by Katee Robert
And I can’t stop it.
Frank dropped to the sofa against the far wall. “He will hurt you,” Frank said. The only reason Elliott hadn’t done something irreparable up to that point was that pushing her out of the company she lived and breathed would hurt her more. Without that option, Elliott was a wild card. He would destroy his children if he could. Frank nodded to himself. “I’ve been working on increasing the security in your building. The goal was to have it done before we came back from the Hamptons, but obviously that timeline changed. It will be finished in a few days. You’ll stay with me in the meantime.”
She raised one eyebrow, a deep understanding shifting through her hazel eyes. “I see.” Journey laughed softly. “God, you really are a big spiky marshmallow, aren’t you? Did you try to pull this shit with Beckett when he went toe-to-toe with my mother?”
“Beck’s just as stubborn as you are, and that time I backed down. But I won’t make the same mistake twice. It kills me that so much was stolen from him.”
“Frank…” She reached up and cupped his jaw. “You can’t save everyone.”
“You don’t think I know that? If I could have, I would have saved my parents.”
There it was. Out in the open. He’d been so fucking powerless when the cops came and took away his father, and during his mother’s rapid decline when he watched her slip through his fingers more and more with each day that passed. If she’d agreed to surgery and chemo, there was a chance she could have beaten the cancer, but she decided to forgo treatment. She died a little more each day and there was nothing Frank could do to stop it.
Just like he hadn’t been able to save Beck from a soul wound.
Just like all his precautions hadn’t saved Journey from being hurt.
He ran his hands over his head. He never lost control. Never. But these days he was a runaway train and there was no stopping it until he eliminated the threat. Taking Journey somewhere he could ensure her safety was the only thing that would calm him.
But she’d been hauled around enough in her life.
“Come home with me.” He stopped and tried to moderate his tone. “Please, Duchess. I refuse to lose another person I love over something I can prevent.”
Journey moved to stand in front of him and stared up into his eyes for a long moment. He was too fucked up to maintain his normal calm mask, and whatever she saw there was enough to have her nodding. “I just need to run by my place to pack an overnight bag.” She held up a hand when he would have protested. “This is just for tonight, Frank. You can’t hide me away in your secret house outside Houston and go to battle on my behalf. Anderson and I have a decision to make—Bellamy, too—and that can’t wait.” She shook her head. “Plus, I’ve already dropped the ball enough when it comes to my job. If I’m gone longer, the whole place will be falling apart.”
“Duchess—”
“That was not a request—that was me stating my plans.”
If he didn’t accept them, she wouldn’t leave with him. That much was clear. “My men stay in the room with you while you’re in the Kingdom Corp building.”
She opened her mouth, seemed to reconsider, and closed it. “They can stand by my office door and glower at anyone who walks past.” When he hesitated, Journey sighed. “Frank, no matter what you think is going to happen, I do have meetings that require confidentiality. I’m not calling the trustworthiness of your people into question, but the fact remains that they will stand outside a closed door while I conduct my business. Understood?”
How had he mistaken this woman for a broken thing? She might be bruised and a little battered in both body and soul, but that just made her strength shine brighter. If circumstances hadn’t taken her down her before now, they wouldn’t.
Elliott has to have realized that by now. He’s got to know he can’t undermine her and discredit her because she’s found her legs and she’s not going to bend to his will. He never expected her to go over his head to Esther, and he’s going to be furious when he finds out.
He’s going to want revenge.
He didn’t say it aloud. Journey had to know, even if she wasn’t willing to admit it. Either way, the bastard wouldn’t get to her tonight. “I understand.”
“Good.” She turned and headed for the door. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Eliza woke to both her brothers in her room. She stared dully at Anderson talking softly with the nurse and Bellamy slumped in the chair next to her bed as if he’d been there for a long time. Maybe he had. The drugs they pumped through her IV were strong enough that she slept more often than she didn’t, which was just as well.
At least in her dreams, nothing had changed.
She touched the bandages covering her face. She’d seen the damage this morning when they switched the dressings. Brutal cuts crisscrossed her face and a good portion of her shoulders, chest, and arms. Her lower half hadn’t been spared, either. When the car crumpled around her, the metal had shattered her hip and left leg. The doctors assured her that the surgery had been successful, and though it may take one or two more, she would walk again.
Eliza didn’t fucking care.
She closed her eyes, listening to the nurse murmur that she’d give them some privacy, and then the door shut. It was only then that she said, “I told them I didn’t want to see any of you.” She didn’t even sound like herself, her voice raspy and hollow. Fitting, in a way. The rest of her was ruined—why not that, too?
“Eliza.” This from Bellamy at her side.
She didn’t open her eyes, couldn’t see the pity on his face, couldn’t handle knowing that her brother thought less of her. Even without looking at him, she knew what he was thinking. “It’s not your fault, Bel. Even if you’d been driving, it still would have happened.” The cops had already been in to talk to her that first day, though they couldn’t be clearer in their disinterest in following up on whoever did this to her. Fine by me. She’d have the reminder every time she looked in the mirror. The people of Houston hated the King family as much as they loved them. Going from fashion model to scarred freak would create a media sensation all on its own. She didn’t want to be dragged through a trial—both in the courtroom and by the press.
No, better to let it all fall away.
“The doctor says you’ll make a full recovery,” Anderson said. He sounded closer, his big personality taking up too much room. He’d always been like that, the type to take charge of every situation he came across.
Well, too damn bad. She wasn’t a situation. She wasn’t even a problem he could solve.
Eliza pulled her blankets higher up her chest. Her hip and leg were encased in metal and plaster, so that the left side of her body lay exposed for anyone to see how truly fucked up she was. A full recovery. The very idea was laughable. She might walk again, but there was no recovering from this.
Her face would scar. Not the kind that could be covered up with the right makeup and careful lighting. Hideous red jagged marks that rent her features like a mirror someone had thrown a chair through.
Her career, her life, was over.
When she didn’t respond, Anderson continued, “I know Elliott has this bullshit merger in place, but I’ll find a way around it. If they want a merger, we can make that work, but I’m not selling you to secure it.”
Who would want to buy such a broken thing, after all?
“Eliza,” Bellamy said again.
She couldn’t turn from the pain in his voice despite her best efforts. She reluctantly opened her eyes to find her brother staring at her. The only other time she’d seen that look from Bellamy was when she’d come home after her first school dance, her mascara running rivers down her face because her idiot date had thought her being a pretty blonde meant she was down to fuck him in the locker room. Bellamy had taken care of her, calmed her down, and disappeared for several hours.
She still didn’t know what he’d done to her date, but when she saw the guy the next Monday in school, he looked
like he was about to pass out as he stammered an apology.
No one had asked her out for the rest of her high school career, expedited as it was.
“B…” She couldn’t tell him she was fine. He wouldn’t believe it, probably because it was a bald-faced lie. Eliza hadn’t been further from fine than she was in that moment. “I’ll survive.” A much weaker reassurance, but closer to the truth. Survival required the bare minimum, after all. One foot in front of the other, an inhale followed by an exhale. Life dragged on for everyone, including her.
She cleared her throat. “I really would like to be alone.”
Bellamy didn’t look away. “You’ll be here for a couple more days and then you’re coming home.” He probably meant that to be comforting, but it sounded like a special kind of hell. She’d die before she let her brother—or anyone in her family—become her caretaker.
A battle to fight when we get there.
The nurse ushered them out shortly after, for which Eliza was grateful. She didn’t trust herself not to strike out like the wounded animal she was. It wasn’t her brothers’ fault that Elliott had effectively sold her to secure his merger, and it sure as hell wasn’t their fault that someone had hurt her. Whether they targeted her because of the merger itself or because she was trying to flee it was anyone’s guess.
She. Didn’t. Care.
Her phone buzzed and she sighed when she saw her agent’s name—again. There was no avoiding this, no matter how much she wanted to. Eliza sucked in a breath and answered. “Diego, hey.”
“Are you okay?” He cursed. “You’re alive, which is something at least. I told you not to go back there, Eliza. This shit…” More cursing. “It’s bad.”
It struck her that he wasn’t talking about the accident. Eliza clutched her phone tighter. “What’s going on?”
“Word got out before I could control the story. I don’t know how they found out, but every single account you have dropped you. This morning. You’re unemployed, honey.”
She closed her eyes against the burning that started there. She would not cry, would not break down. Diego might not know how they found out, but Eliza had no illusions. As if her fucked-up face wasn’t enough of a message, whoever did this to her had ensured she had nowhere to run once she recovered.
As if anyone would have wanted her after they saw how she looked now.
It took her two tries to get her words in order. “This is it for me, Diego. Once all the payments clear for the work I’ve already done, I’m out.”
“Honey, we can find a way. Those assholes aren’t the only names in the business, and you’re Eliza fucking King. You’re too good to go out like this.”
He wouldn’t say that if he could see her now, broken and disfigured. “It’s over. I’m done.” She hung up before he could say anything more. It was nothing more than the truth, but Diego was persistent and brilliant. If she let him, he’d spin a hopeful future around her that would light the way through her recovery and keep her going.
It would be a lie.
It was over. Her modeling career. Her independence.
She looked down at her mangled body and bit back a whimper. Even the stupid marriage merger wouldn’t survive this.
Who will want me now?
She knew the answer before the question finished.
No one.
No one would want her, not now. Not ever again.
Chapter Twenty-One
It wasn’t until they arrived at Frank’s place that it hit Journey—Frank Evans told me he loves me. She sat in his surprisingly cozy living room and stared at the steaming mug of tea in her hands. Frank loves me. And she, asshole that she was, hadn’t said anything back.
He walked into the room, having disappeared briefly to change into a pair of lounge pants and a T-shirt. It should have made him look rumpled and at home, but there was nothing rumpled about Frank. She’d bet that he ironed that white shirt recently.
“I love you, too,” she blurted.
“I know.” He didn’t even miss a step as he prowled around the living room, checking the windows as if expecting someone to burst through them at any moment. He shot her a look. “I knew the second you whisked me away to the Hamptons to keep me safe.”
She set the tea on the table and glared. “Way to take the wind out of my sails, jerk.”
“What we have is hardly a traditional relationship.” He gave a half smile. “Life would be simpler if it was.”
“You mean if my abuser father wasn’t probably going to try to kill both of us before the month is out? Or the part where you helped my cousin banish my mother from Houston?”
His brows drew together. “Do you blame me for this?”
“No, of course not.” She sighed. “It’s entirely possible that Esther would have removed Lydia herself once she got tired of waiting for someone else to do it.” The Bancrofts wouldn’t have been satisfied with exile, either—not when they knew exactly what Lydia King was capable of. Journey reached for the tea again but aborted the move when she saw how badly her hands shook. “I don’t want to give in, Frank. I know it’s the smart thing to do, but I want that bitch out of my company and I want my father out of Houston.”
Frank crossed the room to stand in front of her. He picked her up before she had a chance to protest, and strode out of the living room and toward the stairs. “Enough.”
“Enough?” She shifted, but he just clenched her more tightly to his chest.
“We can talk this thing to death, but there isn’t a damn thing we’re going to accomplish tonight. Tomorrow you will sit down with your brother and figure out your next steps, and I will get my team together to start digging into the Bancrofts. Your father is the most immediate threat, and Esther will lighten up on the pressure if she thinks you’re bowing to her will. My team is the best. If there’s something to find—and there is—then we’ll find it.” He toed open the door to his bedroom and walked in without turning on the light. “If I thought for a second it wouldn’t backfire, her paying off a Russian mobster would be leverage enough. But it’s too dangerous. The Russians don’t play by the same rules we do.”
He sounded so damn grumpy that, despite everything, she smiled. “That offends you deeply, doesn’t it?”
“We’re not talking about any of them. Not for the rest of the night.”
She eyed him. “What are we talking about?”
“Us.” Frank set her on her feet and just as carefully pulled her dress over her head. He smoothed his hands over her body as if assuring himself that she was there and whole and okay. Just like I did to him a couple days ago. The thought might have made her laugh if it wasn’t so damn sad.
“Is there an ‘us,’ Frank?” She grasped his wrists, stopping him from stroking her sides. “Because I think we’re both fucked up enough to realize that love isn’t the stuff of fairy tales. It doesn’t earn you a happily ever after.” Journey huffed out a sad little laugh. “If it even is love. We’re probably getting infatuation mixed up with real feelings, and isn’t that sad?”
“Duchess, look at me.” He waited for her obedience before continuing. “Neither one of us came into this thing blushing virgins. Do you have a habit of getting starry eyed for every single man you’ve ever fucked?”
“Don’t be absurd.” She glared, but the effect of it bounced off his serious expression, so she gave up. “I see what you’re saying, but the question still stands—is there really an us?”
He lifted one hand, hers still attached to his wrist, and sifted his fingers through her hair. Journey pushed off his chest and half turned away from him. “You don’t do broken things, remember? I’m not going to just be magically fixed because I’ve fallen for you. You’re going to keep trying to protect me, and I’m going to keep trying to fight to be a full partner. We’ll be in a perpetual standoff.”
“Broken things scare the shit out of me because there’s no easy fix.” His voice roughened and seemed to reach across the distance to slide down her
spine. “Even if I could keep you safe from the enemies circling, I can’t keep you safe from me fucking up.”
Her throat burned and she blinked rapidly, still not looking at him. “Then I guess that’s that.”
“Is that how you want it to be?” He sounded closer, but he didn’t touch her again.
“No! How the hell could you say that?” She spun, nearly slamming into him, and skittered back a step. “I want you, you arrogant, stubborn asshole. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be someone who isn’t carrying around a lifetime of baggage, but I…” Realization dawned, sowing strength into her muscles and straightening her spine even as her words evened out. “I want this. I want you—us.”
“That’s all that matters, Duchess. We just have to jump together. We’ll figure out the rest on our way down.” He said it so calmly, as if he had no doubts that they’d figure out how to fly together, instead of crashing themselves to pieces on the rocks below. Frank held out his hand. “Will you jump with me?”
She wanted to take that hand so badly, she shook in an entirely different way. “If we do this, it will never be equal. I’ll always be the broken one, and you’ll always be the protector trying to step between me and the rest of the world. I’ll resent you. You’ll smother me.”
He laughed, the ass. “If you really think that, you haven’t been paying attention. I’m not keeping score, but I’d say we’re pretty damn equal.” He sobered. “You were right before. I should have got a hold of you first instead of doing even the smallest deal with the Russian. I made the wrong call.”
This thing didn’t look like she’d always imagined her perfect relationship. They fought. A lot. He was pushy and just as arrogant and stubborn as she’d accused him of being. Frank would never, ever just roll over because she demanded it. And sometimes he might refuse to do so just to prove he could.
But…
This was also the man who had listened to her pour her darkest poison out without looking away. He’d listened to her boundaries—her triggers—and done his best to work around them so she always felt safe. Not comfortable. Not by a long shot. But Frank would never harm her on purpose.
