Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Merritt
W ith the way my heart was racing, I was surprised it hadn’t jumped right out of my chest to dance a jig on the table right in front of us.
“Any other couple, I might say yes,” Rochelle answered, pulling me out of a tailspin before I could get sucked down too far. I turned back to the woman who’d been intimidating the hell out of me since the moment we met. There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that Rochelle Winslow wasn’t a shark in the courtroom. “As long as nothing started before you left the state?—”
“It didn’t,” I interrupted. “I didn’t even know him before I left.”
She tapped her pen about the table. “Well then, given the fact that you currently have a restraining order against him for domestic abuse, which was filed along with actual photographic evidence, his attorney could try to make a big deal out of this, but I don’t think it would sway a judge.”
Why did that response make my heart flip? It almost felt like we were being given permission or something.
I gave my head a shake to clear it of those thoughts. This wasn’t the time or the place for something like that.
“Merritt, I know this might be hard, but if it’s possible, I’d like to hear about your relationship with your husband.”
“Estranged,” Tristan said on a growl. My fingers on his knee clenched, hoping to ease the strain in his features.
“Estranged husband,” she amended with another cock of that one brow. I don’t know how she did it, arching one brow at a time, and without a single wrinkle creasing her forehead. She shifted her focus back to me. “If you could tell me what it was like, as much or as little as you’re comfortable sharing. I need to get a sense for how bad things were and the kind of man your estranged husband is.”
That familiar anxiety began creeping in. I brought both my hands onto the table and clenched them into fists until my nails dug into my palms. Before I could break the skin or make sores, Tristan was there, using his thumb to ease my fingers apart and rub soothing circles against my skin. I didn’t realize what I was doing until he stopped me, and that this wasn’t the first time he’d done it.
He paid attention and was there to stop me from hurting myself, even if I was unaware I was doing it.
I curled my fingers around that thumb and held on like it was my lifeline as I answered, “I’ll tell you as much as I can. The problem is, if you ask anyone else, my husb”—I caught myself and back-pedaled—“Warren is this perfect, nice, caring man to many. He has a gift for charming anyone into thinking he has a heart of gold.”
Only I knew the truth. At least until a handful of people started trickling into my life who believed me.
Something flashed across her face, but she schooled her features before I could recognize what it was. “Rest assured, that’s not something you have to worry about. I’m familiar with Warren Bell.” It almost looked like she sneered as she said his name. “I’m familiar with that whole good old boys club he’s a part of, and I’m aware of how those men function.”
“I take it you’re not a fan,” Tristan pointed out.
“Of that group of spoiled, rich, white, trust fund bros who expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter? Um, no. I am most definitely not a fan. I attended college and law school with a number of them. It was hard to keep their true natures in check when they kept getting bested by a woman. An educated black woman, to be precise. I checked every box of the things they hated, and they couldn’t stand it that I made better grades or that the professors liked me more. They got off on saying it was because I spread my legs, when the truth was, I wasn’t a lazy, self-important pain in the ass.”
She couldn’t have described Warren and his friends any better if they’d been standing right in front of her holding signs listing all their worst traits.
My brows dipped into a worried frown. “Are you sure you want to do this? To deal with Warren after all of that? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to go down that road again.”
“Are you kidding?” For the first time since meeting her, she showed a hint of emotion. Her lips stretched into a smile so predatory it sent a shiver down my spine. “I’ll take any chance I can get to knock those preppy golden buddies down a few pegs. I’m all in. By the time I finish with him, that man will be lucky if he’s left with the clothes on his back.”
“I don’t need all that. I just want to be done with him. I want a divorce.”
“Oh, sweetie, you’ll get it. Believe me. But I’m also going to make it hurt.”
The meeting lasted another hour and a half, and by the time it was over, I was drained. Having to relive those six miserable years syphoned off every bit of energy I had, leaving me feeling numb. With every story I told, the energy radiating off of Tristan grew heavier and heavier until the air in the room felt suffocating. If I thought for a second that I could get away with it, I’d crawl into my bed as soon as we got back to the house and pull the covers over my head for the next two days. But I already knew Tristan wouldn’t allow that.
As it was, I felt his eyes drilling into the side of my face every few minutes as we drove away from my new lawyer’s office.
“You’ve been quiet since we left the office,” Tristan said a while later, breaking the silence that had filled the Suburban the entire drive so far. “If you don’t want to talk, feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but I need to know you’re all right.”
The sigh I let loose felt like it drained my lungs of oxygen. “I’m tired. And I’m mad,” I admitted, getting to the root of everything that had been swirling around inside me for the past couple hours. The more I thought about it, the madder I got, and as strange as it might have been, I actually preferred the anger over the numbness. I’d spent all those years with Warren numbing myself in order to survive. I’d take feeling anything over that.
“No, you know what? I’m not just mad. I’m pissed!”
Tristan cast me a curious look before looking back to the road. “You want to talk about it?”
“Going through everything with Rochelle just reminded me of how long I spent trapped with that monster. I’ll never get those years back. I met him when I was barely twenty-one. My most formative years are just gone!”
His brows pinched together. “Well, I wouldn’t say they were all your formative years. You’re still young, Dandelion. There’s a whole lot of life left to live.”
“I get that, but it’s not only that those years are gone. I’m also mad I spent them being scared and lonely and sad. The more I told Rochelle, the more I realized those were the only emotions I felt, Tristan. For six years, there was nothing but fear, loneliness, and sadness.”
“Baby,” he rasped out, that one word coming out thick with pain. His jaw ticked as his fingers clenched the steering wheel. Despite the agony in his voice and etched onto his face, I couldn’t help but feel a flutter of pleasure at him calling me baby. It wasn’t quite as good as Dandelion, but there was an intimacy to it that warmed me from the inside out.
His hand shot across the center console and grasped mine, lacing our fingers together and bringing them across so he could rest them both on his thick, strong thigh. “I could kill him for making you feel that way,” he said in a low growl as he visibly fought to keep himself in check. I’d seen him do that more than once, and I knew he was trying to rein in his anger so he didn’t do or say something to scare me.
But he couldn’t scare me. Not anymore. If there was one person on this planet I trusted above everyone else, it was Tristan Fanning. He was the best man I’d ever known, and I knew down to my very soul he would never hurt me. He’d proven that time and time again.
“When I think about what he did to you?—”
I twisted in my seat and pulled my hand free of his so I could wrap it around the back of his neck. It would have been so much easier to comfort him if we weren’t driving, but I’d make do. “Don’t think about it.”
“Merritt—”
“I’m serious, Tris. Stop thinking about it. I’ve decided that’s what I’m going to do.”
He cast a skeptical look in my direction. “Just like that, huh? You make it sound easy.”
I pressed my fingers into his skin before dragging them up into the hair at the nape of his neck. It was the first time I touched his hair. I’d wondered for weeks what his hair felt like, and now I knew it was just as soft and silky as it looked. He leaned into my touch like it provided him with comfort.
“I didn’t say it was going to be easy. It’ll probably be hard as hell. But I’m going to do it anyway. You know why?”
I felt the tension in his neck start to melt away, and when he glanced my way, there was a tiny smile playing on his lips. “Why’s that, Dandelion.”
I returned his smile. As soon as I made that decision, it was as though a weight lifted off my chest. It was the strangest sensation, both scary and thrilling at the same time.
“Because I’m strong enough now to take my life back.”
“Baby...” I was really starting to like that word. “You’ve always been strong. Strongest woman I know.”
My insides began to melt. “Okay then, because I finally believe I’m strong enough to take my life back. How’s that?”
He answered by pulling my hand from the back of his neck and bringing it around to press a kiss to my knuckles. Then he intertwined our fingers again. I was getting the sense that Tristan was big on hand holding, and I did not dislike it. “That’s great, Merritt. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
I made another decision in that very moment.
As soon as he pulled to a stop at a red light, I leaned a little closer to him and lowered my voice. “Ask me why I believe I’m strong enough, Tristan.”
His head whipped in my direction, that pale blue in his eyes darkening as a million different emotions swirled inside their depths. “Merritt...”
“Ask me. Please.”
His throat worked on a swallow and his nostrils flared on a deep inhale before he finally spoke softly, asking, “Why do you believe you’re strong enough?”
“Because of you.”
His hand shot out, wrapping around the back of my neck and pulling me toward him so he could rest his forehead against mine. He squeezed his eyes closed, his features a twisted mixture of pain and pleasure.
I don’t know how long we sat like that before he finally opened his eyes again and stared straight into mine.
“That’s the best gift anyone has ever given me, Dandelion. And I’ll cherish it as long as I live.”