Chapter 13
Juliette
The top floor of the house felt like my own secret haven.
I had been stuck on the bottom one all day, making sure to tend to every last one of Gordon’s needs. Food, drinks, cushion, phone charger, laptop, another cushion, a blanket, glass of water, one more glass of water, yet another cushion.
It was like dealing with a child. Sometimes I wondered why Gordon was so eager to get me pregnant when he was already playing the role of an obnoxious spoiled brat. He already had what he wanted.
But finally, a little while after the moon rose high in the sky, he fell asleep. All the pain medication he had taken during dinner had aided him in nodding off early, leaving me the chance to have some freedom. It had been a long time since I had that.
It was after ten and slightly later than I would usually go to sleep. Gordon had me on a strict schedule, so being up so late felt like breaking the law.
I was free. A little free, at least. And it was all thanks to that long flight of stairs. Or maybe I should have been thanking Bridger.
Either way, the second I entered the bedroom, I made a beeline for the balcony, eager to just be at peace for a little while after waiting on hand and foot for Gordon all day. I pulled open the heavy double doors, fully ready to embrace the evening air when I heard it.
“You done looking after him?”
I literally jumped at the sudden sound. At that deep voice. That stupid, deep voice. I couldn’t even see him. It was pitch black out on the bedroom balcony. The only light was that subtle orange blaze from Bridger’s cigarette.
“He must be tired,” he said. “Busy day at the bingo hall, right?”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I snapped.
“I should be asking you that,” he said.
“What are you doing standing out here like a creep?” My eyes narrowed, trying to give my vision the chance to adjust to the darkness.
That wasn’t doing much to help, though. Bridger must have been dressed head to toe in black, because that small orange circle of his smoke was the only visual I was getting of him.
“’Cause,” was all he said.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I asked, looking over my shoulder for a quick second.
“I like seeing you,” he said lowly. “Don’t you like seeing me?”
“No,” I called out and spun on my heels, storming back into the bedroom. Of course, the sound of his footsteps was in my ears. He was following right after me. “Do you want something? Or maybe you’re here to give me my bag back?”
“You’re not getting that back.”
“Then what do you want?” I turned back around to face him.
I gasped a little when I saw how close we were, our bodies barely inches apart as he towered over me.
Hair messy, eyes dark, hand rising lazily to pull that cigarette from between his lips.
“What do you want from me? You can’t keep popping into my life like this. Gordon is downstairs!”
“I know. He’s busy, though.”
“With what?”
“He was watching TV.”
“Gordon doesn’t watch TV.”
“He was watching Bonanza.”
My throat cleared, holding in the tiny laugh Bridger didn’t deserve to hear. “He is not that old.”
“Is he still in pain? I hope he is.”
I scoffed, hands crossing over my chest. “You should apologize for doing that.”
“I couldn’t help myself,” he said casually. “I was just going for a drive and I just happened to see him. Wrong place, wrong time. For him, at least. For me it was excellent timing.”
“You haven’t changed at all. You could have killed him, you know?” I whispered harshly.
“I wish I had killed him,” Bridger said.
My breathing felt like it stopped when he said that, the vision of a lifeless Gordon flooding my brain while Bridger towered over him with a gun in hand. “You think he wouldn’t fight back?” I asked.
“Sweetheart, your husband isn’t exactly a strong man. The guy’s eighty years old.”
“You are so…” My eyes rolled. “Go home. Go.”
“Or what? We both know you won’t call the cops. My guys were a little worried you’d end up being a snitch, so I guess it works out, huh?”
I should have been picking up the phone and calling them right there in that moment.
Bridger Underwood didn’t deserve forgiveness or a second chance or any goodness at all, but I couldn’t bring myself to be that person.
To be the one that sent him back to prison.
Watching him get shoved into that cop car the first time had been hard enough.
Doing that a second time would break me, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t let him know that.
“Well, I’m not,” I said, voice flat.
“Yeah, I told them that. But they get a little paranoid about stuff like that.”
“I’m not going to the cops. I should, but I won’t. Consider yourself lucky.”
“Great. Why don’t you paint anymore?”
My head shook wildly at the sudden question and how casually it spilled from his lips. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t paint anymore, right?”
“Why do you care?”
“Do you or don’t you?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Answer the question before I beat your husband’s face in.”
Letting out a shuddered breath, I nodded, his threat completely and utterly believable. Bridger Underwood might have been a liar, but when it came to that? Violence, power, aggression? I knew exactly what he was capable of.
“Yes, okay?” I finally said. “I don’t… I don’t paint anymore…”
“You used to love painting.”
“Right.” My arms wrapped around myself, trying to find a shield, trying to give myself anything that would fight off whatever interrogation Bridger was about to give me.
“But you stopped.” Tilting his head, he kept his eyes on me. Studying me. “I’m guessing that wasn’t in the plan.”
I scoffed, arms tightening around myself. “How do you even know all of this?”
“So, it’s true then?”
“Who told you that?”
“What happened?”
“Why do you care?” I snapped, finally letting that frustration burst through my words. The shock had left me. Anger was back. “You can’t just not talk to me for five years and then suddenly try and get information on all the things you missed out on.”
“Why would you stop doing something you love?”
“It just didn’t work out, okay? That’s it. There’s no mysterious story you need to figure out.”
“What happened?” he pressed, voice a little sharper.
I paused, eager to come up with a lie that’d satisfy him, but then I just groaned in frustration, turning on my heels so I could get away from him. Why was he putting me in a position to have to come up with some lie, anyway? When he was the one who was trespassing? Again?
“Go home, Bridger,” I said as firmly as I could, but I could hear his loud footsteps following right behind me.
“That was your dream, right?” he called out. “Harvard. Art. Painting. You used to paint every day when we were together. You loved it.”
“Okay, and?”
“What happened to all of that?”
“That’s none of your concern.” I spun around to face him, and once again, I had to fight off the blatant pull he had on me.
He was so close that I almost collided with his chest, my steps shaky as I took a couple back.
He was towering over me. Too tall, too strong, too big.
Why was he so big? “I stopped being your concern the minute you did what you did.”
He raised his brows at that, eyes a little narrowed, too much mock confusion spreading across his face when he knew damn well what I was talking about. “And what did I do?”
“You have the audacity to act like you care about my life and my art and me when you hurt me the way you did? Did you think I’d just forget about that? That I wouldn’t care? You hurt me in the worst way you could, Bridger.”
Bridger sucked in a long, sharp breath. “How many times do I have to tell you that I. Didn’t. Do. It?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I. Don’t. Believe. You?”
“I’d never hurt you like that.”
“You never even tried to say sorry to me. You just did it and broke my heart in the process. I gave you everything, Bridger. You were…” I paused, halting myself before I spilled too much and told him things I didn’t want him to know.
You were the only person I had ever loved.
The one person I could ever love. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this!
You shouldn’t be back in my life like this! ”
“I didn’t plan on this being your house, you know?”
“You can’t stop coming back, though. You just stumble back in my life like none of that happened, like you never hurt me, and now here you are, not even able to admit what you did. Not even able to say sorry.”
“I’m not saying sorry for something I didn’t do.”
“You come back into my life after five years—”
“Not on fucking purpose,” he said, teeth grinding.
“After doing what you did to me and—”
“I didn’t do it.”
“And then you stand there and act like you care about me? Or my art? Or the person I used to be? You wanna ask all these questions and pry into my life, but I don’t even know anything about you. I know even less about you than I did five years ago!”
“A lot’s changed,” he said, voice lowering. “Prison tends to change you. You don’t have much of a choice. You either adapt or you never make it out alive.”
“And prison turned you into this?”
He shrugged. “This life is a lot more fun than you realize.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not afraid to go downstairs and put a bullet in your husband’s head.”
I froze. That should have terrified me, should have had my blood running cold, but all it did was remind me of the allure that was Bridger Underwood. He was big and bad and dangerous, and the boy I had lusted over and loved so much had turned into a man who wasn’t afraid to spill blood.
I laughed, the sound shocked and stuttered. “It seems like you’ve changed much more than I have.”
He stayed quiet for a long moment and just stared at me. Right into my eyes, like he was trying to climb inside my brain and see what I was thinking.