Hope (Things That Matter Book 2)

by Casey Diam

  “What is that like? Is it just a room? Why can’t you leave? Does he have someone watching you?”

  Pain stabbed at my chest. I didn’t want to answer her. It wasn’t something she needed to worry about. The less she knew, the less likely it would be possible for her to do something impulsive.

  “I don’t—” Her hand pumped my cock to life, and I tried not to focus on the sensations. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?” Her head moved, and a warm, wet tongue flicked out and slid over my nipple.

  Fuck.

  “It isn’t important.” A groan hummed in my throat as she sucked the hardened tip into her mouth and swirled her tongue over the sensitive crest.

  Her breath teased my nipple as she spoke, “Tell me what it was like.”

  “Paige, I—”

  Her hand tightened around my cock as she bit down on my nipple, and my hips lifted off the bed.

  “Ah, fuck.”

  That felt fucking amazing and as my ass settled back onto the bed, I wondered if she could tell by the way I was throbbing in her hand.

  “Tell me.”

  I wanted to be stubborn so she would bite me again.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Paige was turning me into her little bitch, and I fucking wanted.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m curious. I want to see what it was like through your eyes.”

  Her tongue teased my nipple again, and like a horny animal, I thrust into her hand like we hadn’t just fucked.

  “It was dark, always dark, except for when someone brought me food.” The first few days, I would be limited to one small meal a day, but I couldn’t tell her that. “I couldn’t get out. The door was always locked. I would try it every day. There was only a bathroom and mattress inside the room. I masturbated a lot to keep my mind off the pain and other things.”

  My body stilled as my mind went back. “I never ran out of things to think about. Mostly, I’d fantasize about what life would have been like if my parents had loved me enough to keep me instead of giving me to Connor. Then when I was older, and had overheard his men saying that they couldn’t believe Connor had taken out my whole family. I wanted to be thankful because they hadn’t wanted me anyway, but it sucked. And when I asked him about it...that was the fourth time he locked me in that room. At least when that was happening, I thought I’d been adopted. Because knowing what I know now, I would have had to think about how much more fucked up it all was.”

  “Was it the same room you had while growing up? And wasn’t there a window you could climb through or something?”

  “No, it’s on the highest floor. There was no getting out, and the windows were all sealed with a grill inside. It felt like I wasn’t even in the house at all. Sometime I wouldn’t hear anyone talk for months. I thought I was going to go fucking crazy. But, sometimes, I could hear cars driving by at peak times of the day. I didn’t know if it was morning, when people were heading to work, or evening, when they were returning, but I looked forward to it after a while. It was the only thing keeping me connected to what was outside those walls.”

  “How many times has he done this to you?”

  “Four.”

  She resumed massaging my cock that had gone soft. “Did he come to see you in there?”

  “Once or twice close to the end. Just to threaten me or other people I knew, to see where my head was at, to see if I would be compliant.”

  “I want to ask what you did that would put you in jail, too, but, Caleb, I don’t want to know.”

  She sounded upset, and with the pain lacing her voice, my initial curiosity about why she was so interested in knowing about my time at the house faded. She was hurting for me because she’d reached inside me and taken the pain I hadn’t wanted to give to her, and fuck if I didn’t regret it.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Paige

  With my hand in Caleb’s, I walked up the driveway to the mansion, to the perfect life I’d once known. It looked the same as it had when I visited a few weeks ago. Overgrown bushes and untrimmed trees surrounded the building. Dried and fresh vines ran up the sides. I stopped and stared for a moment, trying to picture the way it used to be.

  Turning around, I looked at the moss- and dirt-covered stone fountain that used to be the center of a beautiful garden. I could almost see Reese, Alaina, and I lying in that garden, staring at the clouds as they traversed the sky or when we would use our hands to scoop water from the fountain and splash each other.

  Climbing the three steps to the door, I pushed the key into the lock. Caleb released my hand and stepped inside first, and I followed, stopping at the first whiff of fresh paint and sawdust. Someone else had been here or was here.

  Caleb turned to me for directions.

  Should we stay, or should we go?

  I swallowed and inhaled as I called out in the foyer, “Is anyone here?”

  I moved farther inside, noticing that the pieces of furniture that white sheets had been covering were no longer present. The flooring had been redone with new wooden panels, and a section of the wall separating the dining from the living room had been eliminated.

  What? No. Why?

  Caleb’s fingers combed my hair back, and his lips touched my temple. Placing my hand on his lower back, I leaned my head on his chest and inhaled, needing to breathe in a bit of his strength. When I exhaled my peace with the disappearance of everything I’d wanted to go through in the house, my hand drifted down his back, and I felt a familiar hard metal tucked against the small of his back. I hadn’t known he was carrying, but it settled me, knowing he was prepared.

  “I just can’t believe it’s all gone. Why would they take everything away after all this time? When I’m finally ready to deal with it. It was supposed to be mine to deal with.” Turning away from him, I started up the grand staircase, needing to see that everything was all gone. I walked from room to room, pausing in the rooms that had belonged to my parents, my sisters, or me. But there was nothing.

  “Who do you think did this?” Caleb asked as I gazed through my old bedroom’s window.

  He had stayed in his business suit, except for the tie, and the hem of his white dress shirt hung outside of his pants. One of his shoulders leaned onto the wall as he casually slipped a hand into his pants pocket. There was that dominance again that I often overlooked due to my own strong nature.

  My eyes traveled up his physique as I answered his question, “Your grandparents, I hope. It’s been vacant for five years. Who else would have access to it?” I looked back out the window, and the question I’d wanted to ask since my last therapy session came to mind. I turned my head. “Why do you think he wanted them dead?”

  With a slow shake of his head, Caleb replied, “My best guess is that they knew something they shouldn’t have.”

  “Like you and your mom being taken?”

  “Maybe, but that was years before they came to this place, looking for you guys. How about you? You’ve been here since you were a baby, so how did that happen?”

  I thought about that and sighed. The only person who had the answers to these questions was the man himself. Maybe that was what I should ask in my last letter to Alex Connor. I had written it earlier today, inspired by what Caleb had shared with me last night.

  My thoughts sobered with what we needed to do next. It was risky, but if we wanted more answers, it had to be done.

  A male voice echoed down the corridor, and my heart jolted the same time chills broke out over my skin. My ears perked up, and by the time I looked at Caleb, his gun was out, gripped in his hand at the side of his thigh.

  The rented car we used to come here was in the driveway, so whoever was out there knew someone else was here. Putting a finger on his lips, Caleb pointed for me to go to the closet.

  Does he not know me by now?

  I shook my head. There was no way I would let him put himself in danger to protect me, which was pathetic to think ab
out since he was already doing it every day he was with me.

  With three long strides, his body closed in on my stubborn stance while I listened for activity outside the room.

  “Please,” he whispered.

  I wanted to defy him, but he was the only one with a weapon, so I nodded.

  He moved to the doorway, peeped out, and then disappeared into the corridor.

  I walked to the window and peered outside, my heart thumping. I would not die here. Not like this. And Caleb...

  What if he gets shot?

  I couldn’t deal, knowing I’d waited behind.

  As I was about to exit, I heard footsteps, and I slid into the small space behind the door, peeking through the long slit the door hinges allowed. A tall figure entered and then another. Surprise would be my greatest form of defense, but as I edged out, silver-gray hair caught my eyes. Before I could make a run for it, his head turned, and he jumped, holding his chest.

  Grandpa.

  My eyes darted to the man next to him, assessing. He was bald-headed and bulky and looked like he was in his mid-forties.

  “Paige,” Grandpa mumbled, his bright blue eyes becoming glassy. “It’s really you?”

  I nodded. Scared. Excited. Confused. Worried.

  This was going to be my next move. Talking to my alleged kidnappers’ parents, Caleb’s real grandparents. There had to be something they knew that would get us closer to the truth about what had happened. Since I hadn’t gotten a chance to mention it to Caleb, I didn’t know if he was ready to meet them. He didn’t want to put them at risk by contacting them, and neither did I, but it was a little too late for that.

  “Hi,” I said, not sure what else to say. There was too much to say, but I wouldn’t say a word. At least not while the man next to him kept staring at me like he’d seen a ghost. “I was just leaving.”

  Shit, I shouldn’t have said that.

  God, I’m an asshole.

  “Dan, could you give us a moment?” Grandpa asked the man, who hurried out like he couldn’t wait to leave.

  I don’t trust him.

  I looked into the hallway to make sure Dan was walking away and not hovering to eavesdrop.

  Where did Caleb go?

  My next thought answered that question. He doesn’t want them to know he’s here.

  Whatever had happened in the past, Caleb’s grandparents couldn’t have known anything about it. If they did, they would have been hunted, too. Yet here I was, creating that risk for them. Shit, maybe Caleb was right, but it was too late. That Dan guy, whoever he was, had seen me. He could be a normal guy, or he could be linked to Connor.

  I rubbed my palms on my tights. “I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch. I was confused, suspicious, and even now, it isn’t safe. Is Grandma here, too?”

  “Yes. She’s in the car. We weren’t sure who we’d find in here.”

  “You shouldn’t come here. It isn’t safe until those guys get caught. They’re still out there, and they’re looking for me. So, I can’t trust anyone, and I really have to go, but...I have questions, a lot of them.”

  “I figured.” He cleared his throat. “My son wouldn’t have kidnapped you, Paige. You know that, right?”

  I nodded as he confirmed what I’d always known, that the Sawyers hadn’t kidnapped me. “Is there somewhere private we can meet? You, me, and Grandma?”

  ❧

  Caleb and I walked by the front desk at the hotel without stopping. We made a right, as instructed, and found the elevator on our left. As soon as I pressed the arrow pointing up, the doors opened. Caleb used a knuckle to press the button for the sixteenth floor. I wondered if he did that as a habit to avoid leaving fingerprints.

  Circling my arms around him, I looked up, needing to know he was okay with this.

  When I’d asked Grandpa to call that Dan dude and Grandma inside the mansion, Caleb had managed to slip out, unnoticed. We couldn’t be spotted together by anyone who knew about me and what had happened.

  Resting his hand on my shoulder, he looked down at me. Still seeing the worry etched in his face, I brought my hand up and rubbed a thumb between his brows. Even though his grandparents had been hoping to find him for years, Caleb thought they wouldn’t care to see him, especially when they found out what his dad had done to their daughter—his mom, Olivia Sawyer. But they didn’t need to know that, and it had taken me twenty minutes to convince him of that.

  “Still worried?” I asked.

  The only family he’d known were the evil ones, not the kind, loving grandparents I remembered spending time with—his grandparents—and there was nothing I wanted more than for him to meet them, so he could see that for himself.

  Squinting one eye, he lifted his hand, bringing his index and thumb close together to show me a little.

  I frowned at the duct tape wrapped around his broken finger. The sound of his guitar used to drift through the condo almost every day, and I hadn’t heard it since his finger was injured, reminding me once again of how much I hated Alex Connor.

  I pressed my cheek to his chest and tightened my arms around him until the elevator came to a stop.

  Room 1612 was only a few doors down the empty hallway on the right, and before I could knock, Caleb dragged me up against him, crushing his lips to mine. The pure intensity of it made my legs wobble. His tongue glided between my lips to toy with mine, and the taste of his lust ignited mine. Raw need peppered the nerve endings all over my body, and when my back hit the wall behind me with an oomph, his lips left mine.

  “Shit,” he whispered, pulling my hips from the wall.

  I whipped around to face the door. 1612. “Shit.” That hadn’t been the wall. Swallowing, I took a few deep breaths, but soon, my body was shaking with stifled giggles. Oops.

  Caleb’s hand slid around and pinched my nipple through my blouse, effectively shutting down my fit of giggles as he turned my laughter into hunger.

  “Okay, okay,” I uttered.

  The lock clicked, and my breath caught.

  God, this is embarrassing.

  I brought my hands up and fanned my face, quickly dropping them to my sides as the lock clicked.

  They had no idea I was bringing Caleb.

  Grandpa opened the door, and his eyes spent only a split second on me before they focused on Caleb. He hesitated and then said, “I didn’t know you were bringing company. Come in.”

  Grandma stood behind Grandpa, both of them looking as fancy as any wealthy person who spent lavishly on themselves. It made me wonder if Grandpa still had that old noisy truck that never did fit into their lifestyle. They looked the same as five years ago. And Grandma might be sixty-five, but she looked fifty with her hair pinned back and makeup flawless, and if I remembered her correctly—

  She came forward and threw her arms around me, and the memory of this softness, her smell, the familiarity was almost overwhelming.

  “God, Paige, I’ve missed you so much. I can’t believe it’s really you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.” I released her and hugged Grandpa, too, since earlier, I’d been too anxious to do anything other than rush out of that mansion.

  After what felt like minutes, I pulled back. “I have a surprise.” I looked at Caleb, and when my glance passed back to them, they were staring at him. “I don’t know if you want to sit down for this.”

  “We knew you’d be dating by now, Paige. Don’t be silly,” Grandma encouraged. “I think we can handle it.” A warm smile spread on her thin lips, and her eyes drifted to my stomach before coming back up with stars. “We can handle anything. Even if you were pregnant with quadruplets.”

  Maybe I should ask Caleb to sit down, because clearly she’s trying to give him a heart attack.

  My hand went to my neck. “Not quite. This is your grandson.” Pride swelled in my chest as the words left my lips. “Your real grandson. Caleb Sawyer.”

  Grandma’s hand flew to her mouth as she mumbled, “Oh my God,” shaking her head. “No. It can’t b
e. Is it?” Her eyes filled with tears, and they immediately streamed down her blush-covered cheeks.

  Grandpa had a hand to his chest. “Young lady, this is the second time today you’ve nearly given me a heart attack.”

  My own eyes welled with tears.

  “Nice to meet you,” Caleb said. He sounded so uncertain.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Caleb

  I didn’t know what to feel or how to act. These people were more Paige’s grandparents than they were mine.

  “I’m Harry.”

  Gray stubbles covered the tall, slender man’s jaw, and he had a full head of silver hair. He extended his hand, and I took it, expecting a feeble handshake, but it was strong, welcoming, as he covered the back of my hand with his other hand. I nodded as he released my hand, only to be squeezed into a hug by the blonde-haired, older woman as she secured her arms around me. I wasn’t as thrown off as I would have been if Paige hadn’t briefed me on what to expect. Still, I’d never felt this awkward in my life.

  “I’m Lydia.” She stepped back and brushed a tear from her face, and Harry circled an arm around her shoulders. “Today has been the best day I’ve had in a really long time. Thank you for coming.”

  “Dinner should be here in a few minutes. We brought the photo albums Paige asked us to.” Harry stepped away from his wife and lifted five large albums off the dining table and deposited them in my hand.

  Paige’s description was so accurate that I wanted to smile.

  Mrs. Let’s Be Best Friends and Mr. Let’s Get Straight to the Point.

  I sneaked a peek at her, and she folded her lips, smiling.

  Mrs. Sawyer walked us to the sitting area and sat next to me on the sofa. “So, how did you find each other, and how long ago?”

  “We met at a coffee shop about two months ago,” Paige replied. “We didn’t know we were connected at first, but, Grandma, no one can know you’ve seen us.”

  I leaned back, so Mrs. Sawyer could watch Paige explain what we’d talked about before coming here, repeating some of what we already know, whilst keeping out any mention of their daughter, Olivia Sawyer.