by Cassia Leo
Heath ground his foot into Matt’s back.
Matt cried out. “Aw, god, Heath, you’re hurting me. Let me up, please, I’m begging you.”
Heath pressed harder.
Matt screamed. “Please! Please!”
“That’s more like it.” Heath removed his foot.
Matt tried to get up, but he was still drunk and unsteady.
Heath offered him his hand and hauled the man to his feet. He was surprised at how thin Matt was. He was a bag of bones, frail like a man three times his age.
“Thank you, Heath,” said Matt. He looked up at Heath drunkenly. “You’re right, you know. Back then, I was a dick to you. It wasn’t right. I’m sorry.”
Heath turned away. “Let’s get you up to the house.”
When he got Matt inside the farmhouse, he was surprised to find two-year-old Gage curled up on the steps asleep. He let go of Matt. “This is Fran’s little boy?”
“Yeah,” said Matt. “I take care of the kid.” He grasped the railing and began to stagger up the stairs.
“You just leave him up here like this while you’re drinking?” said Heath.
Matt belched. “I put him to bed, but sometimes he gets up. He’ll be fine there. He wakes me up when he’s hungry.” He continued his ascent.
Heath knelt down, eye level with the sleeping little boy. He hadn’t counted on there being a kid.
*
Eli hung up the phone. “Fucking prank calls. That’s the second one tonight.”
Cathy looked up from the magazine she was reading. “What do they say?”
“Oh, nothing, it’s just silence,” said Eli. “It’s annoying.”
“Weird,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, the phone rang again.
Cathy got up. “Let me answer it.”
Eli shrugged.
She picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Make up an excuse, leave the house, and meet me at the cornfield in fifteen minutes.” It was Heath.
She hung up the phone.
“Another one?” said Eli.
“Yeah,” she said. Her pulse picked up. “Um, I think I’m getting a craving for ice cream.”
“There’s ice cream in the freezer,” said Eli.
“No, I think I want soft serve,” she said. “Something from Dairy Queen, maybe.”
Eli smiled. He got up and patted her stomach. “Well, if that’s what the little guy wants, then that’s what he’s going to get. I’ll drive you.”
“Oh, don’t bother,” she said. “I’ll just go myself. You don’t have to.”
“I thought that was my job. You, you know, gestate the baby. I run the errands for your weird cravings.”
He was so sweet. Why was she sneaking out of his house to meet another man? A man who seemed to hate her, who said awful things to her?
“You will,” she said. “Trust me, when I’m as big as a house, you will run errands constantly.”
He laughed. “All right, I’ll take a rain check. I was going to watch a baseball game anyway.”
Oh, good. He’d be occupied, then. She smiled at him and headed out of the room.
“Cathy?”
Her heart leapt into her throat. “Yeah?”
“You’re really going to get as big as a house?”
Relief flooded through her. He had no idea what she was doing. “Absolutely. And you are going to love it.”
He came over to her and kissed her goodbye. “I’m sure I will.”
*
Heath’s truck was already parked in the cornfield when she got there. Twilight was stealing over the world, and everything was tinged in blue, even Heath, who was lounging against the grill of the truck in a tank top and jeans. He was less coiffed, and he reminded her of the boy he’d been before all this had happened.
She got out of the car and went to him.
He ran his hand through his hair. It wasn’t in a ponytail, and it fell in waves around his shoulders. He smirked at her.
His smirk was still as sexy as it had been when he was seventeen.
She swallowed.
“Just wanted to see if you’d come,” he said.
Bastard. She turned away.
He caught her by the arm. “How’s it feel to be manipulated, Cathy?”
“Let go of me.”
He tugged her close. He wrapped his arms around her, trapping her there.
But being trapped hardly mattered. She didn’t struggle against him. He was strong and warm, and she liked the feel of his body so close.
“You’ve treated me so badly,” he murmured. “I don’t know why I can’t let you go.”
“I’ve treated you badly?” she said.
“Yes, Cathy, you have. But you’re not actually a very nice person, as you pointed out to me the last time we were alone together.” He gave her a wry smile. “As it turns out, I might not be a very nice person either.”
“No,” she said, “you’re not.”
“It’s only that people have to pay,” he said. “After what they’ve done to me, I have to get revenge.”
“If you’re trying to get revenge on me Heath—”
“No, not you.” He shook his head. “That’s not the plan. You, Cathy, should consider yourself quite free to torture me as long as you like. If it makes you happy to make me squirm, have at it. I worship you, and I’d rather be near you while you cut me to ribbons then to be away from you.”
She kissed him.
He caught her by the neck and held her there. His mouth assaulted hers.
She pulled away, struggling for air. “Why did you leave, then? If you wanted to be near me, why did you go away?”
“For you, of course,” he said. “To be what you wanted. I thought I’d come back and sweep you off your feet, and we’d live happily ever after.”
“But on the cliff, you said—”
“Forget what I said.” He put his hand over her chest. “You feel what I feel, don’t you? Here. In your heart. You know how I feel about you.”
“And the baby?”
He grimaced.
She pushed him away. “I have to think about the future for my baby, you know.”
He shrugged—one of his eloquent shrugs. “Why does there have to be a baby?”
“Because it’s there,” she said. “I didn’t plan it, but I’m pregnant, and I can’t pretend I’m not.”
“It’s the nineties. Wake up and smell the feminist revolution. You don’t have to stay pregnant.”
“And aborting my baby for a man is feminist?”
He massaged the bridge of his nose.
She folded her arms over her chest.
His voice was quiet. “I can’t. I just can’t handle the baby. I know it makes me an asshole.”
“You’re damned right it does.”
“We’re too young for babies, anyway. Neither of us is ready for something like that.”
“I’m ready.”
“I’m not.”
“Eli’s ready.”
He licked his lips. “Well, I suppose the two of you will be very happy together, then.”
“Not with you calling me and telling me to meet you, we won’t.”
He chuckled quietly. “You didn’t have to come.”
Cathy shook her head. “I only wish I could tell Isabella about the way you’re behaving without making myself look bad. Knowing what a jerk you are would cure her of the stupid crush she has on you.”
“What?” Heath’s voice was full of amusement and interest.
She sighed. “Isn’t it ridiculous? I told her that you’d chew her up and spit her out.”
He stroked his chin. “Isabella Linton has a crush on me.”
“Don’t sound so excited about it,” she said. “I know you couldn’t be interested in her in a million years.”
“Oh, you’re right. You have ruined me, it’s true. I come back to find you knocked up, because you’ve clearly been spreading your legs for Eli Linton. Meanwhile, I’ve been away for two
years, and I haven’t put my cock in anything except my own goddamned hand. Because no woman compares to you.”
She took several steps backwards, stunned. “That’s not true. You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe what you like,” he said.
“Heath…” She closed the distance between them again, putting her hand on his cheek. “I never asked you to do something like that. You don’t have to deny yourself—”
“It is what it is.” He rested his forehead against hers. “So, you’re right. I don’t desire Isabella Linton. I only want you. I always have. I always will.”
She let her eyes go shut, and she breathed in the scent of him, woodsy and spicy and familiar. “I can’t leave Eli.”
“Stay with him,” he rasped. “Birth his stupid brat. I don’t want any part of it.”
“But…”
He pulled away. “I won’t call you again. You’ve made your choice. I’ll respect it.”
She felt the pain inside her, like something had shattered. But what else could she do? He was a hard, horrible man. Her love for him was a curse. It was going to destroy her and everything she’d ever cared about. She could tell.
She fled from him, back to Eli, half afraid he’d be suspicious. Half hoping he would be. But he only asked if she’d enjoyed her ice cream.
She told him she’d eaten it too fast, and that she missed the sweetness, because everything tasted bitter to her right now.
***
2013
Thera woke up to find herself tied to the bed. Linton was sitting over her, smiling a strange smile at her.
“The problem was that they were deformed, you see,” he said.
Thera struggled, testing her bonds. They were strong.
“My father and your mother,” he continued. “My father says that they shared the same soul. And that must have been the problem, don’t you think? They each only had half a soul. Why else would they have done the things they did?”
“Linton, why did you tied me up?”
Linton caressed her face. “Your mother broke him when she chose Eli. She sent Heath right into the arms of my mother. If your mother hadn’t done that, then I would never have been born. And every day since I can remember, my father has told me that it would be better if I hadn’t. He hates me so much.”
“Untie me. Please?”
Linton’s fingers traveled over her chin and neck. “I hate him too, of course.”
Revulsion shot through her.
“He told me to stay away from you. But I didn’t help to steal you for his benefit. I did it for me.” His hand slid inside her shirt.
“Linton, I am your cousin. Please, don’t—”
“What’s this?” Linton pulled out her locket.
She’d forgotten it was there. She was grateful that something had distracted him, however. “It’s my locket. My father gave it to me. There’s a picture of him on one side and my mother on the other.”
“Really?” Linton opened the locket. He peered down at the pictures. “You do look just like her. It’s uncanny. But I look like Uncle Eli, I think.” He set the locket down on her chest, still open. “Let’s play a game of pretend, Thera. Let’s pretend that you’re your mother, and I’m Uncle Eli.”
She didn’t like the sound of that one bit. Sweat began to gather in the creases of her skin. She needed to stop him. She wasn’t sure what he had planned, but she had an idea, and she was terrified. “Linton, don’t you think we’re too old for games like that?”
He touched the locket. “Well, I didn’t have much of a childhood, cousin, so humor me.” His hands moved away from the locket, outside of her shirt, over the swell of her breast.
“Don’t!” Terror went through her like a jolt.
Linton giggled. “Don’t,” he mocked her, his hand covering her breast. He squeezed it.
It hurt. She cried out in fear and pain and panic.
The door opened. “What’s going on in here?” Heath stalked into the room.
Linton’s eyes grew wide. He stood up and ran for the door.
Heath caught him and hurled him down onto the floor. “You perverted little shit. She’s your cousin, for fuck’s sake.”
Linton went sprawling and whimpered. “That hurt, Father. Why are you always hurting me?”
Heath sneered at Linton. “Is it going to cry again?” He kicked the boy in the stomach. “Maybe I should give it something to cry about.”
Linton’s eyes bulged at the impact. And then he did start crying. Fat tears squeezed out of his blue eyes. “Why, Father, why?”
But Heath was no longer interested in Linton. He crossed to Thera, sat down on the bed, and began to untie her. “I’ll take away his key. He won’t get in to bother you again.”
Thera was still shaking.
Linton, seeing that his father was otherwise occupied, got up and hurried from the room, still crying.
Heath freed both of her hands.
She shook them, trying to get circulation to come back into them.
Then Heath stopped. He touched the open locket on her chest. “What’s this?”
“It’s my locket.”
Heath snatched it up and ripped it off her, breaking the chain.
She let out a little cry and touched the back of her neck where the chain had dug into her skin before giving way. “Please, it’s my only picture of her. Don’t take it.”
“With him? You wear her around your neck with him?”
“He’s my father.”
Heath snapped the locket in two. He put the picture of Cathy in his pocket. He dropped the other picture on the ground and stepped on it with his heel.
Cathy heard the delicate metal crunch. She glared up at him. “You’re horrible. Deep down, there’s nothing in you but nastiness. No wonder my mother didn’t choose you.”
Heath busied himself with the ropes at her feet. “Your mother chose your father because he was rich and white and blond. And because, unfortunately, he managed to accidentally put you in her belly. If it hadn’t been for you—”
“My mother would never have chosen you,” Thera said.
Heath slapped her.
Thera cried out. But she gazed up at him in defiance. “She must have seen inside you and known that you were nothing but a monster.”
“Careful, Catherine,” said Heath, raising his hand again. “Next time, I’ll strike harder.”
“Stop.”
Thera looked up. Gage was in the doorway. He wasn’t wearing his baseball cap. His hair was down in long, dark waves, and he was glaring at Heath.
Heath stood up and looked at him.
They were like mirror images of each other. Their features weren’t the same, but their demeanor and the way they looked at each other was. They stared each other down like wild dogs.
“You said you didn’t want her hurt.” Gage stalked into the room and positioned himself between Thera and Heath.
Heath had turned to face him. He was still staring Gage down.
Gage broke the stare to glance down at Thera. “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
Gage looked back at Heath. But a shadow crossed Heath’s face, and he was looking at the both of them differently now. He shook himself, and then he left the room, his shoulders sagging.
Gage untied her feet. “I told you to yell for me.”
“I…” This close, he smelled strongly of soap. He’d taken a bath, she realized. Without the dingy baseball cap, he was really very nice to look at. His dark hair was glossy and wavy, and it fell around his powerful shoulders. “I didn’t think about it, I guess.”
“Make sure you do if anything happens again,” said Gage. “Call out my name. Call it loud.” He got up from the bed.
She sat up. “Gage? If you don’t want them to hurt me, then why won’t you help me leave?”
He shook his head. “Can’t do that to Heath.”
“But he’s horrible.”
“He’s not completely horrible,�
�� said Gage. “He’s always been good to me. He took me in after my stepfather committed suicide, and he treated me more like a son than he treated his own son.”
If the way Heath had just acted towards Linton was typical, then Heath treated Linton like an animal. He’d called him an “it.” Maybe there were reasons that Linton was so screwed up. Thera felt sorry for him. But she was afraid of him as well.
“Look, Heath’s going to come around,” said Gage. “He’ll get tired of it, and he’ll let you go. I’ll talk to him.”
“I don’t think he’s going to let me go,” said Thera. “He hates me. You heard him. He blames me for my mother rejecting him. Please, just help me get out of here.”
Gage looked down at the floor. “I… I can’t.” He left the room quickly, locking the door behind him.
***
1995
Isabella was a big fan of shopping therapy. After her blowup with Cathy, she hadn’t wanted to be around either her or Eli. The two of them made her sick. Cathy was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to her brother, but her brother was completely blind to it. He’d always been that way when it came to Cathy. Even back when they’d first started dating, Eli had changed when Cathy came into his life, cutting class, giving her gobs of money, buying her extravagant presents. He only saw the best in her. He didn’t see that she was manipulative and selfish.
Isabella saw it.
But no one cared what she thought.
So, she was doing the best she could to forget about it, by buying new shoes. She’d come alone, because she couldn’t handle being around anyone right now. Her other friends wouldn’t understand any of it. They would think that Heath was too old, or too intense. They’d call him cleaned-up white trash. They didn’t see him the way she did. She thought he was tragic and admirable. She thought he was incredibly sexy.
But she was trying to drown all of that in a deluge of adorable chunky heels. She was sitting in a store, buckling a strap on a shiny, silver sandal, when she heard his voice behind her.
“I figured I’d find you in the mall.”
