Taken By Ezra (The Lanphear Men Book 1)
Page 13
“I would have been fine, Lanee. Azriel could have dropped me off. You needed to talk to Ezra about that bitch Roxy and what she said to you.” Claudia’s green eyes narrowed at me. “You like him. Shit! You love him. You need to work things out with him.”
I bit my lip as she continued to glare at me. I probably should have stayed to talk to him, but I was scared. I was scared that Claudia would need me and I wouldn’t be there for her. But…I was mostly scared that Roxy was right and Ezra would drop me. I did love him, but I was terrified he would push me away.
“You better call him in the morning,” Claudia had told me. She was done washing her face and headed to the bedroom. “It will work out.”
I had told her I would call him in the morning, but here he was. I was pretty sure if he wanted to leave me he wouldn’t be here in the state he was in. I wanted to believe he really did care about me. I loved him too much to just let him slip away.
“I’m sorry, Ezra,” I finally blurt out, sitting on the couch next to him.
He turns to face me, his eyes confused from my apology. “You didn’t do anything. I acted like a dick. I should have… I should have said…”
I put my hand over his mouth, moving to straddle his lap. I don’t want him to finish that sentence. I need to tell him about Roxy and why I was so upset. I blow out a deep breath, lifting my gaze to meet his. “I’m sorry. I was upset because I met that girl, Roxy, in the hall. She said some things to rattle me. It hurt, and I was heartbroken over it. It made me want to get the hell out of there and away from you.” That isn’t the whole truth. I was hurt he didn’t say he loved me too.
Ezra moves my hand from his mouth. He interlaces our fingers. “What did she say?”
I lean back on his knees, breathing slowly as I try to tell him the truth. I should have done this last night, but I was a coward. I was hurt and didn’t know what to do. I also didn’t like the way his brother had snapped at me like I was a child. I lick my lips and go into the details, leaving out that he didn’t return my love, telling him how she said he would get bored with me after some time had passed. It stung to say it all again, but I had to tell him. I hated how we left things last night, and I don’t want to screw this relationship up.
Ezra listens intently, his face getting angrier once I’m finished, but he doesn’t push me off his lap. He brings my hand to his lips, lightly kissing our joined fingers. “I’m so sorry about her, Lanee. I swear what she said was wrong.”
“I…I’m sure she was wrong, but it made me feel horrible. I didn’t know what to do. I just needed space. I needed to think.” I bow my head, staring at the creases in his shirt.
He cups my jaw, tilting my head so our eyes meet. “I wish you would have told me last night. It killed me to see you so upset like that. I knew something had to have happened for you not to let me touch you. I want you to always talk to me. I don’t want you to ever feel like you did yesterday. I swear I would move the world to make it up to you.”
I swallow hard, placing my hands over his. “I will. I won’t do it again…but I need… I need to know what she is or was to you. Why was she there?”
Ezra’s jaw clenches. He blows out a breath, and I see the pain in his eyes. “She was a mistake. A mistake I wish I could take back. She was some girl I could fuck when I didn’t have anyone else to. The worst part is her parents used to be friends with mine, but they died before we graduated high school. She was hurting, and I consoled her right into bed, and ever since then she has been a thorn in my side. She comes to the club, shows up at my parents’ parties, or even hangs around to see if I need her. She wasn’t off when she said I would see someone and then end up fucking her.”
My mouth is gaping open as he says this, and I try to keep my body from trembling. Part of me is appalled at what he has said, and I don’t want to hear the rest, but I know I need to listen so I understand their relationship.
“I used women for one thing. I would take girls up to my office and fuck them on the sofa, and if they got clingy I used Roxy to back them off. I would let them see me with her, accidentally leaving my office door open so that they would walk in to see me with her naked on top of me.”
I pull away from him, my stomach feeling queasy at his confession. I move from his lap and he lets me. This is too much. I don’t understand how he could do that. How could he come from such a nice family and use women like that? I wonder in horror. It’s no wonder Roxy is so infatuated with him. He has conditioned her to act like this, and it is sick. People should never do that to each other. It’s wrong. He was wrong to do that.
“Lanee, please, listen to me. I’m different with you. This isn’t like those times. I never sent Roxy to find you and say all that shit. She is just jealous. She doesn’t know that I really care about you.” He pleads with me, standing up to approach me.
I stick my hand out as to hold him back, swallowing down the bile that is rising in my stomach. It makes me ill to hear this. I think I was expecting some scorned ex-girlfriend. I inhale deeply, trying to calm my erratic heartbeat. This isn’t right. Ezra isn’t right. I believed he was a good guy. Wasn’t he a good guy? He made me feel whole when I was so broken. Could I be with a guy who admitted to using women as playthings and just tossing them away?
“Lanee, please.” Ezra is standing close to me, and I can smell his cologne invading my senses, but instead of making me swoon with lust, I gag. He goes to reach for me, but I swat his hand away and rush to the bathroom where I make it just in time to lose the contents of my stomach.
I feel his hands on my back, rubbing soothing circles. I heave over and over, trying to forget how his touch is making me feel sick. I can’t believe my boyfriend is a user. What did I do to deserve this? I thought he was normal. He had made me feel so normal.
“What the hell, Lanee?” Claudia’s voice rasps from somewhere.
I’m too weak to look up. My head is beginning to pound with pain, and I feel horrible. I just want to forget what he said just now. I want to pretend things are still normal with us. I don’t want to picture my Ezra fucking girls and tossing them away like trash, because that is what I felt like that night on the beach.
I was just trash to Bryce Phillips. I was a spoiled brat who he played until I didn’t give him what he wanted, and that was when he took what wasn’t his. That was when I learned that some people could be bad, whether they came from money or not. It was also what taught me that I was truly weak for trusting people.
It was all coming back to me as I leaned over the toilet, heaving my soul out with my boyfriend whom I loved, and my best friend. The memories of our family vacation were something I forced to the back of my brain so I didn’t have to remember it, leaving only the remnants of a nightmare that always played over and over. It was all so fresh in front of my mind.
The smells.
Sand.
Beach.
I hear Claudia saying my name, but I can’t focus. All I can do is think of Bryce and what he did to me on the beach. I had trusted him because our parents were friends. I thought he was smart and nice because he was two years older than me. I thought a lot of things back then, but none of that could help me now that I realized my boyfriend was a user just like him. Ezra may have not tried to kill me, but it felt like a stab to my heart that he could be so careless.
“Lanee.” Ezra’s voice is broken as I whimper over the toilet, and I want to scream at him. I want him to leave. I can’t believe he did that to those women. I can’t understand how he can be so sweet and kind to me, but cold with those others. Why am I different? Am I different? Maybe this is a new game he started with Roxy.
“Leave,” I croak out.
“Listen, baby. I’m sorry…” he begins again softly.
“Leave!” I scream, slapping at him when he tries to touch me again. I hear Claudia yelling my name, but I need him away from me. I don’t want to be near him. His confession about Roxy is awful. These are things I wish I never knew now. “Go!”
“Shh…talk to me, Lanee. What happened?”
I shake my head because I can’t say it out loud. I don’t want to admit that I just let Ezra break my heart, because he did. He broke me all over again, and it feels worse than it did when Bryce raped and stabbed me.
It feels like my heart has been ripped out of my chest at his confession. It feels like I’m bleeding to death, because the truth is I am so irrevocably in love with Ezra that I could overlook some of his faults. But not this…
Chapter Eighteen
A Long Week
Are you okay?
Can we talk?
Please talk to me.
I need you.
I miss you.
I stare at the messages Ezra has sent me over the last five days, never deleting them but not responding to him. Am I okay? No. I’m a mess without him. Do I miss him too? Yes. I miss him so much it hurts not to talk to him. I have issues and so does he. Can I talk to him? I probably should talk to him, but I can’t force myself to hit the Send button when I see his number on my phone. I can’t even bring myself to accept his phone calls when he does call.
“Okay, I’m sick of this. Tell me what the fuck is going on with you, Lanee. I’ve pussyfooted around this for a week. If you don’t tell me what Ezra did to make you this miserable, I’m going to slap the shit out of you,” Claudia says fiercely, standing over me.
I’m in bed, and I’ve chosen not to get out of it for the next three days I have off. I have worked every day since I told Ezra to leave, throwing myself into picking up extra shifts so I have no time to think about him. It hasn’t worked thus far, not with him calling or texting me every single minute of the day.
Claudia curses and sits on the bed next to me, her face growing red as she waits for me to explain it all to her. After I settled down five days ago, I told her I just needed some time. It hurt too much to tell her what happened with Ezra. I hated that I couldn’t tell her, but it made me feel horrible. She might understand me better than anyone in my life, but I didn’t want her to carry this burden too. She was overprotective of me to the extreme, but she couldn’t fix this.
“Out with it,” she snaps, and I sit up in bed, pulling the covers up to my neck.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I keep my eyes down because I know without looking that she is glaring at me. I’ve never kept anything from her in the past before, but this time, it’s all on me. This is my issue, and she can’t help me.
“Bullshit! You have to talk about this. Otherwise it is going to eat you up until you get sicker, and don’t give me crap about you not being sick. I live with you. I also know that you have been having nightmares because I can hear you through the walls. I hear you scream into your pillow.”
I look up at her wide-eyed, surprise written all over my face that she could hear me. I thought I was masking my cries with the pillow, but apparently I was wrong.
“I’m not an idiot, Lanee. I’ve known you for years. What the fuck happened that made you feel like this? I’ve already talked to Ezra, and he won’t tell me either. He looks just as shitty as you do. Well, maybe a little worse.”
“You…you saw him.” My voice trembles with emotion, and I could weep thinking he is worse off than me. Claudia nods, and I feel the tears building behind my eyelids when I close my eyes. My breathing is picking up, and I want to cry all over again. I’ve always talked to my best friend about everything, but part of me doesn’t want to tell her why I’m so torn up over this. It feels dumb to be upset with him because he used all those girls.
But…if he was just as upset as me then maybe he truly does see me differently. He was patient with me every time we were intimate. He knew I had issues, and he was sweet to me.
“Lanee…please.” Claudia pleads with me, and I decide I do need to tell her. She is right that this is eating me up inside. It has even caused my nightmares to wreak havoc on my body so severe that I’m sick to my stomach all day.
“I…I…” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I can’t be weak. I have to be strong and tell her about what happened at the party with Ezra. I have to explain it all so she understands how raw I felt when Roxy approached me, spewing lies that I believed at first. I need to tell Claudia what he confessed to me the next day. I need to stop being so damn weak. I am stronger than this.
* * * *
Claudia and I talked for over two hours about what happened, and now we are sitting on the couch together. She hasn’t said much, but she refuses to let me wallow in self-pity anymore. It is raining outside, so there will be no beach for us. So instead we watch reruns on TV. She was hurt that I didn’t tell her all I was feeling, but she understands my need to try to figure things out on my own. She truly is the most amazing person I have ever met.
My phone chimes with another text, which I assume is from Ezra, but I don’t get up to look at it. He has sent me three more texts in the time Claudia and I have been talking, but I ignored them each time.
“I think you should talk to him. I don’t want to push you, but you can’t keep avoiding him.” Claudia squeezes my hand gently.
“I don’t know what to tell him…” I trail off when my phone starts ringing. I don’t want to get up to answer it, knowing it is him again.
Claudia huffs and gets up to grab my phone. She looks at the screen and shrugs when I ask who it is. “It’s a restricted number.”
I decide to answer it, idly wondering if this is Ezra trying to make sure I answer this time. “Hello?”
“Is this Lanee Connors? Susan Connors’s daughter?” a voice asks, and my blood freezes in my veins.
“Yes.”
“Who is it?” Claudia asks, and I shake my head.
“This is Dr. Hughes from Elk Point Memorial Hospital. Ms. Connors, I’m sorry to inform you this way, but your mother has had an accident. She is in critical condition and you are listed as her emergency contact. You need to come to the hospital.”
“Oh, God. Is she okay? What happened?”
“Ms. Connors, please come to the hospital so I can inform you more on her condition,” Dr. Hughes says emphatically.
“Is she alive?” I croak out.
“Yes, ma’am, but her condition is critical. Will you be able to arrive soon?”
“Yes. I have to get dressed and I will be right there,” I tell the doctor before hanging up. I clutch the phone to my chest, my breathing picking up at the news that my mom is in critical condition. I look at Claudia and see the worry in her eyes. I quickly inform Claudia about the phone call.
“Oh shit, Lanee, let’s go. I’ll drive.” I can only nod at her. I hurry with her to go get dressed. I haven’t seen my mom in years, but I’m scared for her. I know we don’t get along very well, but I hate the idea of losing her. I don’t want anything to happen to her, because she is all I have.
* * * *
It takes us a half hour to get to Elk Point, and the whole time my head is whirling with worry. I’ve had no contact with my mom for three years. The last time I saw her was the day I left for college. I did call her when I graduated to invite her over for dinner, but I had to leave a message with her secretary. And then a week later I received a check for one thousand dollars. Mom and I had been estranged after Dad’s suicide, but it hurt when she didn’t show up to my graduation. There was a small bloom of hope that I would see Mom smile at me through the crowd, accepting my degree in nursing.
I am numb while Claudia and I wait for the doctor. A nurse tells us to sit in the small room and someone will be with us shortly. I don’t know how long Claudia and I sit in the room, but it feels like hours before a doctor comes through the double doors and calls out for the Connors family. I get up and approach him with Claudia at my side.
“I’m her daughter,” I say firmly, trying to sound more confident than I am.
“I’m Dr. Hughes, the surgeon on staff here. Your mother has suffered trauma to her head from her accident. There was some internal damage to her organs, but we were able to stop the bleeding. She is in a drug-induced coma to help her heal, but we won’t know the severity of her head trauma until she wakes up.” The doctor begins explaining to us, but my head is clouded the whole time. It feels like I’m listening to him through a funnel and the noise is all muffled. He looks sympathetic and gives me his condolences. “She has been moved to a private room in ICU, and we will continue to monitor her. I will have a nurse come get you so you can see her.”
I nod. It is the only thing I can do. My tongue is thick and heavy, and I can’t find my voice. I’m too stunned with all he has said to really acknowledge anything else. I go back to my chair and sit with Claudia, and we wait for a nurse to take us back to my mother’s room.
“She’ll be okay, Lanee. Your mom is a tough old bird. This won’t stop her,” Claudia reassures me, squeezing my hand gently.
“I’m sure.”
When a nurse finally comes to retrieve us, asking us to follow her through the hall, I let out a long breath. My chest is pounding, and my head feels like it is going to explode. I chose being a nurse because I wanted to help people. I wanted to take care of others. I have always prided myself on my self-control and compassion toward my patients, but being on this side has me shaking down to my soul. It has been a really long week, and this is not how I thought things would go. I’m not even sure my mother is going to want to see me when she wakes up, but I have to believe she will be fine.