Chapter 7
Tabitha stepped onto Miles’s porch, her shoes in her hand. Breath held, she carefully shut the front door behind her. Gave herself a moment to let out a tiny sigh of relief before crossing the porch. At the top of the stairs, she shot a quick, guilty glance back at the house.
Shoulders hunched, head ducked, she scurried down the steps and onto the sidewalk, the concrete cool and damp under her bare feet. She wasn’t proud of sneaking out of Miles’s bed without waking him.
But she couldn’t stay.
Last night he’d done exactly what he’d said he would do. He’d dismantled her. First with his words, then with his touch. He’d taken her apart, but he hadn’t broken her. Hadn’t destroyed her.
Until she’d found him in the middle of an anxiety attack.
He’d wrecked her with the fear in his eyes and the way he’d trusted her to take care of him. And when he’d taken a hold of her wrist and asked her to stay, she hadn’t been able to refuse him.
He’d needed her.
That was even better than him wanting her.
They’d laid on their backs on his bed side-by-side, his fingers wrapped lightly around her wrist as they’d both drifted off sleep.
But when she woke up, she was gripped in an all-too familiar terror. Even when she realized who the man sleeping soundly beside her was, that she was safe with him, the sudden onslaught of memories had left her reeling. Shaken.
Desperate to flee.
“Good morning.”
The sudden, unexpected greeting was cheerful. The voice bright. Feminine.
Tabitha jerked to a stop. Squeezed her eyes and, despite not believing in hopes, dreams, or prayers, sent a combination of them into the word with a murmured, “Please let them be passing by.”
She opened her eyes and saw a young woman pushing a bike up the sidewalk.
A tall, beautiful young woman wearing a sweatshirt, cutoffs and flip-flops, her auburn hair pulled back into a long ponytail, her face clean of makeup.
Tabitha laid a hand over her churning stomach. Her mind spun. She needed to think. The worst thing she could do was jump to conclusions. There were plenty of reasons why this girl was here, at Miles’s house, alone. Reasons that were reasonable.
Innocent.
But the fear she’d experienced waking up in a strange bed had been too real. Her memories too strong.
“How old are you?” she asked, barely able to get the words out past the thickness in her throat.
If the girl thought the question out of place and an odd response to her chipper greeting, she didn’t show it. “I’m seventeen.”
“You don’t have to be here,” she told the girl.
“Well, as much as I didn’t want to come,” the girl said, “and as much as I hate what I’m about to do” —she shrugged— “I owe him.”
Tabitha went still with shock even as a tiny voice inside her head whispered she was wrong. That she was missing something important, something vital that would make sense of all of this. That Miles would never do something as heinous as what she was thinking.
The Miles she’d known would never abuse his position. Would never use it to lure a young girl to his home. Would never hold a favor or act of kindness over anyone’s head.
Would never make them do something they didn’t want to do.
But he wasn’t the same person. Hadn’t he told her that straight out?
I’m not that boy anymore.
“Is that what Assistant Chief Jennings told you?” she asked, slipping into professional mode, using Miles’s title, her tone calm despite the turmoil of her emotions. “That you owed him?”
“No, he—”
“Did he coerce you?” Tabitha continued, the question sounding wrong, so wrong, to her own ears. But she needed the truth. “Offer to get you out of trouble or reduce any charges against you in exchange for certain favors?”
“Wait. What?”
“If he touched you inappropriately” —the girl’s head snapped back— “or asked for any type of sexual satisfaction in return for those favors—”
“Oh. My. God.”
“—then he’s broken the law. But you,” she continued fiercely, covering the girl’s hand on the handlebar with her free one. “You are not at fault. You did nothing wrong. Nothing.”
The girl yanked her hand free, jerking the bike back so hard, she ran over her own foot. Straightening, mouth a thin line, she glared down at Tabitha. “First off, all that stuff you said… ew. Just… ew, ew, ew. Secondly, how dare you?”
The girl’s response wasn’t a surprise or completely unexpected. Unfortunately, in situations of abuse, victims sometimes defended their abusers for many reasons, including distorted thoughts, lack of self-worth, or fear.
Or because they’d been manipulated into trusting their abuser. Falling for them and their lies.
“You don’t have to be scared of him,” Tabitha assured her. “I can help you. I can protect you.”
“How dare you,” the girl demanded again. “How dare you accuse him of doing something so sleazy? So disgusting and reprehensible? You don’t know him. You couldn’t possibly know him at all if you thought, even for one second, that he was some sort of predatory creep who took advantage of his position of power to sexually and otherwise abuse women. And you,” she continued, looking over Tabitha’s shoulder. “Your taste in women sucks.”
Tabitha realized the girl was talking to someone behind her.
And felt sick once again.
Pulling her shoulders back, she turned.
Miles stood in the middle of the sidewalk, barefoot and bare chested, the gray sweatpants he’d worn last night sitting low on his hips. His short hair was mussed, his jaw tight, gaze hard.
But instead of being intimidated by his size, his strength. and the sheer fury emanating off him, she found herself straightening to her full height.
Seemed she had some fury of her own.
But when she opened her mouth to lay into him about having an underage girl come to his house, he gave a quick jerk of his head in the girl’s direction and bit off two, simple words:
“My sister.”
And just like that, all the righteous indignation she’d been holding onto so tightly evaporated.
Replaced by remorse and shame.
For the second time that morning she was left reeling. Shaken.
Desperate to run.
But she didn’t run. She held her ground, which she was going to take as a win, if only for her self-esteem.
She whirled around to look at the girl, once again noting her red hair and blue eyes. Then back to the dark-haired, dark eyed Miles. Then back to the girl. And yet once more to Miles.
They looked nothing alike.
Seriously. Nothing. Alike. There wasn’t one shared feature between them.
Except for the way they were both glaring at her. Those scowls were definitely identical.
“Your… sister?” she finally managed to ask.
Miles nodded again. “Verity.”
“Oh,” she said, more exhale than an actual word.
She’d known Miles had a much younger sister along with four brothers. She hadn’t met any of them, but she had seen pictures of Verity who, at the time, had been a chubby, round-cheeked eight-year-old with bright red hair and a wide, sweet smile.
Now she was an almost-adult who looked ready to impale Tabitha on her bike’s handlebars.
“I—I thought…” But she couldn’t finish. Embarrassment was strangling her vocal cords. Her face was hot. Itchy. Sweat formed under her arms and at the base of her spine.
There was no sympathy from either Jennings sibling. Verity sneered while Miles’s expression remained hard. Unyielding.
Unforgiving.
“We all know what you thought,” he said, cold and dismissive.
She reminded herself that he had the right to be angry. Every right to treat her this way. She knew full well she was in the wrong here.
“It was a mistake,” she said, but words that she’d meant to be contrite came out stiff. Defensive. That newly acquired pride of hers rearing its ugly, stubborn head. “I misread the situation.”
His sister rolled her eyes. “I think the words you’re looking for are I’m and sorry.”
Tabitha blinked. Verity was right. She should apologize.
But she wouldn’t.
She’d had good reasons for jumping to conclusions. Reasons these two wouldn’t understand. How could they? Even after the tragedy of their parents’ deaths in a car accident when Miles was a teenager, he and his sister and their brothers still had each other. They’d been taken care of. Had a warm place to live and enough food to eat. They’d been loved.
Safe.
Not everyone was that lucky.
She took a small step back. “I should go.”
“Yes,” Verity said. “You really should.”
Tabitha turned.
“Wait,” Miles said, stopping her. “You forgot this.”
She faced him.
And saw her thong dangling from his forefinger, his expression blank, as if it was something he’d picked up off the floor and not something that he’d slept with clutched in his hand like a prize fought for and won.
Once again proving that to him, she was less than nothing.
Humiliated, furious, she closed the distance between them and snatched her thong from his finger.
Then she turned and stormed away, knowing Miles and his sister were watching every step she took. She kept her head high. Refused to look back.
She may not have on any underwear, but by god, she still had her dignity.
And she was never, ever letting anyone take that from her again.
Not even Miles Jennings.