by Rie Warren
Filled with a bittersweet ache, I closed each door after me as if keeping a part of me inside.
Kane wasn’t home yet.
Neither was Cecilia. School had officially ended for the summer, but she started working as a kids’ camp counselor with one of her besties.
Frank and Brian were off buying booze to celebrate, definitely not a line item in the building budget, so that left me to make sure we didn’t leave a trace of gear or a dirty fingerprint behind.
I was just packing up the last of the tools, stowing them in the bed of my truck when I heard the low purr of a fancy car. The vehicle wasn’t Kane’s Merc, and it definitely wasn’t Frank and Brian’s work van.
The sharp little black coupe rolled to a smooth stop right in front of me, and I couldn’t make out the driver through the dark-tinted windows until he stepped out of the car.
The moment I saw Ethan, wearing his rich boy summer uniform of loafers and pressed cargo shorts complete with slicked back hair and slowly forming sneer, I wished I still had the nail gun in my hand.
“How the fuck did you find me here?”
He roamed close enough I smelled the toxicity of his heavy-handed cologne. “Princess, what do you think? I’ve had my boys following you around for weeks. It’s not that hard to keep tabs on the town slut.”
I took a swing at him, but he caught my wrist before my right hook could connect. “We’re over! Why do you keep hassling me?”
“Because I’m not done with you yet. How many times do I have to tell you?” He jerked me closer, his voice rising to a strained high pitch. “But you went out and got yourself a new sugar daddy now, huh? Kane Bishop? A widower?”
“Leave him out of it.” My stomach dropped, realizing he was even sicker than I’d thought if he’d gone to all the trouble of finding out about Kane.
I jabbed Ethan in the ribs, my elbow making hard enough impact he dropped my wrist.
Turning to jump into my truck or run into the house, I barely made it two steps before he snagged my ponytail. Brought up short, my neck snapped back with screeching pain. Pain I bit down on, not making a sound.
He hauled me to him until my back was crushed against his front. “You owe me something for not ratting out your thug of a brother. He could be rotting in jail for assaulting me.”
“Have you lost your freakin’ mind? You’re the one who should be rotting in jail, asshole.”
“Tut tut, baby slut. You really don’t have any manners at all, do you?”
“You’re a loser and a user!” Not to mention an abuser. “I can’t believe I ever saw anything in you in the first place.”
His hand swung up, and he gripped both sides of my face painfully. “You didn’t complain when I took you to all those fancy restaurants, did you? You couldn’t get enough of my money.”
“Your parents’ money, dickface. You’re the worst mistake of my life.”
He snarled, yanking my hair harder.
Fear beginning to knot in my stomach, I brought my heavy boot down hard on his foot then slammed the sole against his knee.
Screeching, Ethan buckled. But he didn’t let me go. We ended up in a heap on the driveway, him on top of me, one hand still twisted in my hair and the other trying to wedge between my thighs.
And his foul words hissed right next to my ear. “Yeah, now I remember what made you worth my time. You always did like it from behind. Just like a doggy bitch in heat.”
Bucking against him, trying to pitch him over, I screamed, “Get off! Get off me!”
A second later, the weight on my back disappeared, my hair untangled from his fist. I bent my head down, inhaling one deep breath.
“Ethan, I take it?”
Oh my God. Kane!
I pushed to my feet, spinning just in time to see him smash his big fist right into Ethan’s face. Blood spattered. Ethan staggered.
Kane—formidable and enraged—kept on pummeling him and punching him.
“Stop. Kane, for God’s sake stop before you kill him!” I sobbed.
He turned to me, those beautiful brown eyes flaming with such bitter rage I stumbled back. Then he swung to look at the man he’d been thrashing, and surprise flattened his face. “You? I know you, don’t I?”
“Yeah.” Ethan wiped blood from his nose. “Ethan Rutledge. And I know you too. So you better hope I don’t press charges.”
At Ethan’s threat, Kane launched himself at the other man. Another round of fists flying churned my gut.
“Kane. Please!” I yelled.
He halted mid punch. He released the front of Ethan’s shirt. His gaze swung back to me, and that was long enough for Ethan to fumble to his car and squeal away with a parting shot that included, “You can have the cunt. She’s not worth my time anymore.”
Kane, cursing again, glared at the retreating vehicle.
Then I was in his arms.
“Stevie.” He kissed the top of my head, his body straining against mine. “Christ. What if I hadn’t gotten home in time?”
Engulfed by him, I started shaking. Slowly, slowly, his heat seeped into me, and he carried me to the porch where he sat me on a bench.
Kneeling in front of me, he surveyed me all over. “Did he hit you?”
“No.”
“Did he—”
“He wouldn’t have the guts to rape me. I would’ve pumped him full of nails first.” I gave a weak laugh.
“That’s not funny.” Surging to his feet, Kane paced in front of me before stopping. “That spoiled little fuck thinks he’s going to report me? Not before I call the cops on him.”
Eyes wide, I gripped his arm. “No!”
“Yes!” Kane dropped down in front of me again, speaking vehemently even while his hands remained gentle on me. “It’s assault. And not the first time. I’m putting a fucking end to this now before you get hurt even worse!”
He pulled out his phone and started punching in numbers, but I snatched the cell away. “I said no. It’s my life, and I don’t want the police involved!”
“It’s our life.” Kane gave harsh voice to his words.
“It’s not your problem. Told you once already.”
“It is my problem when you bring it to my house!”
Stung, I pushed him away and drew myself up. “That’s right. It’s your house. And thankfully you won’t need to see me in it again after this.”
Kane stared at me, brows low, jaw tight.
Shock caught up with me, and I started shaking again. “Look, please listen to me. It’s the frigging Rutledges! My dad doesn’t even know about any of this. He can’t know. If I filed a report against Ethan, his family would know . . . God. They could singlehandedly ruin my dad’s business! The backlash would be monumental, and Dad would blame me. And what if they come after you too, bad-mouthing to your clients?”
“This is insane, Stevie.” Kane latched a hand around my waist, and I could feel him battling within. “You think I can just sit back and let that fuck run all over you?”
“I don’t need another man to save me!” A small part of me knew I might be overreacting, but his next comment cut me to the quick.
“Like hell you don’t.” He took me by the shoulders and shook me. “Would you just for once do what I tell you and stop acting like a stubborn goddamn child? It’s for your own good!”
A sharp jolt of anger zipped right through me. “I am not a child, Kane.” I ripped free, finger digging into his chest. “I’m just not Alice. Sorry to disappoint!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kane
SHOCK SPILLED OVER ME like cold water flung in my face. And Stevie was off the porch, in her truck, gunning the engine before I could recover.
I’m not Alice.
Didn’t she know I just wanted her?
I just wanted her to be safe?
Stubborn goddamn woman!
I’d driven up to see Stevie on her hands and knees, her hair twisted in an ugly grip in Ethan’s hand, and him—that fancy-pants little
shit—all over her.
I didn’t even remember putting the car in park or rushing to her. All I’d seen was bright red rage. Animal rage I’d happily unleashed on the slimy bastard with my fists crashing into his face.
Ethan goddamn Rutledge . . . that’d been an eye-opener once I stopped long enough to recognize him. I knew his parents. I was well aware of their family’s status in Charleston’s small but elite society, going back centuries.
I couldn’t believe he was Stevie’s ex. That he was the boy who’d been terrorizing her all this time, and she’d never told me.
Striding into the house, I slammed the door, banged into the kitchen.
I turned on the water in the sink, rinsed off my blood-encrusted bruised knuckles, saw Stevie’s preferred mug on the counter. The one she always drank her sugary coffee from.
Picking up the ceramic cup, I hefted it in my hand.
Then hurled it against the wall.
The shattering shards echoed my shout, “Goddammit!”
Dropping to the floor, I sat there, unmoving.
I was still there when Frank and Brian returned from whatever errand they’d been on.
They stopped.
Took in the broken mug.
Broken me.
I didn’t lift my head. “Ethan was here.”
“Did he hurt her?” Anger intoned Brian’s voice.
“I got here in time. Kicked the shit out of him.”
“Where’d Stevie go then?” Frank’s booted feet appeared in front of me, then his face as he crouched down.
“Said she didn’t want another man interfering in her life.” I sounded lifeless. I felt empty. “I just wanted her to finally go to the police.”
“Kane? Cecilia’s home,” Brian advised from his station near the window.
I wiped at my wet face and hauled myself to my feet.
“Frank and me, we could take her out for a while.” Brian twisted his baseball cap back and forth on his head.
“No. Thank you.” I reached out to shake both their hands. “I’ve added bonuses for you, and one for Stevie.” And my voice broke too. “If you’d tell her.”
Frank hesitated. “She’s got a temper, but maybe if you stop telling her she’s too young?”
“I just want to take care of her. It’s what a man does.”
“Not according to Stevie.” Brian tipped down the brim of his baseball cap and gave me a final nod before tromping out.
“Don’t get us wrong,” Frank added. “I’d have been knocking Ethan’s teeth from his skull too. But you know now she’ll never report him, right? She’s too worried about the fallout from his family.”
A sick empty feeling bottomed out my stomach as I watched through the window, the two big gruff men both hugging Cecilia goodbye. Then they were gone too.
And we were alone.
In this big house that had Stevie stamped all over it.
I was still at the window when Cecilia slipped up beside me. She tucked her hand in mine. “She’s gone.”
“Job’s done.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” I pulled her against me. “I know.”
Eventually she broke the hushed silence that throbbed like a broken heart. “How about popcorn and a movie?”
Swallowing roughly, I plastered on a faint smile. “I’d like that, honey.”
****
The end of the remodel.
The end of a budding relationship.
The house as desolate as when Alice had died, and somehow this dragging loneliness was worse because Stevie wasn’t really gone.
She was in every room in the house, her touch on all the new finishes.
And she was just downtown, minutes away, but I couldn’t have her.
Pride kept me away.
Pride and stupidity and a big old broken heart.
She’d been in shock. She hadn’t been thinking rationally. Who would be after getting attacked? But then I hadn’t been all that rational either. Blowing up in her face instead of talking her down, calming her down.
I could see her point about the Rutledges, sort of. But this wasn’t the plantation era . . . People—no matter how well-connected—were subject to the law just like everyone else. And her comment about her father bothered me no end. What kind of a man would ever blame his child for being victimized by someone who was so obviously a predator?
I tried not to think about Stevie, but that was an impossible feat. I put all my spare energy into work—there was certainly enough to keep me busy. And it was almost a surprise when the anniversary of Alice’s death rolled around several weeks later.
Cecilia and I picked a big thriving bouquet of baby pink roses that had been Alice’s favorite, and we drove out to the cemetery. The gravesite sat on the property of a pretty little white chapel where live oaks created giant canopies and crepe myrtles reached out with feathery flowers.
We sat in the soft grass in front of Alice’s gravestone, shoulders nudged together. It was the first year neither of us shed a tear, though the weight of sadness hadn’t completely disappeared.
“Are you in love with Stevie?” Cecilia quietly asked, braiding several pieces of long-bladed grass together.
I’d expected the question for a good long while now. “That doesn’t really matter anymore.”
She bumped against my side. “Dad. Mom’s gone, you know? So it does matter, a lot.”
“I didn’t take care of Stevie the way I should have.”
“You mean when you beat the crap out of her old boyfriend?”
My laugh was short-lived. “I said some things to her I didn’t mean. I hurt her.”
“Whatever,” she said in exasperation, and I turned to peer at her with an eyebrow cocked.
“Wellllll?” She prodded. “Did you say the one thing you totally mean though?”
I pursed my lips against my knuckles. “No. Not really.”
“God. Now I know why Gwen is always going on about men being the lesser gender.”
That comment pulled a longer laugh from me. “I think you should stop texting Gwen.”
“No you don’t.”
“The point is, I didn’t want Stevie to go, honey.”
She looked at me with the most obstinate tilt to her chin. “The point is, she’s still alive. So why don’t you go win her back already?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Stevie
REGRETS SETTLED IN AS soon as my stupid anger started fading away. About two miles down the road from Kane’s.
Regret like a lump in the throat. And burning hot shame over how I’d reacted.
But it was bound to end anyway. Better sooner than later.
We weren’t right for each other.
Different life experiences.
Vastly different ages.
Completely different personalities.
And enough baggage between us to start our own luggage company.
That didn’t mean it hurt any less, cutting Kane so completely from my life. Not to mention Cecilia, whom I hadn’t even said goodbye to. I consoled myself, thinking at least now Kane could find someone more appropriate to share his life with instead of feeling obligated to take care of the girl with all the issues.
At the new jobsite, work starting the following week, I forbade Frank and Brian from even mentioning his name. At least those two knew better than to give me any pitying looks, although I imagined they’d figured out what had happened when they’d returned to Kane’s and I had already gone.
At the weekly dinner at Dad’s, I was more subdued than usual. I just didn’t have the heart to put a brave face on it.
Gabriel gave me silent sympathy, only once commenting, “Jesus, sis. You look like someone pissed in your beer.”
I didn’t even have the heart to flip him the middle finger. Instead I nursed a beer that tasted stale in my mouth and picked at food that could’ve been sawdust for all I cared.
Dad later passed me an envelope, someth
ing close to sympathy in his eyes. I didn’t know how much he’d surmised, and I didn’t want to hear another lecture about how badly I’d failed, so I ignored his look, accepting the sealed envelope.
I opened it while Gabriel and Dad watched on.
Inside was a hefty bonus check signed by Kane Bishop.
That fat lump formed again in my throat, but I spoke through it as best I could without breaking down. “That was generous.”
Dad nodded, and he sort of sucked in the sides of his cheeks before reaching over to pat my hand. “You impressed the hell out of Mr. Bishop, Stevie. Job well done.”
The unusual praise and even that slightest hint of affection almost made me crumble.
I blinked rapidly. “Thanks, Dad.”
And Gabriel met my gaze with a sad smile. Then he reached over and squeezed my hand. “I think you should tell Dad, sis.”
“Tell me what?” Our father turned sharp eyes on me.
“Dammit, Gabriel. You promised you wouldn’t say anything.”
“Are you pregnant? Is that what this is all about?” Dad dropped down on a chair across from me.
“Ha! No. Not that.” I glanced at Gabriel, and he nodded. “I don’t know what you’re gonna think, Dad, but—”
“Jesus Christ. Just tell me already,” he growled.
So I did. All of it. Every horrible, demeaning, disgusting thing Ethan had ever said or done to me. I told him about his friends and their threat to gangbang me. About Ethan’s continuous intimidation tactics to keep me quiet by basically holding Keller Construction hostage. About my birthday party blow-out, and that Kane had become more than a client, and the last day at Kane’s house when I really thought Ethan was gonna rape me.
Tears—all those tears I’d held at bay, some for many, many years that had nothing to do with Ethan at all—flowed down my face. And I watched through that slick sheen as my dad seemed to struggle to stay composed until he finally stood and dragged me into his arms. He held me in a way he hadn’t since I was a lot younger, and I clung to him and cried.
