Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
RUBY
S he let herself cry it out, and then she took another shower, mostly to let the steam clear her head a bit. Feeling somewhat human again, she dressed for the day and picked up her phone from the nightstand.
No messages. Which was a good thing. It meant he was respecting her decision and keeping his distance, just like she’d asked.
There was no reason whatsoever for her heart to break all over again. None.
Pushing thoughts of Beckett and her empty notifications aside, she took a deep breath and pressed the button to call Jacqueline.
“Ruby! I was literally just about to call you. Palmetto Enterprises emailed me this morning to say you quit. What happened, girl?”
“I didn’t quit. It was all a huge misunderstanding.” She gave Jacqueline a brief rundown of how sick she’d been yesterday, sleeping through the phone call, and Beckett’s conversation with Nancy. “So, yeah. I had no idea until about thirty minutes ago that any of this had even gone down. Is there any chance you can get me that job back? I could really use the money.”
“Of course. The owner and I are good friends. I’ll ask her if she’s available for a lunch date and see if I can’t work something out.”
Relief flooded her, nearly making her knees weak. “Thank you so much. I owe you one.”
“Nonsense. You just get some rest and worry about getting better. Oh, and don’t be too hard on your man. Sounds like he was just looking out for you.”
You mean trying to control me. “I guess. Thanks again, Jacqueline. I really appreciate you.”
“Any time.”
Feeling much lighter, at least where her job and finances were considered, Ruby tucked her phone in her pocket and headed to her kitchen to make something to eat.
Her fully stocked kitchen, courtesy of one Beckett Stone.
Never mind. Maybe she wasn’t hungry, after all.
Just as she’d decided to go back to bed, her intercom buzzed. Riding high on her righteous fury, she stomped over and jabbed the button. “If you’re here to apologize, you can fuck right off, Beckett.”
Deep, throaty laughter floated through the speaker, followed by the absolute last voice Ruby had ever expected to hear. “I’m not here to apologize, though now I feel like perhaps I should.”
“Oh my god. Silver. I’m so sorry. That wasn’t—I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I figured as much. Can I come up anyway?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Fingers trembling, Ruby pushed the button on her intercom. “The door should be unlocked now.”
“Perfect! I’ll be right up.”
Holy shit. Holy shit . Silver, the Silver, was on her way up to Ruby’s apartment right this second.
She needed to clean. Or something.
But she’d just barely gotten started on the living room where she’d made her sick nest the day before when the knock came. She shoved as much as she could into a trash bag before turning to stare at the door.
“Just go over there, and open the door,” she lectured herself as she stood rooted to the spot. “She’s just a person. She puts her boots on just like anyone else.”
Except she wasn’t just a person. She was the person. Ruby had been following her career since she’d been in high school, from Deviant Whispers’ first album all the way through their last world tour. She knew everything about the band, and more about Silver than anyone else.
Silver was her fucking idol and she was here. Waiting just on the other side of the door.
“Ruby? You in there, honey?”
Jumping at the muffled sound of Silver’s voice, Ruby rushed over to yank open the door. “Hi! Sorry. Um. I was just cleaning up a bit. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess.”
“Oh, please.” Silver waved a hand as she stepped into Ruby’s apartment. “Don’t make a fuss on my account. Especially when you’re so sick.”
She would have rolled her eyes if her head hadn’t been pounding again. “I’m not that sick. Don’t believe a word Beckett says.”
“The only thing Beckett told me was that he’d fucked up and you could probably use a friend.” A smile spread across Silver’s face. “So I brought you a friend. Oh, and tea. With honey.” She held out a familiar to-go cup from Charleston Brews.
“I thought you said Beckett didn’t tell you I was sick,” Ruby grumbled as she accepted the drink.
“He didn’t. Braden knows, which means all the Daddies know at this point. And what Ice knows, I know.”
“Pretty sure that’s like, a HIPAA violation or something.”
Grinning, Silver lifted one elegant shoulder in a shrug. “Probably. But he means well. Now, sit and drink that tea. And when you’re ready, you can tell me all about mean old Beckett.”
Dropping back onto her couch, Ruby sighed. “You don’t know if he was mean or not.”
Silver settled on the cushion beside her. “Trust me, I know exactly how mean he can be. He helped Ice punish me once and threatened to do it again not too long ago.”
“Really?” Eyes wide, Ruby leaned in closer. “When was that? What did you do?”
“I made some very not nice assumptions about Ice, when we were still in the ‘figuring shit out’ phase of our relationship. They tied me up and blindfolded me, then made me take turns guessing who was doing what. If I got it wrong, they punished me.”
“That sounds awful. I’m sorry.”
“It was sadistic, in the best possible way,” Silver said, a dreamy smile tugging at her lips. “So believe me when I tell you, I know firsthand how mean Beckett can be. But I’m hoping whatever happened between the two of you didn’t really have anything to do with that.”
“Why?”
“Because I like Beckett’s face, and I’d hate for my man to have to break it.”
Choking on the tea she’d just taken a sip of, Ruby coughed while Silver pounded on her back, apologizing as she laughed.
When the fit passed, Ruby sipped her tea again to soothe her aching throat. “To answer your question, no, it doesn’t have anything to do with sex. Or play. We had a fight.”
“About?” Silver prompted, her tone laced with sympathy.
“About him being an overbearing, controlling asshole.”
To her surprise, Silver threw back her head and let out a long, loud laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like our Beckett. But I figured you knew that going in.”
“I did. And that’s why I kept telling myself it was just casual. That it was a bad idea to get in too deep.”
“Didn’t look too casual from where I was standing.”
There was no censure, no judgment in Silver’s tone. And yet, Ruby could feel the weight of it all the same. “Yeah. I know.”
“So, if you knew going in he was a controlling bastard, what tipped the scales? Something obviously happened between you two.”
Jumping up from the couch, Ruby headed for the kitchen, nervous energy driving her every move. “I need ice cream.”
“Oooh, me too, me too!” With a giggle that was completely at odds with her queen-of-the-darkness persona, Silver followed her into the kitchen. “What do we have?”
“Um, a little bit of everything.” Ruby rolled her eyes as she opened the freezer. “Beckett ordered groceries yesterday and he went a bit overboard.”
“Is there really such a thing as too much ice cream, though?”
“I guess not.”
Bowls loaded with frozen, sugary goodness, they headed back to the living room and settled on the couch once more. And Ruby couldn’t help but wonder how the fuck she’d gotten here, eating ice cream in her living room with her favorite musical artist of all time like it was just another Wednesday.
“This is really fucking bizarre. Sorry,” she added with an embarrassed laugh. “I just needed to get that out.”
“Does it help to know it’s a bit weird for me, too?” Silver asked.
“Well, yeah, I’m sure it’s not every day you hang out with obsessed fans in their apartments.”
“True. But I just meant the whole eating ice cream and talking about boys with your girlfriends thing. I never really had that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Scooping up another spoonful of ice cream, Silver shrugged. “We started the band when we were just kids. And everything happened so quickly, you know? One day I was a senior in high school, the next I was touring the world. There was never really time for ‘normal’.”
“I sorta get that.”
Silver paused with her spoon in the ice cream, her brows raising up to her hairline. “You do?”
“Uh-huh. I, um, met a guy. Right after high school. He was like a prince from a fairytale. Spoiled me with gifts and fancy food. And when my dad got a job on the other side of the country, he rented an obscenely expensive apartment for me and begged me to stay behind. So I did.”
“What happened to him?”
“I left. He was… not a nice man.”
Sympathy flickered over Silver’s face. “I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t told anyone but my therapist about him.” She’d been too embarrassed to admit how weak she’d once been.
“Well, I know a bit about not-nice men if you decide you want to tell me.”
For the first time in years, she did actually want to tell someone. So she did.
“He didn’t start out that way. In the beginning, he was everything a girl could possibly dream of. Charming, loved to spoil me. The change was so subtle, it took me a long time to realize there even had been a change. He traveled a lot, but even when he was out of town, he wanted to know I was home, waiting for him. It seemed kind of romantic, you know? And it fed into a lot of feelings I had, feelings I didn’t really understand at the time.”
“Feelings like wanting to please him? And wanting to have someone so obsessed with you, that they can’t stand the thought of anyone else even looking at you?”
Nodding, Ruby swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. “Yeah. How’d you guess?”
“I felt like that a lot with Ace. It was part of what kept drawing me back to him.” Silver shifted her bowl to one hand, splaying her other out, palm up so Ruby could see the shiny pink scar running diagonally from one side to the other. “Obsession feels like love when you’re making them happy, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” And it healed something inside her, something she hadn’t even realized was still cracked, to hear the simple understanding in Silver’s words. “He taught me about kink. About how to serve him, though it was mostly sexual for him. And because something in me craved the way I felt when I got on my knees for him, I thought I loved him. But one day I just woke up and looked around and realized how fucking alone I was. So… I left.”
“Just like that? He let you leave?”
“No. Not at first.” Because it was still so painful, still so fucking humiliating , Ruby gave herself a minute to pick at her ice cream some more. “The first time I told him I was leaving, he locked me in my bedroom. That was the day I learned that room only locked from the outside. He’d had it designed that way, on purpose. He left me there for three days without anything to eat or drink. And when he let me out, he told me never to forget that everything I had, I only had because of him.”
“Jesus Christ.” The color slowly leached from Silver’s face. “I’m so sorry, Ruby. That’s… I can’t even imagine how terrifying that must have been.”
“It was. And I’m ashamed to say it worked. I didn’t bring it up again for a while. And for a few months, it was better. He took me out more, showered me with presents. But when one of my high school besties called, asking if I would be in her wedding even though I hadn’t spoken to her in over a year, he said no. Absolutely not. No woman of his was going to dress up like a common whore and parade herself in front of a bunch of redneck assholes.”
She could still hear his voice, echoing in her ears. The pure venom that had dripped from every word. “We fought, and when I mentioned leaving again, he blindfolded me and drove me out to the middle of nowhere and left me there. No phone, no money, nothing. Just left me to figure out how to get back home on my own. Thankfully, a very kind couple picked me up and drove me back to my apartment. Which was locked. I had to get on my knees and beg him to let me in.
I missed one of my best friend’s weddings because I was so scared of him. Of what he could do to me. Of all the shit he put me through, I think that’s the thing I can never actually forgive.”
“And still, after all that, you found the courage to leave. I’m in awe of how fucking brave you are.”
“Not that brave,” Ruby said with a snort. “It took finding out he had a wife and a whole-ass family for me to finally get up the nerve to leave. I waited for one of his business trips, when I knew he’d be gone for a few weeks and I packed my shit and left. I only took what belonged to me. Nothing he’d ever bought me, and I left behind all of the cash and credit cards he’d given me. He’d told me once that if I took those, he’d have me arrested for theft and I believed him. So I left, broke and homeless. No education because he’d said I didn't need to go to school. That he would always be there to take care of me. No job skills for the same reason. I spent a year at a halfway house just trying to find steady work and save up enough money to get a car and an apartment. That was a little over three years ago, and I’m still fighting to get my life back on track.”
“Oh, honey.” Setting her half-melted ice cream aside, Silver leaned over, gripping Ruby’s wrist as tears slipped down Ruby’s cheeks. “I’m so fucking sorry. You didn’t deserve that. Any of that. And I can see now why dating a man like Beckett might be a little… difficult for you.”
“I can’t give him what he wants, Silver. I just can’t. And it’s breaking my fucking heart because I’m pretty sure I fell in love with him somewhere along the way and I don’t even know when it happened.”
“What is it you think he wants that you can’t give him?”
“Control. If he had it his way, I’d spend all day in that huge house of his, just waiting for him to get home and fuck me. I’d be right back where I was with Preston, dependent on a man who could ruin me without a second thought. I can’t be that girl again, Silver, not even for him.”
“Preston?” The corners of Silver’s mouth turned down. “Preston Kingsley?”
“Yes.” Realization dawned, and horror filled Ruby’s chest. “Oh, shit. You aren’t like, friends with him, are you?”
“No, no. His name has come up in conversations recently, so I just need to have a word with some people. But that can wait. We’re talking about you and Beckett, now. Have you told Beckett about any of this?”
“Not really. We were supposed to be keeping things?—”
“Casual, yes I know,” Silver said with a sigh. “But… well, do you really think it’s fair to assume he wants all these things that scare you when you haven’t talked to him about your concerns?”
“He already shown me that’s what he wants.”
“Ah. The fight?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
And so she did. From Beckett trying to make her leave her shift at the club early, to him showing up unannounced after dinner and spending the night, to him forcing her to go to the doctor and then making her call Braden and Jay to let them know she wouldn’t be in for at least a week.
“Then this morning I’m getting ready to go to my new job, one that actually pays really well, and he’s all ‘Well that’s going to be difficult because you don’t have a job’ and then he tells me he got me fired! Fired, Silver!”
“How the hell did he manage that?”
“I don’t know.” Rubbing at the ache brewing between her eyes, Ruby groaned. “Something about how they said if I didn’t come in yesterday, I didn’t need to come back at all and he told them that was fine.”
“Do you think you were up to working yesterday?”
“No, but that’s not the point . The point is, he came in and took over and he’s trying to isolate me. Control me. I’ve been through this before, I know what it looks like.”
“Right…” Silver trailed off, clearly weighing her words. “Let me ask you something.”
Opening one eye, Ruby glared at her. “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to ask me?”
“Because you probably aren’t,” Silver admitted with a grin. “But I’m being serious now. Before you got sick, did Beckett ever say anything about wanting you to quit that job?”
“Not that job, no. But he’s made it clear from the start he thinks I work too much.”
“Honey, you work close to full time at the coffee shop. Several nights a month at the club. Plus I think I heard something about one of those food delivery services?”
“Yeah, but I dropped that when I got the office job.”
“Okay, well, speaking of the office job, didn’t you get that job because you sacrificed your one day a month off to do a friend a favor?”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, I don’t know a single Daddy worth his salt who wouldn’t worry his ass off over his babygirl working that much. It has nothing to do with Beckett being a rich, entitled asshole, though you won’t get any argument from me on that front, either.”
Unease settled like a rock in Ruby’s stomach. “You think I overreacted.”
“I think Beckett’s actions triggered a completely understandable reaction to some very deep-seated trauma. So, no, I don’t think you necessarily overreacted, but I do think you and Beckett need to talk about what happened. Do you have a therapist?”
“I do. Dr. Jenn.”
“Good. This afternoon, you’re going to give her a call and have her fit you in for an emergency session as soon as possible. If your insurance doesn’t cover it, I will.”
“Oh, I can’t let you do that.”
“Of course you can. Because that’s what friends do. They take care of us, when we can’t take care of ourselves. Let me be your friend, Ruby. Seems to me like we could both use as many as we could get these days.”