Keep My Heart (Top Shelf Romance Book 7)

by Lex Martin

  “Mr. Bradley,” Ms. Darling breathes, her eyes admiring. “Thank you for bringing her down.”

  “Please call me Caleb.” He adds the megawatt smile. “We want to get to the bottom of why anyone would say something like this about us.”

  I roll my eyes. If I want to get to the bottom of anything, it’s the lies he and Ramone told to bring this woman here in the first place.

  “Well technically,” Ms. Darling says, darting me a quick glance, “the complaint wasn’t filed against you. Just your fiancée.”

  “I’m not his fiancée.”

  The words spew out before I think better of them. The glacial look in Caleb’s eyes makes me wish I had kept my mouth shut, but my chin still tilts to a defiant angle.

  “I’m sorry.” She looks at MiMi’s ring on my finger. “I thought—”

  “No problem,” Caleb cuts in, smooth as a knife through butter. “We’re a family, the three of us. Natural mistake. What do you need to do? We want to cooperate fully.”

  I suppress a frustrated sigh. His false solicitousness frays my nerves.

  “With older children,” Ms. Darling says, “we interview them on their own, but since Sarai is a baby I’ll just need to examine her.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I mutter, fury bubbling under my skin. “I haven’t done a thing to hurt her, and these accusations are completely unfounded.”

  “Of course they are, babe,” Caleb says soothingly. “So we just get this over with. Ms. Darling is simply doing her job.”

  He reaches to brush the hair back from my shoulder, and I flinch. His eyes narrow, but the smile he offers is a thick pomade smoothed over his anger, slicking back his displeasure.

  “May I see her?” Ms. Darling extends her arms, and it takes everything in me to hand Sarai over to her. I know she won’t find any marks or bruises, but this process is humiliating. I’m adding it to the list of things I’ll never forgive Caleb for.

  Caleb and I watch as Ms. Darling lays Sarai on the couch and strips her clothes off, leaving her in only her diaper. Tears sting my eyes while she combs my baby girl’s plump little arms and legs for marks I’m supposed to have left on her. The painful irony is that the real abuser is standing right beside me. Until I find that journal, Caleb’s right. I don’t trust our legal system not to award Caleb joint, if not full, custody after the tower of lies and circumstantial evidence he’s stockpiled against me.

  “I think everything is in order here.” Ms. Darling slips Sarai’s footed onesie back on. “I don’t see any evidence of abuse.”

  “Of course you don’t, because I would never,” I snap.

  Her brows lift at my sharp tone.

  “I’m sorry. This is just all awful and disgusting. To think someone would accuse me of something like this, and we are . . . I am being subjected to this, is just a sore spot for me, as you can imagine.”

  “I’m sorry for any inconvenience,” Ms. Darling says. “But when we receive a call like that, we have to make sure.”

  “Do you have any idea why someone would lie about this?” I demand, at least wanting her to consider someone is out to get me, to tarnish me. I wish I could spill Caleb’s diabolical plan, but I have no proof and would only look like I was trying to deflect attention. I don’t look at him, but I feel Caleb’s stare boring into the side of my face as surely as the barrel of his gun did last night.

  “I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Ms. Darling says, a small frown knitting her brows. “Regardless, we’ll stay in touch.”

  “Stay in touch?” My voice skips up a few octaves. “Why? You’ve seen that she’s fine. Is this not over?”

  “Just as a precaution, we’ll schedule one more visit to ensure conditions remain consistent.”

  Dammit. I have enough to worry about without having to suffer through this useless farce again.

  When Caleb walks her out, I’m already halfway up the stairs and in the nursery by the time I hear her car pulling away. It only takes a little humming, several walky-bounces, and a few minutes before Sarai’s little eyes are drooping and she resumes her nap. I close the nursery door quietly and turn to go back downstairs, only to collide with a wall of muscle.

  “Oh.” Anxiety at being this close to him corsets my torso, making breathing difficult. “I didn’t see you there.”

  He doesn’t reply, but grabs my elbow roughly and herds me down the hall toward our bedroom. I’m tripping over my feet, trying to keep up. As soon as we’re in the room, he closes the door.

  “So this visit was a sore spot for you, huh?” he asks. “I’ll give you a sore spot.”

  “Caleb, I—”

  The back of Caleb’s huge hand slaps the words from my mouth. I touch my lips, the sight of blood on my fingers transfixing me for only a second before I spring into action. I take off for the bathroom, but only make it a few steps before Caleb’s arm, ungiving bone, tight sinew, and hardened muscle, hooks around my waist from behind, hauling me off my feet. He flings me to the bed so hard I almost bounce off. I sit up, determined to make it to safety, but his fist slams into my face. My teeth rattle, and agony blossoms over my jaw and cheekbone.

  Now I understand why he didn’t hit me last night. He knew Ms. Darling was coming and saved all this rage for after she left. His violence is not uncontrolled. It’s a thing of cold calculation, which in some ways makes it even more dangerous.

  “Caleb, please,” I manage to say, though I can barely get the words past my swelling lips.

  “Don’t you ever defy me in front of other people again,” he grits out, his expression made of stone, his eyes nearly black with rage.

  His fist flies at me like a missile, but I duck and roll off the bed, landing in an undignified heap. I scramble to my feet, but he shoves me from behind, and I crash into the bedside table. It tips over, the lamp shattering against the wall. From the floor, I see him loosening his belt.

  Oh God, no.

  I raise my hands to protect my face from the leather strap hurtling through the air. It snaps against my wrist and fingers, cutting into the skin. Before I can process the first lash, several rain down on my arm, a deluge of terror that reddens my flesh with livid welts. In quick succession, the belt falls time and again, a wave that never ebbs, but just keeps coming, keeps crashing over me. The leather slashes into my back and my legs. The buckle nicks my knee, and I howl like a wounded animal, but there’s no one to rescue me. I am the dumb lamb that wandered from the fold, and I’ve stumbled into the razor teeth of a hunter’s trap.

  “Oh, God. Caleb, please.” Pain steals my breath, and my words barely make it out before another punch slams my head into the wall. The room spins and tilts, and the edges darken.

  I slump against the wall, too disoriented to respond. The belt keeps falling, seeking any tender flesh it has overlooked, and I stop fighting the darkness because it’s the only place I’ll find mercy.

  Iris

  “Sarai!”

  Her name cannons from my mouth, and I jerk up on the bed. Pain slices under my breasts. I grab at my midsection, disoriented for a moment. I know I’ve been unconscious, and the last thing I saw was that monster’s face. My daughter’s been alone with him for as long as I’ve been out.

  I fling my legs over the side of the bed, wincing when my muscles scream in protest. I’m naked, and I have no idea how I got this way. My stomach whirs at the thought of what Caleb may have done to me. Welts, cuts, and bruises crisscross my bare legs and arms. Shame builds in my chest and burns my eyes. How did I let this happen? How did I become this battered woman? A sob shakes my chest, and pain ricochets through my rib cage.

  “Careful,” a deep voice says from the corner of the room. “Your ribs are probably bruised. There are painkillers by the bed.”

  The face is familiar, but my head is still fuzzy. I do my best to assemble the features into someone I recognize.

  “Andrew?” I ask, my voice hoarse from my screams.

  “Yeah.” Caleb’s cousin stand
s from a chair, and averts his eyes from my bruised, naked body. “You might want to cover up.”

  I snatch the bedsheet over my breasts. All my responses feel delayed as I drag pieces of this grisly puzzle in place.

  “Sarai?” I ask. “Where is she?”

  I hold my breath held while I wait.

  “She’s in the nursery. I checked on her a little bit ago. She was fine. I fed her one of the bottles from the fridge.”

  Relief is quickly followed by anger, fear, and trepidation.

  “And Caleb? Where is he?” I ask.

  Andrew’s cheeks redden, and he clears his throat.

  “He, uh, had a game.” He grabs the bottle and a glass of water from the bedside table. “You’ll need these for your ribs maybe the next few weeks.”

  I stare at the pills, afraid to take anything anyone in this house offers me.

  “It’s just naproxen,” he says. “An anti-inflammatory painkiller.”

  “You’re a doctor,” I say dumbly, as if he doesn’t know, but pieces of information are lining up in my head to make sense of why he’s here and why he’s so calm when it’s obvious Caleb’s beat the shit out of me.

  “I’m still in med school.” Andrew shakes two pills out of the bottle into his palm and offers them to me. “Remember?”

  “Is this part of the Hippocratic Oath?” I pop the pills and gulp water, tearing up when the jerky movements hurt my jaw. “’Do no harm’ actually means ‘only aid and abet?’”

  “I’m sorry, Iris.” He shakes his head. “I’ve told him before—”

  “He’s done this before?” Horror widens my eyes and drops my mouth open. “Oh my God.”

  “I’ve . . . well, helped him before, yeah.”

  “You mean when he beat women, you came and patched them up?” I ask sarcastically. “Would have been good to know.”

  “I thought he had it under control.” He runs his hands through hair only a shade darker than Caleb’s. “This hasn’t happened in a long time, and he loves you so much.”

  “Don’t you dare say that ever again.” Tears rise in my throat like floodwaters. I wait for them to recede before speaking. “He may deceive himself that this is love, but I won’t play that game. He’s sick, and so are you if you help him.”

  I stand in the middle of the bedroom and catch the first glimpse of myself in the wall mirror. The sheet knotted toga-style leaves my shoulders and arms exposed. Caleb’s brutality has painted my skin in shades of black and red, of desolation and rage. My face . . .

  A moan, loud and involuntary, falls out of me and bounces off the walls.

  My cheeks are uneven, one monstrously swollen and the other nearly untouched. One eye is smeared with shadows left by Caleb’s fist. A line of dried blood runs from the corner of my mouth down my neck and disappears beneath the fold of the sheet. I gently touch the swollen, bruised, puffy flesh.

  I turn from the mirror to Andrew. “You have to help me.”

  He takes a step back, his expression withdrawing as surely as his body does. “I can’t, Iris. I have painkillers, and—”

  “Painkillers?” I sound hysterical, but I can’t help it. “He raped me at gunpoint last night, Andrew, and he beat me today.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry.”

  “He’s blackmailing me,” I say in a rush, praying that everything I reveal will somehow convince him he has to help me. “He stole my journal and will twist the things I wrote to get custody of Sarai if I try to leave. He had Ramone, that crazy bodyguard, report me to social services. He’s cut off all my access to money. He says he’ll kill me if I try to leave, Andrew, and I believe him.” Tears flow freely while I rehash just how screwed over I am—how I’ve allowed Caleb to trap me.

  “What about Lotus?” Andrew asks.

  “He says he’ll hurt her, too, if I involve her. He knows where she lives in New York.” I swipe my hands over my wet cheeks. “No, just getting away from him won’t solve my custody issue. His threats would catch up to me. I need something on him that will stick, to hurt him where it counts the way he’s doing me.”

  “Caleb’s good at threats,” he says bitterly. “He deals in information.”

  “That’s why you help him?” I ask. “He has something on you? That’s why you can’t help me?”

  Andrew’s lips compress. “I can get you more painkillers.”

  “I don’t want painkillers!” I scream. “I want to not need them. I want to get out of here.” I bury my face in my hands, slumping against the wall and allowing myself one moment of weakness. “I have to get Sarai out of here.”

  “I think things will get better,” Andrew says. “He probably just lost it, what with August humiliating him like that.”

  “He didn’t humiliate him,” I counter. “He just played the game. Caleb let him get in his head, like he always does.”

  “I know you say he doesn’t love you.” Andrew holds up a staying hand when I open my mouth to argue. “But he’s never felt like this about another woman.”

  “Oh, you mean abusive? Violent? Psychopathic? Wow. I feel so flattered.”

  “No, I mean you must be special to him. He’s marrying you.”

  “We’re not engaged,” I auto-reply.

  Andrew’s brows bunch, and he tips his head toward my left hand. “Then what’s that on your finger?”

  I glance down and notice for the first time, my gris-gris ring from MiMi is gone.

  In its place is the ten-carat diamond.

  August

  Number thirty-three.

  I lift my father’s old basketball jersey out of the cardboard box, coughing a little from the dust. I’ve seen pictures of me as a toddler wearing this. It hung off my shoulders and dragged on the floor. Now, when I slip it over my head, it fits perfectly. At six foot seven inches, my dad was an inch taller than I am. His wingspan outreached mine and his feet were a size larger, but that’s where I stop making comparisons. I leave that to the pundits and media who speculate about what he could have been and what I may achieve. He was cut down so young before he really had the chance to fulfill even a fraction of his promise.

  I massage the soreness in my leg and wonder if I’ll repeat history. The easy part of this recovery is over. I’ve been mostly off my feet for the eight weeks since surgery. I recently started upper-body work in a gym close by, just outside of Baltimore, and that is only the beginning. Months of grueling rehab lie ahead with no guarantee that I’ll be a hundred percent at the end. Speed and agility, the ability to turn on a dime—those are trademarks of my game and are things this injury could compromise irreparably. Only time and the hardest work of my life will tell.

  Fucking Caleb and his dirty play that wasn’t ruled a dirty play. He’s slithered his way out of consequences all his life. It’s made him spoiled and cruel, but also clever enough to hide it. Me, he hates, so he did some underhanded shit that shoved me, at least temporarily, out of the way.

  He’d never hurt them, though, right?

  The more I’ve considered it, flat on my back and staring up at the ceiling, the less confident I am of Caleb’s boundaries. God, if I had Iris, I’d treat her like a queen.

  Can you miss someone you’ve never had?

  Because I miss Iris. I can’t even share that with anyone because they’d think I was a lunatic. Obsessed. Fixated.

  I like to think of it as certain. Like when I’m in the zone, the game comes to me easily and I’m certain I’ll make every shot before the ball even leaves my hands—that’s how I feel about Iris. She’s a shot that hasn’t even left my hands, but I know will be nothing but net. I’m certain that if ever given the chance, it would be that way for us. Not that things would be easy all the time, but we’d just . . . click. We’d belong, something we’ve both needed for a long time. I felt hints of it the first night we met, and with each encounter, it’s become clearer. It’s quantified in breathless moments and skipped heartbeats. Nothing I can point to or prove,
but it’s real. I’ve only grown more sure that together, we could belong.

  “What are you doing out here?” my mother asks from the open garage door. “I was looking all over the house for you. Your phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning.”

  “Probably Lloyd.” I grimace at the thought of another conversation with my agent. “He thinks he may be able to get me a good trade.”

  “Trade?” Mom’s brows collapse into a frown. “Do the Waves wanna get rid of you because of the injury? Don’t they know you’ll be back stronger than ever? What’s wrong with them?”

  I wish everyone had a mother like mine who believed in them even when they weren’t sure themselves.

  “Lloyd’s just looking at contingencies.” I shrug and pull my father’s jersey over my head and drop it back into the box. “The Waves are an expansion team, and this was their first season. Decker invested a lot in me. Me getting hurt my first year probably has them considering cutting their losses in case I don’t come back as strong.”

  “Your first season ended with you as Rookie of the Year.” Her eyes and smile are all pride. “They’d be fools to let you go.”

  “Maybe I’d be a fool to stay.” I release a puff of air. “I could end up on a team that’s championship caliber now. Maybe in the playoffs next season, playing for a ring. If Lloyd can make that happen, I’d be a fool to turn it down.”

  “You’ll know what to do when you get to it. You’ll know what’s most important. I’m sure Jared will have opinions.”

  “Oh, always.” I laugh. “And on everything.”

  She hands my phone to me. “You two still considering getting Elevation off the ground early?” she asks, poking through the box of memories.