Keep My Heart (Top Shelf Romance Book 7)

by Lex Martin

  He’s quiet. I won’t tell him everything. I won’t tell him much at all, but it will be the truth.

  “It was like there was this parallel universe where I made the right choice, and we were happy.” I struggle to release the words that acknowledge my error. “But I would always wake up, and you weren’t there. Caleb was.”

  “In this alternative universe,” he says softly, caressing the webbing between my fingers, “was Sarai mine?”

  I hesitate, not sure what he wants me to say, so again I choose the truth. I nod. He drops his head to my nape and leaves a long breath there.

  “Then we were there together, because that’s what kept me going when you were with him.” He rolls me onto my back, pressing his forearm by my head into the pillow. “Not that it had already happened, but that it still could.” He brushes the hair back from my face, peering down at me in the darkness like it’s the light of day and he can see me clearly. “It has happened, Iris.” He brings our clasped hands to his lips. “That’s not an alternative universe. That’s our life, baby.”

  I almost don’t want to smile—like my happiness might shatter this illusion, and I’ll wake up curled at the edge of the bed, staring down the barrel of Caleb’s pistol. But I won’t. Tomorrow I’ll wake up in August’s arms, and my past, my memories, Caleb – can’t rob me of that.

  “Can I tell you something?” August’s voice anchors me in this dream, extends it a little longer.

  “Of course.”

  “I want to wake up this way every morning,” he says, hope lifting his words. “And I want our kids to bust through the door and jump in bed with us.”

  Tears gather at the corners of my eyes and silently stripe my cheeks. There was once a girl brave enough to want those things, but she was crushed and ground to dust. I don’t know if I could find her again if I tried.

  “And I’ll make pancakes,” he continues, his enthusiasm growing. “And I can teach them to shoot, or not. They don’t have to play basketball. I don’t care. I just want them to be ours. Yours and mine.”

  He strokes his thumb over that finger on my left hand, which once held a ring of protection and once held a ring of bondage. The tears won’t stop because I’m not ready to put a ring on that finger. As much as I love August, that’s a step, a risk I’m not ready to take. Not even for him. Not yet.

  I’m braced for the question, trying to figure out how to tell the man I love no.

  “If I were to ask you tonight, Iris, would you say yes?”

  He already knows. I hear the resignation, the disappointment in his voice, and I wish I could surprise him. I can’t yet.

  But I will.

  I lived in hell, and my way back is a journey. I survived a nightmare, escaped a monster, and I faced him down today. I may not be able to tell August yes tonight, but one day I will.

  “I’m sorry, August.” I shake my head helplessly and brush at the tears. “I-I can’t say yes yet.”

  “I know, baby.” He tightens his arm around my waist and tucks his chin into the curve of my neck. “That’s why I’m not asking.”

  August

  “Good game, Rook,” Kenan says as we get off the bus.

  “You, too.” I grin at him, lowering my duffle bag to the ground while we talk. “We’ve put together a little winning streak here lately.”

  “Little bit.” Kenan’s stern face yields a smile. “Next year we’ll be a plus five hundred team.”

  “You think?” He and I start toward the hotel entrance.

  “If Deck and the front office play their cards right in the draft this summer and get us some more key pieces, hell yeah. We’re doing well for an expansion team.”

  “Yeah, we’re starting to gel. Tonight was great.” I grimace. “Minus the snow. The last place I want to be is stranded in Denver an extra night because of weather.”

  “You called Iris to let her know?”

  “About to. Once we get settled in the room, I will.”

  “How’s her cousin?”

  I stop in the hotel lobby and stare him down. “Do you want Iris to put in a good word for you with Lo or something?”

  “What?” He looks at me like I have two heads and an extra nose. “Why would you think that?”

  “Obviously because you keep asking about her.”

  “Has . . . she ever asked about me?”

  I’ve never seen Kenan “Gladiator” Ross tentative, but the expression on his face is probably about as close as he’ll ever come.

  “Never,” I answer unhesitatingly, my lips stretching into a smile.

  Kenan rolls his eyes and gives me a middle-finger salute.

  “August, hey.” Decker walks over to us from the front desk, a file in his hand. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Sure.” I fist-pound Kenan before he walks toward the elevator. “What’s up, Deck?”

  “Come sit.” He gestures to a nook just off the bank of elevators.

  It’s late and I have no idea what this is about, but I hope he makes it quick. I want to call Iris as soon as we’re done since she’s expecting me tonight.

  “Um, I just got off the phone with Avery,” he says, watching me closely.

  “Cool.” Now I really don’t know where this is going. “How’s she doing?”

  “Good.” Decker hesitates and then goes on. “How much do you know about Iris’s relationship with Caleb?”

  Predictably, my hackles rise. The hackles on my hackles rise.

  “I know it’s over.” Even I hear the tension in my voice.

  “Calm your ass down, West.” Deck’s lips tighten around the words. “I’m just trying to figure out if you know . . .” A sigh heaves his heavily muscled shoulders.

  “Know what, Deck?” I ask impatiently. “Dude, spit it out.”

  “There was a file delivered anonymously to Avery today at the station,” Deck says, the words dragging over his lips.

  “Okay. What kind of file?”

  “This one.” He slides it across the table to me but places his hand on top so I can’t open it. “It’s a file of pictures. Um, pictures of Iris.”

  My hand knots into a fist on my leg. “My Iris?”

  “Yeah.” Sympathy fills his eyes. “Your Iris.”

  “Like . . . naked pictures?” I try to keep my brain contained in my skull. “Give me the file, Deck.”

  “Not naked.” He keeps his hand over the file and blows out an extended breath. “Pictures of her beaten pretty badly. And some medical records that detail . . . a pattern of abuse.”

  “Abuse?” The word, ugly and harsh, shouldn’t even be in the same sentence as her name. “Like when she was young? Like someone touched her or . . .”

  “No, not when she was young. More, um, recent.” His look offers sympathy. “You didn’t know?”

  Decker and I stare at each other. I know what’s in that file. Maybe I’ve known all along and didn’t want to accept that it could have happened to her. Too many things that didn’t add up suddenly stand in perfectly straight columns and equal a horrific sum.

  “Caleb?” The name is strangled in my throat. “Are you saying Caleb hurt her? He put his hands on her?” I stab the file on the table with my index finger, rage pistoning through my body. “Is that what’s in here?” I grit out. “That motherfucker hurt my girl?”

  “Yes.” He lifts his hand from the file. “Before you look at this, consider something. Iris probably had her reasons for not telling you.”

  “She said she signed an NDA. That was the only way she could guarantee sole custody of Sarai.”

  “Yeah, well that makes sense.” He draws a deep breath and expels it. “Considering what’s in it, she probably never wanted it to come to light anyway. I need to tell you something else.”

  “What else?” I stand and pace in tight circles, driving my hands into my hair. “What is it, Deck?”

  “August, he . . . he raped her pretty brutally.”

  God, no.

  I stop, stock sti
ll, turning only my head in careful inches to make sure I heard him right.

  “He . . .he raped her?” My voice can’t make it past a whisper. “Caleb?”

  I honestly can’t remember the last time I cried, really cried, but tears burn my eyes and blur my vision. My chest feels concave, like it collapsed on itself and is crushing my heart. My hands tremble when I link them behind my neck. I’m holding on—to my sanity, to my composure—but everything’s slipping through my fingers.

  “Fuck!” I scream it so loud, conversations in the lobby stop, and all eyes turn to me. I don’t care. I’m spiraling, thinking of that son of a bitch violating Iris. Of him abusing her. Beating her. I kick the table, and it spins a few feet into the path of a couple walking to the elevators. I turn to the wall and punch it, denting the lobby wallpaper. Denting my hand. My knuckles swell and redden immediately.

  “August, stop it.” Deck grabs my arm, his frown stern. “We don’t have time for tantrums.”

  “Tantrum?” I croak, my voice like sandpaper. “If someone raped Avery, someone beat her, what would you do?”

  He goes quiet, a flare of violence in his eyes. “I’d want to kill them.”

  “Right. Then let me go find Caleb.”

  “But I hope I’d have at least one friend who would stop me,” he says. “Look, Caleb’s going to get his. That file didn’t just go to Avery’s station. It went to every major station.”

  “Shit.” I drag my hands over my face. “This’ll be a media circus.”

  “Yeah. You might want to sort through all your feelings later and worry about Iris right now. I think Avery was one of the first to get it, but there’ll be reporters and TV cameras at Iris’s door very soon, if not already.”

  “I can’t . . .” I pull my phone out to check the time. “How much time you think we’ve got?”

  “It’s late on the east coast,” he says. “That helps, but we may want to get her out of there and get some PR on this. You can best believe Donald Bradley is already lawyered up and has his spin machine hard at work.”

  “Fuck him,” I spit. “What are the odds he didn’t already know about this? Caleb doesn’t piss without him signing off on it.”

  “I’ve already got our PR team working on it.” Deck glances at his phone when it dings with an email alert. “Matter of fact, this is from them. I sent the file over as soon as Avery told me so they could vet it and figure out a statement since the public knows about you guys now.”

  If I’d gone to Houston, I’d have forty-five million dollars, and maybe I’d even be on my way to a ring, but I wouldn’t have Deck—someone who’s truly a friend and looking out for me.

  “Thanks, Deck. I . . .” Emotion clogs my throat. “I just . . . Iris? God, she’s the sweetest thing in the world. And she’s . . . she’s so small. How could he . . .”

  Deck hooks an elbow around my neck and brings me in close.

  “Hey,” he says gruffly, pulling back and placing his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll work through all of that. I promise you he’s gonna get his, August.”

  “You sure about that, Deck?” I ask bitterly. “Did he ‘get his’ when he broke my leg? No, his daddy and the powers that be protected him. And you and I both know how it is—how there’s a different set of rules for athletes. How we close ranks and protect our own. Consequences aren’t ever guaranteed. I’m not having it this time. I’m telling you, if he gets out of this, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Decker says through clenched teeth. “You don’t get to be a hothead. You hear me? You got a bright future that most guys would give anything to have. And you got a girl most guys would give anything to have. Would you sitting behind bars make this go away? Would it take away what happened to her? Is that gonna help her raise her kid?”

  I’m quiet because I know the right answers, and I can’t make myself say them. My rage needs an outlet, and I don’t know one more deserving than Caleb.

  I want my dad.

  The thought comes from nowhere and doesn’t even make sense. Who even knows if he’d have the right words to say. Despite having so little time with him, he always comes to mind in trouble or triumph. It strikes me how important a father is, and Caleb, that sorry, degenerate asshole, is Sarai’s.

  He can’t have any part of her. He can’t be in her life. He can’t touch her.

  “Okay.” I nod at Deck to let him know my head is in the game. “I got it. You talk to the team. I’ll call Iris. I need to get her out of there.”

  “Car’s on the way,” Deck says.

  “What?” I do a double-take. “What car?”

  “Already got a car on the way to her house ready to take her to the airport. Team plane will take her and Sarai wherever you say.”

  My shoulders slump with gratitude and a tiny measure of relief. I don’t have my dad, but I do have Deck.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. “God, thanks, Deck, but redirect the car. She and Sarai are at my place. She was cooking dinner for us there.”

  I pause, dreading the call I need to make.

  “She’s been so happy, Deck,” I say. “We’ve been so happy, and now this shit—”

  “This shit will pass.” He starts toward the elevator and says over his shoulder, “Call your girl so we can take care of her.”

  Take care of her.

  I didn’t do that. I let her down. How did I miss this?

  Was he beating her when I saw her at the All-Star Game? I know I didn’t see her often then, but from the first night we met, I’ve always felt so connected to her. How could I not have known? Why would she not tell me?

  It doesn’t matter. I know now, and she needs me more than ever.

  Iris

  “Weather delay?” I look at the food in various stages of preparation in August’s kitchen, a veritable Louisiana feast. Etouffe, shrimp, beans and rice, and bread pudding. MiMi would be proud.

  “It’s okay,” I tell August, my phone pressed between my shoulder and ear as I measure whiskey sauce for the bread pudding. “The food will keep. It’ll be here tomorrow. You will be home tomorrow, right?” Forget the food. I just miss him.

  “You got me all Lou Rawls over here,” I joke, waiting for him to laugh back.

  There’s just silence on the other end.

  “‘You’re Gonna Miss My Loving’?” I sing a little part of it . . . badly. “Remember?”

  “Yeah, I . . . I remember,” August finally says, his voice sounding as if it’s passing through a cheese grater. “Babe, there’s something I need to tell you. We don’t have much time.”

  I tilt my head up to hold the phone properly. “Don’t have much time? Why?” I ask. “August, you sound weird. What’s going on?”

  “Decker came to me a few minutes ago and told me . . .” He clears his throat. “He told me that Avery received a file at work today.”

  “Avery, his girlfriend? The sports anchor?”

  “Yeah. It was a file about . . . baby, it was a file about you.”

  I drop the measuring cup, and shards of glass litter the floor.

  “A file?” My breath is choppy. Blood surges in my veins like the Mississippi primed to overflow. “What kind of file?”

  The question is superfluous. I already know. I’m as shattered inside as the glass at my feet realizing that the world will know what happened to me. What was done to me.

  That August knows.

  “It’s pictures of you,” he says, swallowing so hard I hear it over the phone. I hear the anguish in his voice before he says the words. “Beaten, Iris. He beat you?”

  He beat me? No, I beat him at his own game. I escaped. I got away.

  I survived!

  But all anyone will see is a victim. Not Iris, but the black-eyed Susan in those pictures with her lips split open and her jaw swollen twice its normal size. All they’ll say is he beat you? You let him beat you? You stayed?

  Weak.

  Fool.

  And they’ll have no idea who I a
m.

  “August, I wanted to tell you.” I say, pressing down my shame. “I signed an NDA.”

  “You could have told me, though. Iris, you should have—”

  “Excuse me, but I don’t need a lecture from anyone on what I should have done.” I fight back tears of hurt and anger. Not at him. At Caleb, and whomever leaked this, and at the whole world. “My situation was complicated beyond what you can imagine. If I had just left Caleb, he would have gotten joint custody of Sarai, and that was never going to happen. I would die to prevent that from happening.”

  I almost did.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” he says. “I’m not mad at you. God, do you think I’m mad at you? For not telling me? No, baby. I’m mad at myself for not seeing it. For not . . . I’m furious at him for . . .” He pulls in a fortifying breath and goes on more calmly. “Right now, we need to get you out of there. Avery isn’t the only one who got this file. Every major news station has it.”

  My knees buckle as the scope of my humiliation comes into full view. I grip the counter and raise a shaking hand to my mouth. “What? Oh, God.”

  “A car’s on the way to my place,” August says, and I hear the deliberate calm of his voice trying to soothe me. “Grab a few things for you and Sarai, and the car will take you to the airport. Wherever you want to go.”

  Spanish moss. The Mississippi River flowing through my veins.

  MiMi left Lo and me her tiny house on the bayou. We haven’t sorted through what we want to do, so it’s just sitting there empty, waiting.

  “I want to go to Louisiana,” I say. “Not many know about MiMi’s place, that I’m connected to it.”

  “Okay. The Waves have a plane that’ll take you there.”

  “And you?” I don’t want to sound pitiful, but I need him so badly. I never wanted to be dependent on a man again, but it’s too late. Our hearts are interdependent, and when mine is aching, it needs him. Wants him. I want him.

  “I’m coming to you, of course.” He growls over the phone. “God, I’d be there by now if it weren’t for this damn snow in Denver. As soon as I can get a flight out of here, I’ll come. Just text me the address.”