With that, he launches himself at me.
His fists come crashing down, his bones connecting with mine, over and over and over.
And I take it all.
I welcome it all. I welcome his wrath, his fury, his anger.
I welcome his disgust at me.
It finally matches mine.
It finally rivals my crime. What I did to her.
And yet it’s not enough. Not for him or for me.
So he keeps going.
He keeps punching me, hitting me, and I keep taking it and stumbling back and when I think he’s finally beaten me down enough that I’m going to lose my footing, my back connects with something.
My Mustang.
My fucking Mustang saves me from going down.
And Ledger grabs my collar, pulling at it and smashing my back against the metal. “Did that jog your memory, huh? You remember what you did now?”
I’m panting; every muscle in my body throbs and pulses. My fucking legs are trembling and yet I’m still standing. It pisses me the fuck off.
“I think…” I breathe out, tasting blood. “I’m gonna need a little more.”
He shakes me again, making my bones jar, and I groan.
“You fucking asshole, you ruined her life. You ruined her life. You realize that, don’t you? You realize what you did to my sister.”
I do, yeah.
I do realize it. I realize that I’ve ruined her now. I’ve destroyed her.
I speak through the pain in my chest, in my body. “You really don’t wanna know… what I did to your sister.”
As expected, he pushes me into the car again.
“You’re a fucking piece of shit, aren’t you?” He tightens his grip on the collar of my dress shirt. “I should kill you for what you did to her.”
“You should.”
“But if I killed you tonight, then you wouldn’t be able to see.”
I spit out blood. “Yeah? See what?”
He chuckles then, his fingers tightening. “What I’m going to do to your sister.” Another chuckle. “She’s a firecracker, isn’t she? Tempest.”
I don’t know where I get the energy, the strength to move my hands, let alone grab his collar. I don’t know where I get the strength to shake off his hold and fucking maneuver him so I have his back against my Mustang now.
All I know is that if he says my sister’s name again, I’m going to rearrange his face in a way that he’s not going to like.
“Don’t talk about my sister,” I growl, my body screaming in pain.
“Yeah?” he bites out. “Pisses you the fuck off, doesn’t it? And I haven’t even done anything yet. To her.”
“You want to kill me, Ledger, you better stop talking. Because if you rile me up enough, it’s going to be you who dies tonight.”
He laughs, sharp and hollow. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
And then, I feel the sharpest, fieriest pain that I’ve ever felt in my life. So much so that I finally stumble back and my body goes down.
I finally fall on my knees, my vision going blurry for a few seconds.
Because Ledger has kicked my ankle. My right ankle, which has weakened from years of playing soccer. And since he’s played with me, used my weakness against me on the field due to our rivalry, he knows about that.
Like I know that his left knee bothers him more than the right because of an old injury he had back in our junior year.
“Watch your back, Jackson,” he says, moving away from the car and laying a last punch on my jaw that makes me go completely down on my back. “You don’t want to mess with people who know your weaknesses. Years of soccer should’ve taught you that.”
He leaves then.
While I stay on the ground, my entire body on fire, chuckling at the pain, watching the night sky.
***
In a white dress and a flimsy green cardigan, she stares at something.
Through the window of her darkened studio.
She doesn’t know that there’s a Mustang parked a block over and I’m sitting in it. And that I’m watching her. I’ve been watching ever since she scared the fuck out of me when she appeared out of nowhere, walking down the street.
In fact, I don’t think she knows anything that’s happening around her.
And with every second that passes, my anger mounts.
What the fuck is she thinking?
What the fuck is she doing here in the middle of the night?
Where in the fucking fuck are her brothers now? Especially now when they know that she needs to take better care of herself. Especially now that they know how I fucked her over.
Again.
Only this time I’ve done it worse.
And so this is pissing me the fuck off.
That she’s out here alone.
But more than that, it’s making my chest tight, my lungs contract as I watch her stand there, looking at her dream through the glass.
I’ve been watching it too.
That dream.
For the past week, I’ve either been working on my Chevy at Auto Alpha for long hours — Pete thinks I’ve gone crazy but he doesn’t interfere because he knows what I did — or I’ve been driving here to this street, watching her dark studio.
Just so I can imagine her, dancing, spinning on her toes inside that building.
Like a fairy.
Like she was born to do.
She moves then.
She walks away from her studio and I can’t get air inside my body. I choke on the pain as she stops a few paces down. In front of another ballet studio: Baby Blues.
A sister branch of Blue Madonna, where they teach ballet to little girls.
It was the studio she went to before switching over to Blue Madonna, I know. I’ve seen her through the glass window countless times.
She’s pressing her hands on that same window now, as if she can see something. As if she can see, she can imagine, picture her — our…
“Fuck,” I mutter quietly as my sternum almost caves in on me, and climb out of the car.
I snap the door shut, the sound of it echoing in the night and finally alerting her that someone’s here.
She spins around, her eyes finding me.
I stride toward her and I see her shoulders sag in relief. I even see a small, trembling smile on her lips and I think I’ve lost my mind, that pain is making me hallucinate.
But at least I have enough sense left that I know it’s real when she stumbles on her feet. And I hasten my steps to get to her, catch her, before she falls.
I wind one arm around her tiny waist and the other behind her knees and pick her up.
“Reed,” she gasps, her blue eyes wide. “Thanks.”
I clench my jaw. “What are you doing out here?”
She frowns and clutches my t-shirt. “I’m taking a walk.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can too.” She sticks her bottom lip out. “If you put me down, I can show you.”
“I’m not fucking putting you down.”
She rests her head on my shoulder, peeking up at me through her eyelashes. “You know, you curse too much, Reed.”
“That’s the least of my crimes.”
She sighs. “I know.”
I squeeze her body in response and it feels much too thin.
She’s small to begin with, tiny bird-like bones, but I know that she’s lost weight. I can feel it.
I can see it too.
I can see that she’s ruined. Completely and irrevocably.
Her cheeks are sunken and there are deep circles under her eyes. Eyes that are red and swollen. From all the crying, I assume.
This is me.
I’ve done this.
She raises her hand and lightly grazes her fingers over a bruise, studying me as I’ve been studying her. “Ledger did this, didn’t he?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
/>
“You look completely destroyed.”
I have to chuckle at this. Harsh and angry.
At the fact that she’s been thinking the same thing as me.
“It’s fine,” I tell her again and begin to walk.
“That’s what you used to say. Two years ago.”
“Yeah, things haven’t changed much since then. I’m still the same asshole. Besides, this isn’t anything that I didn’t deserve, so.”
Her eyes fill with tears and I squeeze her against my body again, her tears enflaming my pain, making my injuries throb.
“I told them,” she confesses. “I only wanted to tell Con but Ledge was home too. I didn’t know that he was going to be there. And Con, he wants me to get an a-abortion and —”
“Doesn’t. Matter,” I snap out again.
Abortion.
My body recoils at the word and I almost fall down on my knees. The only reason I manage to stay upright is because I’ve got her in my arms and I’ll be fucking damned if I’m dropping her.
Fucking abortion.
I want to do something drastic, fuck up this world because of how much I hate that word, but it’s not my decision to make, is it? It’s not my motherfucking decision.
I can feel her blinking up at me, all drowsy. “Where are you taking me?”
“To my car.”
“The one I stole?”
“Yes. The one you stole.”
“How did you get it back to how it was before?”
“What?”
“The car,” she explains. “It feels like before.”
“I worked on it all summer. Back then.”
“All summer?”
“Yeah.”
She hums. “I didn’t mean to do it. To steal your car.”
I squeeze her again. “You’ve already said that.”
“Why were you so mean to me? You said all those things that night. I can never forget them.”
“Because I wanted you to hate me,” I say against the tightness in my throat.
“Why?”
“Because I broke my promise to you.”
She has an adorable frown on her forehead. “Oh. Well, I did. I do. Hate you. And that’s why I’d never tell you.”
“Never tell me what?”
“That you’re a genius.”
“A genius.”
She hums again. “Yeah. A car genius. And a soccer genius. I hate how good you are with things.” She gasps then. “Maybe you should do it for a living. Build cars. And get out of your awful job.”
“Just go to sleep.”
She doesn’t. She rubs her cheek against my neck, making her geranium and sugar scent explode over my senses. “I’m going to miss it.”
“Miss what?”
“Spinning on my toes.”
Not yet, I tell myself, I can’t fall on my ass while I have her in my arms.
I squeeze her featherlight body again – I can’t seem to stop – almost plaster her to me, and somehow she likes that.
She likes my brutal grip and sighs happily, her eyes closed. But she won’t stop talking. She won’t stop making my body hurt with her words. “But it’s okay. I don’t care about ballet anymore. I don’t even care about Juilliard. I care about other things now. Her…”
“Go. To sleep,” I growl.
And she does.
Fucking finally.
When I deposit her in the car and buckle her in, my eyes drop down to her flat stomach. I stare at it for a few beats, feeling my heart thunder in my chest.
Before lifting my eyes up to her peacefully sleeping face.
I promised her the other day at the bar that I’ll never make a promise to her that I won’t keep. And so I repeat the promise I’d made a week ago — as soon as I saw her touch her stomach — now.
I promise that I’m done hurting her.
I’m done ruining her.
From now on, along with protecting her from the rest of the world, from my fucking father and his evil clutches, I’ll protect her from me.
I’ll protect them both.
This isn’t my home.
I know this as soon as I open my eyes and take in the space around me.
Grayish-white walls, hardwood floors. A giant window taking up the entire wall to my left.
Even the height of the bed, when I climb out of it, is wrong. It’s too high, the mattress too thick and fluffy.
But the thing that gets my heart going the most is the scent.
It’s a scent I know.
It’s a scent that’s deeply and achingly familiar to me, but there’s also something different about it. Something so soothing that my stomach that roils in the morning is strangely calm.
I’m not sure what this soothing aroma is but I’m thankful for it.
I’m thankful and I’m frantic as I leave the room, dash out of it really, my bare feet slapping on the hardwood floor.
I have no idea what this place is or where I’m going as I almost run down the hallway that’s flanked with white doors, but I know who it might belong to.
I know who brought me here.
Him.
He did, didn’t he?
Instead of taking me back home, he brought me to this strange place that for some reason doesn’t feel as strange as it should.
It’s his scent, I think, and all the white.
Last night I wasn’t thinking clearly.
I was hurt and sad and afraid. It was like someone was sitting on my chest, suffocating me. So I snuck out of the house to get some fresh air.
I wasn’t expecting to walk for so long or to end up at Blue Madonna. I wasn’t expecting to see him there either. I wasn’t expecting to be brought here.
When I come out of the hallway into the living space filled with soft blue-colored couches and cozy rugs and see him sitting at the marble kitchen counter, bent over something, I don’t expect to feel a painful twisting in my heart.
A deep angst in my gut.
Ledger did a number on him.
Last night I was so out of it, I barely noticed the extent of the damage he had done. But under the bright kitchen lights, I can see it all.
The red-purple bruises, dark and angry and so painful looking. Both his eyes are red and swollen. His lip is cut. His jaw is bruised up and I can’t be sure but I think his nose is dented.
Maybe I gasp or make a distressing noise at the pain that he must’ve felt last night, must still be feeling, because he looks up and his wolf eyes connect with mine.
All those conflicting feelings that I always experience when he’s around make my knees weak, but I pace myself and start with the most obvious thing. “This isn’t my home.”
Instead of answering me, those wolf eyes of his take me in and for the first time I realize what a wreck I must look right now.
My dress is all wrinkled. I probably have sleep lines on my face, or at least my features must be swollen with it, with sleep. My hair feels all messed up, flowing down my back, my braid coming untied during the night.
“You sleep well?” he asks.
“What is this place?” I ask, looking around. “What am I doing here?”
He pushes something away, a book, I notice, and straightens up. “It’s a vacation home.”
“What vacation home?”
“A place where people go to take a vacation.”
“Is it yours?”
“For now.”
I’m confused. “What —”
“You never answered my question,” he cuts me off. “Did you sleep well?”
“What? That’s not even the point. The point is —”
“The point is that you were tired. You could barely stand up. I had to carry you to my Mustang. So I’m asking you how are you feeling when you shouldn’t have been out at midnight in the first place.”
God.
Him and his stupid protectiveness.
I fist my
hands in frustration but then release a sigh and answer just to get this over with so we can get to the point. “I’m fine. Thank you. I shouldn’t be here. I should be back home. I should be with my brothers.”
“And I’ll take you there.”
Frantic, I walk closer to him. “You’ll take me there. Are you insane?”
“Not the last time I checked,” he answers casually, every single bruise on his face standing out against his vampire skin.
“Oh my God,” I breathe out. “You are insane. Do you know what will happen when my brothers see that I’m missing? They’ll freak out. They’ll lose their minds, and then you’ll roll in, in your Mustang, dropping me off, and they’ll think that you kidnapped me or something.” I shake my head and look over his shoulders and out the kitchen window. “No, you will not take me home. You need to put me in a cab right now. It’s still dark out so maybe they don’t know that I’m gone yet, okay? Call me a cab.”
“No.”
“What?” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Do you not see how this is going to look? They’ll call the cops on you, Reed, and I’m not even kidding right now.”
“I know all the cops.”
“Fine.” I fold my arms across my chest. “Then they’ll kill you themselves. Ledger already did half the job, didn’t he?”
“He did, and they’re welcome to try.”
Agitated, I unfold my arms and fist my fingers. “What are you doing? I need to get back home, Reed. Conrad would be so worried and furious and —”
“He has nothing to do with this.”
Finally, Reed’s voice is raised. His tone is tight and angry, matching the occasion.
Suddenly I remember what I told him last night. About abortion. Up until now I didn’t, but as I stare into his intense eyes, his tight mouth, I remember.
“Does he?” he asks with clenched teeth.
I swallow. “No.”
“Good. We’re on the same page then.”
“But —”
“Your one week is up.”
The calmness in my belly vanishes. It’s not the nausea that plagues me every morning though. It’s the flutters. The heat. The life inside of it.
It’s like she’s waking up.
Even though she isn’t more than a few cells, occupying the littlest of spaces, I still feel her waking up and I take a deep breath. “I know.”
A Gorgeous Villain Page 34