Played (Trapped Book 3)

by Beverley Kendall

  Sigh. There you have it, Margaret Jean Bancroft, first-class world traveler extraordinaire. I take what she says about the places I’ve never been to with a barrel of salt, which is to say, I dismiss them completely.

  “Where are you going?” she asks as if it’s the kind of detail of my life I share with her. It’s not.

  “Out.”

  Right now, I wish I’d arranged to meet Josh at his place instead of agreeing to let him pick me up. Maybe—if I’m lucky—I can make it out of here without him and Margaret crossing paths.

  My mom ventures closer. “On a date?”

  My, she’s persistent today. She must not have received her weekly call from my sister. Lori calls come like clockwork, once a week, Sunday at three o’clock. It gives them enough time to chat before dinner.

  “Yes, mother, I’m going out on a date. Any other questions?”

  Cue the long-suffering sigh. Margaret doesn’t disappoint, releasing the gusty kind that might have someone think the last straw has broken. The accompanying eye roll is peak matriarch Bancroft, reminding me of my long-deceased grandmother.

  “For the life of me, I don’t understand why you have to act this way. When I don’t show an interest in your life, I’m a bad mother, and when I do, I have to put up with this.” She flings a slender manicured hand in my direction.

  “Goodnight, mother. I’m not sure what time I’ll be home.”

  Translation: don’t wait up. I have the sinking feeling she’s in the mood to play the role of the concerned mother. It doesn’t happen often, maybe once a year, and it usually follows something like leaving me alone for Christmas like she and my father did this past one.

  “Are you going out with Dale?”

  The question so catches me off-guard, I nearly twist my ankle when I spin around to face her. “Dale? Why would you think I’m going out with Dale?” I utter his name like it’s a curse.

  “Isn’t that him coming up the walkway?”

  Horrified, I follow the direction of her gaze to the security monitor that covers the view of the driveway and the front. I then watch in disbelief as Dale bounds up the stairs to the door.

  Oh my God.

  But the nightmare continues as wind chimes sounds throughout the house when he presses the doorbell.

  I look at my mother. She stares back at me. After a few moments of electrified silence, her mouth clicks in disapproval. She silently sweeps by me and answers the door.

  “Hello, Dale. Do come in. You’re just in time to catch Erin before she leaves—unless you’re here to pick her up?”

  Have I told you how much I thoroughly dislike my mother? She knows damn well I’m not going out with Dale, but this is one of those times when feigning ignorance works to her end goal.

  Dale was more her choice than he was mine, and I suspect the same applies to my brother-in-law Keith and my sister. Good-looking, educated, but most importantly, from families whose impressive wealth and prestige go back generations. Families whose names are widely recognized and highly respected are the kind she expects her daughters to marry into.

  My body tensed up when I saw him on the security screen and that feeling has only gotten worse now that he’s standing in front of me, wearing a crooked smile with the same confidence and ease as he does his chinos, Henley and Oxfords. And as always, his hair looks like it’s been combed within an inch of its life, not a strand out of place.

  “Hello, Mrs. Bancroft.” His tone is excessively polite because, when it comes to impressing wealthy parents, Dale is a huge suck up. “Hi, Erin.”

  I look at my mother. My message is loud and clear. I want him gone.

  Her gaze flits from Dale to me. And as usual, she ignores me. “I’ll let you two talk. It was lovely to see you again, Dale. Hopefully, you’ll be coming by more often.”

  “No, mother, stay.” My tone is unyielding. Only I know the quiet desperation behind it. That’s what he’s reduced me to, commanding my mother not to leave me alone with him.

  To give her some credit, she doesn’t dismiss me as she so often does, her brow—which she pays enough money not to—furrows.

  “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of my mother. You can start by explaining what you’re doing here. In my house.”

  Margaret gasps softly. It’s not like me to be so rude is what that sound means.

  I subject him to an unwavering stare, daring him to answer it honestly.

  If he had any doubt about my feelings, I hope that put them to rest.

  Dale’s gaze bounces between me and my mom. He didn’t expect this, not from me, and he’s at a loss as evidenced by the somewhat awkward way he gestures behind him. “I was in the neighborhood and saw your car in the driveway and thought I’d drop in and say hi.”

  As outrageous lies go, that’s as weak and pathetic as he is. “I told you the last time I saw you that I didn’t ever want to see you again. Did I stutter?”

  “Erin,” my mother admonishes, her expression outraged. Had she been wearing the family pearls instead of her diamond pendant, she would have been clutching them in true Southern antebellum style.

  I’ll never be hungry again.

  Spare me.

  Dale’s face is beet red.

  “You don’t think I’ll do it, do you?”

  Maybe he’d thought that before, but the look on his face says he’s not sure what I’m capable of anymore.

  “Look, if you don’t want to catch up, I’ll go,” he mumbles and turns toward the door.

  Hell no. He doesn’t get to just walk away. There always comes a time in one’s life when they’ve had enough. When anger supersedes the pain and hurt, and when remaining silent is no longer an option. Tonight, I’ve reached that point.

  “No, Dale, I want you to tell my mother what you did to me when we broke up. She has a right to know why I broke up with you. She has a right to know why you’re never going to step foot in this house again.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Erin

  That gets my mother’s attention—for the first time in a long time—and I feel the weight of it, along with her stare. “What happened? What did he do?” Her voice is sharp. Urgent in a way I haven’t heard since I was a teenager.

  Dale rushes to close off further conversation, saying hurriedly, “Nothing. It was a misunderstanding.”

  Not this time.

  “Do you remember that summer you and Dad were in London and you couldn’t get in touch with me? I didn’t come home that night and you didn’t know where I was? Nobody did. Well that was the day I broke up with Dale. And the reason I didn’t come home until the morning was because he drove me to his family’s summer home in Tennessee, tied me up, locked me in a room, and refused to let me leave. He kidnapped me.”

  I exhale. There, it’s out. Now she knows. I can now add her to the list of three: Paige and Dale’s parents.

  As dramatic as my mother can sometimes be, I’ve never seen her cry. Don’t get excited, she’s not crying now, but the look on her face comes as close to tearful as I’ve ever seen. Emotions, a myriad of them, flash like a lightning strike across her face. Shock, disbelief and pain, each melding into the other until all that’s left is wide, horror-stricken, blue eyes and parted lips.

  “No.” The sound barely registers. It’s a silent scream.

  I can’t give her the denial she desperately wants. And neither can Dale.

  Her gaze—her entire body—swivels to him. He stands tall and erect as if braced for a fight. But his eyes—his shifting gaze—give him away. Guilty people have a hard time maintaining unrelenting, unwavering eye contact.

  “I didn’t kidnap you,” he says, his tone reflexively defensive.

  I grit my teeth. “You locked me in a room. You said I couldn’t leave until I agreed to give you another chance. You tried to force yourself on me.” Of all the things he did that day, the prospect of rape was the worst. I can’t say for sure he would have raped me had it not been that time of the
month but I’m glad I never had to find out. The truly humiliating part of it was when he forced me to prove it to him.

  My mother blanches and for a second it looks as if she’s going to faint. I’m feeling a little nauseous retelling the ordeal myself.

  “Why— What—” She directs her tortured eyes at me. “Why didn’t you— You didn’t call the police?”

  Why didn’t you tell me? That’s what she’d started to say but she knows why. She’d have been the last person I would tell. And I hadn’t told my sister because she would have told our parents. The only person I’d felt safe telling was Paige, and only after swearing her to secrecy.

  “Tell her, Dale. Tell her how your parents begged me not to. Convinced me that it would be your word against mine. That I’d ruin not just your future but my own because it’s the girl who always gets blamed. Tell my mother how your father said his law firm would personally represent you, and that I wouldn’t stand a chance. Tell her, Dale.”

  The confrontation I had with them—and yes, it had been a confrontation with parents determined to protect their son from his own actions—comes rushing back, and with it the helplessness of my situation. I broke up with him while we were on a date. He told me my skirt was too short, and I snapped. I had enough. I should have called a car instead of allowing him to talk me into letting him drive me home because he ended up using that against me. He said I willingly got into the car with him, and that’s what he’d tell the cops.

  Dale’s bravado surfaces, big and brash. “I didn’t kidnap you. You came with me willingly. You didn’t call the police because there was nothing to tell.” There’s a barely concealed sneer in his voice.

  See? What did I tell you?

  Prove it. They’ll never convict me.

  My mother treats him to a cold-eyed stare, one that even takes me by surprise. “Get out of my house before I call the police.” Her voice is eerily calm.

  Margaret looks positively fierce. And scary as hell.

  A crack forms in Dale’s bravado. Clearly perturbed at the turn of events, two distinct lines form between his eyebrows. My mother has only ever been sweet to him and he’s only ever been overly solicitous of her. For the first time, she’s looking at him as if he’s a stranger she doesn’t recognize. A stranger whose heart she’d like to put a stake through.

  His affront is a clear sign of his arrogance. His disdain is him just being an asshole. “Your daughter is a liar. She needs help and I hope you get some for her.” He then addresses me. “Spite isn’t a good look on you, Erin.”

  What I wouldn’t give to be a man—a big, towering, muscle-bound one—right now. The ways I would make Dale Landers suffer would make national news.

  “I’m calling the police.” My mother turns sharply and marches over to the phone on the console table in the hall.

  Dale’s exit is as swift as his appearance, the heavy doors barely making a sound as they close behind him. The damage he leaves in his wake is something else entirely.

  My mother’s hands hover over the cordless phone as if she hadn’t merely issued an idle threat to scare him off. As if she’s seriously contemplating bringing in law enforcement.

  “They were right, Mom, it would be my word against his. The only person I told was Paige and I don’t want to drag her into this.” Not with her planning her wedding and getting married in less than three months.

  My mom drops her hand to her side and looks at me, her eyes dull. Haunted. “You didn’t tell us.”

  I shrug. “What was the point?” Maybe I would have if I thought they’d believe me. Not that I thought they’d have him thrown in jail, but so they’d understand why I broke up with him because to them Dale was exactly the type of boy I should be dating. The marrying kind.

  My mother silently approaches me with all the bearing of a queen. “I know we’ve had our differences, Erin. You think I’m too hard on you. That I expect too much.”

  “No, Mom,” I interrupt. “That’s the problem. You don’t expect much from me at all. You see my value in who I marry and what he brings to the table. My worth is in how many children I give him and how I look on his arm. You want me to be the supportive wife and doting mother. You want me to be like you.” Although, doting isn’t a word I would apply to her.

  If she takes exception to my comparison, she’s careful not to express it. “That boy kidnapped you and I’m only finding out about it now. How do you expect me to feel?”

  “To be honest, I didn’t know how you would take it. I’m not even sure I thought you’d believe me.” All I know is I wanted to wipe that smug look off Dale’s face. And I wanted to jar her out of her complacency. I wanted her to know that under all Dale’s monied, prep school upbringing is a privileged, spoiled boy who’d never had to deal with the consequences of his actions.

  The look on my mom’s face? It’s as if I slapped her. Hard.

  “Dear God, you think I’m that bad?”

  Despite being shorter than me by two inches, to me Margaret Jean Bancroft never appeared that way. I could be looking down at her in three-inch heels as I am now, and she’s always seemed to tower over me. Not today. Today I feel every millimeter of those inches.

  “It’s just who you are, Mom. Who we are.”

  She regards me for a suffocatingly long time. Her gaze is unnerving, and her silence, deafening.

  “That boy is not welcome in this house,” she states tersely. “And if his mother asks why I no longer have anything to do with her or her family, I’m going to tell her the truth.”

  If our relationship was different, I’d give her a hug. Instead, I nod, flush with the knowledge that when faced with who to believe in the two tales of the trip to Tennessee, my mom believed me.

  Josh

  I jump out of the car and round the hood in an attempt to reach the passenger door before Erin does. I barely make it.

  “What’s the rush?” I ask, chuckling and holding the door open as she ducks in. Our first date and Erin’s not making it easy for me to be chivalrous. What happened to waiting until I rang the doorbell and that kind of thing?

  “I was ready and waiting so…” She shrugs. “What would be the point?”

  There’s something off about her. She doesn’t look or sound particularly happy to see me.

  Concerned, I jog around to the driver’s side and slide in behind the wheel.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask in my I won’t take nothing for an answer voice.

  My question elicits a tight smile. “Nothing.”

  I give her the look. I’m not buying that even a little. “Does it have anything to do with whoever was driving the blue BMW I saw leaving your house?” I hadn’t been close enough to catch a glimpse of the driver, but I’d taken note of the color and make of the car.

  Erin’s brows draw together and her expression clouds.

  “Are you parents back from overseas?” Where was it she said they’d gone? Japan?

  She mumbles something I take as a no.

  “Erin,” I say softly, “can you please tell me what’s wrong?”

  After a pause, her shoulders slump. “That was my ex-boyfriend. He’s home from law school,” she mutters under her breath.

  I scour my mind for what I know about him and it’s not much. I never met the guy. Didn’t want to. But from what I gathered, he must be a dick. He’d have to be for Paige to dislike him because she likes pretty much everyone.

  “What did he want?” The question comes out more sharply than I intend. Jealousy is one hell of a thing, and I’m not ashamed to admit that this guy is bringing it out in me. He was the last guy she was seriously involved with, which makes him my natural enemy.

  “To remind me why I want nothing to do with him.” Her tone is caustic, and there’s nothing fake about the animosity vibrating in her voice and the fury blazing in her eyes.

  Good to know.

  I circle the landscaped island garden in the middle of the driveway and turn onto the road. “Yeah? What did he do?
” I toss the question out casually, as if him showing up uninvited at my girlfriend’s house doesn’t make why they broke of paramount importance.

  Sighing, she shakes her head and says, “Honestly, Josh, I don’t want to talk about it.” Her expression hardens. “Or him.”

  I send her a searching look.

  In response, she reaches over and touches my arm, treating me to her first real smile since she got in the car. “I just want to have a good time tonight. All you need to know is that you’re nothing like him and that’s a very good thing.”

  I force my attention back to the road. If she intended to assuage my curiosity, she did the exact opposite.

  “Okay, then just answer one question for me. Do I need to talk to him? Let him know what’s what?” I quirk my brow. I’m dead serious. If this guy is bothering her, maybe he needs to be reminded that she’s not his girlfriend anymore. She’s mine.

  Erin laughs, the sound low and throaty, her blue eyes glistening with a hint of malicious glee. It seems the idea has merit. What the hell did the fucker do to her? I may not find out today or tomorrow, but I’m going to find out eventually.

  “I have a feeling this is the last time he’ll be dropping by uninvited again,” she says confidently. “Anyway, enough about him. Where are you taking me?”

  The change of subject signals all discussion of her ex is closed. For now.

  “You’ll find out when we get there.” Patience has never been one of her strong points, especially when she needs to come.

  Harder, Josh.

  My pulse quickens at the memory and I steal my first real look at her. I take note of how much of her long slim legs is on display. My dick twitches thinking about them wrapped around my waist. And she can leave the heels on.

  Down, boy. You still have to get through dinner and after that you have no idea where the date is going. She’s all about being wined and dined right now, not stripped and fucked.

  “Fine,” she says with a huff, feigning pique.