by Lace Daltyn
“I doubt your father understood anything.”
“He understood that you were emotionally scarred and precious enough to wait for you to get over your past.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because he told me. He said your rose-colored glasses had been ripped off. He told me to be patient with you. To help you understand.”
“I never knew,” her mother said. “Never knew. Maybe—” Patricia sobbed. “Maybe he did understand, after all.”
They stood there, hugging each other, letting the tears heal the pain of the past.
Finally, as they pulled away, her mother latched onto Jenna’s ring finger. “Only a band?”
Jenna shrugged. “It’s all I want.”
With a deep sigh, Patricia nodded. “So be it.”
Jenna gave her mom another quick hug. “Thanks, Mom. I really want you to be happy for us.”
“But no church wedding? No minister?”
“The guy who married us said he was a minister.”
Her mother’s glance said she didn’t buy it.
“I guess we’ll need to cancel some things tomorrow.”
“Hey,” Jenna said. “I’ve got an idea. How about we cancel the wedding, but go ahead with the reception? Just as you planned it. All the hoopla and everything.”
“You’d do that? Josh, too?”
“He’d do it for me. And we’d both do it for you, Mom. I love you very much.”
“I love you, too, honey. More than I’ve been able to show for a long time. Maybe,” her mother whispered. “Maybe I can change.”
“We’ll both change,” Jenna said, smiling.
Chapter Eighteen
Patricia Wilton may not have gotten the wedding of her dreams, but she definitely got the reception. As Jenna and Josh posed for cake cutting pictures in his tuxedo and her simple wedding dress...the one she’d been married in...Jenna knew all was right with the world.
Her mother smiled like a peacock showing her colors. And Jenna got her own happily ever after. She now had a vastly improved relationship with her mother. Granted, she still hadn’t told her about her writing career, but it felt better to ease into certain things, no matter that Maggie wanted to out her. For now, her mother’s belief that Jenna did a lot of volunteer work would be just fine.
And what a career her writing had become. She’d finally looked at the financial statements. True, Mags had added to her royalties with the investments. But Jenna was receiving significant payments for her stories. It was enough that had Josh been destitute, they could have lived comfortably. So she gave Maggie a significant raise in addition to the new car she now drove, but only after they took her beater car to the junkyard together.
Now that things were on an even keel with her mother, Jenna could turn her attention to Josh, her smoking-hot husband. Until he decided what he wanted to do next, he’d taken on the job of marketing and promotions for her. He’d also taken it to heart, this promise to show her everything she’d been missing by waiting for their wedding night. In bed at night, on the couch in the morning, and even the more-than-occasional nooner. She could get used to this.
Life was good, she thought, as she stuffed cake into Josh’s surprised mouth.
Life was very good.
Epilogue
Drea’s penthouse
An evening in September
Darkness no longer enveloped the world Drea Fortier lived in. It had muted, morphed to a dusk-like gray. She wasn’t certain what to do about that. At her desk, reading the email, a rare smile touched her face. Jenna and Josh had reached past their issues and found their happily ever after. Another satisfied customer. It felt good to be able to show people that their dreams were there for the taking. They only had to reach out and grasp them.
Jenna had figured out that there were kinds of domination that were damaging and unhealthy, but that rising above that kind of hatred could be life altering. She knew Michael tried hard to convince her of the same thing. Each day now, he came in and opened her drapes. Drea wandered over to the edge of one window and looked out through the sheer panel that kept outside eyes, in the buildings around them, from prying. This simple act had ripped the cocoon of safety away from her and he did not understand that. She fingered the gauzy material. He could never know how hard it was for her to show her face, even through translucent material such as this. Never know of the evil that hunted her.
If he did, she felt certain he would protect her with everything he had, even his life.
Like an old-reel movie running across her mind’s eye with spikes on, the flashback blinded her.
It was early days. She had not yet figured out that no one would rescue her. No one knew where she was. She’d been kept in quarters akin to a jail cell, her door locked each time she returned after being given time to shower. She’d seen glimpses of other girls, some women, some nearer her own age. They never spoke, never looked at her. In fact, no one had said a word to her since her arrival. Quiet and sadness permeated the place. Drea wasn’t even sure she could still speak after these many days of silence.
This day, when the door opened, something was different. Two women motioned her to follow them to the showers.
They bathed her, perfumed her, and added the first makeup she’d ever worn. They settled a diaphanous white shift over her head and handed her a goblet of liquid to drink.
“It will help,” one of the women whispered. The other one glared at the one who spoke, but said nothing.
The liquid was sour and burned, but Drea knew the consequence of misbehaving. She’d felt the strap’s sting more than once.
She let them lead her to a set of ornate double doors and felt like she was entering a dream world.
“Don’t fight,” the kinder of the two women said. “It will hurt more if you do.”
They opened the doors and nudged her inside, then disappeared as they closed them behind her.
The bedroom was large and ornate and completely decorated in virgin white and gold.
Drea shook her head as she clawed her way back to the present and forced the memory to the dark depths of her brain. She would not think of the brutality of that day. There had been no gentle breaking of her virginity, but an ugly, painful plunging. She shuddered as her own long-ago screams echoed through her mind.
No one would ever know what she had endured. Drea had paid high prices in her young life. To involve Michael, as he wished, was too much. No matter how trained he was, no matter how much he thought he could protect her, he would be no match against the one who stole her life.
Drea knew she was beyond repair, that her life was measured in days. But she could still make a difference and do some good for others. She needed time before he found her.
She should send Michael away. She was afraid for him, and for herself. Another part of her, the one that had gotten her through it all, was angry. She thrust the drape away.
Damn Michael, anyhow. She was starting to care for him. And that could only mean trouble. For both of them.
The End
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Other Books by Lace Daltyn:
www.evernightpublishing.com/lace-daltyn
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Evernight Publishing
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