"Scarlett!" she said excitedly, rushing at me.
Her mother caught her halfway, guiding her toward the powder room. "Oh no you don't. First, let's wash up for dinner. Remember what we talked about? That not everyone likes paint all over their clothing?"
"But it's purple!" the little girl returned. "Purple is pwetty!"
Her parents both cracked up at that, and I tried my best to smile with them.
Mercy rushed to hug me when she was paint free, throwing her little arms around my waist.
I patted her on the head tentatively, letting her touch me but not knowing what the proper response was on my part.
As I've said, I'm bad with children. Luckily, I didn't know many people with kids, so it wasn't often a problem.
Eugene smiled at me fondly and threw a friendly arm around my shoulders, an embrace that never seemed to get less awkward, at least for me.
"So how are you guys?" I asked him. Gina had gone into the kitchen to ready dinner.
"Wonderful," he replied with no hesitation. "Just wonderful. We're blessed. So blessed." He sent me a warm, fond smile.
This was his usual response, and I actually believed it. They had a wonderful life and they felt it was all a blessing. Even pessimistic me couldn't fault them for it.
"No one deserves it more," I returned sincerely, though the words came out stiffly. "You're the best parents I know." It wasn't saying much, most of my friends were single and childless, but it was still the truth.
He stammered out a thank you at that, eyes misting over.
Oh Jesus. I had to look away. He was such an emotional, open book that I didn't have a clue how to deal with him. Mostly I just tried to pretend nothing was happening when we had 'a moment.'
Dinner was delicious, as always, and the conversation was pleasant. It was so positive, in fact, that I didn't know how to contribute to it. Sarcasm felt wrong in their presence. Snark felt inappropriate, so I tried my best to be politely neutral without being fake.
It was a difficult line to balance. Particularly so for me.
I wondered, not for the first time, why these perfect people wanted so earnestly to be friends with me, to have mean, negative, flawed me in their lives on a regular basis.
Of course, I didn't voice the thought aloud. I knew more than anyone did that, when it came to these two that would be the equivalent of fishing for compliments.
I escaped them right after dinner, as soon as it was politely possible.
I had to pry Mercy, and then Gina, off me after hugging them. They were an extremely affectionate family.
"She has your smile," I told Gina as we said goodbye, and it was true.
Gina beamed at me, and it was a grownup version of the one Mercy had just bestowed on me. "You think so?"
"I do."
"Oh, thank you. What a sweet thing for you to say. Her smile is so beautiful."
"Just like yours."
She flushed in pleasure.
Normally I took their perfection with something approaching good grace, but lately I had been thin-skinned and emotional, and being around the three of them made me dwell on every bittersweet thing I'd ever lost.
I'd just fastened my seatbelt when my phone started ringing.
I checked the screen. It was Dante. Typical.
I ignored it, foul mood gone fouler.
It stopped and started again almost immediately, and for some reason, I answered that time.
"Does he know he doesn't have a chance?" his silky voice bled over the phone. "That he never did?"
Hello, temper.
That opening salvo had hit its target perfectly and even I could admit that he'd won the round.
But the bastard wasn't finished.
"You've never been soft for anyone else. You've never been vulnerable. Those things belong to me." He launched each jab at me without pity, hesitation, or remorse. The bastard. "They always have. They always will. You've never given the you that's mine to anyone else, and you never will. Even your lying lips can't convince me otherwise."
It was so callous, so profoundly cruel, even for him, that my breath caught at his words. It held in my chest for a few chaotic beats before I could pull it together enough to breathe again.
In, out. In, out. In, out.
Of course every word he'd said was true. That's why they hurt so much.
Finally, I found my voice to ask, "Why do you do this? What do you want from me?"
"That's a pretty silly question. I think you know."
"No. No. No, I sure as hell don't know. Whatever goes on in that manipulative brain of yours is so beyond me that I don't even try to guess anymore."
"I do this to remind you—there's no one else for you." His voice had thickened as he spoke, so rich now that it felt like a physical touch. "There's only me."
"You're such a bastard," I managed to choke out around the thick ball of hatred that had formed in my throat.
"I'm a complete and utter bastard," he agreed ruthlessly, "but you never get to stop loving me. I need you to stay incapable of moving on."
The sheer gall of him, the utter nerve . . . I was so furious I was trembling with it. "I hate you," I said, my voice ragged, the words feeling like they'd been wrenched out of me.
I hung up before he could respond.
I was so thoroughly pissed off after that that there was nothing to do but go shopping.
Because retail therapy.
I had another bad moment as I was driving through the winding mall parking lot when I spotted the huge Durant's department store sign and had a near overpowering urge to drive my car through its shiny glass doors.
It was pure hell to be a broke shopaholic with an ex whose family owned one of the biggest department store chains in the world. It was salt in the wound that I couldn't afford to shop there. Not even close.
Still, feeling contrary, I parked near the entrance, went inside, and started trying on overpriced designer dresses. I wasn't sure if it made me feel better or worse that they all looked fabulous on me.
Eventually I moved on to shoes, and that definitely made me feel better.
Someday I'll be successful, I told myself. Someday I'll be able to buy myself whatever the hell I please.
Someday I won't hate myself. Someday I won't be hung up on a guy that messes with my head for fun.
Someday I'll be rid of this weakness in my bloodstream that is my love for Dante.
By the time I'd exhausted all of my contrary shopping urges I felt decidedly better.
The magic of shoes.
I was heading back out to my car when my agent called me. With news. Amazing news. Life changing.
I was still stunned by it as I made the long, traffic-filled drive home.
Could this be it? Finally? My big break?
I was almost afraid to hope.
CHAPTER SIX
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."
~Friedrich Nietzsche
PAST
DANTE
There were three of them to my one, but adrenaline had ignited in my bloodstream right along with my temper, so it felt like good odds to me.
Also, I was bigger, meaner, and angrier than all of them put together.
Jock #1 went down like a chump. I'd have bet a good percentage of my trust fund that he'd never even been in a real fight before. He came left, and I blocked him, jabbing under my own upheld arm for a vicious gut punch. Shock overtook his face as he doubled over, the breath whooshing out of him. He was out after that, more focused on his own pain than coming at me again.
Good. Onto the next. Jock #2 wasn't so easy to take down. He was bigger than the last and better at throwing a punch, but it just wasn't enough. He lasted about thirty seconds longer before I brought him low with a brutal fist to the chin.
Jock #3, fucking Reese McCoy, was the best fighter of the bunch, but he also happened to be the one I most wanted to beat the shit out of, so it didn't do him a
whole lot of good.
His big mouth had started this.
He got in a few good clocks before I took him down, but I wasn't going to give him too much credit for it. I never was much good at ducking.
Luckily, he wasn't either. I cornered him and started whaling, the sound of each punch barely louder than the blood rushing through my ears.
I used to get into fights for her because they called her trash and tried to hurt her.
It got better for a time as kids started to understand that I wouldn't stand for that, but over one summer her body changed.
She went from being my best buddy—my partner in crime, then boom, she changed shape, she was a girl, and then, right on the tail of that, a woman.
She didn't just get boobs before any other girl in our school. She got fantastic boobs. They were out of this world. Big, perky, pointing right at you, mouth-watering breasts.
And her hips and ass drove me possibly more insane. She became shapely all over, but her waist stayed as tiny as ever.
And her face—it was much the same as the dear face I'd known for so long, but something happened to it, to her pouty lips, her dark, dark, drown-in-me eyes, even her voice changed, got lower, raspier.
She walked into school that year and it was comical to watch the way the boys couldn't take their eyes off her. Even the ones that had been the cruelest to her, the ones that hated her still, couldn't manage to hide their reactions.
Well, it would have been comical if it didn't make me want to kill someone.
A lot of someones.
I'd watched the entire shift, witnessed every minuscule change in her as it happened.
But for the rest of the boys it seemed to happen overnight. One day they all looked at my girl and saw what I saw.
It was not a good year for me. I got into fight after fight, same kids, just calling her different names now. And looking at her. And talking about her. And mentioning her name with the wrong fucking tone in their voice.
The only upside to fighting these days was that kids rarely told. Teenage boys had too much pride to tattle.
And meanwhile, Scarlett didn't even have a clue that she was the sexiest creature on the planet. She'd been a bona fide sexpot at fifteen and completely oblivious to it.
Well, not completely. She seemed to have at least some idea about what she did to me, and she'd had no problem practicing her wiles on me rather ruthlessly for the last few years.
I was a willing lamb to the slaughter. Anything she wanted to do to me I wanted done. I'd lie on my back and let her sharpen her claws on my underbelly as long as she let me look at her while she did it.
I was that far gone.
But she was mine, fucking mine, and only I had the right to think of her that way, let alone speak about her that way.
Which brought us to this fight, and the things I'd caught these punks saying about her in the locker room. They hadn't even been trying to hide it from me, the thickheaded idiots.
We'd just finished football practice. Scarlett had come to watch from the stands, but everyone knew she was there for me. Every single one of these guys knew what was up.
I'd been on my way out, practically to the door, hell, maybe that was it, maybe they'd thought I was already gone, when I heard them talking.
They didn't even have to say her name. And a few words in I nearly lost it just by the tone in scumbag Reese's voice.
"Did you see what she was wearing today?" he was asking his buffoon, jock friends.
That's all it took. I knew who he was talking about.
I stopped in my tracks, my entire body going stiff. Reese I had a particular problem with. This was not his first offense, or even his third. He had a thing for my girl, a thing that involved him degrading and coveting her both, and I had a major fucking issue with it.
"Fucking A I did," one of his greasy buddies answered.
"She's such a fucking tease," another one said.
"No," Reese replied. "She's no tease. She's been giving it up to Durant since sixth grade, I heard."
From my shoulders to my fists, I felt myself begin to shake.
"No shit?" one asked.
"Doesn't surprise me one bit," the other added.
"Yeah, it's the truth," Reese said, like he knew it for a fact. "She's a little nympho, too, man. Can't get enough cock. I heard she'll spread her legs for anybody. There's just one thing you have to do."
Fucking triggered.
I knew I was about to get myself into trouble, but I'd heard too much. I couldn't walk away.
"What?" his friends chimed on cue.
"Just take her out back to the dumpster. Makes her feel right at home."
Fucking.
Triggered.
They started laughing and I lost my shit.
"She'll let anyone plow her if you don't mind a little garbage with your puss . . ." Reese trailed off as he saw me coming at them.
The rest was a domino effect of violence. I took the punks out, one by one.
"Don't talk about her. If I hear another fucking word come out of your mouth that has anything to do with my girl you will make me have to hurt you." I was spitting each word into his face I was so unrepentantly angry.
The two cohorts were down, and I was straddling a struggling Reese, one hand holding him in place, the other cocked back for another blow when my friend Nate's voice got through to me.
"Coach is coming. Dante, he's coming! Walk away!"
I let my fist fly one last time with relish before I got off him.
The first thing I saw when I walked outside was Scarlett. She was waiting for me, looking edible, living up to every fantasy that every one of those fuckers no doubt had about her on a daily basis.
I was a hypocrite. Even if she hadn't been mine, even if she'd been with someone else, I'd have fixated on her, obsessed about her.
It was the wildness in her. She could never hide it. Not in her eyes, not in her smile, not in her masses of wavy hair, or her out of this world curves. Every part of her led the mind to the same conclusion—this beautiful creature cannot be tamed.
It drove guys out of their minds, I knew firsthand. I'd been mad for her since we were ten years old and she gave me her first conspiratorial grin, the one that told me we'd be giving the world hell.
Adrenaline was still pumping through my system, endorphins going wild, as I approached.
Her brows drew together in concern as she saw my face. "Fighting again?" She touched my cheek when we were in reaching distance. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," I said shortly. Reese's words were still echoing through my head, still drawing me back to fight him.
"Who was it?" she asked.
"No one important," I replied truthfully.
"Let's get out of here," she said, taking my hand.
"The cabin's ready," I told as her we broke into the woods, moving swiftly along the familiar trail that took us home.
She shot me a look. "Are you . . . up for that? Is this really the best time? I can tell you were hit in the face—your cheek is red. Where else are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. You can check out my other bruises . . . at the cabin." I grinned at her. She blushed and looked away.
I felt myself getting hard.
"Isn't it a long hike?" she asked her feet.
It was. The cabin was on Gram's land, that's how I'd found it, but it was deep in the woods. No roads led to it, just one grueling hiking trail. That's why it was so perfect. It was a place that could be ours alone. "About an hour and a half hiking, less if we set a good pace. I'm up for it if you are?"
She chewed on her lip, still blushing. "I'm up for it. It certainly feels like we've waited long enough."
We had, and then I'd made us wait longer, finding just the right spot, cleaning it out, stocking it up.
The hotels in town were shit, and nowhere else felt private enough for our first real time together.
"I just need to grab one thing from Gram's," I explained.
&nbs
p; "We'll be back before it's dark, won't we? We can't hike back in the dark. Do we have enough time?"
"It's a Friday. You always stay out late enough for Glenda to pass out and then you leave before she wakes up. Do you really think she's going to notice if you're away for one night?"
She looked uncertain. Her grandma terrified her to an unreasonable degree. It made me sick to my stomach to think about. She was so helpless when it came to that hateful woman.
"I don't want to rush," I added. And when that wasn't enough, I used the magic word. "Please."
"Okay," she agreed instantly. "But if I catch hell for it, I'm blaming you, and letting you deal with my grandma.
"Deal." I didn't hesitate. Her grandma pissed me the hell off, but she didn't scare me.
I grabbed the key to the thick padlock I'd put on the cabin door. It was on a key chain, but as we started to leave, an idea struck me.
"One sec," I told Scarlett, leaving her by the front door.
I found Gram. It didn't even occur to me that she wouldn't have what I needed. "Do you have a gold chain I could borrow? Something sturdy, to hold a key."
She studied me, her controlled face frankly curious. "Is it for you or for Scarlett?"
"Either or both," I said cryptically.
She smiled. "I'll dig up one. You can have it. You don't need to borrow."
When I approached Scarlett again, still waiting by the door, I draped the key on its chain casually around her neck.
She fingered it. "What's this?"
I smiled, kissing her briefly. "It's the key to our first place together. Hope you like what I've done with the place."
She laughed, and I took her hand, pulling her into the kitchen. We put together a backpack full of food, enough for days, though we'd only have one night. There was no telling how hungry I'd be, though, so better safe than sorry.
The walk was long but idyllic. Since we'd be staying overnight, we took our time, stopping at Gram's huge orchard and picking as many apples as we could carry, keeping one out to eat as we walked. I took a big bite, the sound of it echoing through the trees.
We grinned at each other as I passed it to her. She took a bite and handed it back.