She shakes her head. “I don’t know you at all.”
A second later, she’s flashed past Alex, who isn’t even bothered enough to look up to her, and is halfway down the stairs before Dante is even out of his seat. In Alex’s office, he stares at the main door, yawning at his stepsister’s absence.
“Don’t”, he says to Alex, when he sees her about to say something.
Back in his office, he closes the double doors, flops back down into the sofa, sighs heavily and begins to pull his tie off.
“What the fuck are you looking at?”, he says angrily to Caulder.
“Can you book me a flight to L.A.?”, Caulder asks. “I have a feeling I know who did it.”
Chapter 41
Sash has no idea where she is going. All she knows is she needs to get away. She takes the stairs two at a time, falling into a rhythm that helps her send everything that has happened in the last few hours, to the very back of her mind.
If she doesn’t think about it, she can’t let it affect her. Jason Walker, her pregnancy, the stepbrother she thought she knew. None of it matters if she’s just Sash, dancing down the stairs, running to get away.
There is a moment of silence as she bursts through the double doors to Dante’s granite black office tower, when the stationed security guards, the row of police and the half a dozen camera wielding journalists collected outside look at her with a shared expression of confusion.
This is not at all what they expected to see.
In her haste to leave, Sash had forgotten completely that they would be there. With everything else going on, it hadn’t even crossed her mind. Outside now, faced with an impenetrable wall of people trapping her exit, she feels like she has no where left to turn. She can’t go back inside, and the crowd in front of her looks like the last thing it wants to do is part and let her through.
Finally, a snap second after the penny drops, they realize it’s her. It’s Sash, the woman at the center of all of this. Cameras flash and journalist barge each other out of the way to try and get as close to her as possible.
“Is it true?”
“Look at me.”
“Is it about money?”
“Are you in love?”
“Where is Dante?”
The questions mash together and form an incoherent reticulation of noise that leaves Sash hollow and desperate. Everywhere she turns there is a camera pointed at her, or a finger of accusation, or a placard registering disgust.
The security guards don’t know what to do, the police either. One of them radios up to the office above, just to see if this is some kind of publicity stunt they haven’t yet been advised of. They all wonder if Dante will burst out of the still swinging doors behind her, as though the building itself is giving birth to its celebrity owner, and save her.
Sash doesn’t know where to turn. Everything is a whirling chaos of lights and noise she can’t even begin to imagine how to take control of. She’s on the edge of being consumed by it, ready to sit down and let it swallow her and her baby up, until there is nothing left but a pair of footprints slowly dissolving in the post cataclysmic wind, when out of the blurred confusion that surrounds her, comes a distinct and familiar voice.
“Sash.”
Before she can see who it is, a hand goes under her arm, while the other stays extended out in front of her, both to clear the path in front and force back overeager cameramen. Sash no longer has control of her body, but when she finally sees who does, she is both surprised, and extremely happy to see her.
Abbey glares at the police officers who stand and watch as though observing a curious example of contemporary street theater.
None of them seem to know how to deal with what’s going on. Eventually they understand that Abbey isn’t so much as stealing Sash away, but doing everything to save the poor girl from a mauling at the hands of both journalists and fervent members of the general public, and finally step in to help, forming a protective barrier either side to push people back to where they belong, and chaperone the two girls back to Abbey’s car.
Sash is so overwhelmed by what’s going on, she can barely form words necessary to describe or control her situation. Instead, with heart racing and eyes wide, she just lets Abbey take control - like she has done before on a number of occasions - and save her from a situation she would otherwise have let completely debilitate her.
Once in the car, the hood up and the windows sealed, Abbey slams her Manolo Blahnik down on the accelerator. In another moment, and if she wasn’t looking up past the crowd outside to the office on the top of the tallest building in New York, where she knows Dante will be sat, planning the demise of their relationship the moment after taking her virginity, she might have recognized the shoes.
With the back wheels spinning noisily against the tarmac, they zoom off as quickly as the car will allow them, several members of the general public left on the floor in their wake, having had to dive quickly out of the way to avoid them.
Behind, some journalists decide to take to motorbikes, in order to follow Abbey’s car, while others decide to wait, hoping Dante will be the next to burst unexpectedly through the doors.
Sash has her hands held protectively over her belly, while Abbey weaves expertly in and out of traffic, one eye on her best friend, the other on the road ahead.
She can see the journalists swarming in behind her, but she’s a better driver and her car is a lot faster. Two of them she loses by jumping through traffic lights, another she sends in a different direction by turning late at an intersection, and the six or so others she leaves for dust as they exit the city and take to the freeway.
In all that time, Sash still hasn’t moved her hands away from her belly, she hasn’t stopped weeping silently, and she hasn’t spoken. With a little bit more time to concentrate on her now the chaos has been left behind, and more than concerned by her best friend’s appearance, Abbey decides to break the silence.
“Are you ok, Sash?”
Sash struggles to find the words to respond. Instead, all she seems like she can do at the moment is cry, communicate in little nods or shakes of the head and try to control her breathing. Abbey sweeps her hand through Sash’s hair, tucking the waviness behind one ear. She’s seen her friend hurt a number of times before, but nothing on this scale.
“I’m going to take you home, ok?”
Sash nods and looks away. She’s ashamed that her best friend is seeing her like this again. She’s embarrassed that Abbey knows about her and Dante, and that what she knows is what the papers have decided to publish and not the truth.
If she had enough energy to tell her the real story she would, and she’s angry with herself that she can’t even bring herself to begin to think about how to start. Abbey is the first person she wanted to know, but definitely not in this way. Like this, it feels like the worst kind of deception.
She’s staring at it for a long while, not even knowing what it is until it angrily dawns on her. Fifteen minutes from the city and there it still is like a thorn in her side, Dante’s long black tower piercing the sky above like a poisonous needle from earth.
“He’s a fucking liar”, she says finally. “A fucking worthless, piece of shit liar.”
Chapter 42
There are journalists as close to the house as they can get.
“Fucking animals”, Abbey comments.
When they get close enough, she leans out of the window to berate them within ear shot. “Go and get a real job. Go on, fuck off and find another story, there isn’t one here.”
Henry’s on the doorstep drinking a cup of coffee, and as Abbey pulls the car alongside the house, he waves at Sash. If Sash was looking at his waving hand and not the comforting familiarity of his face, she’d notice the lightly tarnished rope bind marks on his wrists.
Just to have him look at her, his sweet smile, his caring eyes, she feels a hollow in her stomach like someone’s carved out her soul. She doesn’t know why, but she feels like she’s done
something wrong, like she’s just confessed to a heinous crime or admitted a catalog of wrongdoing, even though neither Abbey on the car journey over, nor the look her dad is still giving her would make her feel that way.
If anything, what she should feel is acceptance, and the horrible thing is that because they are giving it to her, it almost makes her feel worse. They know about her and Dante, everyone does.
That news has negatively affected their lives and now she needs to explain both what happened in the first instance, and why now she’s on her own and not by his side. More than the sense of feeling like she’s just confessed to a heinous crime, she feels like she is about to, and everyone else is happy because they already know what’s coming, ready to point the accusatory finger and say, ‘I told you so’.
“Moving back home?” Henry says, when Sash is up alongside him.
“Thinking about it”, she says back, her eyes jammed up with tears.
“Hello, Sash.”
“Hello, Dad.”
There is nothing like the feeling of coming back home. Her bedroom may be an office, the other one may remind her so much of her stepbrother it hurts just to think about it, but her dad is here, Tracy is here, Ghost is here and so are all of her memories.
There is a tense silence while Henry observes his daughter, while he rubs the tears away from her cheek with a tobacco stained thumb, while Tracy stands in shadow by the sink unsure how to begin, and Abbey wonders whether now she’s brought their daughter home, that she should be here at all.
“I didn’t know you were in California?” Tracy says, when too much time has passed and she can’t cope with the discomfort.
“I wanted to call-“, Sash begins, welling up again in the process and unable to finish her sentence.
Henry puts his hand on her shoulder.
“Hey. There’s no need for that. You’re home now. Listen, you don’t need to explain anything to us, seriously. If you want to talk about what’s going on, that’s absolutely fine, but if you don’t, that’s fine with us too. This is your house as much as it is ours and there are no judgments here. You’re our daughter and we love you, whatever you do.”
Sash feels completely useless. She feels like she’s spent the last hour doing nothing but crying.
“If you need us, any of us, we are here to listen. Ghost too.”
Ghost’s ears prick up.
“He may not look it, but he’s the best listener of all.”
Now Henry leans in to whisper into Sash’s ear. “Just don’t tell my wife.”
Sash can’t help but laugh a little at that. Her dad always had the capacity to make her feel better.
“How long have they been out there?”
“All day so far”, Tracy says. “I’ve called the police but they said they can’t do anything if they’re not on our property.”
“Fucking animals”, Abbey says again.
“Thank you, Abigail”, Tracy comments.
Abbey shrugs.
“It’s what they are. You should have seen them at Dante’s office tower.”
Sash turns to her.
“Thank you, by the way. I didn’t say it before, you know, for being there.”
“Sure.”
Abbey smiles. “You looked like you needed rescuing.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Didn’t I tell you I’ve always got your back? That and I’ve been glued to the TV since the story broke. This is better than Game of Thrones. Where else was I going to be?!”
“Abbey”, Henry warns her, unsure how sensitive his daughter will be to the mention of her stepbrother.
Abbey continues undeterred. “I had no idea you’d come flying out of those doors, but when I saw you in the middle of all that chaos, you know, swamped by those people with placards and banners and, by the way, did you see some of the sizes of those lenses, I mean talk about compensating, well I had to rescue you. Super Abbey to the rescue! So, it was like that, I guess.”
“Thank you.”
Sash takes Abbey’s hand, thankful for her friendship.
“No problem.”
Sash knows the look that Abbey gives her means “you better tell me more though, otherwise I’m disowning you.”
Sash has her father’s hand in hers. Against her soft skin his fingers feel rough, and shredded. She doesn’t remember them being this coarse, but then it may have been a while since she’s held them.
“Are you hungry?” Tracy asks.
“No, thank you. I think I’m going to rest for a while. It’s been quite a busy day already.”
There is another awkward silence while the four of them stand about like marionettes who have just become self aware.
“Well I guess that’s it”, Henry says after a while. “Welcome back home, sweetie, you know, again. Come down when you are ready to eat.”
“Thanks Dad”, Sash says, and this time, when he lifts the coffee cup to his mouth, she sees the red lines that mark the skin by his wrist.
***
Upstairs, back in Dante’s room, simply because there is nowhere else she can go, she flops on the bed like a complete and utter failure, while Abbey lies down alongside her. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this together, and Sash is more appreciative than she is able to demonstrate that it is clear that despite what has happened they are likely to do it again.
Abbey has always been there for her, and in the light of this recent revelation, a declaration that has already lost her a handful of her less open minded friends, it is an incredible feeling not only to have her support, but to feel like she doesn’t owe her anything.
Her father and Tracy are the same. They could easily have freaked out about it, but neither one have given her any impression that what her and Dante have done is wrong.
Not only that, it seems as though neither of them are all that surprised by the news. Even though she’s not asking, Sash feels like she owes Abbey. She owes her parents too, but talking to them is much more difficult, and she knows it will come only when it needs to, at another time in the future. Abbey is her best friend and she deserves to know the truth. The secrets, the lies and everything else in between.
While Sash does just that, the words flowing out of her as easily as the tears as soon as she gets going, and Abbey sits alongside her or opposite, or cross legged or reenacts the dance and the very first kiss until Sash pulls her back to the bed and the two girls giggle conspiratorially, Sash finally able to feel the weight lifting of carrying around a secret with her for so long, Tracy looks at her husband sat down at the long pine table he’s had for longer than either of their children have been alive, a chaos of intricate metal pieces spread out on an old newspaper in front of him, of a mechanical jigsaw that refuses to come together, and can’t keep it in any longer.
“Are you going to tell them?”
It is the first time she’s had a chance to ask in the chaos of the day, wet hands from the sink wrapped briefly in a tea towel to the side, mostly just to do something with them.
Henry sighs. “I’m fine. You can see I’m fine. That’s the main thing.”
“That’s not the point. She should know. She has to know.”
Henry turns in his chair to face his wife. “We don’t even know-.”
He hangs his head, cutting the sentence short. “It’s none of our business.”
“Don’t let me see you regret it. I mean it Henry, that boy is dangerous.”
Abbey can’t believe what she’s hearing. Six years and she had no idea. How could she be Sash’s best friend and not know such a huge secret. Dante was the douche that ran away, which kind of figures really, with the very latest twist to the story.
The billionaire that wants to put the business before everything else. Her very own stepbrother.
“You could have told me, you know?”
Abbey’s not angry, she’s just gutted to have missed out on something for so long, like being the last person to find out about a TV series ev
eryone else has been watching.
“I wanted to tell you.”
Sash holds Abbey’s hand now. Finally the tears have stopped. Finally she’s cried herself numb. “I just couldn’t. I didn’t know how you would react, and then it came and went and we were over. This. Dante and I, it’s just so recent, and now it’s over again. I can’t believe it.”
“I can’t believe it either. You know, doing all of that for you, and then doing what he did to you, and now this. It fucking sucks. I mean what a douche. He’s as hot as hell, and I’m so jealous right now over what you two lovebirds have done together, right here in this fricking bed, but seriously, what a douche ball.”
“He just wanted to take my virginity, that was all”,
The words sound so ridiculous she almost has to laugh. “It was all about that. Giving me my virginity so he could take it back. Nothing else mattered to him.”
“That’s fucked up. I mean, I knew Dante was weird, but that’s fucked up.”
“That’s Dante for you. That’s the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with. That’s the father of my unborn child, the man I can’t stop thinking about, even now.”
“And Jason Walker?”
Sash looks away from Abbey for a moment. When she looks back, Abbey is still wearing the same face of mock horror.
“Dante had nothing to do with that. Jason Walker drowned. I saw it on the news this morning. He was drunk, went skinny dipping and got swept out with the tide. It was an accident.”
“It’s a hell of a coincidence.”
“It’s a coincidence, Abbey. Dante may be a class A jerk-hole, but he’s not a murderer.”
“I can’t work him out. He tells you he loves you, and then he does all of this shit that clearly means that he doesn’t.”
“I know. I can’t work him out either. I guess I never will. I mean I’ve been trying for so long. I thought it was me.”
“It isn’t you. Your stepbrother is a freak.”
Sash can feel herself welling up again.
“I love him, Abbey. He may be a freak and he may treat me like shit, but I love him. I can’t stop loving him. I’m broken.”
Charged: A Stepbrother Romance Novel (With FREE Bonus Novel Heated!) Page 40