Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
August 16 th
12:09 P.M.
Connor had been unprepared to hear the venom in her tone. Hear her tell him that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Hell, she couldn’t even stand for him to touch her.
Stupid of him.
Of course, he should have expected Becca to hate him.
Why wouldn't she?
Panic coursed through his body. What if this wasn’t fixable? What if the damage he’d caused ran too deep and there was no chance that Becca could forgive him? He could handle not being part of her life—barely—if she didn't want to become friends again, but he couldn’t handle this.
Couldn’t handle her hate.
As he watched her storm across the small schoolhouse it was hard to remember why he’d waited so long to track her down.
Only then she stumbled again as she reached the door, and it was all he could think of.
Shame.
That’s what had held him back all these years. Facing Becca meant facing what he’d done head on, facing the deep running guilt and shame that consumed him. Over time, it had dulled a little, and there had been plenty to keep him busy, keep his mind occupied, but it was still there, and looking at Becca made him realize how far in denial he’d really been.
“Becca, wait. Please,” he begged as her hand shoved open the door bathing her in a stream of light. She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her and know she was no longer his to touch, to pleasure, to worship.
Shockingly, she did stop, but he wasn't sure it was because she actually cared to hear anything he had to say, or she was merely so thrown by the fact that he was here in Cambodia standing in her school.
Whatever reason he’d take it.
He was not leaving until he had made things right with her. His family had things handled back home. With the threats hanging over their heads from the three other men involved in their mother’s assault, Cassandra had gone to stay with Prey’s Delta Team, a group of men with scarily unnatural abilities. Since she was the product of their mother’s rape, they had to protect her because once they got a hit on her DNA or compared it to a suspect, they could bring the entire conspiracy surrounding his mom and stepdad’s deaths tumbling down.
With Cassandra safely tucked away, Cooper was protecting his new girlfriend, Willow, and Cole was looking after his new girlfriend, Susanna, and helping her heal from her recent ordeal. Together, Cooper and Cole continued working with their oldest brother, Cade, and stepbrothers, Jake and Jax Holloway, to unravel the conspiracy.
His family had business at home handled so he could be there.
They knew he wasn't coming back until he’d made things right.
However long it took.
For the foreseeable future Becca was his priority.
Which was exactly what his parents would have wanted. While he’d lost his parents when he was thirteen, six months apart, and hadn't started officially dating Becca until he was fourteen, they’d been unofficially together since they started middle school, and both his mom and dad had loved her. Even back then, they’d seen the writing on the wall, knowing that she was the only woman for him.
No other woman could ever live up to Becca Marsden in his mind. So even though he wasn't expecting a miracle, wasn't expecting her to take him back as her lover and partner, Connor already knew that it was reunite with Becca or remain single for the rest of his life.
“What are you doing here, Connor?” she asked, her voice hard, unyielding, but he caught the underlying threads of pain because he knew her better than he knew himself. “Are you here for work?”
Work was the furthest thing from his mind.
Eagle Oswald, founder and CEO of Prey, had been exceptionally patient and understanding with Charlie Team’s need to prove their parents weren't traitors, and in between official ops for the company, he made sure all resources were available to them for their hunt for answers. Eagle had also been more than accommodating this past couple of months as dominos fell and answers appeared, and he had approved this time off for him to come to Cambodia.
“No. Not here for work,” he answered.
“Why then?” She still hadn't turned to face him, but he didn't need to see her expression to know she one hundred percent believed there was no possible way he could be there for her.
But he was.
And he had to find a way to prove it to her.
“I’m here for you, moonlight.”
Whirling around, once again almost losing her balance, it took everything Connor possessed not to run to her, steady her, and be ready to catch her when she fell. It was only remembering that he’d lost that right, and Becca loathed his touch, that kept him rooted to the spot, his hands still curled into fists tight enough his fingers ached.
“Do not call me that,” Becca snarled at him.
Seeing her like this, so cold, so hard, so angry, it shook him. The Becca he remembered from childhood was a sweet, slightly shy girl, who was always smiling, always giggling, always such a free spirit. She loved music, loved to dance and paint, she was a creative who had so much imagination inside her it couldn’t help but spill out around her, painting the world in bright colors.
Of course, things had changed after her assault, but back then she’d sought comfort and security from him, dragging him closer rather than shoving him away like she was now.
His fault.
He was the one who had messed this up.
What should have been the perfect love story, the kind that made up fairytales and romance novels, had been ruined by him and him alone.
“I’m sorry, I won't call you that,” he agreed, he’d agree to anything if it could wipe the hatred out of those dark blue eyes he used to love staring into.
Becca said nothing.
Just stood there and glared at him.
“I came to do what I should have done all those years ago,” he told her. If she was giving him an opportunity to talk, he had better hurry up and say what he needed to because he knew she could walk away at any second. “I’m here to apologize.”
“To apologize?” she repeated like the words sounded ridiculous.
“I owe you the world’s biggest apology,” he acknowledged. Getting down on his hands and knees and crawling across shards of broken glass or hot coals was not out of the question. Nothing was out of the question.
“You think any amount of sorry can make up for you walking out on me when I learned I was pregnant?” Becca demanded, planting her hands on her hips and cocking her head. That was such a Becca move, one he’d seen hundreds of times before when they were arguing over something stupid, that he had to fight back a smile knowing she wouldn't understand it was because he missed her in all her wonderful shades of life.
“No, moo—, no, Becca,” he replied, catching himself before the nickname that had always fallen so easily from his lips could slip out. “Nothing in the world can make up for what I did to you. For how stupidly I acted when I panicked. I’ve spent twelve years wishing someone would invent a time machine so I could go back and fix what I broke. But I'm here to make it right now. Shame kept me away for over a decade, I won't let it keep me away a second longer.”
Tears shimmered in those deep blue depths of her eyes, but she didn't allow them to fall. “You should be ashamed, Connor. I’d only just gotten out of the hospital, was trying to learn to deal with my new reality, and I found out I was pregnant and didn't know if you or the man who raped me were the father. I needed you and instead of being there for me, you told me you didn't think you could raise my rapist’s baby if you weren't the father and left.”
Her voice broke on that last word and his heart cracked into a million pieces.
He had run that night. Driven for hours, panicked and crying, unable to hold it together any longer he’d let out all the pent-up emotions he’d felt seeing the girl he loved suffering. Emotions he’d kept locked away because he had to be there for Becca. The pregnancy had just been the straw that broke the camel’s back, the last nail in the coffin, no longer had he been able to lock those emotions away and they’d burst out in the worst way possible.
By the time he pulled himself together and returned to their apartment, Becca had packed her things and left. All attempts to contact her had been blocked by her family, and eventually he’d given up.
Another failure.
How could he ever have given up on this woman?
“I don’t accept your apology, Connor. You were what I needed back then, and you left. Now I don’t need you anymore. Nor do I want you. Leave and don’t ever come back.”
With that, she turned and hurried out of the building, leaving him staring after her, his heart cracked wide open, wondering if this had been how she’d felt that night watching him walk away from her, taking her heart with him.
August 16 th
10:43 P.M.
Something soft feathered down her cheek.
Becca sighed and nuzzled into the touch.
She loved it when Connor crawled into bed after her and woke her with gentle touches to make love to her.
The hand on her cheek drifted down to grasp her breast, and she sighed again, thrusting her chest forward seeking more of Connor’s sensual touches. After being together since they were young teenagers, he knew her body, knew how to make it come alive, how to make it burn so brightly she was sure she was going to explode into a fiery mass of brightly colored fireworks.
After kneading her breast for a moment, Connor suddenly grabbed her nipple and yanked.
Hard.
A startled squawk fell from her lips.
He knew she didn't like it rough.
She wasn't the most adventurous when it came to their sex life, they tried different positions and a few toys, but she never liked to be hurt during sex.
Another hard pinch on her nipple had her jerking awake and Becca realized she wasn't at home in her bed, and it wasn't Connor who had crawled under the covers to wake her for some beautiful love making.
She was in her car, and it was a guy from one of her classes who had his hand on her breast.
Now she remembered. She’d been at a late-night study group, she was supposed to head back to the apartment she shared with Connor after, but she’d been so tired from juggling a heavy course load and her job that she’d been afraid she might fall asleep at the wheel. A quick power nap had been her plan, but she must have fallen into a deeper sleep than she realized.
“Don’t touch me,” she growled, swatting at Dylan Sanders’ hand as it continued to squeeze her nipple painfully tightly. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t want this, Becca,” Dylan snarled, grabbing a fistful of the breast he was already hurting and yanking her half out of her seat.
Fear uncurled throughout her as reality settled in.
It was late.
She was alone.
In her car with a man who was making his intentions clear.
Her mouth opened to scream, but an unexpected blow to the side of her head startled her into silence as pain exploded behind her eyes.
“Make a sound and I’ll kill you,” Dylan told her as he shoved at the hem of her skirt trying to yank it up over her hips.
The bulge in his pants was already obvious and she knew what was going to happen.
She just didn't know how to stop it.
“P-please,” she begged, hating her voice’s weak and terrified sound. “I-I don’t want this.”
“Course you do,” Dylan said as he managed to pull at her dress enough to expose the lacy white panties she was wearing. “I see how you look at me.”
She didn't look at him in any way.
They had some classes together and they’d spoken maybe a handful of times, but she was in a relationship, she was with a man she loved.
“I-I d-don’t,” she stammered. “N-no. S-stop.”
“Did you tell me no?” Dylan snapped, grabbing hold of her panties and physically ripping them off her body, making her skin sting. “Nobody tells me no.”
Outweighing her by a solid hundred pounds, Dylan dragged her over so she awkwardly straddled his legs, then unzipped his jeans and pulled free his already erect length.
When she struggled, desperate to stop this from happening, Dylan clamped a hand around her neck.
It felt like her body was being torn in two when he shoved himself inside her. She was so dry, it was nothing like when she made love to Connor. This was just pain. It wasn't just her body that hurt but her heart and soul as well.
He was stealing from her.
Taking something she would never willingly give.
Time lost all meaning. The world was filled with nothing but the sounds of Dylan grunting and her blood pounding in her ears as he squeezed her neck tight enough that the world dimmed around the edges.
Yes.
Take me.
End me.
Becca didn't want to live out the aftermath of this.
Death would be a blessing.
When he suddenly let out a curse and she felt him come inside her, she was disappointed that he pushed her to the side, and she was still breathing.
Why couldn’t he have at least given her the gift of ending her life?
Shoving her off him, he all but threw her limp body back into the driver’s seat. She flopped like a ragdoll, her mind seemed to float above her body like the two were no longer connected.
Muttering a curse, Dylan leaned over her and opened her door, pushing her out as he tried to get into her seat. She fell, landing on the rough asphalt of the road.
The sound of her engine roaring to life startled her a little.
Although she’d been pushed out of the car, her ankle had gotten tangled in the seatbelt.
Either he didn't notice or didn't care, but Dylan didn't lean over to disentangle it, he just started driving.
Dragging her along with him.
The last thing Becca remembered was the sound of her own screams as she was pulled along beside her moving vehicle before the world turned black around her and she mercifully fell unconscious.
Becca woke with a gasp.
Cold sweat coated her skin, and she shook all over.
Absently, she lifted a hand to brush against the scarred skin on the left side of her face. The plastic surgeons had done the best they could to minimize the damage, but there were still scars. Faint lines that were rough to the touch from the abrasions of her skin tearing along the road.
Those weren't the only scars she had.
Her nose and cheekbone had both been broken, as had her left arm which had also had the shoulder joint popped out of place. The bones had required surgery to fix. There were more road rash scars along most of the left side of her body.
But the worst injury was to her left ankle.
Being twisted as it was in the seatbelt as she was pulled down the road alongside her car, the break had been severe, her foot barely attached to her body by the time Dylan realized that he wasn't making a clean getaway in her car and dumped it and ran. Doctors had done all they could, but in the end, her foot hadn't been salvageable and after enduring eleven surgeries to try to save it, she’d wound up having to have it amputated.
None of those were the worst scars she had, though.
That would be the broken heart she’d been left with after Connor bailed.
He’d been her rock those first four months only to disappear when she received the news, she was pregnant.
Less than a month after he’d left, she miscarried the baby.
A DNA test she’d had performed showed Dylan Sanders hadn't fathered her child. The baby, a little boy, belonged to Connor. Despite her fury at the man she’d loved who had abandoned her when she needed him the most, she’d named her son after Connor’s father. Carter Marsden-Charleston might never have gotten to take his first breath, but he was the reason she had pushed so hard to work through her trauma and build a life for herself. He was the reason she worked so hard, traveling the world, helping children living in poverty, because she wanted her son’s name to carry on, for his death to mean something.
Shoving back the covers, no longer able to stand them touching her skin, Becca bypassed her prosthetic and instead reached for the crutches near her bed.
“Bec?” Isabella Baker’s sleepy voice called out from the other side of the room.
Best friends since college, Izzy had stuck by her through thick and thin and was one of the co-founders of the CMC Project, named after her son. They’d worked together in four countries over the last seven years and shared the same small hut in Cambodia.
“I’m fine, Izzy, go back to sleep,” she assured her friend even as she fought back the tears.
“You're not fine. He shouldn’t have come. Want me to go find where he is and beat him up for you?” Izzy offered.
The image of tiny four foot eleven Isabella beating up six foot two Connor made her laugh. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t need him beaten up. I don’t need him anything. He’s nothing to me anymore.”
Still as she hobbled toward the door to their hut, needing some fresh air, Becca knew that wasn't really true. Despite her anger toward Connor, a part of her heart and soul would always belong to him. He’d been such a big part of her life for too long to just amputate him and make it like he’d never existed.
Dropping to the ground once she was far enough away from the hut, Becca curled in on herself as the tears she’d tried to hold back ever since Connor had popped up flooded down her cheeks, and a sob broke free.
She did need something from Connor.
She needed him to disappear.
To stay out of her life.
To leave her alone.
Because his presence would destroy her.