“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. I don’t want to think about it. You can’t understand what…I just…I wish I could forget. Why can’t I forget?” Her voice breaks.
I go to her, sit on the edge of the bed. When she turns her face away, I touch her chin to make her look at me.
Tears well and overflow from her eyes and what I want most of all is to wipe them away forever. I touch one with my thumb, smear it across her cheek.
“The past is exactly that, Melissa. Past. But if you let it have any power over you, it will destroy you.”
She sniffles, turns her face and wipes her hands over her eyes.
“When I went on my trip, I went after that man at the party.”
She won’t look at me as she cries quietly.
“I know what happened, what they did to you. What the Boyd’s made you do.”
She makes a sound, tries to draw herself away and she still won’t look at me.
“Look at me,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“Melissa. Look at me.”
I take her face in both hands and hold her, make her look at me. And the look on her face, it breaks something inside me.
“They raped you. They raped a child. You’re not responsible for anything that happened. You know that, don’t you?”
She squeezes her eyes shut and tears flood her face. I’m not sure she can talk right now. I pull her to me, hold her against my chest and let her sob.
“And you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about. But know this. I’m going to punish every one I get my hands on. It’s over, sweetheart. No one’s ever going to hurt you again. I swear it.”
It takes her a long time, but I hold her until finally she puts her arms around me. They’re soft at first, weak, but soon, she’s clinging to me, and I lift her up and sit her on my lap and hold her. I just hold her until the sobbing stops and she quiets.
Her eyes are puffy and red when she finally looks up at me.
“Why?” she asks.
“Why what?”
“Why are you still here? I’m a mess, Hawk.”
“You’re not a mess, Melissa. You’re mine.”
37
Melissa
I stare up at him. At this man who stormed into my life just weeks ago.
Has it only been weeks?
This man who bought me not once but twice. Who I expected to be brutal and although he was, he was also gentle. Gentler than any I’ve ever known.
“How did you find me out there?”
He touches my bracelet. “I had a tracking device put in here. A chip. It’s tiny but you felt the weight difference.”
“Why did you…Never mind.” I shake my head. No point in asking why he did that. He’s Hawk MacLeod. I’m not surprised at all. “What now?”
He stands up, walks away, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. When he turns back to me, he runs that hand through his hair and it stands on end.
“When I saw the crashed SUV, Melissa, I was scared. For the first time in a long time, I was scared. I thought—”
“I’m sorry,” I cut him off. “I’m sorry, I just—”
“I’ve wasted a lot of time. I don’t want to waste any more. And I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I love you.”
It takes me a moment to register that. Then another to really understand it. And I think I misheard him. I must have.
“What did you say?”
He smiles, comes to resume his seat on the bed.
“I said I love you.” He touches my face softly. “I love you.”
“I don’t…When…why…”
“I don’t know when or why, I just know I do.”
“You saved me,” I say. “In so many ways. I’ve never felt as safe with anyone. As protected. You’re not what I expected and I love you, too, Hawk.”
He wraps his big arms around me, pulls me in to him. I wince, my ribs bruised, but I hug him back because the pain is worth it, worth this. I love him. I don’t want to be anywhere but in his arms.
That thought reminds me of something. I draw back.
“You never answered my question the other day,” I say.
“What question?”
“You’re staying here, aren’t you?”
He studies me, cocks his head to the side and gets a familiar glint in his eyes. Like he’s up to no good.
“I have another proposition for you, Melissa.”
38
Hawk
Another’s devil’s bargain.
“Our month isn’t—” she starts.
“I don’t care about the month. It’s not enough. This is my home. It’s been my home from day one. Declan’s right. I should never have left. But past is past. And I’m finished with it.
“I’m staying here, Melissa. Reclaiming my place. I want to watch my nephew grow up. I want to be here with my grandfather. I will rebuild the house to what it once was. No, even better. I will make it grand, as it should always have been.”
I lift her hair over her shoulder before brushing her cheek.
“And I want you to stay here with me. Make this your home too.”
“You want me to leave everything behind—”
“What is everything? What is the life you’ve built in Vegas?”
She shifts her gaze away and I watch her eyebrows furrow.
“What life?” I ask again.
She looks up at me. “The shop.”
“You don’t need the shop. I’ll make monthly donations to the shelter.”
“It’s Mrs. Adams’ legacy, Hawk. I can’t just shut it down.”
“Then I’ll buy it outright. Buy the whole building. Or back you financially if that’s what you want. You’ll promote Deirdre and let her manage it. Hire someone else to help her. Hire anyone you need. Your house is a rental. Your car, well, don’t get me started on that car. And as far as friends, I think you and I are in the same position there.”
“Do your bodyguards count?”
I smile because I think she’s joking. “Just Axel.”
“What about the casino? The hotel?”
“Axel will manage both. It’s not important. Don’t you see, I’ve lost too many years. Half my life. I want to start living how I was meant to live. And I want you by my side.”
“You want me to live here with you?”
I smile wide, touch my thumb to the delicate skin beneath her eye that’s already wet. She’s so sweet. So innocent. She never lost that, even after what those bastards did to her.
“That won’t do, Melissa. Not for this proposition. I want more. I want everything. You’ll marry me. You’ll be my bride and my wife, and I’ll be your husband. I’ll give you a proper last name. I’ll be your family. And together, we’ll fill this house as it was meant to be filled, with children and laughter and family and joy.”
Her mouth falls open and she’s staring up at me and all I can think is how right this feels. How perfectly right.
“Will you marry me, Melissa?”
Epilogue
Melissa
* * *
Three Months Later
* * *
I realize something about Hawk that I guess I should have known all along. I mean, it’s in keeping with the man I’ve come to know over the last few months.
When Hawk makes up his mind, you can consider it a done deal. He’s the same in business and his personal life.
We flew back to Vegas together a few days after that proposal a very different couple than the man and woman who arrived here not a week earlier.
A happy one.
That’s not to say he wasn’t sad over the death of his father. Of everything that time stood for. He was. And I don’t think Hawk will ever forgive himself for the loss of those years. But he has a way of taking things in stride and in this case, making up his mind to be happy.
I’ve made up mine too.
We never discussed Sean Boyd again. I know the day Haw
k went to him. I know the day Hawk hurt him. Maybe did worse to him.
Does it make me a terrible person that I don’t feel remorse over it?
Deirdre happily accepted my offer to become manager of Wrinkles in Time. I wasn’t sure she’d want it with her granddaughter being so young, but she surprised me when, in accepting, she began to tell me of the changes she’d be implementing. Things she’d thought about in passing but never had the ambition to do. I just had to promise her a trip to Scotland to attend our wedding which I happily did.
Fifty percent of the proceeds of the shop will still go to the homeless shelter and that’s on top of the generous donation Hawk made in Marjorie’s name.
That was a surprise. I hadn’t expected him to do that and wouldn’t have even found out if it weren’t for the woman who manages the shelter dropping the hint.
I didn’t tell Hawk I knew but every time I look at him, at my Highlander, home now and happy, I think about the kind of man he is and I feel more blessed than I ever thought I would in my life.
“Don’t cry,” Deirdre says to me. “You’ll ruin your makeup.”
But I can’t help it.
I’m standing at the back of the church where Hawk is waiting for me at the altar, his brother at his side, his grandfather standing in the first pew.
Deirdre, like the grandmother she is, licks her thumb and wipes at what I guess is a smudge of eyeliner on the corner of my eye before rearranging the veil to cover my face.
“Ready?” James whispers up.
When we told him our news and he learned I had no family, no father to walk me down the aisle, he immediately stood up and offered his hand and I’m so happy I’ll be a part of his life. He’s a very special boy.
I look down at him dressed like his father and uncle in traditional Scottish clothing, the kilt displaying proudly the colors of Clan MacLeod. It’s still amazing to me the amount of history here. The amount of family.
“Ready,” I say to him.
He holds out his hand and I slip mine into his little one. He clears his throat like Hawk does and straightens his shoulders. I see Declan at the alter with his proud smile as his son walks me down the short aisle of the chapel.
My eyes are locked on Hawk’s and it seems the past weeks flash before my eyes as I take each step. The moment I first met him, that first night, the next day when he showed up at my house, and all the ones that followed when he wouldn’t just take what he had a right to but instead cradled me in the protection of his arms and wouldn’t let me go. Not even when I fought like hell to be free of him.
When James hands me off to Hawk and Hawk lifts my veil, he wipes away the tear that has managed to slide down my cheek. He leans down to kiss me and whispers in my ear that I’m beautiful and that he loves me. All I can do is stare back at him and try to hold it together.
He knows this too. I see it in his eyes.
The priest clears his throat to begin the ceremony and when it’s time to exchange rings, Hawk takes my hands in his and I look down at the ring he’s holding. A family ring, his mother’s once.
Strangely, his father hadn’t given it to his second wife. Instead, after the passing of Hawk’s mother, he’d set it aside for Hawk to give to his bride. Hawk only found out about it after his father’s death when his grandfather had given it to him and explained.
When we say our vows, he slips that ring onto my finger and I slide a gold band onto his and it’s like everything comes together, it’s complete and right and how it should be. How it was meant to be from the moment we came into each other’s lives.
Because I realize I’ve always belonged to Hawk.
And he’s always belonged to me.
And together, we’re home.
* * *
The End
Thank you
Thank you for reading Devil’s Bargain! I hope you enjoyed Hawk and Melissa’s story.
Declan MacLeod will have his own story to tell soon and Axel and his brother, Hugo, whom you met in Killian: a Dark Mafia Romance, will tell theirs too.
If you’d like to keep updated on dates and news, please sign up for my newsletter and consider joining my Facebook Group, The Knight Spot.
And if you loved Devil’s Bargain, flip to the next page to read a sample from Taken, of the Dark Legacy series.
Sample from Taken
Helena
* * *
I’m the oldest of the Willow quadruplets. Four girls. Always girls. Every single quadruplet birth, generation after generation, it’s always girls.
This generation’s crop yielded the usual, but instead of four perfect, beautiful dolls, there were three.
And me.
And today, our twenty-first birthday, is the day of harvesting.
That’s the Scafoni family’s choice of words, not ours. At least not mine. My parents seem much more comfortable with it than my sisters and I do, though.
Harvesting is always on the twenty-first birthday of the quads. I don’t know if it’s written in stone somewhere or what, but it’s what I know and what has been on the back of my mind since I learned our history five years ago.
There’s an expression: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Well, that’s bullshit, because we Willows know well our past and look at us now.
The same blocks that have been used for centuries standing in the old library, their surfaces softened by the feet of every other Willow Girl who stood on the same stumps of wood, and all I can think when I see them, the four lined up like they are, is how archaic this is, how fucking unreal. How they can’t do this to us.
Yet, here we are.
And they are doing this to us.
But it’s not us, really.
My shift is marked.
I’m unclean.
So it’s really my sisters.
Sometimes I’m not sure who I hate more, my own family for allowing this insanity generation after generation, or the Scafoni monsters for demanding the sacrifice.
“It’s time,” my father says. His voice is grave.
He’s aged these last few months. I wonder if that’s remorse because it certainly isn’t backbone.
I heard he and my mother argue once, exactly once, and then it was over.
He simply accepted it.
Accepted that tonight, his daughters will be made to stand on those horrible blocks while a Scafoni bastard looks us over, prods and pokes us, maybe checks our teeth like you would a horse, before making his choice. Before taking one of my sisters as his for the next three years of her life.
I’m not naive enough to be unsure what that will mean exactly. Maybe my sisters are, but not me.
“Up on the block. Now, Helena.”
I look at my sisters who already stand so meekly on their appointed stumps. They’re all paler than usual tonight and I swear I can hear their hearts pounding in fear of what’s to come.
When I don’t move right away, my father painfully takes my arm and lifts me up onto my block and all I can think, the one thing that gives me the slightest hope, is that if Sebastian Scafoni chooses me, I will find some way to end this. I won’t condemn my daughters to this fate. My nieces. My granddaughters.
But he won’t choose me, and I think that’s why my parents are angrier than usual with me.
See, I’m the ugly duckling. At least I’d be considered ugly standing next to my sisters.
And the fact that I’m unclean—not a virgin—means I won’t be taken.
The Scafoni bastard will choose one of their precious golden daughters instead.
Golden, to my dark. Golden—quite literally. Sparkling almost, my sisters.
I glance at them as my father attaches the iron shackle to my ankle. He doesn’t do this to any of them. They’ll do as they’re told, even as their gazes bounce from the closed twelve-foot doors to me and back again and again and again.
But I have no protection to offer. Not tonight. Not on this one.
The backs of my e
yes burn with tears I refuse to shed.
“How can you do this? How can you allow it?” I ask for the hundredth time. I’m talking to my mother while my father clasps the restraints on my wrists, making sure I won’t attack the monsters.
“Better gag her, too.”
It’s my mother’s response to my question and, a moment later, my father does as he’s told and ensures my silence.
I hate my mother more, I think. She’s a Willow quadruplet. She witnessed a harvesting herself. Witnessed the result of this cruel tradition.
Tradition.
A tradition of kidnapping.
Of breaking.
Of destroying.
I look to my sisters again. Three almost carbon copies of each other, with long blonde hair curling around their shoulders, flowing down their backs, their blue eyes wide with fear.
Well, except in Julia’s case.
She’s different than the others. She’s more…eager. But I don’t think she has a clue what they’ll do to her.
Me, no one would guess I came from the same batch.
Opposite their gold, my hair is so dark a black, it appears almost blue, with one single, wide streak of silver to relieve the stark shade, a flaw I was born with. And contrasting their cornflower-blue eyes, mine are a midnight sky; there too, the only relief the silver specks that dot them.
They look like my mother. Like perfect dolls.
I look like my great-aunt, also named Helena, down to the silver streak I refuse to dye. She’s in her nineties now. I wonder if they had to lock her in her room and steal her wheelchair, so she wouldn’t interfere in the ceremony.
Aunt Helena was the chosen girl of her generation. She knows what’s in store for us better than anyone.
“They’re coming,” my mother says.
She has super hearing, I swear, but then, a moment later, I hear them too.
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