I cover my face with my hands, my body jolting painfully from my racking sobs, my mind taking me back to places I thought I’d long escaped. To the times Jarrad played with my sanity. Made me feel stupid. Took a sick pleasure out of watching me tremble, when I was wondering whether he was going to punch me or kiss me. In the end, everything was a game to Jarrad. He played games in business. He played games with me. It made him feel more powerful to control people’s fear. To control their lives. To know everything good that happened to someone was because of him. And he had the power to take it away.
He’s here. And he’s playing with me all over again.
“Whoa!” the taxi driver cries, slamming his brakes on and sending me flying forward in my seat. “Watch it, arsehole!”
My heart twists in my chest, my fear rocketing. I look out the windshield just as a truck swerves in front of us and slams on its brakes, tires screeching.
Ryan’s truck.
He gets out, slams the door shut with force, and paces toward the cab, his face cut with anger.
I scramble to get out, to keep him from coming closer and making this harder than it needs to be. “Stop!” I yell.
He doesn’t, he just keeps marching toward me. “You’re not doing this to me, Hannah.”
“I have no choice,” I sob, reversing my steps as he keeps coming forward.
“You do!” he yells, reaching me and grabbing the tops of my arms, shaking me as my tears pour. “You do have a fucking choice because I’m giving you one!”
He doesn’t understand. I’ve always wanted to shield him from my dirty past. “I can’t,” I murmur as I stare into his eyes, trying to disregard all the love I see in them. Unfathomable amounts. All for me.
“Then tell me why you’re leaving. At least give me that before you disappear. Because if the reason is more powerful than how much I love you, then I want to fucking know what it is.”
Shame eats at me from the inside out. Is my fear more powerful than his love? I glance around the countryside, seeing nothing for miles. Am I incapable of stopping myself from completely crumbling each time something reminds me of my past? I saw a truck and feared the worst, started building scary scenarios. I had some flowers delivered by a client and read past the blank card. Both triggered something in me, something I couldn’t ignore, but is that good enough reason for me to spiral into meltdown? Is that a good enough reason for me to run away from a man who loves me? Is my paranoia out of control?
“What are you going to do?” Ryan asks. “Run your whole life?” He switches his hold, taking my jaw and holding it in his grasp, squeezing firmly. “Aren’t I enough to make you stay?”
“Don’t.” I look away, but he shakes me, silently ordering me to look him in the eye.
His jaw pulses, his frustration and anger palpable. And his hope. “Aren’t I?”
I close my eyes, feeling tears flow over and roll down my cheeks. “It’s not that simple.”
“It’s very fucking simple from where I’m standing, Hannah. Am I enough?”
“Yes!” I yell, angered that he would believe otherwise. “Yes, you’re enough!”
“Then fucking stay!” he roars back, yanking his hand away from my jaw. He seems to take a breather, seems to think and calm himself. “I know everything.”
I step back on a sniffle, wiping at my nose with the back of my hand. “What?”
His eyes ping open, and I see a resolution and determination in them that I’m not sure I like. “I. Know. Everything.” He doesn’t need to say any more. His gaze spells it out letter for letter, word for word.
I lose my breath, stepping back away from him. “How?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!” Suddenly my reasoning—that I’m being paranoid, that I’m turning nothings into somethings—vanishes, and I look around us frantically. It prompts Ryan to do the same. There’s still just acres of empty fields.
He must understand my sudden alarm. “I work in protection,” he reminds me. “I have contacts.”
“You had someone pry?” I ask.
“If I hadn’t, would you have just left me in the fucking dark forever? Let me love a woman who isn’t who she says she is?”
“The woman you love is the woman I am!” I scream. “That’s the fucking point, Ryan! I’m not her anymore. I’m not a punching bag anymore. I’m not a trophy or an alibi.” My voice quivers with so much emotion, I’m sure I could crumble under the weight of it at any moment. “That’s the fucking point,” I sob, pointing at him. “You love me.” My hand lands on my chest, my shoulders jumping as I cry uncontrollably.
I know it enrages him to see me like this. It must tear his heart out, hearing my fear and my reason. And that’s another fucking point. I know him well enough to know that it could push him over the edge of sanity. Could have him tracking down Jarrad and stabbing him in both eyes so he’s physically unable to search for me.
“Hey!” The taxi driver leans out of the window, his face impatient. “Am I staying or going?”
“Going,” Ryan grates, pulling my duffel bag from the backseat and throwing a twenty to the driver. He slings it over his shoulder and slams the door, and the taxi pulls away.
When I look back at Ryan, he’s regarding me closely. “Why did you run today?” he asks. “I need to know, Hannah. No more secrets.”
I take a breath, but I don’t hold back telling him. Not now. “I saw a truck at the fete.” I shake my head to myself, knowing, now I’m calmer and stable, that it was just an overreaction on my part. “It was a Mitsubishi. It was there, then it wasn’t, then it was again. It was odd. I remembered you said it was a Mitsubishi that ran you off the road and my imagination ran away with me. Then he flashed his lights and I freaked out.”
He closes his eyes, and I hate that it’s an obvious attempt to gather patience. He thinks I’m overreacting, too.
“I’ll have it looked into,” he says, and I can’t help but think he’s trying to pacify me. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but for peace of mind, I’ll check it out.”
“There’s something else,” I go on, needing him to hear the rest so maybe he might empathize and understand why I went off the deep end.
Ryan’s instantly alert again. “What?”
“The guy who’s bought some of my paintings. He sent me flowers,” I say quietly, and Ryan’s jaw immediately tics. It’s not worry. It’s anger. Annoyance. “And a picture of them hanging in his castle.”
He swallows hard, nostrils flaring. “Right,” he pretty much growls. “And that freaked you out, too?”
“With the truck, the flowers…” I shake my head again, realizing how unreasonable it sounds, but I reacted and I wasn’t able to stop it. And I hate that.
Ryan drops my bag with a sigh and comes to me, hauling me forward with force, pinning me to his front. “I promise you, he can’t touch you, Hannah. He can’t find you. He can’t hurt you.” He kisses my hair and pulls me free, making sure I can see the purpose and sincerity in his eyes. “I. Promise. You.” He wipes under each eye with the pad of his thumbs. “Please, don’t run again. You don’t have to anymore, because you have me.” His palms frame my face. “Let me love you.”
I cough on a sob, throwing my arms around him and clinging on like he is life. Like he can save me from my torment.
He can.
He will.
And I need to find the strength I’ve lost to continue to save myself.
* * *
I’m quiet as Ryan drives us back to town. With the fete still in full swing, he has to take the alley that runs parallel to the shops to get us to the other end of the street.
“I should go back,” I say uncertainly, my sense of responsibility taking over. “The kids will be finishing their paintings by now. I’ll have to oversee the judging.”
Ryan pulls up outside the gate to the courtyard of my shop. “You’re not going back,” he tells me with enough assertiveness to make me think twice about protesting. “I need to lock
up your store.” He unclips his belt and then mine, his way of telling me I should go, too. I don’t argue. I’m not leaving his side, and Ryan seems okay with that. He collects me from the passenger side and leads me through the gate into the kitchen. “Do you need anything while we’re here?” he asks, going through to the store and securing the front door.
I shake my head, though he can’t see it as he checks out onto the street. “No,” I confirm when he comes back to me, claiming my hand again. He proceeds to check every window in my store and apartment with me in tow, silently being led by him. When we arrive in my bedroom, he scans the mess I left behind, and I sense his anger through the flexing of his hand. I remain quiet, watching him, and after doing a full sweep of my place, he takes me back downstairs and locks the back door behind us before putting me back in his truck.
As he pulls away, he makes a call, and a second later Alex’s voice is filling the cab.
“I won the pageant!” she declares. “Where are you?”
“Of course you won.” Ryan releases a small smile, and a horrible guilty feeling swoops through my tired body. “Hannah’s not feeling too good. I’m taking her back to the cabin to rest up.”
“Again?” she asks, and I close my eyes, hating that I’m forcing him to lie to his daughter. Ryan should have been there to see her win. Instead, he was chasing me down. Will she hold it against me?
“You know I wouldn’t bail unless it was really important, Cabbage.”
She’s silent for a few seconds, obviously pondering the soft serious tone of her dad’s voice. “Is she going to be okay?”
Ryan takes my hand again and places it in his lap. “She’s going to be fine because I’m going to make sure of it.” He flicks his gaze my way, his face straight, but his eyes are promising me. I squeeze his hand in acknowledgment. “Will you do me a favor?” he asks, returning his attention forward.
“Sure,” Alex chirps.
“Will you make sure the painting competition is taken care of?”
“Of cour…wait. Does that mean I can’t win?”
For the first time in what feels like years, I crack a smile. “You’ve already won in my eyes, Alex.”
“Hey,” she chirps, sounding pleased to hear me. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“Mum said my painting was the best of them all, so actually it doesn’t matter if I don’t win.”
I look at Ryan and find him smiling at the road. “Then she’s obviously got a good eye for good art,” I say, feeling so warm inside.
“Will you let Molly know Hannah’s gone home?” Ryan asks.
“Sure!”
“Call you in the morning, okay?”
“Okay. Must dash. I have a competition to fix.” She chuckles but quickly stops. “Wait. You said home.”
“What?” Ryan questions, his forehead creasing. I purse my lips. She doesn’t miss a trick.
“You said, Hannah’s gone home but she hasn’t. She’s going back to the cabin.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Slip of the tongue.” He looks at me out the corner of his eye, checking for my reaction. “Speak tomorrow.”
“Yes, we will.” She hangs up with that threat hanging in the air.
“Kids,” Ryan mutters, pulling out at the top of the high street and driving away from town.
The rest of the short ride is silent, and although it isn’t uncomfortable, it does give me thinking space to wonder, What now? We’ll have to talk. I don’t know if I’m up for that at the moment. All I want to do is curl up in Ryan’s arms and return to my new tranquil world. But I know that isn’t going to happen just yet. To get to that place again, I need to face my demons head-on. And most important, I need Ryan to understand.
He parks under the willow tree and collects my bag before collecting me. Just being here in his space offers me a little reprieve from my turbulence.
“Sit,” he commands gently, taking me to one of the chairs by the fire. I lower and watch as he lights the fire and stabs at the wood with an iron poker, encouraging the flames. Then he sits in the chair opposite me, and I immediately hate the distance he’s putting between us. I start to fold in on myself, fear of the impending talk we need to have bringing on an onslaught of unease. He’s just looking at me, probably trying to fathom where to start.
The pressure gets the better of me, and I shoot up from my chair. “I need a drink,” I blurt, turning and walking to the kitchen, feeling his eyes nailed to my back. Why is he being so cold all of a sudden? Has relief made way for anger again? Has he spent the journey back here gauging just how pissed off he is?
I pour myself a glass of wine, hoping it’ll settle my nerves. How much is he going to make me explain? He says he knows everything. Does he want to hear it from my mouth, too? Confirmation?
I screw the cap back on the bottle and return it to the fridge, then claim my glass, and with a shaky hand I raise it to my lips, staring out the window, willing the courage I need to tackle it all. I see my bike propped up against the tree, the colors vibrant. It’s a pretty accurate representation of me since I met Ryan. Will he look at me differently now?
As I feel his eyes drilling into my back, I hate the notion that he already does. For a fleeting moment, I damn him for chasing me down and stopping me leaving. Because this feeling is just another reason for me to go. This hopelessness. This shame.
I set the glass down on the counter and take a few controlled breaths. “How did you find out who I am?”
“I already told—”
“No,” I snap, turning to face him. “I know you have connections. But don’t tell me you called them up, gave them the name Hannah Bright, and they came back with an entire shitty story of a woman who’s been dead for five years.” I take more wine, but I’m sure to keep my eyes on Ryan. “Because if so, Ryan, I’m in serious trouble.” I’m being sarcastic, spelling out loud and clear that there’s more and he’s not telling me.
He stiffens in his chair, flexing his strung muscles. “I followed you yesterday morning to Grange.” He makes his confession with not one hint of remorse or shame, and my legs become heavy, holding me stock-still.
He followed me? Watched me? He saw every moment of my anguish?
“When you left Grange,” he goes on, “I followed the women you were watching to a care home.” Still no shame, and I reach back to the counter to steady myself. “I waited for the younger woman to leave and then checked the visitor log. That’s how I got the name of your sister and your mother.”
Stunned, I stare at him, unable to comprehend the lengths he’s gone to. Just the mention of my mum and Pippa punches at my heart. Ryan collected me from the high street yesterday and brought me here. He took me to the lake. He told me he loved me. Our relationship shifted into top gear, and all that happened after he’d followed me? “Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“Because I decided it didn’t matter. Because I talked myself into believing that as long as I have you and you’re safe, I could let you keep your secrets and I’d deal with that. Maybe one day you’d trust me enough to tell me. But until that day, if it ever came, at least I knew enough to understand you.” He pushes his palms into the arms of the chair and rises. “And I don’t regret digging for that information, Hannah. I don’t regret storing it. Because that is how I knew something wasn’t right today.” He walks forward slowly, like he’s approaching a frightened animal. “That is how you are standing here in my cabin.” He reaches me, taking my hands from behind me and resting them over his heart. “And that is how you are still mine, Hannah. So don’t hold it against me. Don’t be angry.” He circles my neck with his hands. “I’m standing before you now begging you not to run again. All I want is you, Hannah.” His hold of my neck tightens, to a point so firm, I should be freaking out. I should be panicking, fighting off relentless flashbacks and fear. Yet I’m numb to everything except the pleading in his eyes. “Because everything before you now seems hal
f complete.”
I have so much to say, but none of it seems adequate. So I take my hands to his face and hold him while I kiss him, breathing my appreciation and thanks into him. He sighs around my swirling tongue and lifts me onto the counter, knocking my glass of wine over behind me. It doesn’t deter us, doesn’t distract us from our reunion. Ryan moves between my thighs and returns my kiss with equal force and persistence. His kisses reveal his weakness. His kisses tell of his strength. His kisses speak of his love.
And I am forever consumed in every element of them.
He slows his lips, inhaling deeply, as if bringing himself around. Holding his mouth on mine, his eyes closed, he takes a moment for himself. “How did you do it, Hannah?” he asks as he opens his eyes, and I can tell, simply from the softness in his voice, that this is something burning his curiosity. “The fake papers, the death.”
This is a secret, along with so many others, I never ever thought I would tell. “The dying part was easy,” I begin. “The new identity, not so much. Jarrad thought I was as oblivious to his business dealings as he wanted me to be. I overheard a conversation between him and his associates discussing the downfall of one of Jarrad’s biggest competitors.”
“Quinton Brayfield?” Ryan asks.
I nod. “They wanted him gone so they could buy out his business. I also discovered that Brayfield had a spy in Jarrad’s corporation. Jarrad found out, but Brayfield was one step ahead. The guy, the mole, was protected by a false identity, making it impossible for Jarrad to track him down and protect whatever data and information he’d stolen. My husband isn’t the kind of man to risk being beaten. And he would never let anyone get one over on him. So…” I fade off, restocking on strength.
“Hannah, what did you do?” Ryan asks.
“I went to old man Brayfield,” I say quietly, not surprised when I see Ryan’s eyes widen. Because why would I do that? “I figured if he planted a ghost in my husband’s company, he could help me become one.”
“Fucking hell, wasn’t that a bit risky?”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I’d always been fond of the old man. He was ruthless, but he wasn’t cruel. Loyalty meant a lot to him, and since I knew Jarrad was plotting a hostile takeover with his son, I figured he’d appreciate that information and help me.” I’ll never forget his face. His compassion. The fact that I was sitting in the chair opposite him at his desk sporting a broken nose and two black eyes probably helped. “I didn’t ask him for anything other than the name of someone who could give me a new identity. He gave it to me. And a gun. I didn’t see him again.”
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