My heels crunched in the dried pine needles as I turned around. “I need a minute, okay?”
Calliope watched sympathetically, then nodded. “Do you want me to tell him you’re here?”
I sighed. I didn’t have to ask whom she meant. The black SUV was parked up at the top of the road ahead of the other cars. I should have known Will wasn’t going to take my first no for an answer. He was so much more stubborn than that. He’d hovered at the periphery of the burial, and when we had arrived here, the SUV had been empty except for Hakeem in the front seat, playing on his phone.
“No,” I said. “I’ll—I’ll deal with him later. Callie, I can’t face all those people. I need a second. I need a breath.”
She nodded again and rubbed my shoulder. “Of course. I’ll let Linda know you’re on the way.”
I made my way down the other side of the hill, carefully stepping, and at times slipping, down the trail, past the farthest cabin on the property and all the way to the water. To my favorite spot, Moon Rock—the wide, flat boulder that stuck out onto the lake, where I’d escape my mother’s clamor and find some peace.
After leaving my shoes on the bank, I clambered onto the cold slab and sat still, facing the water with my knees pulled into my chest. It was relatively quiet. With September had come the beginning of school, and most of the summer visitors had returned to their cities. The maples and alders mixed in with the pines were starting to change, and the tules scattered around the edges of the water had lost their blooms. Only a few boats were out—mostly fishermen and a few wakeboarders, catching the last few rays of summer. And with them came the last few vestiges of a memory I’d long forgotten.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” I tossed a stick into the water below the smooth, rounded edge of the rock.
“Maggie Mae.”
Her voice was calmer than I’d ever heard it. Since I’d gotten my acceptance to NYU and the scholarship that would make it happen, Mama had moped around the property, sneaking an extra dollop of gin in her soda when she thought I wasn’t looking. She complained to inanimate objects that couldn’t speak back: the flowers she watered, the grass she cut.
“What does New York have other than filthy streets and filthier people?”
“Why doesn’t my daughter love me enough to stay close?”
I turned, ready for another onslaught of her guilt. I was so tired of this fight. She’d never forgive me for leaving, but I’d never forgive myself if I stayed.
She lacked, for once, that omnipresent, slightly manic gleam, the one that came with a strong drink or five and glazed her life with a glee that she had convinced herself replaced true happiness. Without that film, her deep brown eyes clearly conveyed sadness, but also another truth.
“I know sometimes I’m not the mama you wanted,” she admitted. “Certainly not the one you needed. I know I haven’t made this decision easy for you.”
I watched the water and the way its ripples drifted outward from the stick.
“But I’m proud of you, Margaret. So very proud.”
I looked up. She’d never said it. Not about this, the first accomplishment in my life that really meant something. “Really?”
Mama nodded. Her curls bobbed with the moment, joyful in a way her face was not. “Oh, baby, of course I am. I’m proud of you for everything you are. And I hope…” She placed a thin, solid hand on my shoulder. It was such a different touch when it was there out of tenderness, rather than the heavy weight of her when I carried her to her room or a harsh smack when she lost her temper. “In all these years, I hope I’ve taught you one thing. Maggie Mae, you listen to me. You only got one life to live, baby. And no matter what anyone says, you got to live that life for yourself. You got to live and die for what’s right for you. No matter what anyone says. Even if that person is me. Do that, and have no regrets, you hear?”
The water lapped around us, and for once, Mama didn’t look away. Didn’t hide her discomfort in a drink or a gale of laughter. Didn’t change the subject to neighborhood gossip or what so-and-so had said at the salon. She waited with uncharacteristic patience as her words sank in.
“You hear?” she asked after a few more minutes.
Slowly, I nodded. “Yeah, Mama. I hear.”
“They said I might find you here.”
I started at a familiar voice that pulled me out of my daydream. Deep. Twisted. Utterly, utterly wrong. At first, I thought he might be a figment of my imagination, another memory springing from beyond. But the scent of his cologne floated over the water, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I turned around, and there he was, leaning against a tree. His designer jeans and polo shirt were uncharacteristically rumpled. His goatee needed a trim, and the rest of him a good going over. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. And right now, his dark, almost black eyes were trained directly on me.
“Theo,” I breathed, edging toward the water. “W-what are you doing here?”
Run, baby. My mother’s voice again, speaking from deep within my subconscious. Except I couldn’t. Stranded on the rock, there was nowhere to go.
Theo came to stand between the three big boulders couched around the only easy exit off the rock, effectively trapping me against the water. I slid down the slanted plain. Barefoot and cold, I curled into myself, pulling my skirt tighter over my knees.
“I had to pay my condolences,” he said, bending over to brace his hands at the top of the slab. “You ran off so quickly last time.”
“You mean, after you were kicked out of Corbyn’s house?”
Theo’s dark eyes sharpened at the mention of the other night. “You didn’t really think it was going to be that simple, did you, Flower? You know me.” He leaned down so our faces were level. “You know exactly what kind of grudges I can hold. Your boyfriend doesn’t. He should, considering there are a few people out there with grudges against him too.”
I blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Theo shrugged. “Let’s just say I had some help.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out whom he was talking about. There were really only a few other people who would nurse this kind of grudge against Will. Tricia might be a terrible mother, but she was money-hungry, not vindictive.
“Amelia,” I breathed. “Tricia?”
Theo nodded. “There we are. Amy was kind enough to let me know where you’d gone. Apparently Mr. Sunshine and she were quite chatty during reshoots. He told her the moment he received the call from your friend.” He winked. “They’re very close, you know. Almost as close as you and me.”
I swallowed as I worried my skirt between my fingers. “You’re lying. You shouldn’t be here.” I looked around, but the lake was empty now—not even a fisherman in sight.
“You really are dense, you know that, Maggie?” Theo’s full lips twisted grotesquely. I honestly couldn’t remember why I had ever been attracted to them. “All body, but you never had an ounce of brains. Whose idea do you think it was for me to come to the party to begin with? We had it all planned out. I brought the drugs. She dropped them in his drinks. His own mother served them herself. Amy and Tricia got their prize idiot…” He trailed off as his gaze steered down my body and back up. “And I got mine. It was bad luck that your boyfriend turned out to have a better tolerance for Rohypnol than I thought. We underestimated that a bit, but in the end, it didn’t matter, did it?”
The revelations took a moment to sink in, but when they did, it was like a veil had been lifted. Rohypnol. Of course. It explained everything—the woozy look in Will’s eyes in the photos, the way he didn’t move a muscle to stop Amelia, nor to respond to her. My heart plummeted. I believed him, though another part of me wondered if I would ever be free of this kind of targeting. If Will would either.
Theo traced a long finger over a groove in the rock. Once I loved those fingers—loved the way they threaded through my hair, gripped my arms, caressed my body. But even then, his touch was always lac
ed with a threat. Even before he had ever touched me in violence, a part of me must have known that his slender hands contained that potential.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked, hating my voice for warbling the way it did. “Her too. Why can’t you let us go?”
“Do you know what I thought the first time I saw you?” he asked. “At your show, remember?”
I remembered. So strange that the two men who would affect my life the most had both seen me on stage that night, so long ago. Even though I hadn’t met either of them until much, much later.
“Do you know the first word that went through my mind?”
Wordlessly, I shook my head.
Theo tapped his nose, which was slightly crooked now in the middle. He didn’t wear a brace, but there was still a bit of bruising around the bridge. “I’d never seen anything like you. I never liked your music, but it didn’t matter because you stunned us all. You were so exquisite. Unfinished, of course. Those terrible clothes, that crazy hair.” He pointed at my curls, which flew around me in nearly unmanageable spirals. “But those lips, that body, that beautiful face. I thought, this perfect little diamond in the rough, someone I could remake perfect. Just. For. Me.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Where was Calliope, Linda, Lucas…anyone to help? My cell phone was in the car, and of course, no one would be able to hear me if I yelled from here—all sound was blocked by the giant, bouldered cliff between Moon Rock and the house. Any screams would only echo across the bay to empty houses. The water below the rock masked jagged edges of broken granite—if I jumped in, I risked breaking an ankle, or worse, my head.
Theo stood up straighter. Then he leaned over the rock, close enough that he was less than a foot from me. There was nowhere to go—if I scooted backward, I’d lose my balance and end up toppling into the rocks.
“I thought,” he said, as his dark, handsome face contorted with delight, “Mine.”
Locked in place, I could hear the ghost of my mother behind me, railing against the men who had loved and hated her all her life. I could feel Will’s warm, solid energy emanating from within.
Another memory floated into my conscious thought, this one much more recent.
“You’re mine,” Will stated in a low, languid voice. “Say it.”
“Yours,” I replied immediately. The lazy smile that spread across his face made my insides twist. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him to me. “But you’re mine too.”
“No,” I whispered, even as the pain of the memory cut through me. Its pain…and its truth.
Theo’s sneer quickly morphed to a snarl. “What?”
I cleared my throat. “I s-said no. I don’t belong to you, Theo. I n-never belonged to you. I’m not your flower. I’m not your anything! Your problem is that you could never accept it.”
Theo only stood there. It was then I noticed the sheen of something else––drugs, maybe. He had never been one to shy away, and I suspected he was on something now. Which, of course, only made him that much more dangerous.
“Theo, please,” I begged, losing any remains of my pride. “Walk away. I won’t––I won’t call the cops. I won’t tell anyone you were here. Please…let me go.”
Whether it was my words or pathetic tone, something in Theo moved. Like a rubber band snapping into place, he jerked, and his eyes, black and flashing, zeroed in on me.
“You don’t fucking get it, do you?”
Before I could move, he lunged forward and grabbed a nasty handful of my hair, yanking my face six inches from his. The other nabbed both of my wrists behind my back, wrenching my shoulders so that I was both laid across the top of the rock and arched toward him in a painful bind.
“Theo, stop!” I cried, kicking my feet toward the water, but otherwise unable to move.
“You don’t get to say no to me!” he hissed. “Are you deaf? You’re mine, Maggie. You’ve always been mine. Before. Now. After. Always. And I’m sick and fucking tired of you denying that basic fact.”
“You’re c-crazy,” I said, my voice growing stronger. Fight it. My mother’s voice was stronger too.
“Shut the fuck up!”
He shook me like a rag doll. I winced, feeling multiple strands of hair pulled out. But I didn’t stop talking.
“You’ve always been crazy,” I snapped back, loud enough now that my voice began to echo off the lake. “I don’t know why you have this demented belief that I-I belong to you or something, but I don’t! I never have. I never ever will!”
His eyes flared. “Is that fucking right?”
He moved like lightning, jumping onto the rock and crouching over me even as he held me still. Theo twisted me around so I sat up against his chest, my face tipped up in an absurd parody of love. He skimmed a finger down my jawline, letting it catch on my skin painfully.
“And you think you belong to him?” he wondered.
I tried to jerk away, but the grip on my hair held strong. “You have no idea,” I mumbled. Will…the name called inside me, full of love and regret. The image of him bent over at the church flashed in front of me. He…oh, God. The things I’d said.
Theo’s free arm latched mine behind my back, holding my body still against his. Then his lips followed the line of his nail, pressing cold, rubbery flesh to mine, the scent of his cologne overpowering everything else. Bringing me back to the terrible present.
“Do you remember what I used to do to you, Flower?” His voice was a low purr, like a cat toying with its prey. “Do you remember all those nights, all those days back in New York? The way I’d probe your sweet cunt and make you scream? You loved it. Even when I took you against your will, you secretly loved it.”
I jerked again. Perhaps I’d once liked the way Theo touched me, but the longer we were together, the more unforgiving he had become. Even from the beginning, sex had been a way of claiming me, and I had accepted his dominance as intimacy because I was ignorant to the differences between proprietorship and passion. Lines were crossed early on, to the point that it had taken me a very long time to understand how many of our interactions occurred without my consent.
But now I knew better. Now I had experienced the real thing.
“You were a terrible lover,” I pronounced. “Everything about it.”
“It could have been good if you’d let it.” His breath was hot. My stomach lurched.
“You raped me,” I spat, almost like a reflex. “How the fuck was that good?”
“Rape? Oh, Flower, no. That wasn’t rape.” His teeth closed over the corner of my jaw and bit down. It hurt. “That was games.”
“You only ever took what you wanted, and now that when you don’t get what you want, it drives you even more batshit crazy. Well, you can’t have this. You can’t have me!”
In response, Theo whipped my hands down and ensnared them between his thighs. I was trapped, while he kept one hand in my hair and the other began tugging my skirt up my thigh.
“Stop.” I tried and failed to wriggle away from him, but his thighs were like steel and the hand in my hair yanked again, hard enough that I could feel more hair pulling out.
“No,” he said simply while his hand found my underwear and started to pull.
“Theo, stop.” My voice was losing its strength. There was no one to hear us. I was completely on my own. “I SAID STOP!”
My body flung into action as I arched against him and twisted with all my might. The movement rolled my ankle in a vicious turn, causing a loud howl to burst from the back of my throat. But at the same moment, it also knocked Theo off-balance.
“Get off me!” I shouted, again and again once my arms were free. Lashing out, I kicked and scrambled as he lurched toward me over the slanted surface of the rock.
“Come here!” he shouted.
“NO!”
I kicked again, my injured foot, undercutting his advance. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t care. All I knew was that I would not, could not allow this man to touch me again. Either I was going
in the lake or he was. I glanced out at the water. If I jumped far enough, maybe I could skip the jagged, shallow edges and land where the rocks gave way to the deeper part of the lake. But that was a very big if.
“Maggie!”
The sound of Will’s voice cut though my panicked thoughts.
“Will!” I screamed. “I’m here!”
His golden head popped through the trees, and the second he saw who was crouched on the rock with me, he doubled his pace down the hillside and came jogging through the trees a moment later, sending pine needles and fallen leaves flying.
“Get the fuck off her!” he yelled as he bounded over the boulders.
Theo made one last frantic grab, and I kicked out, making contact with his legs. “No!” I screamed. “Don’t touch me!”
Will’s fist shot out, a cannon into Theo’s face, and knocked him down. His skull slammed against the edge of the rock with a sickening crunch, and then he bounced into the water, face-down. His limbs shook, thrashing on their own. And then…he didn’t move.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Is he…”
Will slid into the water, picked around the rocks, and with Herculean effort, somehow managed to pull Theo out and lay him across the rock beside me. Blood streamed heavily from a nasty cut on his forehead—where he must have hit one of the jagged edges lurking below the surface.
“Will, he’s…Will, we have to help him!”
“No the fuck we don’t!” Will pulled me into him and stared down at the body. His pants were soaked, dripped water all over the rock, while his shirt, damp from lugging the body, soaked into my dress. He looked a little starstruck himself, like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening. “He chose this fate, Lil. Let the bastard fucking have it.”
For a half second, I actually considered it. All of the moments—the many, many times I had felt that my life was in danger because of this man—flashed in through my mind. Part of me wanted to know he was gone.
But no. I couldn’t do this, and I couldn’t let Will do this. We both carried enough guilt with us, wherever we went. We didn’t need this too.
Indiscreet (The Discreet Duet Book 2) Page 32
