Morally Imperfect: A Bully Romance (The Bully Project Book 2)

by Savannah Rose

  “We’re almost at the end,” he said, as though we’d started this journey together.

  Daringly, I looked into his eyes. “We’ll still be friends when this is all done,” I said.

  His hand left his side and came up slowly to brush against my cheek. “What if I want more than friendship?” he asked, but I knew it wasn’t quite a question at all. More of a statement.

  “Marcus,” I whispered back. I didn’t have the right words for him. As it would turn out, it wasn’t words that he was looking for. Before I knew what was happening, Marcus was moving closer. His lips covered mine in a rush of heat and I felt myself falling, falling, falling, into a black hole of lies and deception. I was not this girl. Things were still unclear between Maddox and me.

  I pulled away from Marcus. “I’m married,” I told him. “You can’t. I can’t.”

  “Cornelia,” he whispered and reached for me again. I shook my head and spun on my heels, my heart racing a million miles a minute as I rushed to Maddox’s room and locked the door behind me.

  I felt like nothing less than a traitor.

  To my feelings.

  To my heart.

  To Maddox.

  Maybe even to Marcus.

  Chapter Twelve

  Phee had been grumpy ever since our husbands left the house. I almost wished I could spike her morning coffee if only to have someone to talk to who wasn’t Marcus to talk to. We were nearing the end of our time in the house and I was getting nervous.

  Sure, Robert was kind enough to give me access to Maddox’s room and I took full advantage of reeling myself back into the reason I came here. Being in my own room started to feel strange. Wrong. Or perhaps that’s when I had started hiding. Trying to put whatever distance I could between Marcus and me. My feelings were confusing, and I didn’t do well with confusion.

  A knock on the door startled me and I turned to face it, heart pounding, waiting to see if I was just imagining things. Another knock and I lifted myself off Maddox’s bed and strolled over to the door to open it. I knew better than to think that Maddox was the one knocking. He might have taken most of his belongings with him, but this was still his room. He wouldn’t knock before entering. That left only three possibilities. Marcus, Robert, or Phee. With every figment of my being, I hoped it was Phee on the other side.

  I pulled the door open and revealed just how little it mattered what I wished for.

  Marcus’ ocean deep eyes stared back at me, but it was Phee’s words that I heard ringing loud in my ears.

  Be careful, Cornelia.

  Marcus was dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt that made his emphasized muscles even more prominent. A tattoo crept from the sleeves of his shirt, roping all the way to his wrist. I focused on the intricacy of it for a moment, needing something to distract me from his eyes.

  “I wanted to apologize for last night,” he said.

  I swallowed hard, still not daring to meet him eye to eye. “There’s no need to apologize.”

  “There is,” he said and lifted a finger to tip my chin up. “I crossed a line that wasn’t mine to cross.”

  “You did,” I agreed. “But we really don’t need to talk about any of that, Marcus.”

  Everything about him in that moment was filled with awkwardness. You can tell when someone doesn’t know what to do with their hands, but Marcus didn’t seem to know what to do with his entire body. He kept shifting from one foot to the other and looking around as if he expected Maddox to swing in like Spiderman and beat the shit out of him again.

  Marcus parted his lips, then hesitated. “Can I come in?”

  I stared at him unblinking and for a moment nervousness was replaced by sorrow. At the end of all this, someone’s heart was going to break. That much was clear.

  “I just came by to give you this.” He held out a worn envelope and wary, I took it.

  Inside was a small, square piece of paper. Delicate from years of attention, I nevertheless recognized the faded writing as my own. It was the invitation I’d given Sara back in grade school. My eyes widened.

  “How?” Fuck that. “Why do you have this?”

  Marcus straightened.

  Then cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable beneath my regard.

  “I realized some things about myself.” He continued, the picture of contrition. “Things I didn’t like…” He shook his head. “My sister died and it was my fault. If I hadn’t been such a…” running a frustrated hand through his hair, his words faltered for a second time. “We had a fucked up childhood, Cornelia. You walked into it for a quick minute, but you never really saw. That was always the thing about you, you didn’t pass judgements, you didn’t look for the wrong in the world, you just found the beauty in it wherever you could. I didn’t protect my sister the way I should have. I don’t have much left from her, but I have that. Maybe I kept it for selfish reasons. It represented a time in our lives where things were at least a little bit okay. A time where you were still a part of our lives. If it’s any consolation, you were the closest thing she had to a friend.”

  I turned the invite over in my hands, staring at it.

  “It’s proof that we didn’t hate you, Cornelia. Not Sara. Not me. We held on to the time where we could have been friends with you - “

  “You never told me why that had to stop,” I said, feeling like I was walking myself into murky waters, but not knowing how to make the decision to turn back.

  Marcus winced and glanced away. If I were better at reading people, I would say my question was poking at a wound.

  “Sara fought for you,” he said, avoiding my question. “You think things at school were bad? They would have been much worse without her coming to your defense all the time.” His lips twisted into something that wasn’t a frown, but something deeper. “Our stepfather…” he said and shook his head.

  “What are you trying to say, Marcus?”

  “Cornelia,” he whispered and took my hand into his. This time, I let him. “There’s no point in me telling you.”

  “I’ve wanted closure my entire life,” I said. I was a big girl now. Whatever happened back then, it shaped my present, but it wouldn’t disturb my future.

  “And I’ve wanted you my entire life, Cornelia. Sometimes we just don’t get the things we want.”

  My breath caught, and Marcus frowned. Marcus had always been a jealous kid. He wanted what he couldn’t have and denying him something was the same as ensuring its destruction. If he wanted the food off of your plate, he wouldn’t just steal a bite, he’d throw the entire plate on the floor. Is this what he was doing now? Not giving me closure if he couldn’t have all of me.

  Marcus cleared his throat and glanced away as if shamed.

  “You’re trying to trade closure for love,” I said. “That’s not fair.”

  “If there is anything that’s not fair, it’s the fact that I have spent my entire life trying to get over you and failing. And now, now I’m this close.” He squeezed his thumb and index together, emphasizing his point. “How much of an idiot would I be if I didn’t at least try.”

  “I’m married, Marcus. You knew that when you came here.”

  He laughed a laugh void of humor. “You got married on a television show, Cornelia. Your husband tried to use to you tap into his inheritance.” Despite the truth in his words, they stung. They also weren’t doing him any favors. He cast his eyes down and shook his head. “That was mean,” he said.

  “It was,” I agreed.

  “What I’m saying is that I’m not here asking you to give me a chance for any other reason than the fact that I fucking want you, Cornelia. All of you.”

  “You said you were fine with friendship.”

  He shook his head. “If that’s the only thing I can get then, yes, I’ll take it. But I want so much more. And when I look at you, Cornelia…when I see the way you look at me…”

  “What happened the night of the sleepover, Marcus?” I asked, my voice strained…weak. But I need
ed to bring this conversation back in focus. Marcus wasn’t wrong. My feelings weren’t clear-cut and yes, sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be his. But then there was Maddox. And even though he hurt me…even though I was lost when it came to where we stood…Maddox still had my heart.

  When Marcus glanced back at me, there were tears swimming in his eyes. “I can make you happy,” he said.

  “Closure, Marcus. Closure will make me happy.”

  Marcus swept a hand down his face and it took everything in me not to reach out to him. When he looked back up at me I knew just how dangerous this game was we were playing. Not just for him, but for me and Maddox as well.

  “You have no idea, Cornelia. Absolutely, no idea.”

  “Then help me to understand.”

  Shaking, I closed my eyes and clutched the invite tighter. Inevitably, my thoughts went back to Sara.

  What on earth did I miss?

  What on earth was Marcus not telling me?

  Should I even care?

  Does closure really matter that much?

  “Okay,” Marcus said, and gestured for us to move inside where there were no cameras watching our every move or listening to whispers of our voices. This time, I let him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We take a seat at the small table in the corner of Maddox’s room. Our positions as well as the look in Marcus’ eyes made everything seem a lot more serious than I’m sure it was. Marcus sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, his lips quivering as the air was released from his lungs.

  Reaching across the table, Marcus took my hands in his. “My stepfather tried to touch you,” he said and I was almost sure that I mis-heard the words.

  “I’m not…I don’t…”

  “My stepfather tried to touch you,” he repeated, leaving no doubt in my mind that those were the words he said. I felt sick to my stomach. Terribly so. “The night of the sleepover,” he continued, “I’d gone to the bathroom and came back into the living room to see him with his hands on your body, stroking your hair, your back.

  I tried to recall the memory, but it just wasn’t there. “Maybe he was just tucking us in,” I suggested. Marcus’ jaw tightened. He knew exactly what he was saying. Exactly what he saw.

  “How much do you remember from that night, Cornelia?”

  I focused hard, begging my memory to give me something, anything. “I remember you throwing a fit. I remember sitting on the steps outside your house. I remember you telling everybody that I peed the bed.”

  He nodded. All of those things were correct. I knew that even without his confirmation. What I also remembered then, was that I couldn’t come up with a reason for his overreaction.

  “I found him touching you and I reacted,” he said. “I was terrified. For you. For me. For my sister. If I hadn’t walked in at that very moment, who knows what he would have done?” There weren’t just tears in Marcus’ eyes now. They were streaming down his face, unstoppable. “I should have reported him. You should have reported him. But you didn’t know what was happening and…if I said something, Sara and I might have been put into foster care. God knows, our mother didn’t know how to raise children and without my stepdad I knew that she wouldn’t even have tried. I couldn’t risk being separated from my sister, but maybe I should have.”

  I held onto his hands, offering as much support as I could manage; knowing that it wasn’t nearly enough.

  “You don’t know what he would have done,” I whispered. There were tears streaming down my own face now. I was trying to be in denial. I wanted him to try to be in denial too.

  “I know what he would have done, Cornelia. Because he did it to Sara.”

  I rushed out of the room, barely making it to the bathroom before my breakfast left my stomach and swam in the sink.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  How?

  Why?

  I sank down to the floor, holding my face in my hands as I cried for what could have happened and what did happen. Five minutes later, I managed to peel myself away the tile floors and return to Marcus.

  I held him and he held me. And together we cried about the past.

  “It wasn’t fair of me to burden you with all that.”

  “I asked,” I said. “I wanted answers and I got them. I shook my head, completely stumped as to how I couldn’t have seen any of this. “He should be in jail,” I said, meeting Marcus eye to eye.

  “He should,” Marcus agreed.

  “You need to report what he did. You need to…you need to…” I was a stuttering mess. My thoughts were strangling the bastard over and over again in my mind. Poor Marcus. Poor Sara. “How have you not – “

  “He left,” Marcus said, cutting me off. “Not long after Sara died, he walked away and never looked back. My mom tried to find him for a while, but eventually accepted that maybe it was for the better.”

  It didn’t sound at all like it was for the better. Marcus and his mom weren’t the police. Had they turned the information over, they’d have tracked his ass down. They have the resources and knowing that he touched an eight year old child, they sure as shit would have had the motivation

  Marcus rested a hand on my shoulder and it was only then that I realized just how much I was shaking.

  “This isn’t your burden to carry, Cornelia,” he said in a way that made me want to believe him. But I was a worrier. I wasn’t just worrying about the girl who’d died all those years ago, I was worrying about all the girls Marcus’ stepdad could have hurt in the time that had gone by.

  “Okay,” I said, though it wasn’t a matter that I knew would settle for me any time soon. I had to do something, right? But the tears that had started to press to the surface of Marcus’ eyes made me know that he needed me to be done with this, to drop the conversation, to let this rest. At least for now.

  I threw my arms around him and felt as some of the sadness in the room shifted. “I really am sorry,” I told him and meant every single word of it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Later that night we were reminded of the preparations that needed to be made for the following day. I weighed the time spent with both men and tried as hard as I could to put my feelings for them on a scale. I wasn’t sure where my heart would end up and I also wasn’t sure which one of the two it would belong to.

  There was a black box Robert had presented to both Phee and me. Picking it up from the desk, I brought it with me to the center of the bed and started to remove the contents one by one. There was a photo album, stocked with photos from my wedding to Maddox. Beneath each photograph was a note, written in script. It didn’t take much for me to figure out that it was Maddox’s handwriting.

  I smoothed my hand over the first picture – me with my head rested on his shoulder, back turned to the camera. Maddox with a smile as wide as the ocean on his face. A smile that looked all too genuine to be faked.

  This is where happiness began for me, the words read.

  I flipped some more, reading each message, and then paused when I got deeper into the album. Instead of me in my wedding dress, there were pictures of different occasions, each without Maddox in the frame.

  Me sleeping.

  Me reading.

  Me getting ready.

  I had no recollection of them being taken, but knew without a shadow of doubt that Maddox was responsible.

  There was something in these pictures that shows…love. Something that only a photographer who knows and admires his subject, could be able to produce. Somehow, the more I flipped through the album, the more I fell in love with…myself. Wasn’t that what this was about at the end of the day? Finding a man who brings out the best in you? Someone who shows you your worth? Who reminds you of your beauty?

  The last page of the photo album didn’t have a picture, but instead, a sheet of paper with numbers running down the side. In front of the numbers were events and dates.

  The first time we kissed.

  The first time we made love.


  The first time we broke the rules.

  The first time Maddox realized he loved me.

  The first time he told me.

  The first time I said it back.

  Each date was a trip down memory lane – as vivid as though it were happening again right before my eyes. There was no way he was faking the way he felt about me. Not even the best actors could put up the performance he did.

  My mind flipped back to Marcus for a moment. All that he had been through. All that he had shared. Our history together. Was that more than what I shared with Maddox? Were the moments I shared with Marcus worth more than the ones shared with Maddox? Did we have more fun together? More of a connection? Would butterflies swarm my stomach when he kissed me, the way they did every time Maddox pressed his lips to mine?

  Kids on the block

  I’d told myself so many times that what had happened with Sara was an accident that I really and truly think I was starting to believe it. What I was about to do, however, would not be an accident.

  Stepdaddy was a predictable enough man. With the move on the horizon and him blabbing to anyone with an eardrum about it, there were only a few things I needed to put in place to ensure that I would not go down for what I was about to do.

  I took a deep breath and fluffed my pillow behind my head. There was something very wrong with me – that much was clear. But I wasn’t going to fight it. I’d read up on the serial killer gene. No one in my family was clever enough to pull off some of the shit the most renowned criminals out there did.

  I wasn’t a dumbass. I did okay in school. Retained the shit I read. And, given a family who gave a damn, I might have even been on my way to college. So, no, I wasn’t convinced that a gene had anything to do with my misgivings. It all mounted up to anger. I had a lot of that. None of it so far directed at the one person who had caused it.