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“He said the deal is off, Charlie,” I whisper, because my heart feels intense in my chest. A little heavy. A lot worried. A bit brutalized. “I can’t tell if he’s being real or if he’s just trying to ruin me.” My voice lowers. “He says he has the will but—I don’t know if I believe him.”
“You think he’s playing you?”
“I don’t know, Charls.”
She sighs. “After everything, you still love him, don’t you?”
“I—I don’t know.” I’m pretty sure there’s a piece of me that will always love him. But what’s love without trust?
“Oh, babe.”
Because I’m about to cry, I say, “Gotta go.”
“Wait, Pippa!”
I pause. My voice croaks, “What?”
Charlie’s voice is soft. “Love you, girl.”
“Love you, too.” I hang up just in time for the first tear to fall.
twenty-five
Tav
I’ve thought about nothing but getting back to Olympia since I drove away this morning for work. It’s just after two in the afternoon as I step through the front door to what sounds like an empty house. Because it’s sunny outside, I figure she’s out on the patio. I’m prepared to be hit by a brick of desire at the possibility of finding her doing some yoga routine or another, but at the sight of the closed and locked patio door, a frown hits me instead.
Where is she?
I stand in the living area for a minute, listening to the unusual silence of my home. Shit, I’ve come to expect her noise. I’ve come to expect her.
The sound of her in my space is something that I’ve not only come to expect—but it’s a comfort. I like her here.
Jesus, if I hadn’t been so determined to get rid of her because of her last name, would I have realized it sooner?
How much time with her have I wasted?
And how has my misguided hatred of her affected what we can become now?
Christ, that scar on her ass is bad. It had felt bad when I’d caught her ass in my hands in the pool. But seeing it last night as she slept, even in just the light of the moon, I could see it was bad. Around the one raised welt, there were other fainter, thinner welts. But the fact they were there at all did something to me. It chased away sleep and lit a fire in my chest I wasn’t sure I’d ever fully be able to douse.
All the shit she’d said since she arrived hit me like brick after brick, blow after blow, to my heart and soul. She hadn’t lied to me when she told me in all her round about ways how unsafe she’d been at home with Remira.
She hadn’t lied, and I hadn’t listened.
Now, I have questions. Only, I know I have no right to ask.
But I want to know where William was in all this? Where was her father when Remira was beating her with belts that left welts like the ones on her ass? Why was she suddenly so sheltered that she had nothing and no one to turn to when she needed help, but me? How was I her best and only choice?
And how had she been promised to my brother?
Rubbing my brow, I sigh a heavy sigh.
I have no right to ask my questions considering the way I’d pushed her away again and again. Making her life harder even as she desperately clung to happiness and hope. I have no right, but I’ll still ask.
I’ll ask because I need to know everything.
And then I’ll make them pay.
