“Maisy.”
We both turn at the sound of Jacqueline Landry’s bitchy tone. Her parents stand outside the restaurant’s doors. It’s the first time I’ve come face to face with them directly since I moved back to Ridgeview.
I don’t release Maisy right away, fighting against another wave of possessiveness. It’s stronger this time, latching onto me and making me want to never let her go. Richard Landry looks about ready to pop a blood vessel at the sight of his precious daughter standing so close to me, and his wife actually looks annoyed she didn’t plot to make sure I was in the car with my parents that night so she could’ve avoided this moment. Maisy tenses, grasping my shirt in her fist as a tremor runs down her spine. What was once a simple revenge plan has gotten complicated by what I feel for her.
She presses gently against my chest and steps away from me. My hand falls to my side, chest burning with an acute tightness.
“Where is Sam?” Jaqueline demands in an icy voice, because asking anything is beneath her.
“He had to leave,” Maisy says. Lowering her voice so only I can hear, she adds, “Crying shame.”
I snort.
“You’ve been out here too long and you left before the entrees were served,” Jacqueline says. “People inside started to take notice.”
Maisy shrugs. “Sorry. I’m not that hungry now.”
Jaqueline’s detached gaze flicks to me for a moment. It’s hard to believe those eyes are the same color as Maisy’s, which are full of life. “Then I guess you don’t feel like going on your trip.”
Maisy bristles beside me. I take a step, but she shoots a hand out to stop me.
“Don’t,” she murmurs. “I have to take on this fight for myself, too.”
I look back to Jacqueline and Richard. The coldness in her eyes is awful. I remember when she would buy us ice cream, and the time she drove us to the aquarium for a class trip when my parents were out of town. She used to look at me with the same fondness as she had for her own children, like I was another son to her. The malicious way she looks at me now harbors no warmth, like if I say something she doesn’t like she won’t hesitate to end me if it threatened her greed.
Meeting her gaze, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt this is who took my family from me.
Eighteen
Maisy
“Fox, wait!”
After staring at Mom for several tense heartbeats, he turned and walked away toward the shadows past the pool of light outside the restaurant. I’m not finished with him yet, not by a long shot. I need to talk to him before he shuts me out again. I want to know what he meant about me being his problem and why he stepped in between me and Sam when he was actively tormenting me not that long ago.
“Maisy, get back here!” Dad calls as I go after Fox. I move faster to outrun him, expecting him to restrain me if he has to, but it doesn’t come. “Please! Jackie—”
“We won’t make a scene here, Richard,” Mom says cryptically.
I’m not turning back, not even for the desperation in Dad’s voice. They can’t keep me from him. I’m fighting for him and they won’t stop me. For once, Mom’s insane need to control every aspect of her image is working out for me to escape so I can chase Fox.
I’ll deal with the fallout when I get home later. I’m sure I’m in for hell from her for ruining her meticulously orchestrated night by running off. Let people start another rumor, see if I care. There are more important things happening right now than maintaining the image she’s obsessed with.
When I reach the shadows, I don’t see him. Crap. Did I miss him? How does he move so quickly and quietly so it’s hard to follow his path?
A pair of strong arms circle me from behind and I’m whirled around. I release a tiny gasp before my back hits the brick wall of the restaurant.
“What are you doing, Maisy Daisy?” Fox rasps in a smoky tone, lips brushing my temple while his hand closes around my neck.
Unlike before, this time his hold is almost…gentle. His thumb swipes the underside of my jaw, guiding my face up.
For a moment, I can’t speak. My throat closes over with the emotions choking me up. He’s called me daisy, and by my name a few times, but never the full nickname from our childhood. My hands automatically rest on his chest, clinging to the material of his signature black muscle shirt beneath the leather jacket to anchor myself so I don’t float away in the sea of memories attacking me. I didn’t expect how it would make me feel when I used to hate it so much, but hearing it now infused with so many things—wry amusement, sultry teasing, affection—I have to swallow a few times and force out a ragged breath.
“You’re more interesting to be around than my parents.” I want to pull him closer. A snort shakes his shoulders and a hot puff of air travels over my neck. “I need to talk to you.”
“No.”
The arrogant way he decides it makes me bristle.
“Yes,” I insist, twisting my fingers and tugging on his shirt.
“I didn’t plan on you.”
I don’t know what he means by that, but it sounds like the admission cost him.
He sighs in resignation, tracing his nose down the side of my face, as if he can’t keep away from me anymore than I can stay away from him. It’s impossible. The world knows we’re meant to be like this, so it gave us an invisible cord that ties our hearts together.
My whole body protests when he pulls back, allowing the cool night air to get between us. It feels like he’s putting the cavernous divide back in place. His eyes are hard to read in the dark, but they still pierce through me.
“I have to go.” His mouth twists. “There’s something I’m late for.”
“So take me with you. We really need to talk. You said I was your problem and I want to know what you meant.”
He pushes out a breath, cutting his gaze to the side as he drags his long, calloused fingers through his tousled dark hair. His jaw works while he shakes his head.
“No.”
That damn refusal again. I tighten my grip on his shirt, ready to jump across the deep invisible crevice he separates us with.
“Don’t.”
“What changed?” My words come faster and my voice cracks. “Why did you hate me so much and do everything you could to make my life hell, but now you decide you’ll protect me?”
The more I push, the more I feel him closing off. My one chance to get past his walls is slipping away. He steps back, prying my hands from his shirt. He won’t even look at me.
“Why?” I yell. “Just tell me!”
Fox moves aggressively, pinning me to the wall. “Why?”
A harsh sound passes his lips as he grips me by my upper arms and cages me against the bricks with every inch of his hard muscles. His controlled composure breaks and everything he keeps locked away pours out of him.
“Why? Because you broke your goddamn promise, Maisy!”
There’s so much anger bleeding out of him, I expect the red stain to be all over my dress and shoes when I return to the light.
His voice grows hoarse and gravelly. “You know that! Stop acting like you don’t!”
“What?” I sputter, caught off guard as confusion swarms me. “What are you talking about?”
“You promised me. You swore not to tell Holden or your parents when I showed you what was in the garage.”
Fox breathes heavily, digging his fingers into my upper arms. The brick bites into my back through the thin designer dress. I ignore all of it, because what he said triggered my memories. It’s all coming back in a visceral rush that threatens to swallow me whole.
“The day you gave me the daisy,” I whisper, my eyes widening.
There’s something else I want to show you. It’s in my dad’s garage. The image of Fox at nine floats to the surface of my mind as we stood in the field by our tree. I wasn’t supposed to find it. You have to promise not to tell anyone.
I remember that day now. I haven’t thought about it in so long because it was too clo
se to when I lost Fox.
He took me into the garage and I thought he was going to show me something to do with the mechanics he was learning from his dad. But I was wrong.
His excitement was infectious, and I loved following him into trouble. It gave me a thrill like no other. He never told me I couldn’t do something because I was small or a girl. He liked it when I came along on our adventures.
Everything looked normal at first. Fox jogged over to his dad’s motorcycle and ran a proud hand over it. “I’m going to take you for a ride on this once I’m allowed to drive it.”
I nodded eagerly. I wanted to feel the wind in my hair while I got to hug him really tight.
Then he took my hand and led me to the other side of the garage where his dad usually kept a stash of his favorite beer in a mini fridge. We opened the door and instead of beer bottles, there were trays of small tubes with labels on them. As far as I knew, our parents weren’t allowed to bring their work home from their lab.
“A science experiment?” I asked.
He shook his head and carefully prodded one of the tubes. “I think it’s this.” He let the door to the refrigerator shut and moved a box of tools out of the way on the workbench, pulling out the folder hidden there. “It says it’s a patent.”
“Synthetic opioid formula trial,” I read aloud on one of the section headings. The page had a scientific diagram on it. I couldn’t pronounce some of the longer technical words, even though I read a lot for my age. “How come they have it here? Why is it hidden?”
“Dunno. Cool, right? We never get to see their work. They always say I’m not allowed to visit when I beg them to bring me to their lab for take your kid to work day.”
We only spent a few minutes marveling at Fox’s discovery of his parents contraband drug trial stash. I remember one of the pages in the packet having a long list of numbers that I wrote off at the time, but now that I’m thinking about it, I remember dollar signs and lots of commas. Whatever they had been hiding in the garage was worth a huge amount of money to the company.
“I-I did promise.” And I did break it. “I’m so sorry.”
The echo of guilt flares as fresh as it was when the words slipped out of my mouth in my excitement to tell my parents about my new favorite day at bedtime. Once they tumbled out, I couldn’t steal them back.
The memory of the weird, tense look they exchanged makes my breath catch. They told me not to tell anyone else what I saw. To forget it even happened. It was the first time Mom ever became controlling with me, but we’re so far down the path now that I’d pushed the memory far behind all the other bad blood between me and Mom. The expression on her face scared me that night.
Grabbing onto his biceps, I will him to hear out my explanation. “Wait—I did tell my parents when I said I wouldn’t, but they already knew.” I felt really bad about it, but our parents were close friends and it made sense that they knew, because Mom worked with them. “They didn’t seem surprised by what we saw in the garage.”
He’s angry all over again. It rolls off of him, nearly suffocating me. I sense he’s ready to shove me back out behind the iron walls he built around his heart once more. How could I have forgotten about that day?
“You picked them over the promise you made me.”
“I was too excited to tell them about my day. It wasn’t on purpose, it just slipped out.”
“The secret of what they were hiding got them killed,” Fox grits out through clenched teeth. I can feel the vibration of his deep voice through his chest against mine. “Their car crash wasn’t an accident. They were murdered along with my baby sister.”
Another wave of shock crashes over me. I’m on the verge of shattering, stuck between the old memories and the truth coming out.
“Sister?” It comes out strangled.
“Mom didn’t want to tell anyone yet, but they just found out she was having a girl.” His voice is shaking. “I was supposed to have a baby sister.”
Did I unknowingly contribute to his family’s death? Even if my parents knew, did I put everything in motion to get them in trouble by spilling a secret that wasn’t mine in the first place?
Ice freezes my veins and I slam my eyes shut to block out his expression. It hurts my heart too much. This is why he’s hated me. This is how our friendship was destroyed.
Fox hasn’t only been living with the grief of losing his parents to tragedy all these years. It’s so much worse than I ever could have imagined.
“Murdered.” The word tastes like ash on my tongue, but I force it out.
My eyes open slowly and I stare at his unyielding jawline as my thoughts turn. The police report. The investigation was ruled an accident, the coroner report missing. I knew it was suspicious that there was information missing from it and that Dad’s signature was all over it. Fox’s weird behavior and the way he’s been lurking around town bribing people makes sense now. I’ve finally figured out what he’s been up to.
“You’re trying to prove it.”
It takes him a long time to answer. He studies me, not letting up on his punishing grip.
“Yes.”
“How? You’re nineteen.”
“That doesn’t concern you. I have to do this. I won’t let the people that did this to my family get away with it. They don’t get to enjoy the power they got by killing my family.” His conflicted tone breaks my heart as he breaks off, swallowing audibly. The sorrow threatens to drag me under. “You helped them by breaking that promise. No one would’ve found out what they were hiding.”
“That’s not true. I told you my parents already knew!” I have to believe it’s not true, rejecting the idea that I inadvertently helped hurt them.
Fox grunts as he bears down on me, finally releasing my arms in favor of locking his fingers around my throat as he gets in my face.
“Why do you think your Mom was promoted to CEO out of nowhere? Check the damn dates. That’s the level the people behind this are working at.” His hand flexes and I struggle to draw my next breath. “That’s what your broken promise did.”
My heart crushes under the weight of guilt. “I was eight! We were just kids!”
“Tell that to my dead parents!”
Fox smacks a palm against the brick over my head and backs away with a frustrated noise. I reach up to rub my neck. My throat burns like I’ve swallowed thousands of knives, but not from his rough handling.
“So you hate me because you think I helped the people that did this?”
The question hurts because part of me actually wonders if I’m remembering the events of that day wrong and I did inadvertently have a hand in it all, but I force it out. Fox gives me a low rumble in response.
“You seriously believe I would hurt you so deeply when I’ve always lo—” I clamp my mouth shut as he crushes me against the wall with his body once more. Both of us are breathing hard. I lick my lips and tilt my chin up. His searching gaze tracks the movement. “I would never hurt you like that.”
“Then why did you break your promise?”
Fox sounds gutted and it stabs a knife into my stomach. I shudder at the way everything about him seems torn to shreds. He’s carried the weight of this pain on his shoulders for ten years and it’s killing him.
It makes me want to take all of his anger and grief and hurt. I’ll bear the weight of it for him. I just want to take it away so he doesn’t sound so utterly damaged by the world.
Reaching up, I cup his face. His cheek turns hard, a muscle jumping beneath my palm. But he doesn’t pull away. I dig into the flare of hope that gives me.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Determination fills me, giving me strength. I wait until he meets my gaze in the dim shadows. “My heart knows yours, Fox Michael Wilder. It always has. I never ever forgot.” I lower my voice. “Did yours forget me?”
“No. Never.” It comes out on a broken growl.
“Then you have to know I wouldn’t betray your trust to hurt you on purpose. I’m n
ot your enemy. I’m sorry, Fox.”
As soon as the words leave me, I wind my arms around his neck and hug him. He remains stiff for a long stretch of seconds. I close my eyes tight, hugging him harder.
Slowly, his muscular arms come around me until he’s crushing me into his embrace. He buries his hands in my dress and holds me.
It’s like he’s not used to the touch anymore, as if he hasn’t had a real hug for ten years when I last threw my arms around him for having my back or making me laugh. My heart squeezes when a barely there tremble shakes his broad frame.
A soft, rough noise leaves him, then he breaks away, putting distance between us. He scrubs a hand over his jaw while I lean back against the brick wall so my knees don’t give out. I can feel the shift, the energy cleansed from the decaying thing that used to hang in the air like venom between us.
But when he speaks, low and gruff, my heart finally splinters.
“I won’t mess with you anymore. That’s done now, so you can go on to live your life.” He pauses, tugging harshly on his messy dark hair. “But we can’t get back what we had before.”
Nineteen
Fox
The undeniable sincerity in Maisy’s apology caught me off guard and I still feel the echo of her hug hours later in the middle of the night. It’s created a deep-seated yearning in me. A wish that I didn’t pull away so soon, that I kept holding her and got to kiss her one more time.
All these years I thought she knew she lied and broke her promise, but she swears she didn’t remember until the truth came out.
I trace my thumbnail over my lower lip as I stare at the laptop on my coffee table.
Can I really believe her? My heart riots against my rib cage, telling me I can’t trust her so easily. She could turn around and stab me in the back again. It’s not something I could survive a second time.
I tamp down those thoughts and squeeze the back of my neck. She couldn’t fake that sincerity.
If I accept her apology…she could truly be my daisy again.
Savage Wilder: Dark New Adult High School Bully Romance (Sinners and Saints Book 4) Page 16