by Cyndi Raye
She had emotional walls and did not know how to let others in. Even at the age of twenty-five she had no true friends, only acquaintances. Dale had been so sweet to her, showering her with attention she had never received before.
She could not help but fall for him.
Astonished that he, who could have any woman he wanted with a crook of his finger, wanted a nobody like her, she said yes when he proposed four months into their relationship.
They moved in together a month after that and the abuse started soon after.
They had just attended dinner with a few of his work colleagues. When they got home, the slap came out of nowhere and left her stunned as he railed about her flirting with one of the males.
That was first time he hit her. The next day there had been flowers and apologies. He just could not bear the thought of losing her, he said.
“I overreacted. It will never happen again.”
That had been his promise.
He had never kept his promises.
That first time turned into a second and a third and a forth, the beatings becoming more and more severe. He was careful to hit her in places that were easy to conceal with clothes and makeup.
He would blame her for his rages and even though she knew better, she started believing his accusations. She started believing that he was the way he was because of her actions and inactions. That she was unlovable and she deserved what she got.
At first, she thought if she loved him harder he would change then she was too ashamed to turn to anyone for help.
Finding out she was pregnant was her wake up call. She allowed herself no more excuses. She had to get away from this man – this monster – not only for her sake but for her unborn child.
She packed a bag, left the house they lived in one morning after he went to his prestigious position at the national bank and went to the closest police station. She showed them the bruises from withstanding his torture the night before and answered their endless questions.
He was arrested as he was leaving for lunch. Dale’s family had connections she could not fathom. As the son of a prominent New York senator, he believed himself above the law. He had been bailed out within two hours.
Then he came after her, angry at the public humiliation. He had beat her so badly she had to be hospitalized for a week. Broken ribs, a fractured wrist, a concussion and three stab wounds. That was the damage he inflicted before he was stopped.
She was lying in a pool of her own blood, near death when her screams finally summoned someone to help her.
No amount of connections could save him from a jail sentence after that. A judge sentence him to ten years in prison for attempted murder.
Yet here he was standing before her years too early.
When she tried to pull the bedroom door closed behind her, he stopped the motion.
That panic started dragging her under again. “Please. You said you wouldn-“
He laughed. “Don’t worry so much, pet. I’m not going to do anything to little Jasmine. That’s her name, right? Not unless you force me to.”
She tried to get the focus away from Jasmine. “What do you want, Dale?”
He smiled while he looked her up and down. She was dressed in jeans and a summer blouse, clothes that covered most of her body. Under that slimy gaze, she felt exposed.
His answer heightened the sense of approaching doom making her heart beat too fast.
“You, Caro," he addressed her by his nickname he had for her. He knew she hated it. "That's what I always wanted. To own and possess you. You keep resisting me though. Things would be so much easier for everyone if you would stop that. Just accept your fate, Caro."
He sighed as if disappointed in a wayward child then continued, “We can dump the kid. I never wanted any. No one else can have any of your attention. It’s time we go back to the way things were.”
“I am not coming back to you, Dale. We are never going to be together again.” The denial was instinctive.
The backhand was swift and the pain in her mouth was instant. Her head moved back with the force of it and she tasted blood.
“You seem to think you have a choice in this.” His eyes were gleaming with sick satisfaction as she tuned to look at him. “If you think I’m letting another man snatch up what is rightfully mine then you’re mistaken.”
He pulled out an envelope from his back pocket and pushed it into her hand. “Open it.”
The pictures inside were of her and Zach. She gasped. Most of them were from their sessions in his condo and the beach. There were a few of when they ran into each other at the park. The last one was of them on the front porch.
They looked like they were about to kiss, something that had been a very real possibility at the time.
“Yes, I know all about your little client.” Dale snarled the last word and gripped her jaw, his hold bruising. “I’ve known where you are and what you’ve been doing every second of every day since you got me locked up. I’ve let you humiliate me enough. That stops today.”
He lifted the gun and trailed it across the skin over her collarbone and neck.
“You see, the thing is, if I can’t have you, then no one else can.”
He was feeding off her terror. She could see that yet she was powerless to stop the emotion from bleeding off her.
Bitter regret was on her tongue. She had taken a self-defense course after Jasmine was born. She knew the moves to disarm a man twice her size. She was thinking of those moves in her head.
Her body was reacting on automatic to Dale’s presence though. She could not perform any of these movements because all she wanted to do was cower, to protect herself from the coming blows.
She closed her eyes against his image. Maybe that would help her find the courage to fight back.
She braced her hands against his chest and pushed.
Her eyes flew open when he went flying with way more force than she should have been able to muster.
Zach had peeled the other man off her like he weighed nothing more than one of Jasmine’s dolls.
Caroline knew the sickening crunch of cracking bone. It echoed in the hallway. Usually she was on the receiving end of the bashes. This time it was Dale’s screams that decorated the space.
Zach’s strikes were quick and precise. The gun was removed from Dale’s grip with a smooth motion, leaving him defenseless against Zach’s relentless attack. The difference in their strength and fighting skill stretched miles.
Dale slumped on the floor. His face was bloodied and his arm laid awkwardly against him.
“Get up and fight me, you bastard. Not so tough when the playing field is level, eh?”
Zach was still laying into the downed man. If she did not do something, he would kill the convict.
“Zach,” she said.
She barely got the word out passed the lump in her throat. It was hardly above the volume of a whispered but Zach heard her. His entire body went tight and he froze. He turned to face her and she saw someone she did not know.
His fists were red. His face was hard and ruthless. It was the very opposite of what she knew him to be. So much more of a threat than her ex could ever hope to be. He threw the beaten man away from him as two men rushed up the stairs.
Zach came toward her. His eyes roamed over her body, accessing.
She took a step back, instinct coming to the forefront when faced with such a formidable predator.
H]is eyes softened when he looked in to her fearful ones. He opened his arms and said, "Come here, Angel. I would never hurt you. Never."
She hesitated but in the end, she fell into his arms, sobbing her heart out yet feeling safe for the first time in what felt like forever.
Chapter 5
Zach turned the key and the engine shut off.
He had just pulled into his reserved parking spot in the condo building. It was about three o’clock in the morning. Jasmine was passed out in the back seat, strapped into the car seat they had rem
oved from Caroline’s car. Caroline was in the passenger seat.
The sparse lighting cast angles across her face. It revealed her tiredness and the stress of the last few hours. She looked straight ahead and he touched her hand to get her out of the negative head space he knew she was falling into.
“Let’s go in,” he said, bringing her hand up to kiss the back.
The police had shown up shortly after Zach had almost beaten the manic criminal to death. He took a shuttering, deep breath. When he had entered the house and seen the man looming threateningly over Caroline, pressing that gun against her porcelain skin…
Zach was not a man prone to letting anger take over his senses.
He had already been on the edge imagining her in danger, hurt... The sight sent him in a realm of where only rage existed. He had intended to kill that man with his bare fists.
Then she called his name.
Like water to flames, she doused his rage with her voice.
Then shame settled in.
He was behaving no better than a beast – no better than the criminal at his feet. He did not feel bad for his actions – he would do far worse to make sure she was safe. He was ashamed that she had witnessed it – had seen him like that. He had placed fear in her eyes. She had felt the need to physically step back as he had approached.
When he learned about her past abuse, he felt like even more of a heel.
She had been scared of him and he hated that.
He mentally sighed. There was nothing he could do about it now except treat her right and show her real men did not hurt the woman they called their own. No man would willingly hurt the woman he loved.
And there was no doubt Zach was in love.
He carried Jasmine, toting a bag with her supplies on his shoulder. He twined the fingers of his free hand with Caroline’s and led her to his place. After Dale had been carted off in an ambulance, secured in police custody and they had been questioned, Zach let her know she was staying with him.
There was no way he was letting her and Jasmine spend the night alone after what they had been through.
He expected her to protest and was already planning his rebuttals. He was not taking no for an answer.
When she said, “Okay,” he breathed a sigh of relief.
When they stepped inside his home, he looked at it, trying to see it through it through her eyes.
The design was modern. It was clearly a bachelor pad. It was not a place for raising kids.
Caroline’s place was rented and too small for the huge family he was hoping for.
He mentally began planning getting a place with more bedrooms and lots of yard space for their kids to run in the future.
They got Jasmine settled in the guest bedroom by placing the bed against the wall and barricading the other side with pillows so she would not fall off.
She was oblivious to the danger she had been in. When they retrieved her from the closet, she had still been talking on the cell with Ben, who he had passed the phone to as he broke the speed limit four times over getting to their house.
She had loved the excitement of the flashing lights and cop cars, thinking it all just a game.
She settled in the covers and sucked on her thumb without a care in the world.
The two grown ups stepped out in the hallway and an awkward silence fell. Zach wanted to do and say the right things to make this better for Caroline. He had no idea what it was like to survive the things she went through.
He would spend the rest of life trying to make up for what that bastard did to her though.
He brushed her tousled hair away from her face and said, “Tell me what I can do to make you feel better.”
His words broke the dam.
One tear escaped then another and she started to sob. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to the couch. She folded into him, trying to make herself smaller.
He stroked her hair, touching his lips to her forehead. His heart broke hearing the harsh grief spilling out.
He was pissed and the murderous anger aimed at Dale Harrison welled again. Seeing the bruise on her lips where the madman had hit her only made the insidious emotion grow bigger.
He pushed it down. This was not about him. This was about Caroline and being strong for her.
“It’s okay. Let it all out,” he crooned.
She suddenly fought his hold and her wet eyes met his. They were heated and she shouted. "No, it's not okay. I am tired of being weak. Of crying. None of these tears change any of it. I can't go back and make myself stronger. I should have walked away the first time he did it and I did not. What does that say about me? What kind of person does that make me?”
“Listen to me. You’re not to blame for any of this.” He cupped her face, making sure she was paying attention to what he was saying. "Dale is a sick man. He is a master manipulator. I have come across too many men like him and they’re all the same. They prey on other person’s vulnerabilities. They need to beat down on others to feed their dreadful egos.”
“But-”
"No buts. You're a fighter, Caroline. You're beautiful and resilient. You're a survivor and I am honored to know you. So if you need to cry, get it out, right here in my arms. Think of it as a purge. You’re getting rid of all the bad emotions to let good stuff in."
She shook her head, more tears spilling onto her cheeks.
"Yes." He was adamant. "Yes. I'm going to keep telling you this until you believe me. It is his loss, not loving you right."
She placed her head back on his shoulder, her crying gentling into sniffles after a few minutes.
Her body went lax. She fell asleep like his nieces and nephews did – like Jasmine had done while he held her when her mother talked with the police officers. She descended into unconsciousness between one breath and the other.
Zach's mother once told him that people fell asleep like that when they felt safe.
He was glad he provided that comfort to her because the emotion swirling inside him felt anything but safe.
Dale was going to learn that Caroline now had individuals in her corner with reaches in far more places that his family did. Zach did not flaunt it but he was the recipient of a sizeable trust fund he had only marginally dipped into.
Charles Cody came from old money – lots and lots of it – and had businesses and investments the world over. He made sure all his children never wanted for anything. Not only that, the BKH Bad Boys were his extended family. Between all of them, they had amassed a network of connections in the domestic and international defense force.
Zach claimed Caroline and her daughter as his own. All these people would back him in protecting them for that reason alone. Zach had already had eyes on Dale and would know every move he made for as long as it took to make sure Caroline and Jasmine were safe. If he so much as breathed in her direction again, he was dead man.
Zach would make sure of it.
As it was the creep would be going straight to jail once his stay in the infirmary was over. He would not be getting out for a very long time.
Caroline stirred, turning her face into the space between his neck and shoulder, breathing a sigh against his skin.
As much as he loved the feel of her in his arms, he knew she would be more comfortable in bed. Zach rose with her in his arms and made his way around the furniture in the darkened room.
He dressed her down to her underwear and fitted her with one of his t-shirts. Trying to be gentlemanly, he kept his head turned away while he did so.
He tucked her under the covers of his king-sized bed, pushing her hair away from her face.
A few minutes later, he checked in on Jasmine. After making sure she was comfortable, Zach left the bedroom with a warm feeling in his chest.
His dream was coming true – he had found his family.
***
Caroline was not sure what woke but her eyes snapped open.
She was lying in an unfamiliar room. Pale light from the rising sun allo
wed her to make out the double doors that went out to a balcony and white walls.
Immediately, the events of the night before crashed into her memory and she sprang up.
Strong arms caught her before she got very far. "Hey, easy now. What's the matter?"
The panic she felt receded at Zach's voice.
They were in what she assumed was his bed. Although she had been to his condo several times for their therapy sessions, she had never been in here.
His chest was bare, abs defined into a washboard. She knew there were fine hairs that almost blended into his tanned skin but it looked hairless in the dim light.
His scars were lighter now and did not detract from his attractiveness. In fact, they added a raw quality to his looks to prevent them from being too perfect.
He was a wet dream come true.
Hardness lifted the black pajama pants he wore. Looking at him, she felt her sex flutter and dampen in response.
Zach's nostril flared and his eyes narrowed, sharpening as if he was pulling the sultry thoughts out of her head. His gaze dropped to her lips. She had no idea when she came to rest her hand on his chest but she felt his heart beat keep up beneath it.
He raised his gaze once more and she knew what was coming. He was going to kiss her. Did she want that?
Her body was screaming yes but her brain was scrambling to make sense of what she was feeling.
Her thoughts stalled when he leaned forward and touched his lips to her skin.
Instead of kissing her mouth though, he pressed his lips just behind her ear.
Goose bumps broke out on her skin and the marks had nothing to do with coolness produced by the air conditioning. She shuddered when he lightly nipped where he had kissed.
"Oh, Zach," she cried.
Zach pulled her over him and raised his head until their lips were level.
"Yes, I like when you call my name when we're like this," he said, hands moving over her back to cup her bottom.
The words feathered over her lips, a caress on its own.
He shifted his hips and she found herself riding his hardness. Even with the clothes preventing skin to skin contact, she burned.
