by Davis, L. D.
She was so quiet for so long, I thought she changed her mind about telling me.
“Tell me,” I said again.
Her voice was extremely soft. “A few weeks after you left, I was really struggling. I hated myself for what I did to you. Kyle wanted to take me away for a long weekend. He said he wanted to spend some time with me before the busy season hit us full force, but I knew he was just trying to take my mind off of you.
“We went to Miami,” she continued. “I chose Miami because…well it’s Miami, and Leo lives there. I thought we could have dinner with Leo, you know? Have dinner with a friend like a normal couple. Dinner was fine until Kyle realized that Leo and I had…a past…”
This was news to me. I shook his hand at Lucas’s birthday party, and friended him on Facebook for fuck’s sake.
“What kind of a past?” I asked tightly, though I knew.
Emmy sounded a little irked by my question when she answered in short, snipped words. “We fucked, Luke. Three, maybe four times. Maybe it was three times and a blow job. Maybe it was two times and two blow jobs. I don’t remember. I don’t remember because I was a careless teenager.”
I bit back any angry retorts I had and asked her to continue. I would have to get over the Leo thing. It happened too many years ago to be significant now, and at least he hadn’t abused her.
“Anyway,” she said. “When we got back to the hotel, Kyle was jealous and suspicious and argumentative and I felt he had no right, considering the fucked up situation we were in. When he went into the bathroom, I took off. I ended up at Leo’s apartment, drunk off my ass. I was angry and bitter. I didn’t go back to the hotel until morning – and no, I didn’t sleep with Leo,” she added hastily.
“When I got back to the hotel, Kyle had been up all night, and he was high. We argued and I said a lot of things that I knew would get under his skin. I guess I pushed him pretty hard,” she said distractedly. “He pinned me to the bed. He was so angry. He squeezed my wrists so hard…he was extra strong and extra aggressive…he broke my wrist.”
After speaking to Mayson about this, I already knew it had happened, but to hear Emmy say it was a different experience. I cringed and balled my hands into fists.
“And that’s why he gave you that bracelet,” I said, trying to breathe evenly and failing.
“You know about the bracelet?” she looked up at me with wide eyes.
“I had a feeling it was from Kyle,” I said. “Just by the way you wore it, but Mayson confirmed it. I hated seeing it on your skin, Emmy, especially after I found out why you had it. You still wanted him after everything…I had a hard time understanding that. I still have a hard time understanding it.”
“I didn’t want him,” she objected. “If I wanted him, I would have gone to get him.”
“Then why?” I pushed. “Were you feeling sentimental? Did you want him to break your damn wrist again?”
“No,” she snapped and then sat up. “Maybe you’re really not ready to hear this.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. I wasn’t angry with Emmy. I was angry that she went through this shit. I was angry with Kyle. I was angry with myself for not being there for her when she needed me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is hard to hear.” I reached up and put my hand in her hair. “I’m sorry. Lay back down.”
Hesitantly, she shifted back down into bed and I wrapped my arms around her.
“What happened to the bracelet?” I asked quietly.
“I gave it back to him the last time I saw him.”
“Good,” I said. I was glad it wasn’t lying around in our home, like some kind of curse. “Tell me what happened on New Year’s.”
“I’ll give you the short version of the night,” she said and flung an arm over her eyes. “Drugs and alcohol don’t mix, and Kyle had had a lot of both. To this day I’m not even sure how he managed to drive to my house without killing himself or someone else, because when he got to my house he had already begun the transformation of becoming a monster. I think he must have taken something either just before he got to my house or before he came upstairs, because he changed so damn quickly. One moment he was somewhat coherent and the next he was…inhuman…”
She paused and took a very deep breath and then breathed it out in a long shudder.
“He was too far gone in his drug and alcohol induced rage. He had no more control over his actions than I did.” She swallowed hard, moved her arm and peered up at me. “He attacked me - viciously,” she whispered and then looked away. “In those few minutes, I was stripped of what little dignity and hope I had left. What wasn’t broken before the first strike was destroyed after it.”
I felt as if I had been kicked in the chest. It ached so badly, I had to touch it to be sure it wasn’t indeed bruised and broken. There was a roaring in my ears as my heart pumped extra hard to push my boiling blood through my body. I already knew it. I already knew that Kyle had beaten Emmy, but again…to hear her confess it was unbearable. Hearing the pain and desolation in her voice was killing me. Where the hell was I? Why wasn’t I there for her? I was in Chicago trying so damn hard to forget about her, fucking other women and working my ass off. I had no idea that she was suffering and I should have been able to feel it somehow.
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I put my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands. I felt Emmy sit up next to me, but she didn’t touch me.
“How bad was it?” I asked her.
She hesitated. “You talked to my mom about how I looked…”
“I want to hear it from you, Emmy,” I said rigidly.
She shifted beside me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her fidgeting with her engagement ring.
“You told your cousins and Donya,” I said, losing my patience. “You told your mother. Tell me. We’re getting married. We’re having another baby. Tell me.”
“I don’t want those images seared into your brain,” she said. “I don’t want you to look at me and see me on that day.”
I pressed my fists on my knees as I looked at her. I was barely able to control my sharp tone. “You have those images seared into your brain, Emmy. You have nightmares,” I confessed. “You have nightmares often and they’re bad. If you can’t forget that day, I can’t either. Tell. Me. Now.”
She took another deep breath and clasped her hands together.
“I was slapped,” she said, trying to sound very matter-of-fact, but there was a slight tremor in her voice. “Slapped to the floor. I was dragged to my feet by my hair and my head was smashed into the mirror of an antique vanity. When I ended up back on the floor, I curled into a ball to protect my unborn child as I got kicked, stomped, punched, and shoved. I didn’t fight back, because fighting back would have been as well as signing a death warrant. I did, however, scream and beg for him to stop, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, he couldn’t comprehend what I was saying because Kyle was gone. There was only this monster in Kyle’s body. I got away by locking myself in the bathroom. Is that enough details for you, Luke?” she asked, breathless.
I swallowed back a roar of distress and spoke with gritted teeth. “Was Lucas hurt?”
“No,” she breathed. “The doctor said he was uninjured.”
“Obviously you didn’t call the police,” I spat out. “But why didn’t any of the hospital staff? What did you tell them?”
“I didn’t go to a hospital,” she said quietly. “Walter sent me to some under the radar doctor.”
“You didn’t even go see a real doctor?” I growled.
“As far as I know he was a real doctor,” Emmy said, getting to her feet. She stood just out of my reach. “Are you satisfied now that you have all of the gritty, bloody details, Luke?”
I wanted to break something. I wanted to put my hand through a wall. I wanted break Kyle Sterling and put him through a wall. I wanted to yell and I wanted to fucking cry.
I moved off of the bed and reache
d for Emmy. I pulled her close, wrapped my arms around her waist and pressed my forehead to her belly.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” I whispered to her. “I should have been there for you. This would have never happened if I hadn’t left you.”
“You had to leave,” she said as her fingers began to sift through my hair. “I didn’t deserve you and you didn’t deserve what you got.”
I looked up at her and said “I came back for you.”
Her fingers in my hair faltered for a moment as she looked down at me in confusion.
“What do you mean you came back for me?”
“I came back for you, Emmy,” I repeated.
“When?” she whispered.
“It was a Friday…about a month after I left. I was going to take you back and I was going to do something I should had done long before and kick Kyle’s ass. I looked for you at the office first, but when I found out you and Kyle were both gone on different errands, I drove to his place.”
Her fingers stilled. “How did you know where Kyle lived?”
“When you’re pretty sure your girl is fucking her boss, you make it a priority to know where he lives,” I said bitterly.
I felt her inhale deeply, but she didn’t say anything, and I didn’t expect her to.
“When I didn’t find either of you at Kyle’s, I drove to your house,” I continued. “If you weren’t home, I was going to get the hidden spare key and wait. I was about to get out of my car when I saw him pull into the driveway. Before I could really decide what to do, you came outside, carrying luggage.”
I felt Emmy stiffen in my embrace. She was completely still.
“The day we went to Miami,” she said flatly.
“Apparently so,” I said just as flatly. “I watched him kiss you…”
“And then I rested my head on his chest,” she whispered, letting her hands drop to her sides.
“I couldn’t make myself get out of the car after I saw that,” I said softly, but then my tone hardened. “But if I had, Kyle wouldn’t have broken your wrist. If I had gotten out of the car, chances are Kyle wouldn’t have beaten you while you were pregnant with my son.”
We were quiet again, staring at one another. I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking and that bothered me immensely.
“Would you have left him and come back to me if I got out of the car that day, Emmy?” I asked after some hesitation. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer.
She hesitated before answering. “I think no matter what answer I give you, it will only hurt you,” she finally said.
I closed my eyes for a beat. Did I really want to know?
“Tell me,” I said once again as I opened my eyes and looked up at her.
She sighed, and rested her hands on my shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said gently. “And that’s the best answer I can give you. I don’t know.”
That wasn’t even one of the two answers I was expecting, but she was right. It did hurt. She could have broken my heart all over again, or she could have appeased my heart, but then how would I have felt weeks later? Months later? Would I have trusted her or would I have been too bitter to even make a relationship work?
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Emmy sighed. “Please.”
“Okay,” I answered. “But if I ever see Kyle Sterling again…”
The threat – no, the promise – went unsaid, but very little imagination was necessary for her to understand what I was implying. It went without saying that if I saw the man again I would try my best to kill him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After intense house hunting, Emmy and I found a house to buy. It was bigger than either of my sisters’ homes, which meant we would be hosting a lot of family dinners out of our large dining room, eat-in kitchen, and nook. Though there were only three and a quarter of us, we gladly took the five bedrooms the house offered. We never discussed how many children we wanted to have, but at least we had room to grow, because neither of us wanted to have to ever move again. It took a few weeks for us to get settled in. We had an amazing amount of stuff to move out of our small apartment, and we had to shop and wait for quite a bit of furniture to make our home comfortable.
Our wedding day was scheduled for four months after my proposal. We only invited about a hundred people (our families made up more than half of that amount), choosing to keep it quaint. Emmy didn’t care for larger weddings. I didn’t care how it happened, as long as it happened. Several times I insisted on eloping, but Emmy was adamant.
“I am putting on a gorgeous white dress and walking down the aisle with my family and closest friends gazing adoringly at me!” she had snapped at me the last time I made the suggestion. “Too many of my childhood dreams have been destroyed. This princess – and I will be a princess – is marrying her prince the proper way!”
I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t tell her that there was nothing proper about a five month pregnant ‘princess’ getting married in a white dress of all things. Her hormones were making her a little batty. I stayed out of the firing zone as much as possible.
Early December. Life was good. I had won over the love of my life and she was going to marry me in two short months. We had an increasingly rambunctious son and another baby on the way. We had a beautiful, comfortable home that we warmly shared with family and friends. My business was flourishing and all of our demons of the past seemed to have been expelled. The thing about one’s past, however, is that it doesn’t always stay in the past. This is a lesson I would learn repeatedly over the next year of my life.
I was having a remarkable day. I had awoken with my morning wood in Emmy’s beautiful mouth. While I was in the shower recovering from an incredible blowjob, my lovely bride-to-be made me a high energy breakfast with oatmeal, eggs, and fruit. My son was behaving, happy at the window watching the snow fall. Despite the weather, traffic wasn’t too bad and I actually got to work early. I stopped in the new combination book and muffin shop next to the office and got two dozen muffins for the employees, and Iris, the shop’s owner, had thrown in a few extra for free. By noon I had a nice settlement offer on my desk for a case that was due in court the following week, and the business lunch I had gone perfectly. I was ready to start singing Disney songs, because life was that great.
The phone on my desk beeped from the front desk.
“Yes?” I said pleasantly to Kacey.
“Mr. Disgustingly Optimistic, you have a phone call on line two,” she said dryly.
I didn’t take offense. Kacey always spoke dryly, even when she was happy.
“Who is it?” I asked, though I really didn’t care. There weren’t too many people I avoided talking to, except maybe Vivian. But I only did that because it got her all rankled.
“Kyle Sterling.”
There went my spectacular day. Just like that. Two damn words. One damn name. Gone was my high from my morning blow job, breakfast, well behaved kid, easy traffic, tasty muffins, generous settlement and successful business meeting. I couldn’t imagine why Kyle Sterling would be calling me. I hoped he was calling to tell me he was dying horrifically, but I knew there was no real chance in that.
“I’ll take it,” I said after a long hesitation.
“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Kacey said in her dry tone.
“I’m not,” I admitted. “I’ll take it anyway.”
“Whatever.”
Kacey disconnected and I sat there with the phone in my hand looking at the blinking light of line two. What the hell did Kyle want?
Shamefully, for a moment, I imagined he was calling to tell me that he and Emmy reconnected and she was taking my son and going back to him. The thought only lasted a millisecond before I blasted it out of my head.
There was only one way to find out what the bastard wanted.
I pressed the button next to the blinking light.
“This is Luke.”
*~~~*
The paperw
ork could have been done remotely. He knew that as well as I did, but he agreed to come to Chicago anyway. I was automatically suspicious about his easy willingness to come. I thought maybe there was an ulterior motive, like he was going to try to see Emmy. I even had another moment of distrust for my fiancé, believing in the possibility that she knew he was coming, that they were talking behind my back. But the moment passed, and I felt guilty for even thinking it.
“Can I ask you for an enormous favor?” I asked Iris the day before the meeting.
I didn’t know her well enough for her to do any favors for me, but I felt it was worth a shot to ask her. She was pleasant enough, but very straight forward. I wouldn’t have to bullshit with her.
“An enormous favor?” she questioned, with a raised eyebrow. “What kind of enormous favor can a muffin lady possibly do for an attorney?”
I laughed, despite the impending doom I was feeling. “You are much more than a muffin lady,” I said.
She had been wiping down the glass counter, but when I said that, she stopped, put a hand on her hip and said “Oh, my. I have to hear this one.”
“You are a generous muffin lady,” I said, turning on my blue eyed charm. “A pleasant muffin lady who is also a very accomplished pastry lady. Your buns make my toes curl.” I leaned forward slightly. “They are the flakiest, tastiest, cinnamon buns in town.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and just stood there for a moment before breaking out into a smile. “What do you want, Mr. Kessler?”
“I have a meeting with a client tomorrow morning,” I spoke quietly. “I need a private place to meet him. I know the last tenant had a decent size office space in the back. I was wondering if I could meet him here and use that office?”
“What is wrong with your office?” she didn’t hesitate to ask.
I was going to have to give her a little more information in order to convince her.