Chapter 17 The Breakfast #2
“She was stay at home. Dad worked. She was going to go back to work when I was in kindergarten. That happened earlier, necessarily. They were young. Just starting out. New family. Crushing mortgage. He had a life insurance policy, but it pretty much only covered his funeral. I learned this all later, from Gram. Mom had no choice but to sell the house and move in with them. It was only going to be until she got on her feet, but we became a family, so we stayed. I don’t think she liked it.
But she did like there was always someone there for her girls.
Someone to get them from school or take them to a friend’s house.
Someone to help with the grocery shopping.
She worked reception at a dentist’s practice.
She was there for twenty-three years. She didn’t make a ton. We had more because we had them.”
“She never remarried?”
I got choked up, swallowed it down, and said huskily, “I guess Dad was a hard act to follow.”
He gave me a squeeze.
I pulled out of his throat to look at him. “She was great. The one good thing was, after Solène and I left, Mom could get a little house of her own. She loved that house. Did it up exactly the way she wanted. I just wish she had more time in it.”
“I do too, for her, for you.”
I gave him a shaky smile and continued, “Gram and Gramps were great too. We were really happy. We didn’t know we didn’t have much.
Both my grandparents were teachers, so they weren’t rolling in it either.
But we had each other, and the way they raised us, with a lot of love, laughter, support, togetherness, that was all we needed. ”
“That’s beautiful.”
“It was. And I’m glad you have a version of that too, with your sisters. I think that’s why I’m so comfortable here. There’s a lot of love in this house. It’s a big house, but it still feels like a home.”
It was only after I said that, woefully, when I realized the long length of his body under me had stiffened.
“Shit, did I say the wrong thing?” I asked.
“You think this house is full of love?” he asked in return.
“You don’t?” I queried hesitantly.
“I’ve never thought on it.”
“Well,” I said carefully, “it is.” Even more carefully, I stroked his jaw and whispered, “And it’s obvious you’re the one who built that.”
“She was raped.”
Now my body stiffened.
Straight to stone.
“Some monster who was a guest at a wedding she did the flowers for,” he went on.
Oh no.
I mean, that was what I was guessing happened.
But I hated to have it confirmed.
“He asked her out. She had a boyfriend. She declined. He refused to be put off and wasn’t, in the end. He cornered her in the back of her shop after closing, beat the fuck out of her because she fought, and probably because she didn’t say yes when he wanted her to, and he raped her.”
I framed his head in my hands and had no words to say except an aching, “Battle.”
“She was terrified of him. Closed the shop. Broke up with her boyfriend. Came home. Refused to press charges. She didn’t want it in the press. She didn’t want anyone to know. She didn’t want to have to testify.”
I pressed lightly on his head and remained quiet as he recited the litany of what any woman faced when this happened to her: having to make the decision whether or not to endure another violating trauma after experiencing the worst violating trauma a woman could experience.
“Buried herself in the garden. Tempie and Prue begged her to go to therapy. She refused. They stopped because just broaching it brought the subject up and they didn’t want to cause her more pain. I…” he swallowed with difficulty, “couldn’t go there with her.”
“Of course,” I said tremulously, because this man, knowing what happened to his sister, had to have come undone.
It didn’t happen to him.
But anytime something heinous befell someone you loved, in a way, it happened to you too.
“I fucked up, Vivi. I warned Tempie and Prue off. I told them to let her heal how she needed to heal. But the days turned to months, and now it’s been years, and I see all I did wasn’t giving her a safe haven to find a way to heal her wounds and accept her scars.
It was allowing her to close the door on her own prison. ”
“You take too much responsibility.”
“Tempie was right. We should have pressed therapy. We should have pushed her.”
“And maybe push her away?” I shook my head. “No. You did the right thing. It’s up to her to chart this course, honey.”
“Three years, Vivienne?”
I flinched.
“Right,” he muttered.
“That isn’t on you. It’s not on her either. It’s on that man. God. What an asshole. Did anything happen to him?”
His face shut down.
Oh boy.
“You did something,” I whispered.
“He raped my sister,” he said through his teeth. “And I’m stupid rich. Yes, I did something.”
I grinned.
Huge.
“What did you do?”
He stared at me like I was crazy.
“You can tell me,” I urged. “You didn’t make me sign an NDA, but I swear on all the orgasms you’ve yet to give me, I will take it to my grave.”
“We established yesterday we’re fond of each other.”
Fond?
That was tame for what I was feeling, but it worked for now.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“I’d prefer you remained fond of me.”
“All right, allow me to share, as a woman, there is not one thing you can tell me you did to a man who violated a woman that way, especially Chastity, but really anybody, that would make me even an iota less fond of you.”
“I had him beaten,” he said like a dare, “and raped.”
My eyes got big.
Then I busted out laughing.
I pushed up, and through my hilarity, said, “Oh please, tell me you’re serious.”
“I was emotional at the time, Vivienne. It wasn’t my finest hour.”
“Oh, you are so wrong, my overprotective duke, it soooooooo was. Seriously? The whole hog?”
“It was very costly,” he muttered.
“Did he press charges?”
“No, considering they told him it would keep happening if he uttered a fucking word.”
“They?”
“I sent three.”
This just got better and better.
“Did they all…?” I let that trail off.
“I didn’t ask for specifics. Just confirmation it was done.”
“Oh my God, this is magnificent.”
He rolled on top of me and warned, “Chassie and Prue don’t know.”
I pretended to lock my lips with a key, then said, “Let me guess, it was Tempie’s idea.”
“No. But she sanctioned it.”
“I bet she did,” I mumbled. Man, I dug that woman. “This is priceless. I love it.”
“It doesn’t erase what was done to my sister.”
That made me pull my shit together and soothe him with my hands.
Oh yeah, that muscled back was amazing.
“No, honey,” I agreed. “But even if she was his first crime, she might not have been his last. But I bet that made it so it was.”
“Well, since they told him it would happen to him again if he did it to someone else, and they’d be paying attention, I would reckon so.”
“Have you been watching?”
“He hasn’t even been out on a date.”
I tried not to smile.
I failed.
He watched me and noted, “You’re rather bloodthirsty.”
“I’m actually all about rehabilitation and establishing hearty social programs to alleviate conditions that would lead to disenfranchisement, such as after-school activities, paying for school lunches, increasing minimum wage, redistribution of wealth through taxes—”
I didn’t finish because he groaned.
“Oh shit,” I said. “You’re a Tory.”
“Fiscal conservative,” he amended.
“A Tory!” I accused.
“Center leaning.”
“Oh my God, I spent the night fucking a conservative.”
“And you enjoyed it greatly,” he purred.
“Thank goodness you don’t have a second amendment here.”
“The duchy owns twelve shotguns.”
I forced my hands in between us in prayer position and begged, “Please tell me you don’t hunt. Please, please, pretty please.”
“I don’t hunt. But I do trap shoot, and we host sporting clays.”
“Trap shoot?” And since I didn’t know the other either, I added, “Sporting clays?”
“Clay pigeons. Trap shooting is from a stationary position, but the angle the clays are launched is varied. Sporting clays is when you’re in a simulated hunting scenario. In other words, I shoot. I just don’t shoot anything that’s breathing.”
I grinned, grabbed his head and pulled it to me to kiss him.
He took over what was supposed to be a quick kiss, and it got interesting.
Some time later, when he put me on my knees with my face in his downy pillows, and he was taking me from behind, it got seriously interesting.
Okay, he was a great fuck and a magnificent man.
I could forgive him for being a Tory.
Or…a fiscal conservative (I decided to think of it like that).
Then again, I was coming to terms with the fact I would probably forgive Battle for pretty much anything.
And that didn’t scare me one whit.