Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
TOBIAS
I exit the café, knuckles throbbing, to find Caleb standing outside. Benton must have called him and had him come to meet me. He may be my driver, but all of our drivers and bodyguards are fully trained to protect us if necessary.
“You missed all the fun.” I shake out my hand, then rub my bruised knuckles.
“Shame.” He motions in front. “The car is over here, sir.”
“Thanks.” I open the passenger door and get inside, waiting for Caleb to get in. “I need you to look into something for me.”
“Go ahead.”
“Rory La Salle didn’t turn up here by accident. He knew where we were, and he wanted to frighten Rebecca. Find out who he’s paid to trail us, and show them they backed the wrong horse.”
He nods. “Leave it with me, sir.”
When I return to the cottage, Rebecca is in the kitchen, her hands wrapped around a hot drink. Isla’s sitting at the table drawing in the coloring book Vanessa gave her at the café.
“Hey.”
She lifts her head, and her bottom lip wobbles. “Hey.”
“Are you all right?”
A tear falls onto her cheek, then a second, and a third. “Would you…?” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”
I pull out a chair and sit next to her. “What do you need? If it’s in my power, I’ll give it to you.”
She presses her fingertips to her lips as though she wants to say something, but she’s not sure she should, so she’s trying to shove the words back in.
All the while, more silent tears fall. I’ve noticed that when Rebecca cries, she hardly ever makes a sound.
I can’t help wondering if that’s so she doesn’t upset Isla, or because she learned it drew the wrong kind of attention from her bastard of a husband. Probably both.
“Tell me.”
She looks up at me through glossy eyes. “Would you… hold me? Just for a little bit.”
Without hesitation, I push back my chair and stand.
Reaching out, I take her hands and gently ease her to her feet, then wrap my arms around her.
This, I can handle. This, I want to handle.
She feels so fragile in my arms, even though I know she isn’t.
No one could have survived what she has without being strong as fuck. My brave little Wren.
Her small fists curl into my jacket lapels, and she rests her cheek on my shoulder. She’s stiff at first, on edge. Gradually, she relaxes. I rub circles on her back, her muscles relaxing beneath my palm. Her tears stop and she lets out this contented sigh.
It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard.
I peer at Isla hunched over her drawing, too busy coloring outside the lines to pay attention to us.
I rest my chin on the top of Rebecca’s head.
There’s no need to speak. We don’t need words.
We have something far more powerful—a connection borne out of our shared trauma at the hands of her husband.
She’s had it far worse than me, though. I only got shot. When I close my eyes, I can still see the scars on her back.
I stop rubbing. What if I’m hurting her? It’s almost three months since the shooting, but many of her scars were fresh, still red and bumpy where the skin was damaged.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers. “It’s comforting.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. Your scars.”
“It doesn’t hurt. I forgot I even had them. Please, don’t stop.”
Although I’m certain she hasn’t forgotten them, I listen to what she’s saying and resume the circular motion. She makes another of those noises, and her body relaxes even more. I lose track of how long we stand there encased in each other’s arms. What I do know is that I never want to let her go.
“How did he know where we’d be?”
“My guess? He’s having you followed. Don’t worry. I’m taking care of it.”
A tug on my trousers has me looking down. Isla’s got crayon smeared up her face and her hands are multicolored. She’s showing me a picture from the book. I keep hold of Rebecca but give my attention to Isla.
“That’s so pretty, sweetheart. You’re such a clever girl.”
She grins then returns to the table, climbs up onto a chair, and flips to the next page in the book.
“What did Rory say after I left?”
I clench my jaw. “Nothing worth repeating.”
“I’m sorry I ruined our day.”
I lean back and wait for her to give me her eyes. “You didn’t ruin anything. He did. And it’s only ruined if we let it, and that way he wins. We don’t want him to win, right?”
Her smile wavers. By sheer force of will, she holds it in place. “No, we don’t want that.”
“How about a movie marathon? I can make popcorn, and we can hunker down in the cinema room with blankets and watch movies until it’s time for dinner.”
“You have a cinema room?”
“Yes.”
“Tobias, I hate to break it to you, but any home with a cinema room cannot be described as a cottage.”
I grin. “So, how about it?”
“Sounds like the perfect way to spend an afternoon.”
“Great. You take Isla and get settled, and I’ll toss the kernels into the popcorn machine. It’s down the hallway, third room on the right.”
She heads off with Isla, who dumped her coloring book for movies in a flat-out second, while I make two large bowls of popcorn—one salty, one sweet.
We get through two and a half movies before Isla lets us know she’s hungry.
We eat dinner, then Rebecca takes Isla upstairs for a bath, then bed.
As much as I’d love to be a part of Isla’s bedtime routine, I leave her to it.
After what happened today, she’ll probably want a little time alone with her daughter.
Time to reflect and piece herself back together after La Salle’s verbal abuse.
I should’ve beaten him until he couldn’t stand up. I would have, too, if it wouldn’t have made a mess of Vanessa’s café. If our paths cross again, he’ll fucking regret it.
My phone dings with a text. I pick it up.
Caleb
It’s dealt with, sir.
I send a thumbs up emoji.
The door to the living room opens, and Rebecca appears. Her eyes are swollen from crying, the lashes clumped together, and there’s a bow to her shoulders that wasn’t there this morning. She’s been crying again.
Rage fills my chest. I definitely should’ve beaten that little shit to a bloody pulp, then paid for a cleaning company to sort out Vanessa’s café.
Rebecca twists her fingers into the hem of her jumper. “I can make myself scarce if you’d rather be alone.”
I pat the spare seat on the couch next to me. “Come here.”
She pads across the thick carpeting before she sinks onto the couch as though she’s used the last of her energy. Balling her hands, she rubs her eyes.
“How’s Isla?”
“Happy.” She rolls her head in my direction. “Thanks to you.”
“Not true.”
“It is true. When Marcus was alive, she wasn’t like this. To outsiders, she appeared to be the best-behaved child they’d probably ever seen, but it came from fear. No child should ever be frightened of their parent. I’m ashamed I let that happen to her.”
“You didn’t let it happen. You had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice. I could’ve taken her and gone to one of those domestic violence shelters. I didn’t have to put her or myself through that horror, day after day, and I did.”
I pause, afraid of saying the wrong thing from a place where I don’t have her lived experience. Though I’m more afraid of letting her continue this train of thought.
“It’s never that simple, though, is it? You said yourself that Marcus kept you starved of money.
With a child to support, or even for women without children, I’m sure it’s not just a case of packing a bag and walking out, otherwise more women would do it.
Fear is a powerful emotion, and sometimes it’s what we need to force ourselves to act. Other times, we freeze instead.”
Her hands tremble. She knits her fingers together and rests them on her lap.
“When I first met Marcus, I thought all my troubles were over. I’d spent my whole life struggling, and here was this well-put-together, wealthy guy who showed an interest in little old me.
I was so desperate to escape home, what with Mum’s alcoholism and my brother constantly in trouble with the police.
Life with Marcus seemed like a dream come true.
And at first, it was. He love-bombed me until I thought the world started and ended with him.
Then we married, and everything changed. ”
She pauses, her teeth worrying her lip. I don’t say anything that might put her off telling me more. I want to hear this. I need to hear it.
“At first, it was the little things. I’d put on a dress to go to dinner, and he’d say something like, ‘Oh I think the blue one goes better with your hair styled like that.’ And I’d think wow, my husband really cares enough to notice my appearance.
Next came wanting to know where I was every second of the day disguised as concern.
Then it was constant criticism of the way I did everything, from putting washing in the machine to replacing the toilet roll.
I began walking on eggshells, trying to make everything perfect.
I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a panic that I’d made some transgression I’d pay for in one way or another. ”
“Over how long a period did this happen?”
“A few months. It’s amazing how quickly you can go from a regular girl just trying to escape the drudgery of her life to someone terrified of their own shadow.”
For what feels like the fiftieth time today, I wish that bastard was alive so I could rip off his fucking arms and strangle him with his own hands.
“He wasn’t cruel all the time. Sometimes he’d be so loving and attentive, I’d think we’d turned a corner. Except those moments never lasted.”
She steeples her hands over her nose and mouth, breath shuddering through her fingers. “Sorry, give me a minute. I haven’t even told my therapist this much yet.”
“Take your time. You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with.”