Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3 - New Adult Romance)

by Helena Newbury

  I clicked on the name change and an error message popped up. The records were sealed by the court. Now the anger changed to fear. She’d been worried that her past was going to catch up with her.

  What if it finally had?

  ***

  Dawn was breaking over the city when I reached Jasmine’s building. I hammered on her door, presuming I’d have to wake her. But when she opened the door, it was obvious she hadn’t slept at all.

  She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt—not her usual sort of outfit. And my guts twisted when I saw the fresh burn mark on her cheek, just below her eye. But neither of those were what made her look different. It was something in the way she held herself. Jasmine was smaller than me, but she had presence—she strutted like she was ten feet tall. This woman in front of me looked tiny. She looked broken. The need to just scoop her up into my arms and pull her close was overwhelming.

  So that’s exactly what I did. I pushed straight in through the door and lifted her off the floor, one arm under her ass and one across her back, and pressed her against me.

  She went stiff in my arms. “Wait! I told you—”

  “I know, Jasmine. I know that’s not really your name. I know you didn’t really sleep with Tyler. I know you’re running from someone.” I felt her stiffen even more against me. “Now if you want to break up with me—fine. You can do that. But not until I know what’s going on and know you’re okay.”

  She was breathing fast, now, her face against my chest. Not trying to escape but not talking, either. It felt as if she was trying to decide. I loosened my hug enough that I could look her in the eye. “Because you’re not, are you? You’re not okay at all.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I can’t—Ryan, I can’t—”

  “Yes you can.”

  Again she shook her head. “If I tell you, you won’t—” She swallowed. “You won’t want to be with me. That’s why I had to—”

  I gripped her tight. “There is nothing that can have happened to you, nothing you can have done that could stop me loving you.” I searched her face. “Don’t you know that by now?”

  A single tear escaped her eye. She twisted away from me. “You say that but….”

  She was going to send me away, break up with me because she couldn’t risk telling me the truth. I had to convince her, now, or lose her forever.

  I brought her back to face me. “Jasmine, I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. You’re the one thing—the only thing—that’s important to me anymore. Whatever’s going on, I’m here for you. Whatever you need to do, I’ll support you. Don’t shut me out. Not now.”

  Silent tears were trickling down her cheeks. I could see the battle going on inside her.

  “My name’s not Jasmine,” she said at last, her voice raw with emotion. “It’s Emma.”

  Chapter 65

  Jasmine

  I sat Ryan down on the couch in the living room, sat beside him and then, suddenly, I couldn’t talk. The words just stuck like glue in my throat and I could only stare at him helplessly.

  He just nodded once, his gorgeous face so brooding and solemn I thought my heart would break. Then he did the last thing I expected. He put his hands around my waist and pulled me into his lap, facing away from him. He crossed my arms over my chest and wrapped his arms around them, so I was double-cuddled. It wasn’t a sexual embrace, even though I could feel the hard lines of his muscles pressing against me. It was the ultimate in comforting hugs. I could hear his breathing behind me, feel his reassuring presence all around me but, crucially, I wasn’t looking at him. I could talk and it was almost as if I was only talking to myself.

  There’s a reason they have a screen in a confessional booth.

  I started at the beginning, with my dad. My childhood in Chicago. My mom dying. I told him about a life of petty crime and I could imagine him thinking of all the times I’d lied to him, all the times I’d let him think I was a wide-eyed innocent when, really, I’d been around criminals far more than he had. He’s going to hate me, I thought.

  But I kept going. The room was still dim, and that made it easier. I watched the windows slowly fill with the light of dawn and I told him about my dad’s drinking and the corrupt cops on his payroll and the money lending.

  I told him about my rape and his arms tightened around me, going hard as steel. I could feel the rage building and building inside him, his breathing becoming low growls. I’m disgusting, I thought. Tainted. He’s not going to want me anymore.

  But then his embrace softened and he cradled me against him, drawing my head back until he could kiss my wet cheek, and then he rested his face against mine and just held me there, silently.

  “Do you still love me?” I choked out.

  “I love you more than ever.”

  Fresh tears started rolling down my cheeks, but with them came words. I was crying the past out of me.

  I told him about how I’d thought about killing myself, and how I’d known it was going to happen again. And then I reached the part about Oaks, the cop. His murder, and my part of it.

  “I should have gone to the police,” I said in a strangled voice. “Years ago. I let him get away with it.”

  “He would have killed you,” said Ryan without hesitation. “It wasn’t the time, then.”

  I told him about my dad showing up and I felt him go tense with rage again. “He was here?!” he asked disbelievingly.

  I nodded. I knew exactly what he was thinking: I would have killed him for you.

  I described how my dad had threatened me—and him. “He knows about you,” I said. “He must have got it out of Nick.” I felt sick, thinking about what he must have done to my brother during those two long nights. “If I testify, he’ll kill you.”

  “Not if I kill him first,” said Ryan savagely.

  I shook my head and told him about the investigation, and how my dad had taken Nick with him. “He’s in custody, now,” I said. “And I have no idea what he’s done with Nick. He must have stashed him somewhere, probably shot up with drugs. Without Nick, I’m the only witness.” I told him about how I’d lied to the detectives. And then that was everything. All my lies had been exposed and I was sitting there in his lap, the soft light of dawn painting me in golds and oranges where there’d been only darkness before.

  He lifted me off his lap and turned me to face him. My eyes were red from tears and my cheeks were wet all the way down to my neck. I could barely meet his eyes. I couldn’t bear to see the pain I’d caused by lying to him for so long, or the rage at how I’d let a cop killer go free for so long, and how I was letting him get away again, now.

  But all that I could see in his eyes...was love.

  He leaned forward and kissed each cheek in turn, kissing away my tears. “You didn’t do a thing wrong,” he told me. “You survived. You did what you had to do.” There were tears in his own eyes. “It would be impossible for me to stop loving you.”

  And then I was throwing my arms around him and hugging him close, wracking sobs of relief shaking my whole body. The tears were still going when I kissed him, a long, deep, healing kiss that gradually slowed our breathing and gave us strength.

  It was a long time before he spoke. “Emma,” he said, his voice tight, “You have to decide what to do. I’ll be here for you no matter what. If you testify, you don’t have to worry about me. I can look after myself.”

  I thought of Oaks. “He had a family,” I said in a small voice. “They never even knew what happened to him, until they found the body. He just disappeared one day and left them all.”

  Ryan nodded slowly. I knew he was thinking about Hux because I was thinking the same thing.

  I knew what I had to do. Even if it meant putting myself in danger.

  “But what about Nick?” I whispered.

  Ryan shook his head. “Your dad can’t kill him,” he said. “If he shows up dead in the middle of the trial, it’s way too suspicious. You’re right—he’ll have him stashed somew
here. He’s safe, for now.”

  I looked deep into his eyes. I was utterly terrified...but if there was one person I trusted to get me through this, it was Ryan. Big, honest, incorruptible and stubborn as an ox. The only cop I’d ever trusted.

  I could feel something stirring inside me, deep inside the scared girl that was Emma. Something I hadn’t felt in over three years. Hope.

  I’d constructed Jasmine because Emma’s life was over, because she was broken beyond repair. But somehow, Ryan had fallen for her and slowly brought her back with his love. Maybe I didn’t have to run anymore. Maybe I could take my old life back.

  Maybe I just had to fight for it.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll call the detectives and tell them I want to testify.” I took a deep breath. “But first, there’s someone I need to be straight with.”

  ***

  Karen arrived with Connor but I got Ryan to take him into the kitchen for a beer while I huddled with Karen in my bedroom. It’s funny: the bedroom had always been the most Jasmine room in the house, full of boudoir chic. It felt like someone else’s place, now. I wondered if I’d be able to live with all the feather boas and silk.

  Karen stared at me, her eyes huge and frightened behind her glasses. It had still been early when I’d called her and she hadn’t had time to put her contacts in, so she looked like the Karen I remembered, before her transformation. I sat cross-legged on the bed, facing her, and tried to find a place to start.

  “First, I want to say sorry for lying to you,” I began. “And not just lying to you. I did that to Nat and Clarissa, too. But you’ve always been my best friend. I should have come to you. I should have—”

  I broke off. Big, choking sobs were coming up from inside me. Damnit. I thought I’d gotten it all out of my system with Ryan. I’d pictured myself apologizing and then serenely telling the tale.

  Karen leaned forward and grabbed my arm. “Jasmine, what’s happened?! Is it Ryan?” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “Did he—”

  “No.” I took a deep breath. “This was long, long before Ryan. Before I came to New York. In Chicago.”

  In halting tearful starts, I told her. When I got to the rape, she threw herself forward and latched onto me, clinging to my front, and refusing to let go. She may have been tiny, but the power of the hug was out of all proportion to her size.

  I told her about running to New York and becoming Jasmine. I told her how Ryan had brought me, Emma, back to life. I told her about my dad showing up and that I had to testify.

  By the end of it, she was in tears, too. “Why didn’t you tell me?!” she sobbed. “I understand why you lied at first, but not now, not now we’ve known each other for years!” She looked so hurt that a huge swell of guilt rose up inside me. “You should have told me last year. When I helped you that night, when you were going to become an escort!”

  I nodded. It was true. I should have.

  “What changed?!” She took off her glasses and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, but fresh tears were already springing free.

  I was sobbing too. “You did! You suddenly...grew up! You had Connor, and contact lenses and, and... and a piercing! You didn’t need me anymore!”

  She looked astonished. “That’s why you’ve been distant?”

  “Me?! I’ve been distant?!”

  We stared at each other. And then I was pulling her into my arms. “I’m sorry,” I blubbed. “I thought...I thought you were all sorted and grown up and didn’t need me.”

  “You idiot,” she said into my neck. “I’ll always need you. I have a million questions about how to have a proper relationship, now I’m with Connor. And I don’t feel I can ask because everyone expects me to be all...okay. But I’m not okay. I don’t know what I’m doing!”

  I clung to her just as she’d clung to me. “I’ll always be there for you,” I told her. It was only now that I realized how much of an aching void she’d left when I’d drifted apart from her. That’s how you lose best friends. Not with a sudden break-up, because you love each other too much to let that happen. Instead, you just drift apart and that’s even worse because you don’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late. But now I had her back.

  “Let’s never do that again,” I whispered as we rocked back and forth, bodies locked together, and I felt her nod.

  When we’d finally dried our eyes, I shook my head. “I’ve don’t know if I can do this,” I told her. “I know I need to testify. But he said he’d kill Ryan. He’ll kill me too. I’m scared.” I bit my lip. “What do we do?”

  Karen grabbed my shoulders and leaned close, looking me in the eye. “Fenbrook girls...assemble!”

  Chapter 66

  Jasmine

  Nat and Darrell were the first to arrive. They came as fast as they could, arriving on Darrell’s motorcycle. Darrell joined the growing throng of guys in the kitchen and I looked at Nat, then at Karen. “I’m not sure if....” I didn’t know if I could bear telling the story twice more. “Should we wait for Clarissa? She’s in Vegas.”

  Karen shook her head. “I called her as soon as you called me. She was already on her way back.”

  Even as she said it, there was the throb of a two-stroke from the street outside. Neil and Clarissa roared up on Neil’s Harley and moments later there was the clump of Neil’s biker boots on the stairs.

  Clarissa, when she appeared, looked...different, somehow. I caught Karen’s eye and she nodded. She could see it, too.

  Clarissa noticed us looking and shook her head. An I’ll tell you later shake. “What’s up?” she asked. “Karen sounded worried.”

  I took her and Nat through to my bedroom. Karen came, too, and held my hand as I started to speak. “My real name,” I told them, “is Emma.”

  ***

  “We should have spotted it,” said Nat savagely when I’d finished. “I was too caught up in—Jesus, all sorts of stupid crap.”

  “I’m a good liar,” I told her.

  Clarissa shook her head. “And I went off to Vegas. I knew something wasn’t right, but you were with Ryan, you seemed so happy….”

  “Ryan’s the one good thing to have come from this,” I whispered.

  The three of them pulled me into a complicated group hug.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you all,” I sobbed as the tears started again.

  The hug tightened. “What you did wasn’t wrong,” said Nat softly. “Wanting to escape, to become somebody else...that’s not wrong. What was wrong was trying to do it by yourself!”

  I nodded and then shook my head to tell them I’d never do it again, and then we were all sobbing again.

  When we emerged from the bedroom, it was as one solid group. Karen hadn’t released my hand the entire time. Clarissa and Nat were behind me, their arms around my shoulders. Both of them were red-eyed from crying.

  The guys: Ryan, Connor, Darrell and Neil, emerged from the kitchen. I caught a glimpse of my friends in the mirror. Karen’s eyes were scared but determined behind her glasses. Nat’s face was ashen—she was unsettled, I think, by how close she’d come to drifting away from us completely. Clarissa’s jaw was set, her eyes diamond-hard chips of ice. She was on my side, and even I was a little scared of her.

  I looked at Ryan and then at the other three guys. Connor, all Irish charm and honesty. Darrell, that mix of confidence and intelligence—millions of dollars and an engineer’s brain that didn’t care about the money. And Neil, with his leathers and his long, blond hair, a genuine Dom and a borderline criminal. Not one of them was under six feet. I’d have trusted any of them with my life.

  But they were men, and I couldn’t tell them. Not about all of it. Not about the back room.

  I spoke before anyone else could. “The other girls can fill you in. I need a drink.” And I marched through to the kitchen and, with shaking hands, poured myself a large white wine. I didn’t sip. I glugged. And I didn’t stop until I heard Karen’s soft but precise tone,
laying it all out for them.

  There was a crash as someone dropped their beer bottle.

  A moment later, there was a thump that made the saucepans in the kitchen clatter. Neil had just punched the wall.

  Only when it was quiet did I dare to walk back through and face them. The guys had all instinctively grabbed hold of their women. Every one of them was looking at me with pained eyes, desperate to help. All three couples encircled Ryan and me, their hands on our shoulders. I’ve never felt such an outpouring of love.

  But that brought a new problem.

  “If I do this,” I said, “I’m worried it might...my dad’s friends might try to hurt us. Not just me and Ryan but maybe you, too.” I swallowed. “The safest place might be far away from us, for a while.”

  Everyone closed in tighter.

  “Wild fucking horses,” muttered Connor. The others nodded.

  “I could get you police protection,” said Ryan. “A couple of guys watching the apartment. But….”

  He’d had the same thought as me. “My dad was paying off cops all over Chicago,” I told the others. “Some of them probably have friends here in New York. I’m not sure I trust the cops.” I looked at Ryan. “Except you.”

  “Connor,” said Karen quietly. “Can you be Jasmine’s bodyguard? When Ryan can’t be there.”

  Connor cracked his knuckles and nodded.

  “But that leaves Karen on her own in her apartment—” I started.

  Karen started to argue. Darrell held up his hand for silence. He wasn’t a man who spoke often but, when he did, everyone paid attention. “You’re moving into the mansion,” he said. He looked around the group. “All of you. Until this thing is over.”

  Nat nodded. “We’ve got plenty of space.”

  “Jasmine’s going to have to make a trip,” said Connor. A long one, if the trial’s in Chicago.”