That's a Relief (Promises, Promises Book 3)

by Victoria Klahr

  “No. No. Don’t tell me.” He smiles, eyes alight with his own morbid amusement. “It’s even more delicious thinking about it. Death will be a dream you’ll want to make a reality.” He barks a laugh in my ear. “As if I’d ever give you the honor of doing it yourself. As soon as you start begging for death, I’ll be there. Ready to use you for whatever worthless life you have left.”

  My world loses focus and I have to fight the urge to vomit at the image he just placed in my head. No. No, I can’t lose Seth. I won’t lose him. I’ll never give this monster the satisfaction of hurting me again.

  He eases up on me just enough that I can move my hips and legs. I’m about to knee him in the groin when I hear a nauseating crack and feel a splatter of warm thick liquid spray across my face. Michael’s eyes widen in shock, and then he collapses to the ground.

  Chapter 19

  Josie

  Behind Michael’s crumpled body, Blake stands holding a bloodied baseball bat, ready to strike again if he gets up. When he’s satisfied that Michael is unconscious, he looks at me.

  I don’t even know how to explain what I’m feeling. It’s like the world is moving around me—Blake’s talking and running his hands over me to check for injuries—but it’s muted by shock and perpetual panic. I take in multiple gasps of air, but none of them seem to be supplying me with the oxygen I need.

  Blake shakes my shoulders, eyes wide and worried. “Josie, come on. Snap out of it.” He shoves something in my hand. “Run to that address, it’s just around the corner. Code is 0534299. Repeat that.”

  “053 … 42 … 95?”

  “No. 0534299. Repeat it, Jo.”

  “0534299.”

  “Good. Good girl. Let yourself in. Wait there until the cops come. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come after you.”

  When I stand there, still staring at him, he points in the direction I need to go and yells. “Run!”

  So I run. I run the way I should have run earlier. I look once at the address and run for the street that Blake told me to go to. I don’t think about what just happened—my mind seems to have emptied in some sort of self-preservation. I’m out of breath as I come up the driveway to a stunning two-story home.

  I can’t think about what this means. I refuse to acknowledge why this house looks so much like the visions I used to have about my dream home. I punch in the code and the iron-gates open for me. The key opens the thick oak door and I let myself in.

  The house is distressingly bare. Like death follows each room. An empty sanctuary that was never brought to its full potential. I block out the thoughts trying to burn their way into the forefront of my mind. My fear is still too strong. Too much to accept whatever else is going on.

  I look for a room to lock myself in, and the first door I open as I move through the empty house brings me to a space that steals the breath from my lungs. Oh, Blake. I close my eyes, an overwhelming sense of sadness and regret filling me.

  Locking the door behind me, I turn around and fully absorb the massive room. Shelves upon shelves line each of the four walls, elegantly formed to fit inside four different mahogany arches and filled with books of all shapes and sizes. A sliding ladder rests in the middle of one of the walls, motionless as if the room stopped keeping track of time after it was completed.

  The library is perfect. Even better than the one I told Blake I dreamed of having one day.

  It hurts too much to look at, so I pick a spot in a corner and close my eyes, folding my body over my legs and not letting my thoughts linger on the incredibly sweet gesture Blake must have done for me when we were still together. My frazzled emotions can’t handle it.

  Worse than thinking about the past is thinking about the future. Michael said he would hurt every person I loved. The images of what he would do to Seth keep flashing in my head. I rock back and forth, trying to make it go away, but it won’t. Michael is going to kill my Seth … and then he will kill me.

  I’m not sure how long I sit here, bundled in a ball, hoping Michael didn’t find a way to follow me, but eventually, I hear my name being called. The door to the library unlocks and opens, and my heart pounds heavily against my chest. I curl into myself further, trying to hide.

  Blake’s voice stretches across the expansive space. “Figures this would be the room you’d hide in.” I feel him kneel down in front of me, petting my hair as if I’m a scared child. “The police want to talk to you, Jo. Can you handle answering some questions?”

  I nod my head as a response, but it takes me a few minutes before I work up the nerve to get up.

  Blake grabs my hand and stops me before I walk out the library door, pulling off his dress shirt to wipe away the drying blood covering half my face. “I’m so sorry, Josie. I thought you left until I saw your car. I knew something was wrong so I went to my car and grabbed the baseball bat before I found you.” It hits me how different things could have been earlier if I’d had a weapon on hand. “Jo … he got away. He caught me off-guard while I was on the phone with 911, and he ran off.”

  Looking into his face then, I notice the red and purple bruising along his cheek and circling his eye. “It’s okay,” I whisper, though I’m not sure I’m okay.

  I answer the questions the officer asks me, out of obligation more than desire. Michael is still out there. Still able to reach the people I love. Still equipped with knowledge about my life and who I love the most. My mouth responds but my mind is thinking of every possible way I can keep Seth safe. The only conclusion I can come to is…. Well, it’s too much to swallow. I don’t even want to think about it.

  Blake’s booming voice interrupts my depressing train of thought and I glance over at him across the room, all stiff and commanding in front of his questioning police officer. “No, she did not ask for it. She did not ask to be grabbed and threatened and trapped against the back of my building. Who the fuck do you answer to, Officer Johnson? I promise I will have your ass out on the street by next week if you keep promoting sexual assault as the victim’s fault.” His arms cross in front of him, intimidating in form and presence, and he looks around the room. “I want another officer to question me.”

  I look back at my officer who looks like he wants to be questioning me as much as I want to answer him. He finishes hastily, and I certainly feel no safer than I did before the police showed up.

  No, I wasn’t hurt. No, he didn’t physically harm me. He threatened my family. He did not threaten to rape me explicitly, but he insinuated that he’d use me when all my loved ones are dead.

  There is only so much the police are willing to do, and I’m not a priority since I came out of the encounter unscathed.

  Blake stops his questioning to point me in the direction of the master bedroom where I would find a shower and some clothes in the closet that should fit me. I don’t question the instruction, I don’t ponder the incredibly romantic gesture Blake made sometime in our past, I just follow direction and clean off the grime I feel from Michael’s touch. Of his blood stained on my skin.

  I scrub until I’m raw and red, though I feel just as disgusting as I did before my shower. Maybe slightly better. At least Seth won’t have to see me or touch me with the lingering touch of my rapist on my skin.

  After finding some yoga pants and a college t-shirt, I look around the room. I don’t like the thought of being in a bedroom that was designed for intimacy between Blake and me, so I make my way back to the library. My fingers drag against the spines of thousands of book, some rare and some not. My heart flutters as I read the titles of so many books I recognize. Ones Blake must have painstakingly remembered and picked out so I would have access to them in this home.

  In the middle of the room sits a mahogany desk, elegant in construction, but modest enough that it doesn’t take away from the beauty of the books. A single book lies in the middle, and I recognize it immediately.

  Anyone who knows me has seen me with a book in this series at some point. Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince is a curi
ous choice to leave on the desk, so I open it up.

  I slam it shut as soon as I turn the hardcover.

  “No,” I whisper, checking behind me to make sure Blake didn’t see me open it. I shake my head in disbelief and risk opening it again. Same thing. Same cut out square directing me to Chapter Fifteen: The Unbreakable Vow. Same insanely ginormous diamond ring sitting in the middle, waiting for who knows how long to be placed on someone’s finger.

  I don’t notice Blake come in until I feel his shoulder brushing mine. “I was going to show you this place that day.” I don’t need to be told what day. We both know. “I couldn’t wait until dinner, so I asked you to meet me for lunch. I was going to take you here after. I thought you’d fall so hard for me, that there would be no way in hell you’d say no when I proposed.”

  Blame it on the pregnancy hormones or not, but I can’t look at him in fear I might start bawling. The man I used to love shines in every crevice of this place. It’s in the red shutters he purposely placed on the outside of the house. It’s in the wrap-around porch I said I couldn’t live without. It’s even in the bedroom I refused to explore.

  And it’s especially in this library—the room he promised he would build me one day.

  “It’s amazing, Blake. Shit, that’s not even a good enough word. I-It’s stunning. It would have been perfect for us.” Perfect before I finally admitted to myself that I was in love with Seth.

  His hand grazes mine, and his fingers twitch to hold it. I let him. I even let him turn me around to face him. While I know my heart belongs to Seth, I let Blake and me have this moment. This shared acknowledgement that if things had been different, then we would have been perfect together.

  “I’m trying so fucking hard to get over you, Jo,” he says in a low, hoarse voice. His breath fans over my face as I look up at him. “I see you in everything. Any time I get good news, I want to share it with you. When I’m happy, I want to make you feel it too. When I’m alone, I crave to have you with me. When I’m with my nephew, I long for the family we could have had. It’s killing me slowly, and I don’t know how to move on.”

  “Blake. I’m—” I start, but pause when Blake dips his head closer.

  “No. Don’t say it, Jo. I know you’re in love with someone else. I know I’ll never be him—I never was. Just don’t remind me that I couldn’t be the one you needed. It kills me every single time.”

  I reach my hand up to touch his cheek. It hurts to see his pain. To have him so open and honest about what he’s been going through. “You could have been what I needed, Blake,” I whisper back.

  He leans into my touch, closing his eyes, and rests his forehead against mine. He takes a shuddering breath. “But I could never be him. I was competing with him even before I realized I had to. Hell, before either of you realized I needed to.”

  “I’m sorry, Blake.” My hands rest on his shoulders and I shake my head against his. “Seth and I have had nineteen years to forge what we have. We were always supposed to be together.” Blake’s eyes drift closed. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not exactly what someone else needs. Life would have been incredible with you, Blake. We had everything going for us. The romance. The love. The sex. It was amazing …”

  “But not amazing enough,” he whispers.

  “It was enough. Just … Seth is more. He’s always understood me and loved me in a way no one else can compare to. That’s not your fault.” I place a soft kiss on his bristly cheek. “I loved you so much. It was very real.” I pull back and search his sad brown eyes. “Someone else deserves to feel the way you love, Blake. You’re wasting affection and time on someone who has already found her other half.”

  Blake takes my face in his hands and leans down to press his lips against mine. It’s a soft, barely-there kiss. A final goodbye. A release of the pain holding him back from moving on. And while I know there will be a lot of explaining and cajoling to do when I tell Seth about this intimate moment, I let Blake kiss me. When he pulls back, he moves to kiss the top of my forehead and releases a long fragile sigh.

  “I will move on from you, Josie Sommers. Despite the pain of letting you go, I will move on.”

  He holds on a few beats longer before releasing me and reaching around to close the open book.

  “I would have said no, by the way,” I say eventually, pointing to the Harry Potter book on the desk.

  He slides me a disbelieving smirk. “No you wouldn’t have.”

  I shrug. “You mangled a book in my all-time favorite series. It would have taken me forever to forgive you.”

  The tension eases as he laughs. “Of course.” He rolls his eyes. “Let’s not mention the four-carat diamond ring sitting in your all-time favorite book, and instead focus on the fact that I cut into your favorite book. Makes sense, despite the fact that you own at least three copies of every book in the series.”

  “It does to me.”

  He smiles and shakes his head, noticeably quiet for a moment. “So, what happened with Seth?” he finally asks.

  I look to the wooden floor, picking out specks of dust. “He has a gun. He brought a gun into our home.”

  Blake leans against the desk. “Oh, wow. What was he thinking?”

  I fling my head back and sigh heavily. “He’s thinking he wants to protect me. He’s thinking that he didn’t do enough the first time and wants to avenge me. But I’m not asking him to. I would never want him to kill someone for me. Can you imagine what that would do to someone like Seth? Despite the fact that he hates Michael with every fiber in his being, if he took someone’s life, it would crush him. He’d replay it over and over and pick at every detail until he’s drowning in a sea of self-guilt and loathing.”

  Blake regards me curiously. “That’s unfair of you. To assume he can’t handle the consequences. Hell, I don’t like guns either, and I still can understand why he feels the need to have one. You saw today how vulnerable you were without anything to protect yourself. You should trust that he knows how to handle this.”

  “I know …” I look back at Blake and my face pinches from the pain throbbing in my chest. “But it doesn’t matter now. I can’t …. Blake, you heard what he said. Michael’s going to hurt him. I can’t lead him to his death. If I break things off now, your dad might focus on me again.

  Blake looks at me thoughtfully before he responds. “Jo, my dad’s on the run now. The police are looking for him—which makes following through with those threats more difficult. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be careful, but I think you should at least give him the option to decide whether he wants to risk it or not.”

  But I know Seth, and Seth would choose his death over mine any day. And that’s absolutely the last thing I want.

  My phone buzzes in the pocket of my yoga pants, and I finally take note of the setting sun. Seth’s probably worried sick about me. Though I’m not looking forward to explaining anything that transpired while I was out—and I may be considering the option of never telling him—I know it’s time to face him. To apologize and try to work out this problem we’re having in our relationship. I pull out my phone and close my eyes as Seth’s goofy grin fills the screen.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Let me drive you to your car.” After what happened earlier, I certainly won’t refuse his offer, so I let him drive me back to my car. Blake doesn’t leave until I’m buckled and pulling out of the parking space.

  My phone rings again and I answer timidly, “Hey.”

  “Josie! Are you okay?” Seth’s voice is frantic, his rapid breathing audible through the phone.

  “Yeah. I’m on my way home now.”

  Chapter 20

  Seth

  I’ve just stepped out of the shower when I hear Josie enter the room. I wrap a towel around my waist and lean against the doorway looking into the bedroom. She doesn’t notice me at first, and the candid moment gives me insight to how she really feels before she locks it away so I won’t see.

  The frown and r
igid posture shows how worried she is. About coming home? About our relationship? I don’t know, and I don’t get a long enough read because she looks up and turns an apathetic gaze on me.

  Before I realize I’m doing it, I’m shaking my head at her. Warning her with my eyes to stop pretending before she drowns herself in a bed full of lies again. She has the courtesy to look ashamed and turns her attention to the hardwood floors.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hurting on the inside. I’ve put my trust in her, but when I came home and she wasn’t here, wasn’t at her dad’s, and wasn’t answering her phone, a chilling fear washed over me.

  I want to ignore what I saw when I pulled up the tracker app we installed on her phone for emergencies and pretend like she didn’t break my heart by seeing her ex-boyfriend. But the trepidation—and, hell, even insecurity—simmers on the surface as I look at her.

  It doesn’t help that I notice she’s in different clothes now than she was wearing earlier this afternoon.

  But I force myself to push it to the back of my mind and make my way to her. I ignore the needling feeling that something changed between us today. Pretend I don’t see the secrets she’s hiding in those steely-blue eyes. When I’m close enough, I don’t say anything. I reach out and hold her soft fragile face in my large calloused hands.

  And I kiss her. I kiss the hell out of her. I start softly, gently tugging on her lips, until soon the fire builds and I can’t get enough of her. Of her taste. Her lips. The way her tongue seeks mine out enthusiastically—almost desperately. We don’t stop to come up for air, because when has breathing ever been as good as a hard sensual kiss?

  My fingers weave their way through her hair, damp for a reason I refuse to think about. I pull back and stare at her, her eyes closed, neck exposed as she waits for the assault of my lips against her. “Hey,” I whisper. She opens her eyes and pulls herself closer to my body, clinging to me, fully aware that I’m ignoring the obvious questions I should be asking.