I can faintly make out Cally’s dad standing over me, and she’s standing a few feet beyond him, hands on her hips. Between us is the asshole. Her husband. He hops to his feet and grins like it’s nothing.
“There will be no violence on my property,” Arlen Fisher growls. He’s a quiet man, and that’s probably the most I’ve heard him speak at one time. I wonder if he’ll say more or threaten to call the cops, but he just nods, as if he has complete faith that his order will make it so, and then he turns and walks into his house.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Cally asks, and I don’t know if she’s talking to me or him or both of us. I don’t f**king care. I just want away from this. From her.
I push myself off the ground, and pain starts settling in places I don’t remember getting hit. My side, my left bicep. My knuckles are screaming and the whole right side of my face is on fire.
He slaps her ass, and even though I just promised myself I was getting out of here, I’m ready to go again.
“Will, please,” she whispers before I can swing. “Don’t.” For a quietly whispered word, it’s wrapped in enough sadness that I know I’ve already lost her. He’s here for her, and she’s going with him. He’s the reason she told me she can’t stay. Can’t or won’t?
Her father reappears and hands me a wet towel. I nod gratefully and press it against my bloody nose while Cally takes Brandon’s arm and walks him to his car.
“I can’t believe she’d be with someone like that.”
Her father is staring at me, and I realize I said the words out loud.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that people don’t continue living their lives just because you’re not around,” he says softly. “Cally isn’t the same girl you were with seven years ago, and if you keep trying to pretend she is, you’re both going to get hurt.”
I draw in a breath. Cally’s been trying to give me the same warning and I’ve ignored her, but suddenly it’s painfully obvious that she was right.
I walk back to my bike and every step sends pain radiating through my ribs. Cally is standing at the SUV, using a washcloth to wipe blood from Brandon’s face. When she sees me watching, she steps back and drops her hands to her sides. Her eyes go sad as she looks me over.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I swing my leg over my bike and pain ricochets through my core. “Fucking fabulous.” Then I start the engine and pull away. Because I can’t handle the idea of her seeing me like this. And because, for the first time, I finally understand what she was telling me. She’s not the same woman she once was, and we can’t have the relationship we once had.
“Baby,” I whisper. “You’re hurting me.” William’s gone, Brandon’s pissed, and my world is shattered.
Fury burns in Brandon’s eyes. “You little slut. You’ve been f**king that asshole.”
I shake my head. “No,” I whisper. “It’s not what you think.” My purity, the idea that I had only ever been with him, was everything to Brandon. I don’t want him going after Will. I can’t have him hurting Will more than he already has.
“You f**ked him and now you expect me to take you back, to take care of you?” His hands slide from my shoulders to around my neck, resting there, waiting for an excuse. My dad is just inside the house and I say a silent prayer that he’s watching, that he’ll be able to protect me if Brandon snaps.
“I didn’t sleep with him,” I say, slowly lifting my hands to his face. “I don’t want to be with anyone but you.” I have to calm him down before his hands tighten any more at my neck.
“Don’t lie to me, Cally. Not about this.”
“I wouldn’t.” The lie is a dangerous one. All he would have to do is ask around town and he’ll learn the truth. I’ve been careless, too determined to soak up every ounce of a life I knew I’d have to leave behind.
“I saved you,” he whispers, his face going sad and his hands dropping from my neck to take mine. “You were days from being on the street and I saved you.”
That’s his favorite story to tell. He’d hold me at night and repaint our ugly beginnings in the broad strokes of his twisted perception. As if he didn’t pay Anthony tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of taking my virginity. As if he didn’t force me to marry him so he could control me even more than before. “I helped your family. How do you repay me? You don’t even visit me while I’m in prison.”
“I—I didn’t think you wanted to see me,” I lie. “You were with her.” But I can tell he sees through my excuse now. He always has.
“I told myself I would get you back as soon as I got out, but you tried to push me out of your life like I didn’t save you.” He has tears in his eyes. Actual, glistening tears. “You. Hurt. Me,” he growls, hands returning to my neck. “I thought you would need me again after your mom’s drug overdose. I was so sure that would bring you back to me.”
“Brandon,” I gasp when his hands tighten. “You’re hurting me.”
He stumbles back, his hands curling into fists. “I can’t look at you right now.” Then he climbs into his car and tears out of the drive, kicking up dust.
I don’t know how long I’m standing there before I feel Gabby at my side. “I don’t like him,” she says. “He came to the apartment the morning Mom died. I never liked him.”
I turn and blink at her. “Brandon was at the apartment the morning mom died?” Then Brandon’s words sink in. “I thought you would need me again after your mom’s drug overdose. I was so sure that would bring you back to me.”
I never told Brandon mom died of a drug overdose. I told him she had a heart attack. Just like I told everyone else.
“I was so sure that would bring you back to me.”
Suddenly, everything is too clear. After years, Mom was doing better, even holding a steady job. Then suddenly a drug overdose? And how did Brandon know?
I thought I could run away. I thought I could hide from Brandon. I thought leaving New Hope would be enough to protect the people I love. But the only way I can protect them is if I give Brandon what he wants. They won’t be safe until he has me or he’s in prison again.
Will’s house is dark, but I’m sure he’s here. Where else is he going to go with his face torn up like that?
The door’s locked, but he gave me a key last month when I was staying here with the girls. When I tried to give it back, he insisted I keep it. Now I’m glad.
Evening sunlight slants through the windows and spills across the hardwood floors at the back of the house. I know I haven’t seen the last of Brandon. He’ll be back for me soon. He was pissed. Ugly, nasty angry, and I don’t have long. Not unless I want him to come after William. Brandon bought me years ago, and in his mind he still owns me.
But my heart belongs to William.
William’s kitchen and living room are empty. He’s not resting on the couch in the family room like I thought he might be. I follow the dark hall to the master bedroom and find his curtains drawn, making it darker in here than the rest of the house. In the dim light trickling in from the hallway, I spot him, sprawled on top of the comforter in nothing but his boxer briefs.
I step into the room quietly. The soft and steady rise and fall of his chest gives me the courage to go closer so I can look at his face. His cheek is twice the size of the one opposite it, and the bruise there extends up to his eye, which is puffy and possibly swollen shut. His lip is cracked.
I continue my study of his injuries and drop my gaze to his bandaged knuckles and the angry red bruise at his ribs.
“What are you doing here?”
I jump at his words. He’s awake but not moving. “I just came to check on you,” I say softly, lowering myself on the edge of the bed by his side. “I’ve been worried.”
He reaches to the bedside table and clicks on the light. “You seemed real damn worried about me when you were tending to your husband’s injuries.”
I swallow the hurt his words bring and don’t bother defending myself. “I didn’t want him to hit you again.”
“I can handle myself.”
Of course he can against most guys, but Brandon eats and breathes fighting. God knows what new skills he learned while he was locked up. Just remembering coming outside to see Brandon swinging at Will is enough to make me lose my breath all over again.
I have to touch him. In the near-darkness, I find his lip and trace the split with my fingertip. Then I touch his swollen cheek, his puffy eye. “I thought he was going to kill you.” He doesn’t reply, nor does he complain as my fingers take inventory of the rest of his face—the injured and healthy spots equally.
After my hands have finished their tour and slide to his hair, my lips follow the path of my fingers in reverse. I kiss his swollen eye, his cheek, his jaw. He doesn’t move.
When I come to his mouth and finally press my lips to his injured ones, he grabs my wrists and holds me still. Suddenly, my tentative exploration of his wounds becomes his exploration of my mouth. His hands are in my hair, and he’s pulling me down on the bed, rolling until I’m under him.
And today sucked so badly I let myself have this moment like a reward for enduring. Here, in the dark of his bedroom, his nearly na**d body over my fully clothed one, everything between us falling to pieces, this kiss is the least we deserve. It feels like a secret gift we’re both entitled to. So I open under him, kissing him back and rubbing my tongue against his, and when his hand snakes up my shirt, hot and greedy, I arch into his touch like Brandon isn’t coming for me, like kissing William when I need to be telling him goodbye isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had.
I have to touch him. I need it more than I need air. But when I explore his body, his breath leaves him in a hiss and his lips abandon mine.
“I’m leaving tomorrow night,” I whisper.
“He’s making you. Before he ever showed up in town, you were thinking of staying. He’s making you leave, isn’t he?”
“I want to go.” The words are heavy with lies and I fight to heave them off my tongue. “I’m sorry.”
“You can tell me if you’re scared. I’ll protect you from him.”
But who will protect you from Brandon? I swallow. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and I need William to let me go. “Why would I be scared of my own husband?”
“You can tell me the truth, Cally.”
I roll back my shoulders. “The truth is that I’m leaving, just like I planned from the beginning.”
The pain in his eyes isn’t just the physical kind. I’ve hurt this man. Just like I knew I would.
“YOU CAN leave then.” I roll off her and sit on the edge of the bed, cradling my head in my hands. When she doesn’t move, I growl, “Go back to your husband, Cally.”
She sits up and positions herself next to me. So damn close it hurts. She rests her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands, and I realize for the first time what a wreck she is. She looks like she hasn’t slept for days, like she’s been ravaged by grief and worry and…more.
She lets out a long, slow breath. “Meredith’s pregnant. Did you know that?”
“What does Meredith have to do with anything?”
“Everyone is saying it’s yours.”
I have to laugh at that. Same old joke coming back to me. “I can guarantee you it’s not mine.”
“But you slept with her before I came back. It could be.”
“Just—” I shake my head and push off the bed. Why are we even talking about this? “Believe what you want, okay? It doesn’t f**king matter anymore.”
“It does matter,” she whispers. “It matters because she can give you the life you want. The marriage, the children. I can’t.”
“Right. Because you’re already married.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to tell you the truth about…my past. But I was up front with you about what I could and couldn’t offer.”
I can’t stomach this conversation. I love Cally enough to need more from her. “You weren’t up front with me about the fact that you were married.” She draws in a shaky breath, and I’m so damn hurt, her pain only pisses me off. “Whatever. I’m done with this conversation.”
“I was selfish and I’m sorry for that.” She turns to me and puts her hand to my face. A tear rolls down her cheek. “I hope you have an amazing life. You deserve an amazing life.”
“Leave,” I growl. “Put your key on the front table on your way out.”
She walks to the door and hesitates.
“Goodbye, Cally.”
Saturday night, I’m waiting for Brandon with a packed suitcase and an illegally purchased gun.
If I tell Brandon I won’t go with him, I risk him hurting me, or worse, hurting William, Dad, or one of the girls. But I can’t go back to being his doll and living under his rule. Three years of that was three too many. The worst kind of prison is the kind that disguises itself as home.
My grand plan is to wait until I know Brandon has drugs in his possession and tip off the police. It shouldn’t take long since I know that’s the “business” he’s in town for. The gun is Plan B. A pretty shitty Plan B, but better than none at all.
My phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, but I accept the call because I expected Brandon to be here by now and I’m starting to get nervous. If he killed mom, what else will he do?
“There will be no violence on my property,” Arlen Fisher growls. He’s a quiet man, and that’s probably the most I’ve heard him speak at one time. I wonder if he’ll say more or threaten to call the cops, but he just nods, as if he has complete faith that his order will make it so, and then he turns and walks into his house.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Cally asks, and I don’t know if she’s talking to me or him or both of us. I don’t f**king care. I just want away from this. From her.
I push myself off the ground, and pain starts settling in places I don’t remember getting hit. My side, my left bicep. My knuckles are screaming and the whole right side of my face is on fire.
He slaps her ass, and even though I just promised myself I was getting out of here, I’m ready to go again.
“Will, please,” she whispers before I can swing. “Don’t.” For a quietly whispered word, it’s wrapped in enough sadness that I know I’ve already lost her. He’s here for her, and she’s going with him. He’s the reason she told me she can’t stay. Can’t or won’t?
Her father reappears and hands me a wet towel. I nod gratefully and press it against my bloody nose while Cally takes Brandon’s arm and walks him to his car.
“I can’t believe she’d be with someone like that.”
Her father is staring at me, and I realize I said the words out loud.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that people don’t continue living their lives just because you’re not around,” he says softly. “Cally isn’t the same girl you were with seven years ago, and if you keep trying to pretend she is, you’re both going to get hurt.”
I draw in a breath. Cally’s been trying to give me the same warning and I’ve ignored her, but suddenly it’s painfully obvious that she was right.
I walk back to my bike and every step sends pain radiating through my ribs. Cally is standing at the SUV, using a washcloth to wipe blood from Brandon’s face. When she sees me watching, she steps back and drops her hands to her sides. Her eyes go sad as she looks me over.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I swing my leg over my bike and pain ricochets through my core. “Fucking fabulous.” Then I start the engine and pull away. Because I can’t handle the idea of her seeing me like this. And because, for the first time, I finally understand what she was telling me. She’s not the same woman she once was, and we can’t have the relationship we once had.
“Baby,” I whisper. “You’re hurting me.” William’s gone, Brandon’s pissed, and my world is shattered.
Fury burns in Brandon’s eyes. “You little slut. You’ve been f**king that asshole.”
I shake my head. “No,” I whisper. “It’s not what you think.” My purity, the idea that I had only ever been with him, was everything to Brandon. I don’t want him going after Will. I can’t have him hurting Will more than he already has.
“You f**ked him and now you expect me to take you back, to take care of you?” His hands slide from my shoulders to around my neck, resting there, waiting for an excuse. My dad is just inside the house and I say a silent prayer that he’s watching, that he’ll be able to protect me if Brandon snaps.
“I didn’t sleep with him,” I say, slowly lifting my hands to his face. “I don’t want to be with anyone but you.” I have to calm him down before his hands tighten any more at my neck.
“Don’t lie to me, Cally. Not about this.”
“I wouldn’t.” The lie is a dangerous one. All he would have to do is ask around town and he’ll learn the truth. I’ve been careless, too determined to soak up every ounce of a life I knew I’d have to leave behind.
“I saved you,” he whispers, his face going sad and his hands dropping from my neck to take mine. “You were days from being on the street and I saved you.”
That’s his favorite story to tell. He’d hold me at night and repaint our ugly beginnings in the broad strokes of his twisted perception. As if he didn’t pay Anthony tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of taking my virginity. As if he didn’t force me to marry him so he could control me even more than before. “I helped your family. How do you repay me? You don’t even visit me while I’m in prison.”
“I—I didn’t think you wanted to see me,” I lie. “You were with her.” But I can tell he sees through my excuse now. He always has.
“I told myself I would get you back as soon as I got out, but you tried to push me out of your life like I didn’t save you.” He has tears in his eyes. Actual, glistening tears. “You. Hurt. Me,” he growls, hands returning to my neck. “I thought you would need me again after your mom’s drug overdose. I was so sure that would bring you back to me.”
“Brandon,” I gasp when his hands tighten. “You’re hurting me.”
He stumbles back, his hands curling into fists. “I can’t look at you right now.” Then he climbs into his car and tears out of the drive, kicking up dust.
I don’t know how long I’m standing there before I feel Gabby at my side. “I don’t like him,” she says. “He came to the apartment the morning Mom died. I never liked him.”
I turn and blink at her. “Brandon was at the apartment the morning mom died?” Then Brandon’s words sink in. “I thought you would need me again after your mom’s drug overdose. I was so sure that would bring you back to me.”
I never told Brandon mom died of a drug overdose. I told him she had a heart attack. Just like I told everyone else.
“I was so sure that would bring you back to me.”
Suddenly, everything is too clear. After years, Mom was doing better, even holding a steady job. Then suddenly a drug overdose? And how did Brandon know?
I thought I could run away. I thought I could hide from Brandon. I thought leaving New Hope would be enough to protect the people I love. But the only way I can protect them is if I give Brandon what he wants. They won’t be safe until he has me or he’s in prison again.
Will’s house is dark, but I’m sure he’s here. Where else is he going to go with his face torn up like that?
The door’s locked, but he gave me a key last month when I was staying here with the girls. When I tried to give it back, he insisted I keep it. Now I’m glad.
Evening sunlight slants through the windows and spills across the hardwood floors at the back of the house. I know I haven’t seen the last of Brandon. He’ll be back for me soon. He was pissed. Ugly, nasty angry, and I don’t have long. Not unless I want him to come after William. Brandon bought me years ago, and in his mind he still owns me.
But my heart belongs to William.
William’s kitchen and living room are empty. He’s not resting on the couch in the family room like I thought he might be. I follow the dark hall to the master bedroom and find his curtains drawn, making it darker in here than the rest of the house. In the dim light trickling in from the hallway, I spot him, sprawled on top of the comforter in nothing but his boxer briefs.
I step into the room quietly. The soft and steady rise and fall of his chest gives me the courage to go closer so I can look at his face. His cheek is twice the size of the one opposite it, and the bruise there extends up to his eye, which is puffy and possibly swollen shut. His lip is cracked.
I continue my study of his injuries and drop my gaze to his bandaged knuckles and the angry red bruise at his ribs.
“What are you doing here?”
I jump at his words. He’s awake but not moving. “I just came to check on you,” I say softly, lowering myself on the edge of the bed by his side. “I’ve been worried.”
He reaches to the bedside table and clicks on the light. “You seemed real damn worried about me when you were tending to your husband’s injuries.”
I swallow the hurt his words bring and don’t bother defending myself. “I didn’t want him to hit you again.”
“I can handle myself.”
Of course he can against most guys, but Brandon eats and breathes fighting. God knows what new skills he learned while he was locked up. Just remembering coming outside to see Brandon swinging at Will is enough to make me lose my breath all over again.
I have to touch him. In the near-darkness, I find his lip and trace the split with my fingertip. Then I touch his swollen cheek, his puffy eye. “I thought he was going to kill you.” He doesn’t reply, nor does he complain as my fingers take inventory of the rest of his face—the injured and healthy spots equally.
After my hands have finished their tour and slide to his hair, my lips follow the path of my fingers in reverse. I kiss his swollen eye, his cheek, his jaw. He doesn’t move.
When I come to his mouth and finally press my lips to his injured ones, he grabs my wrists and holds me still. Suddenly, my tentative exploration of his wounds becomes his exploration of my mouth. His hands are in my hair, and he’s pulling me down on the bed, rolling until I’m under him.
And today sucked so badly I let myself have this moment like a reward for enduring. Here, in the dark of his bedroom, his nearly na**d body over my fully clothed one, everything between us falling to pieces, this kiss is the least we deserve. It feels like a secret gift we’re both entitled to. So I open under him, kissing him back and rubbing my tongue against his, and when his hand snakes up my shirt, hot and greedy, I arch into his touch like Brandon isn’t coming for me, like kissing William when I need to be telling him goodbye isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had.
I have to touch him. I need it more than I need air. But when I explore his body, his breath leaves him in a hiss and his lips abandon mine.
“I’m leaving tomorrow night,” I whisper.
“He’s making you. Before he ever showed up in town, you were thinking of staying. He’s making you leave, isn’t he?”
“I want to go.” The words are heavy with lies and I fight to heave them off my tongue. “I’m sorry.”
“You can tell me if you’re scared. I’ll protect you from him.”
But who will protect you from Brandon? I swallow. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and I need William to let me go. “Why would I be scared of my own husband?”
“You can tell me the truth, Cally.”
I roll back my shoulders. “The truth is that I’m leaving, just like I planned from the beginning.”
The pain in his eyes isn’t just the physical kind. I’ve hurt this man. Just like I knew I would.
“YOU CAN leave then.” I roll off her and sit on the edge of the bed, cradling my head in my hands. When she doesn’t move, I growl, “Go back to your husband, Cally.”
She sits up and positions herself next to me. So damn close it hurts. She rests her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands, and I realize for the first time what a wreck she is. She looks like she hasn’t slept for days, like she’s been ravaged by grief and worry and…more.
She lets out a long, slow breath. “Meredith’s pregnant. Did you know that?”
“What does Meredith have to do with anything?”
“Everyone is saying it’s yours.”
I have to laugh at that. Same old joke coming back to me. “I can guarantee you it’s not mine.”
“But you slept with her before I came back. It could be.”
“Just—” I shake my head and push off the bed. Why are we even talking about this? “Believe what you want, okay? It doesn’t f**king matter anymore.”
“It does matter,” she whispers. “It matters because she can give you the life you want. The marriage, the children. I can’t.”
“Right. Because you’re already married.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to tell you the truth about…my past. But I was up front with you about what I could and couldn’t offer.”
I can’t stomach this conversation. I love Cally enough to need more from her. “You weren’t up front with me about the fact that you were married.” She draws in a shaky breath, and I’m so damn hurt, her pain only pisses me off. “Whatever. I’m done with this conversation.”
“I was selfish and I’m sorry for that.” She turns to me and puts her hand to my face. A tear rolls down her cheek. “I hope you have an amazing life. You deserve an amazing life.”
“Leave,” I growl. “Put your key on the front table on your way out.”
She walks to the door and hesitates.
“Goodbye, Cally.”
Saturday night, I’m waiting for Brandon with a packed suitcase and an illegally purchased gun.
If I tell Brandon I won’t go with him, I risk him hurting me, or worse, hurting William, Dad, or one of the girls. But I can’t go back to being his doll and living under his rule. Three years of that was three too many. The worst kind of prison is the kind that disguises itself as home.
My grand plan is to wait until I know Brandon has drugs in his possession and tip off the police. It shouldn’t take long since I know that’s the “business” he’s in town for. The gun is Plan B. A pretty shitty Plan B, but better than none at all.
My phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, but I accept the call because I expected Brandon to be here by now and I’m starting to get nervous. If he killed mom, what else will he do?
