skimmed over the grand homes, with their marble columns and gorgeous gardens, and beyond to the aquamarine waters of the glorious coastline. The beauty of the wealthy island now oppressed her. She willed the Sergeant to drive faster. She had to find a place and space to think. And that was not San Felipe.
Doubts and questions scurried in her mind. It was just over three months since that afternoon in the blazing sun. How could she be three months pregnant and not know about it? Horror filled her at the prospect—pregnancy had never been part of her life plan.
As soon as the Sergeant pulled up to the security station at the base she got out. No one came within sight as she walked to her room, but once she was there it was obvious someone had been very busy in that short time. Her space had been completely cleared. All that was left was a large duffel bag that leaned against the foot of the stripped bed. She opened it and her hurt deepened. Someone had taken methodical care to pack away her few personal possessions. It felt invasive and pointed—and why were the soldiers she’d considered more than colleagues so conspicuously absent?
Blocking the stabbing wounds and setting her mind to the task, Stella quickly phoned for a taxi to collect her at the gate, then stepped out of her drill uniform and pulled on the first things that came to hand—an old grey tee shirt, black yoga pants. She stuffed her feet into thin, flat-soled trainers. And she added a sweatshirt, because despite the early autumn heat she was freezing.
She left the clothing she’d removed in a neat folded pile on the end of her bed. Then she hoisted her duffel onto her back and walked past Security.
In and out in less than eight minutes. Not that her father was ever going to be impressed by anything she did. No matter how hard she tried.
‘San Felipe airport, please,’ she instructed the taxi driver, and slumped back against the seat.
A mere twenty minutes later she was inside the light,