Chapter 21 Shaw #2
“Don’t pity me.” She glanced down the hallway. “I got out.”
Presley got out.
But Scarlett . . .
“Scarlett didn’t go with you, did she?”
She shook her head. “I tested the boundaries. Scarlett stood ten feet away from the lines my father drew and wouldn’t dream of getting too close.”
My forehead furrowed. If you put Presley and Scarlett side by side and told me to pick the rebel, I would have chosen Scarlett every time.
The way she’d held her chin high when she’d stepped out of that cab, the way she’d refused a courteous greeting .
. . “That doesn’t jive with the woman who marched in here two days ago. ”
“I know.” Presley’s cheek dropped to her knees. “I don’t know who that was because it wasn’t Scarlett.”
“You said you haven’t seen her in ten years. What happened? How’d you get away and she didn’t?”
Presley stared at the wall as she sat in that ball.
“We snuck out of the house. I’d done it a couple of times.
There was this guy I liked my senior year and he’d meet me at a playground in my neighborhood.
We’d make out for a couple of hours, then I’d sneak back home.
” She shuddered. “I’m glad I didn’t get caught for that one. God, I was so stupid.”
“You were a kid trying to find some freedom.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Scarlett and Jeremiah were dating but they only saw one another at school. They’d kiss and stuff and sneak around, but it was behind the teachers’ backs and far from Dad.”
“But she was going to leave.”
Presley nodded. “California was Scarlett’s idea. Looking back, I think Jeremiah would have followed her anywhere because he just wanted her out of that house. I never told a soul about what really happened at home, but Scarlett had confessed it to Jeremiah and made him promise to keep the secret.”
Coward. Jeremiah should have gone to the police. “How’d he get you a car?”
“I saved every penny I made from babysitting neighborhood kids for two years. Christmas money. Birthday money. Scarlett saved too, though not as much, and we hoarded it until there was two thousand dollars. It was enough to buy an old Civic with one hundred ninety thousand miles on it, but the engine ran, and it had four working tires.”
My brave woman. She’d forged a new life from two thousand dollars. The swell of pride conflicted with the anger simmering in my chest.
Presley went quiet for a long moment, like her brain was taking her back to that time.
“You okay?”
Her eyes flashed up and a sheen of tears was in her gaze. “I shouldn’t have left her. I should have made her come with me.”
“Did you try?”
“Of course, but—”
“Then that’s all you could have done.”
I’d spent time in the academy learning about domestic abuse victims. I’d seen plenty in real life.
I remembered the first time I saw a wife rush after her husband in handcuffs, promising him she wouldn’t press charges.
One of her eyes had been swollen from where he’d hit her.
He’d broken her nose. And there she’d been, crying as we’d dragged the motherfucker away.
Breaking the cycle wasn’t easy, and Presley and Scarlett had been in it their entire lives.
“We snuck out one night after my parents were in bed. They weren’t asleep. I heard some noises like they were . . . like my dad was . . .”
Raping her mother.
My knuckles turned white as my fists squeezed.
“We snuck outside and ran to Jeremiah’s house. Scarlett kept saying, ‘This is wrong. We’re going to get caught. We should go back.’ But I kept running. At one point, she stopped and I grabbed her hand and dragged her behind me. I figured that once we got to Jeremiah’s, he’d convince her to leave.”
“You just wanted to get on the road.”
“I was so sure. Staying wasn’t an option. The second I left that house, I knew I’d never go back.”
“But Scarlett wasn’t ready,” I guessed.
“I think she was, but she was so scared. Jeremiah couldn’t calm her down.
She was convinced we’d get caught. We got to Jeremiah’s and he was there, waiting outside with the car.
He’d loaded all of our stuff. Scarlett took one look at that open trunk and the bags inside and started pulling them out.
She threw them on the ground, all of them, in this panicked frenzy.
She was crying and shaking. She was just so . . .”
“Scared.”
“Terrified,” she whispered, wiping at the corner of her eye. “That’s what he taught us. Fear. He’d broken her—us—long before that night.”
Except Presley wasn’t broken. She was whole and strong and a goddamn miracle. “How many times have you told this story?”
She met my gaze. “Once.”
“To Draven?”
“Yeah.” She cast her eyes to the photo on the wall. “To Draven.”
He might have been a flawed man, but Draven had loved her like a daughter.
What kind of woman would Presley be today if Draven hadn’t stepped up for her?
What kind of place would she have landed in if Clifton Forge hadn’t been an option?
I’d seen what happened to a lot of runaway kids in California.
Their lives became about drugs, alcohol and sex.
Because of Draven, Presley had stopped the cycle.
“What happened next? That night?”
She sniffled, reaching for some composure.
“Jeremiah and I tried to calm Scarlett down but she was hysterical. She begged me to go home, but I told her I was leaving with or without her. She started screaming. One of the neighbors turned on a light and it freaked me out. So I grabbed whatever bags I could, shoved them in the car and I left. I left her there.”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“I could have stayed,” she said. “I could have stayed for her.”
“Where do you think you’d be if you’d stayed?”
“Dead,” she replied immediately. “Maybe not in the physical sense, but he would have killed my soul.”
“Then you didn’t have a choice. And I, for one, am glad you got the hell out of there.”
Presley shrugged. “Maybe.”
The weight of her past settled into the room, the air growing thick and heavy.
The two of us sat in silence as I replayed her story, over and over.
Anger at her father burned under my skin and my mind changed.
I wouldn’t involve Laurelin in his demise.
I wanted that satisfaction for myself, for Presley.
I’d always believed there was a special place in hell for those who hurt children, especially their own, and her father belonged in that circle.
My God, she was strong. What had it been like for her to drive to Montana alone? How scared had she been to leave? She’d been lucky to score that job at the garage. I was a man who believed in destiny—and getting that job with Draven had been nothing short of fate.
And she’d lost him.
He was the father she’d never had. The father she’d always needed. And that son of a bitch Marcus Wagner had pushed him to suicide.
I’d made a goddamn movie about it.
Fuck. Fuck me and fuck that movie.
I never should have come here. I never should have bought that screenplay. It would have died and no one would have known that story. But it was too late now. I’d found Presley and leaving her was not an option.
I’d tried to forget her for months, but every night when I’d gone to bed alone, I’d wished she were at my side. I’d thought about her each morning and dreamed of her face, her laugh at night.
Presley didn’t have Draven to protect her anymore, to listen to her woes, but she had me. She’d always have me, a man who stood by her side when she slammed the door in an asshole’s face. A man who’d carry her to bed when she fell asleep watching a movie.
Luke Rosen was not that man.
Presley would stand on her own, she didn’t need me to prop her up, but I would all the same.
“You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”
She scoffed. “Your old partner sounded much stronger than me.”
“You clawed your way to a good life. That’s the definition of strength.”
“But was it enough?” she asked. “I set myself free, but I left my twin sister behind.”
“You can’t always save someone. Sometimes, they need to want to save themselves.”
She looked down the hallway again. “I used to text her. All I had was the number she had from high school. For all I know, my parents took that phone away and that number belongs to someone in Skokie, Illinois, now. But I texted her, and I kept her in my heart. I always hoped she’d get out.”
“She’s here, isn’t she? She got out.”
“When? Has he been hurting her all these years? Ten years, Shaw. Ten. I know exactly how many bruises a person can get in ten years.”
This distance between us wasn’t working anymore.
I couldn’t sit here and watch her try to hold herself together.
I slid closer, taking her arms and unwrapping them from her legs.
Then I hooked her knees over my lap so I could lean in close.
“Don’t blame yourself for this. You didn’t do anything wrong.
You were eighteen and scared too. None of this is on you. ”
She looked into my eyes, those beautiful crystal-blue pools flooding with tears. “I abandoned her.”
“You saved your own life.”
“The guilt”—she swallowed hard—“is crushing me.”
“Let it go, baby,” I whispered. “Stop holding it so close.”
She collapsed into my chest and the dam broke.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into my lap as she fell apart in my arms. Her shoulders convulsed and tears soaked my shirt.
“Let it go,” I whispered into her hair. “I’ve got you.”
She buried her face in my neck, then cried and cried until there were no tears left. I expected her to sit ramrod straight and pull away. I was ready for the wall she’d slam up between us.
But she stayed.
She held on to me as I held on to her. The barriers, the obstacles, vanished.
Trust. Honesty. Faith.
They cloaked us and sent a surge of hope through my veins.
We were going to make it. I was going to win her back. The pressure in my chest ebbed along with the fear that had settled deep when I’d thought I’d lost her.
The fight wasn’t won. Yet. But I’d walk away the victor. I’d win Presley Marks.
She was my anchor.
She was my heart.
“Sorry,” she said as she sucked in a deep breath and leaned back. She wiped at her cheeks, sniffling. “I didn’t mean to unload on you.”
“I’m glad you did. You good?” I cupped her cheek, using my thumb to dry one last tear.
She met my gaze, giving me the weight of her face in my palm. “Yes. For now.”
“When yes becomes a no, you come find me. Okay?” I trailed my fingertips along her jaw.
Presley’s breath hitched and her eyes flared as I leaned in closer. Our noses nearly touched.
This was closer than we’d been in months. The heat from her skin, the warmth of her touch, her scent—“I fucking missed you, Pres.”
She leaned in, her lips almost dropping to mine, then she was gone. She shot off my lap, shaking her head and clamping a hand over her mouth.
Damn.
She dropped her hand. “I’m with Luke.”
“So you keep saying.” Except I hadn’t seen him since the night he’d dropped her off. “Where’s he been?”
She maneuvered around the coffee table, putting the piece of furniture between us. “He knows Scarlett is here, and he’s giving me some time alone with her.”
Wrong move, Rosen. Luke hadn’t been here to catch her tears. He hadn’t been here when she’d been ready to unload the past. And I had a feeling, if it had been Luke in my seat, Presley wouldn’t have told him anyway.
She’d trusted me with that gift. Me.
I was winning this goddamn fight.
I stood from the couch and walked to the chair where I’d draped my jacket when I’d come inside. “Luke’s a nice guy, but he’s not the right guy.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” The right guy was standing in her living room. “End it.”
“No.”
“Call it off.”
“No.” She huffed. “No. No. No.”
My voice dropped, smooth and gentle. “End it, Pres. Please.”
“N-no,” she stuttered, maybe because each time she said no, the corner of my mouth turned up. “You should go.”
I shrugged on my jacket. “If you need anything, I’m right next door. No strings. I’ll be here.”
She nodded, her arms crossed over her chest as she followed me to the door, keeping a safe distance. “Bye.”
Forget the door. I spun on her, stepping into her space with one long stride. “Don’t say goodbye. I never want to hear it from you again.”
“Shaw—”
“Are you in love with him?”
“It’s only been a month.”
“Give me a month.”
She huffed. “You had yours already.”
“And I fucked it up. Give me another chance. Please.” If we’d reached the begging stage, I’d drop to my knees this second.
“Why?”
Time to lay it all out there. “Because I fell in love with you this summer.” I framed her face in my hands as she gasped. “Because you fell in love with me too. And because he’ll never kiss you like this.”
Then I crushed my mouth to hers, hoping to erase every lick of Luke Rosen with every sweep of my tongue.