Chapter 16 #2
“I like that. This is a great drawing, Lottie. Well done.” She looked directly at me. “We should speak. Do you have time after class?”
Undoubtedly about what had happened last time I’d stayed after class. I nodded.
When she walked off to the next student’s easel, I cleaned and packed up my area until the final bell of the day rang. I sat on my stool until the class cleared out and waited for Ms. Clark to approach me.
“I want to apologize for how our conversation went last time we spoke,” she said. “If you would like me to change your final, I will.”
“What an ass-covering move on your part,” I said, beyond annoyed and disappointed. She was just like everyone else who had tried to help me in the past. “Did you think I or my mother would come for your job?”
“No,” she said quickly, sounding flustered. “I realized I was wrong for using your final as a way to get through to you on such a delicate and personal matter. It was the wrong approach.”
I mulled over her words for a moment, realizing I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. I sighed heavily, feeling like an asshole. “You were right to assume that I express my pain through my art. I do. I guess I wasn’t as good at hiding things as I thought, but I wouldn’t take back a single drawing.”
Her eyes went big, and I could see the questions forming.
“I don’t live with the source of my pain anymore,” I told her. “My life is complicated right now to say the least, but I’m somewhere safe and that is all I want to say on that. It might all come to light eventually, but for now, I want to keep things private for as long as possible.”
“I would never gossip about you, Lottie. I’ve only ever wished to help you,” she insisted.
I met her eyes. “There was nothing you could have done to help me. But thank you for caring enough to try.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“There won’t be any need to change my final,” I told her. “I will draw my interpretation of love.”
Her smile grew. “I can’t wait to see it.”
Roe was waiting for me outside Ms. Clark’s room. Seeing him after having a short but still uncomfortable conversation lifted my spirits almost instantly. I went right up to him and pushed up on my tiptoes to kiss him.
His arms wrapped around my waist. “I love how much you’ve been smiling lately,” he said in between kisses.
“Have I?”
He nodded and he took my hand. “Real and beautiful smiles.”
I rested my head on his shoulder as we headed through the school toward the parking lot. Without the worry of Brandon, we walked the nearly empty halls at ease.
“The fair is coming to town this Sunday,” he said. “We should go.”
“Would it be a date?”
He smiled as he stepped ahead of me to get the exit door. “It can be, or we can invite Mac and Lemon, too.”
“I’d like that,” I said as I walked outside first.
“I think it will be fun having you try all the crazy fair food,” he said.
“Is that your thing?” I teased as I walked backward so I could face him. “Feeding me?”
“Are you asking me if that turns me on?” He reached for me, making me giggle and dash out of range.
He caught me around the waist in just a few big strides.
His lips peppered kisses up my neck to my ear.
“Every inch of you turns me on,” he whispered before pulling back.
“I like feeding you because I like taking care of you.”
I leaned up and kissed him.
To my dismay, he kept the kiss short. “If you don’t stop kissing me and being adorable, we’ll never get out of here.”
He released me and I turned for the parking lot. As I looked out toward my car, what caught my eye stopped me in my tracks. Less than twenty feet from us, standing next to her parked car along the curb, was Mother.
She was in billowy white pants and a sapphire-blue silk blouse. Her blonde hair was ironed straight like mine. She had her arms folded over her chest and her angry gray eyes fixed on me.
“Lottie?” Roe said next to me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him follow my line of sight.
Mother stepped toward us. “Get in the car, Charlotte. It’s time to come home.”
Roe cursed under his breath and pulled something from his pocket. I was too scared to look away from Mother to see what it was.
“Charlotte,” Mother said with a tone that made my body want to obey.
I fought it. I fought it with all my might.
When I didn’t do as she said, the look she gave me promised she would hit me with the nearest thing she could get her hands on until I was bleeding.
“Lottie,” Roe said again, anger seeping into his voice.
Hearing that anger, which I knew was for me, was like a knife cutting the leash of fear Mother had used on me for so long. A new fear took its place. A fear that she might do something to him if he involved himself. I needed to protect him. I would protect him.
“Please stay out of this,” I told him firmly as I walked toward Mother. I was scared, but I would not cower like I had with Clay. I stopped a few feet from her, just out of reach.
“We will be having a long discussion when we get home,” she said in a low voice.
“No, we won’t,” I said with a calm voice even though my throat felt like it was tightening. I would not let her hear my voice tremble. Never again.
She looked taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“I will not be going anywhere with you.”
“Is that so?” Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. “And when I cut you off, what are you going to do then?”
The smile that pulled at my mouth was all an act, but she didn’t know that. “How can you cut me off from my own money?”
She didn’t blink. She didn’t even breathe.
“That’s why you got so angry on my eighteenth birthday, isn’t it?” I asked her, and rage lit up in her eyes, dispelling her frozen state. “It was the day you lost access to everything. All that money Father left me instead of you.”
Her nostrils flared as her breathing picked up.
I should have stopped talking. I should have just walked away.
But I was done silencing myself out of fear of her.
“I wish I had been there the day they read your spoiled ass Father’s will.
I wish I could have seen your disappointment when you realized that after all the lies, the fucking of other men—” I stepped closer.
“After you pushed him down the stairs and made it look like an accident, you got nothing.”
She lifted her hand in the air and I braced, letting her hit me. Her palm slapped me across my face, forcing it aside. Ignoring the sting, I slowly turned my head back to stare at her, lifted my own hand, and slapped her just as hard.
Not used to taking a hit, she stumbled a little in her Jimmy Choo heels that I’d undoubtedly paid for. Holding her cheek, she stared at me with wide eyes.
“That will be the last time you ever hit me again.” Wanting those to be my parting words, I went to walk away.
Just as I did, Mother lunged for me, her hand closing around my neck. “You will go with me now or I will slit your fucking throat,” she hissed as her nails dug into my skin.
I fought her, trying to shove her off me, only for us both to go tumbling to the ground.
Beneath me I could feel the ground vibrating. Then I heard the sound of a motorcycle growing louder. In my moment of distraction, Mother was able to climb on top of me, fighting to strengthen her grip on my neck. I smacked and clawed at her, which only enraged her more.
Roe appeared behind her and ripped Mother off me. She flailed in his grasp, yelling, demanding that he get his hands off of her.
Then someone stormed into my line of sight. A tall, Viking-like man in a Haven’s Rebels cut.
Bram.
His eyes scanned me for anything wrong. When he didn’t find it, his stare turned cold as he shifted it toward Mother.
Seeing Bram, Mother went still in Roe’s arms.
“Let her go,” Bram ordered.
Roe released Mother, who seemed too shocked to notice. Roe rushed over and helped me stand. The next thing that happened, I almost didn’t see. Bram grabbed Mother by the throat and backed her up until she hit the side of her car. He wasn’t choking her, but he was holding her firmly.
“You told me she would be better off,” he said in a low, cold voice, but it didn’t stay low. “You said she would have a better life!” he roared in her face. “You’re her mother, Beth! You were supposed to love her! Instead, you abused and used her for your own personal gain!”
His grip tightened and she began to panic. Her feet kicked as she tried to pull his hand from her neck.
“That fear you’re feeling right now is what our daughter felt her entire life, and I could snap your bony fucking neck for that.
” He released her and she gasped for air as she slid to the ground.
Bram stared down at her as if it was taking all his strength not to kill her right then.
“You will stay away from our—no—my daughter or so help me, you will fucking regret it.” Bram turned toward me, locking eyes with my wide ones. “Go home, Charlotte.”
I may have been in shock, because I didn’t move right away. Roe had to usher me to get my feet moving and steer me toward where we’d parked. It wasn’t until I was almost to my car that I finally got ahold of myself.
Roe cupped my face and made me look at him. “Are you good to drive?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Roe waited until I got in my car before he went over to his bike.
He followed close behind me all the way home.
As I drove, I made a plan to call JJ. I didn’t want her to have access to anything my father had left me anymore.
Including the house she’d murdered him in.
I would take it all. I didn’t know where she would go.
Her only family was an aunt who had raised her after her parents had passed away, and Mother had cut ties with her—or the aunt had cut ties with Mother, I didn’t know.
I’d never met my great aunt, so all I knew about her was that she was a wealthy lady.
I was sure Mother would go groveling back to her.
It didn’t matter to me. Mother could sleep in her damn car for all I cared. I just wanted her gone from my life.