The water pulled away again, and the women were sucked backwards into the piling behind them, Yasmin’s body smashing Defne’s into the post. She elbowed the other woman hard, pushed away and swam toward another piling, relief pumping through her as her hands made contact. She wrapped as much of her body around the pillar as she could, determined to hang on until rescue arrived.

“I hate you!” Defne screamed from her piling. “You’ve ruined everything!”

Yasmin looked at her. Defne was keeping her grip on the other piling rather than making another attempt to come after Yasmin.

“I don’t know what you mean!” Yasmin shouted, glaring at Defne through the wet strands of hair clinging to her face.

“You don’t love him like I do,” Defne wailed, sobbing against the piling. “I give him everything he could possibly want. Companionship, love, a partner for galas and business dinners when he needs one. Why did you have to come and ruin it? You’re just like her.”

Understanding finally dawned on Yasmin and the past year ran through her brain like a movie reel on fast forward. Of course… Defne loved Volkan. She’d never made a secret of her adoration, only everyone thought her love was sisterly.

“He would have seen it eventually,” Defne moaned. “He would have come to me. Loved me the way he thinks he loves you.” She glared at Yasmin. “He doesn’t love you, you know. One day, he’ll come to realize what a faithless bitch you are and he’ll come back to me.”

Yasmin was too shocked to say anything. It didn’t matter. There was nothing she could say that could appease the mentally distressed young woman. Defne had built a fantasy surrounding her relationship with her brother, and Yasmin had come along and destroyed it.

Volkan was obsessed with Yasmin. He rarely let her out of his sight and when he did, he made sure everything around her was perfect. It was impossible to miss the depth of Volkan’s feelings for his wife. Defne’s fantasy couldn’t possibly stand up to that kind of reality.

It occurred to Yasmin that she could hear every word Defne was saying and that they were no longer shouting. The ship’s engines had stopped and, though the current under the dock remained dangerously strong, it was no longer trying to pull them toward the ship.

Relief rushed through her and she leaned her head against the piling and allowed the exhaustion to wash over her. She looked at Defne, wanting to keep the other woman in sight in case she tried to attack again, but Defne was as beat up and exhausted as Yasmin.

“Defne,” she said, getting her sister-in-law’s attention. “Did you push Caria off the dock the way you pushed me?”

Defne narrowed her eyes. “It would have worked on you too if you hadn’t grabbed hold of me.”