by Liz Crowe
Trent Hettinger oozed confidence. His body language—a languid, sexy comfort in his own skin—combined with the super deep timbre of his voice and with his shocking, unconventional handsomeness made for quite a man. She studied him in the gloom of the kitchen. Her first reaction to him had been to drop to her knees. But she’d settled for not looking at him. Then, they’d gotten busy with dinner and the cards, and everything else and she now realized she’d become comfortable in his presence without even realizing it.
Her hand went to her neck on reflex. His gaze rested on her hand, then on her face. She flushed hot and directed her gaze downward. “Sorry,” she muttered, trying to figure out how she could get out of here and over to Ross. She was tired. She wanted to go to bed and have him hold her as she fell asleep.
“I’m sorry that you were so badly treated, Elle,” Trent said, shocking her to her toes. “That never should have happened to you. And I want you to know that I think you’re braver than any woman I’ve ever met—well, almost any woman.” His eyes flickered to the doorway where Melody’s raucous laughter could be heard coming from the living room. He sighed and rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. Trent was completely bald but he rocked it better than that famous, sexy, bulked-up movie star whose name she could never recall. He was even taller than Ross, tanned from his time in the sun, with a lean strength to him that she admired. But right now, all she knew was mortified horror.
“I didn’t know…that you knew…about it.”
He smiled at her. “Melody thought I should know, before we met.” He put a hand on her shoulder. Instead of making her want to drop to her knees again, she felt comforted by it. Safe. Protected.
But yet…
“I guess I didn’t realize that Melody knew either.” She’d told Evelyn some things but not all. Ross was the only other human on the planet who knew about the worst of the abuse. Well, she guessed now that number included her host and hostess for this weekend. She ground her teeth together, trying not to blurt out something rude. It wasn’t Trent’s fault that Hoffman couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut.
“Oh. Well, um…” Trent seemed rattled, which on some level amused her. He was, after all, only a man, with a man’s weaknesses, needs and emotions. And he was so head over heels for Melody, she couldn’t wait for him to pop the question. Elle and Evelyn had a feeling he’d be doing it this weekend since they knew Trent and Melody enjoyed playing to an audience.
“So, maybe we should shut it down for the night. I hear you have a delicious breakfast planned.” He backed away. “Thanks for cooking, Elle. I hope we didn’t make you feel like you had to.”
“No, I like doing it. If you’ll excuse me, though, I need to have a word with Ross.”
She marched over to him. He was laughing with Austin and Brock over something, sipping amber liquor from Trent’s cabinet. “Come over here, sexy lady,” he said, reaching for her. She stayed just outside of his range. He stopped, reading her expression. After knocking back his whiskey, he rose, shot a salute to the men and took her hand. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said, grabbing a sweatshirt, then leading her to the open door onto the deck.
Silently, she followed him down the flight of steps to where the fire still spluttered in the pit. He drew two chairs closer to it, and handed her the sweatshirt. She tugged it down over her head, relishing the Ross-ness of it—the malt, hops, leather, and outdoors smell that suffused the fabric. Before he had a chance to get situated, she spoke. “Why did you tell Melody about…what happened to me?”
“I…um…”
“That was not anyone’s business but mine, and I made it yours, thinking you’d keep it private.”
“You told Evelyn,” he began. She held up a hand.
“I didn’t tell her even half of it. Just enough so she’d know I had…issues.” She pulled her legs up to the large wooden Adirondack-style chair and wrapped her arms around herself.
“I’m sorry,” he said, softly. “I wasn’t doing it to betray your confidence. I’d talked with her before our first date, you know? To ask about this lifestyle thing she and Trent are into, so I could understand you better. Then, after I got the whole story, we talked again. It’s all out of concern for y—”
“Stop it,” she said, jumping up and pacing around the fire. “Stop trying to justify it.” Her voice rose. “I trusted you with the most intimate details of my life. And you…you blabbed them around like some kind of a cheap gossip rag reporter.”
“Elisa,” he said, trying to grab her wrist. She jerked away from him, shaking her head.
“I’m going to bed. I suggest you find a couch for tonight.”
“But…”
She ran up the steps, tears burning her eyes before he could finish. Austin and Brock were at the poker table with Trent. They all studiously ignored her as she walked past them. Without speaking to anyone, she headed for the kitchen, drank down an entire bottle of chilled water, then let the empty bottle drop into the deep sink. Her heart ached, and her skin itched all over. She already missed him. But he had to know that this wouldn’t fly. He couldn’t spread her story around as if she were the sad sack heroine of some romance novel.
“You all right, chica?” Melody asked as she grabbed her own water bottle.
“I’ll be fine, thank you. I need some sleep. Good night, and thank you again for inviting me to your lovely home.”
Melody waved a beringed hand around. “It isn’t my home, trust me. Taylor reminds me of that every chance she gets.”
Elle sighed and slumped against the counter. All these lovely people and their ideal lives she’d admired—not so ideal after all, she supposed.
“Anyway, go easy on the Kraut, all right? He didn’t mean anything by telling me.”
Elle closed her eyes, her innate sense of privacy violated yet again.
“Don’t be mad, Elle. That damn sap is so in love with you, it’s downright sickening.”
“If you’ll excuse me? I’m nearly asleep on my feet.”
Melody grabbed her and squeezed her tightly, putting her on edge again with the unexpected intimacy. “Relax, Elisa. We all love you here.” She let her go, kissed both her cheeks, then left the kitchen, calling for her amour and telling him it was time to take her off to bed.
Without saying anything to anyone else, which made her anxious for being rude, she ran up the wide wooden stairway and found the room that contained hers and Ross’ luggage. Each room had its own private bath so she turned on the hot water and filled the tub, dumped in some kind of flower-scented bath beads, shed her clothes and slid into the water with a satisfied sigh.
She was mad. But it felt blunted, its edges rounded—not her usual type of anger at all. Likely because she knew Melody was right. She’d flown off the handle at Ross and owed him an apology. But only if he apologized first, she decided, as she slid farther down.
Underwater, she studied her body for the first time in years. It had been something worshipped by The Monster—by Nolan—for several months. He’d really bamboozled her into thinking that all that build-up, all those sexy times in his ‘Playroom’ would continue. Obviously, she’d been a good target. Young, even younger looking than she was, and a virgin. He’d probably sniffed that out the first time he’d seen her in class. She’d been eager for friendship, attachment of any kind. And he’d pounced.
She let her fingertips wander across her breasts. Ross liked to pay special attention to her one poor mangled nipple, giving it as much love and caresses and kisses as he did anywhere else on her body. He totally ignored the ugly scar on her ass, not that she blamed him. And his favorite place on her entire body was the spot he’d claimed for himself—right above the tenth small star on the inside of her upper arm. She touched that spot, making herself shiver.
It made her horny is what it did. And she had no idea how he’d managed that, other than with his constant, loving care.
Love?
Without a doubt.
Did she love him?
With everything in her.
“You’re a silly bitch,” the nag said, as loudly as if she were under the water with Elle.
“I’m going to find you,” The Monster insisted, just as stridently. “And when I do, you are going to wish you’d never been born. But first, I’m going to gut that fucking Viking with my filet knife and make you watch.”
With a loud gasp, she jerked upright, spilling water all over the floor. “No,” she said, slapping her hands over her ears and curling into a ball in the cooling tub. “No, no, no!”
But the words kept rolling around in her head, which had turned into a giant echo chamber. Nolan was more than capable of that and it would just like him to wait almost eleven years to exact his revenge.
Shivering, she got out of the tub and wrapped up in a towel that was so big it went around her twice. Her knees wobbled so she sat on the closed toilet seat clutching her arms.
He. Him. Sir.
That Monster had her so well-conditioned she kept using the capital letters in her own damn head. But He was right. She’d never be normal. Never be allowed to live a normal life. She was shit. But she was His shit. His to do whatever he wished. She was kidding herself that any other ending would come for her life.
“Elisa…?” Ross’ voice floated through the closed door, breaking through her semi-trance. He knocked. “You all right in there?”
“I’m fine. I just need…a little time alone. Go to bed. I’ll be there soon.”
“I am truly sorry, my love,” he said, using the sweetest possible German word for the endearment. “Please forgive me? I’m an idiot for telling anyone.”
She sighed and pressed her forehead to her knees as His voice filled her head, drowning out anything good. Scrambling off the toilet in a vain attempt to escape it, she crawled to the corner behind the claw foot tub, grabbed her knees and began to rock back and forth. The self-soothing action had seen her through many a long day or night, alone, in pain both physical and emotional. She slipped back into her safe space, even with the man who promised to save her from it asleep on the other side of the bathroom door.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ross stood outside of the bathroom for a solid ten minutes, listening, waiting, willing her to unlock it. After that, he turned and slid to the floor, his back to the still closed door, elbows on his knees, his mind awash with anger, frustration and worry. Finally, when she’d been silent for over half an hour, he rose and headed back downstairs, seeking water—or another shot of Trent’s good booze.
The glass doors were all open and the breeze had picked up. The filmy curtains billowed and flowed, giving the great room a surreal tint. He could hear random thumps and murmured words above. A baby noise here, a bit of music from the teenagers’ room there. All normal, house-settling-in-for-the-night noises. Normal being the key word.
He wandered out to the deck and flopped onto one of the cushy lounge chairs. Propping his hands behind his head, he stared at a sky so vividly black and pinpricked with stars it could’ve been fake.
He’d had a normal-enough growing up life. An only child of a German banker and his American teacher wife who hated life in ‘the sticks’ of Bavaria, he’d had everything he’d ever wanted but, perhaps, anything resembling the unconditional love only parents can supply. They’d mostly ignored him, leaving him to be raised by a succession of paid staff.
He’d done well enough in school and in sports to remain under the parental radar his entire life. And when his mother’s fellow university teacher had scooped him up as a teenager to teach him a thing or three about how to please a woman, he’d latched on to her like a duckling imprinting on a stranger. After that, women were nothing to him but objects—soft, pleasant ones to be sure, and ones he’d go out of his way to please, but only for a short while.
Evelyn had been different. And that had wrecked him for women for good. Or so he’d believed.
Elisa Nagel was something new, something exotic, both awful and wonderful. Figures he’d end up wanting to spend the rest of his life with a chick who was a foot shorter and fifteen kilos lighter than what he thought he preferred. And that hair… He chuckled and held up his hands, able to feel the silky ropes of her crazy dreadlocks between his fingers.
He dropped his arms to his sides and sat up, cursing himself for being such an inconsiderate jackass, telling her whole story to Melody, then letting her tell Trent. While he’d believed he was doing the right thing, confiding in someone who might understand the basics of her psychology at this stage, it was, hands down, the dumbest possible thing he could have done.
When he held up his hands again he curled his fingers into tight fists. He wanted nothing more than to pound that frog piece of shit Nolan Blanchard into a bloody pulp, then burn the pulp to ashes, then piss on the ashes. Once he’d figured out that the famous, celebrity chef was indeed the man who had tortured his beloved for years, had taken her baby from her and given it away without warning and still haunted her every waking and sleeping moment, Ross had gone on a serious internet manhunt. He had names and numbers of personal assistants, schedulers and knew every move the asshole would be making while in Grand Rapids.
He’d tracked the little shit’s every move from the moment he figured Elisa had escaped him until this past week, when the news flash that he was, right now, in Grand Rapids likely trying to find her under the guise of opening some crappy second-rate casino restaurant. He sat up fast, clenching and unclenching his fists, fury coloring the edges of his vision.
Action. That was what he required. And he’d get it, too. He’d managed to sweet talk the asshole’s personal assistant into telling him where he’d be staying. He even had a room number, and the chick’s room number too, should he ‘want to stop by for a drink’.
He’d be stopping by all right, but not for a drink.
As he rose to his feet, he felt lighter, as if yet another stone had been removed from his shoulders. Forward motion. Get your keys, drive back to Grand Rapids, beat the living shit out of the monster who’d ruined his Elisa, drive back. Done and done.
As he headed for the door, he spotted Austin reading a book in the leather recliner. “What’re you doing down here?” he asked, not kindly.
“Reading,” the man said, ignoring Ross’ tone. “I sincerely hope that you aren’t thinking of going back to Grand Rapids tonight.”
Ross stopped in the kitchen doorway. He turned and glared at his old friend. “None of your fucking business.”
“Yes, it is, actually. You are first and foremost my friend. But you are much more than that to my family, and you damn well know it.” He put the book aside and rose to his feet. “Ross, I get it. I know you want to do something, anything, right now.”
“You don’t get it. You’ll never get it. Go upstairs to your wife and kid and leave me alone.”
“Don’t do it, Ross. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life. You won’t be helping her. The only thing you can do to help her is to be here with her, not out doing something stupid that gets you thrown in jail. It’s bad enough we have to face her hearing this month. I don’t want to have to deal with—”
“This isn’t about you,” Ross spat out, turning fully to face Austin. “Not everything is, you fucking spoiled brat.”
Austin’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared. Ross clenched his fists, realizing at that moment he required contact, any contact, to dispel the whirling dervish of anguish in his chest. He also realized that Austin was right. He slumped in the doorway as the adrenaline rushed out of him, leaving behind nothing but the empty ache of frustration.
“Want a drink?” Austin asked, holding up the bottle of bourbon.
“Yeah,” Ross grunted before he sat on the couch near the recliner. Austin poured them both one and they held up their glasses. “I’m going to ask her to marry me next week when we’re here alone. Officially, this time.”
Austin smiled. “Great. Cheers to that, then.”
Grateful that his frie
nd kept lectures about ‘rushing into things’ to himself, Ross clinked, tossed back the booze, then got up. He needed to see her, to hold her, to assure her everything was fine. And would be fine, if he had anything to say about it.
“Go on,” Austin said, resuming his seat. “I’m good. Evelyn and Rose are sound asleep. But I’m not tired so…” He held up his book. “Be there for her, Ross. It’s all she requires of you. As fun as it might be to pound that French shithead into the dirt.”
Ross ran up the stairs and only hesitated a half second before kicking the bathroom door open, shattering the wood around the doorknob and sending it crashing back against the wall. He couldn’t see her at first. When he spotted something that looked like her hair in the far corner of the room behind the tub, he reached down and picked her all the way up, cradling her in his arms. She was ice-cold and shaking like a leaf, making strange, hitching noises as if she wanted to cry but all she could do was make the sound, as if all her tears were dried up.
“Shh, my love,” he whispered to her in German. “Arms around me. That’s it.” He pressed his nose to her hair, relishing everything about her before walking out to the bedroom, then onto the small, private deck after snagging a blanket off one of the chairs by the window. As he wrapped the soft fabric around her, she held tightly to his neck. The sensation of having found his mission in life—his soul mate and his mission—was an odd one. She was a bundle of contradictions all wrapped up in a psyche that had been forcibly warped by years of abuse.
But he wanted it. All of it.
He sat back in the chair, keeping his arms tight around her, making nonsense sounds, half-singing, half-whispering, until she stopped shaking. Her breathing evened out and they both dozed, wrapped together in the warm summer night air.
