Hated (Hearts of Stone #3)

by Christine Manzari

  The voicemail cut off and I immediately pulled my phone from my ear to open the last message.

  “Sorry,” Frankie said, continuing her one-sided conversation. “I got carried away. Anyway. We were waiting for you to come home, but Moxie asked if we could go looking for you. So I’m just going to take her around town, show her around. If you get this, call me back. Please.”

  I leaned my elbows on my knees and stared at my phone, pressing the screen until it showed the numbers. I still hadn’t decided what I was going to say to Frankie or how I even felt, but I knew the only choice I had was to call her back.

  I typed in her number and pressed the call button. It barely rang once before she picked up.

  “Austin?”

  “Yeah.” My heart was pounding in my chest, nerves and excitement and fear all battling for dominance.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I—”

  “Where are you, Frankie?” I asked gently. “We should talk in person.”

  “Billingly Park,” she said. “Moxie wanted to swing.” Despite the sorrow I could hear in her voice, the smile I knew she was wearing at the mention of Moxie’s name was impossible to miss. “You remember where it is?”

  I remembered. It was a tiny park just a couple of blocks away. It was kind of off the beaten path, and the equipment had been run down and rusty when Frankie and I were kids, but we loved going there because no one else ever did. It always felt like our special place.

  “Of course. I’ll be there soon,” I promised.

  “Okay—” Frankie was cut off by the sound of a man’s voice.

  I paused, not hanging up, trying to make out what was being said by the newcomer.

  “What do you want?” Frankie snapped. Her voice sounded farther away, as if she had taken the phone away from her ear, but by the venom in her words, I knew she wasn’t talking to me, but the stranger who had just interrupted her.

  Incoherent mumbling followed until the voice came close enough for me to make out the words “—all by yourself.”

  “I’m not by myself, dick face. My daughter is with me so I’d appreciate you going and jerking off somewhere else before I make it impossible for you to do so.”

  “Your daughter?”

  I recognized the drawl of Jared Bennet, and my blood ran cold in my veins. I grabbed my keys off the desk and rushed out of my room, putting the phone on speaker so I could hear what was being said.

  As I flung open my front door, I heard Jared say, “Tell her to run along.”

  Then the call went dead, and I sprinted for the park, hoping I wouldn’t be too late.

  — FRANKIE —

  21. KEEP IT SAFE

  Some people have a death wish, and I was convinced that was Jared Bennett’s problem. Otherwise, he would have taken one look at me and turned the other way. I could understand why he was upset with me. A jockstrap full of Icy Hot and a knee to the groin was enough to make any man want revenge. But at some point, he needed to make a choice—he either needed to let this conflict between us go, or live the life of a eunuch. Because if he tried to hurt my daughter or me, his family jewels would suffer the consequences. And I was not going to be gentle.

  He took a menacing step toward me with the confidence of a predator who knew his prey had no escape. “Tell her to run along,” he said again, nodding at Moxie who was sitting on the swing, kicking her feet merrily, oblivious to the jackass in our presence.

  I stuck my phone in my back pocket and crossed my arms. “You’re the one that needs to run along, Jared. Your daddy will be very upset with you if he knows you’ve gotten out of the yard,” I said in a mocking voice. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to stay a hundred feet away from me.”

  He laughed. “Says who?”

  “Says the restraining order I filed against you.” I tilted my head, wondering how he’d ever managed to pass high school. I knew he wasn’t bright, but this was a whole new level of idiocy.

  His jaw clenched. “You attacked me!” he spat.

  I lifted my finger and shook my head like a disappointed teacher. “I didn’t attack you. I kneed you in the balls,” I corrected. “Which is a perfectly acceptable reaction when someone is choking you. The police seemed to agree. So unless you want them hauling your ass to jail in the back of a cruiser, I suggest you head on home.”

  He took another step toward me, and I felt my adrenaline spike through me like a bolt of lightning.

  “Ain’t no one going home until I get what I came for.” His eyes raked down my body.

  While he was busy visually undressing me, I cast a quick glance at Moxie to make sure she was okay. As if sensing my attention, she lifted her head, finally noticing that we had company. “Mama?” she asked. “Who’s that?”

  “No one, baby,” I called back. “Just play. He’s leaving soon.” I turned back to Jared, putting my hands on my hips. “I hate to break it to you, but there are no drunk co-eds here. So take your molesting, pervert ass home and I’ll pretend this never happened.”

  “You can pretend all you want, but this is happening,” he said, grinning and stepping closer. “I got what I wanted from that bitch in Penn State, and I’m going to take what I want from you.” He bared his teeth.

  A strange sense of calm washed over me when he finally lunged at me. I had three older brothers, and no matter how much Nana tried to instill in them the importance of never manhandling girls, we still got in scuffles. Mainly because I was a pain in the ass. Jared might be used to being able to throw his weight around and blunder about like a caveman, but he seriously underestimated my survival instincts.

  His big hand grabbed my arm, but I twisted out of his grip. He managed to snatch a clump of my hair and pulled it until my head yanked back. “Where do you want me to fuck you first, DiGorgio? Your mouth or that sweet ass of yours?” He tugged my face closer.

  I clenched my teeth. “Nose or nuts?” I asked, my voice deathly calm.

  “What?” He jerked his fist, tearing out a little of my hair.

  Fine. Both it would be then.

  I buried my knee between his legs with as much force as I could. Jared’s body instinctively doubled over, and I pulled my arm across my chest and then whipped it around catching him in the nose with my elbow. His head snapped back, and he fell to the ground making a noise that sounded very much like a dying moose.

  “Timber!” a tiny voice yelled.

  I lifted my eyes to see Moxie climbing the pole that held up the swing set.

  “He went down just like a tree!” she cried gleefully. “Was he pretending to be a tree?”

  Relief poured through me at the innocence of her comment. I wanted to go over and kick Jared again for trying to take that from her. For taking that from who knows how many girls.

  Just as I reached Moxie, the sound of running footsteps drew my attention, and I turned to see Austin come around the corner in a full sprint. He looked like an avenging angel. He made a quick scan of the area, saw Jared rolling around on the ground clutching his crotch and bleeding from the nose, and then made his way toward Moxie and me.

  “Are you okay?” he reached out tentatively and then touched my hair, smoothing it down where Jared had grabbed it.

  I nodded. “I should probably call the police, though,” I said, reaching for my back pocket.

  “I already did.” Austin looked at where Moxie had slid down a pole. She was gazing up at him like all her prayers were answered at once.

  “Hey, Daddy,” she said. “Want to swing? It’s really fun. Mama taught me how.”

  She said Daddy as if it was Austin’s name, and I loved him for not flinching or denying it.

  “Sure.” He gave me an unsure look and I motioned at Jared, who was still on the ground, but was attempting to sit up. “I’ll wait for the police over here,” I said quietly so only Austin could hear me.

  I stood close enough to Jared to keep an eye on him, but far enough from Austin and Moxie to give them privacy. I pulled my phone out
of my pocket and turned off the voice recording I’d started the moment I hung up on Austin.

  I didn’t know much about law aside from my father being on the wrong side of it, but I was pretty sure that Jared had just dug himself into a pretty deep fucking hole. And with any luck, the cops would toss him in it, and he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else again. That girl at Penn State would never get her innocence back, but she just might see a little justice.

  ***

  Austin stood in the doorway of my old bedroom watching Moxie, her long lashes curling over the tops of her cheeks as she slept. I stood in the hallway, watching Austin from the shadows, trying to give him privacy but wanting to witness this moment between him and Moxie. I was selfish. I always knew I was, but I didn’t know what would happen once he left that doorway, and I was greedy enough to steal as much of his presence as I could.

  “We should talk,” he said, without turning to face me.

  I led him downstairs and out the back door so we could sit on the porch. The only furniture left in the house was what was in my bedroom, but even if the house had been furnished, it only seemed right that we should have this difficult discussion out on the porch, just like we always did growing up.

  We sat down, and I waited for him to talk. I’d apologized so many times in phone messages that I wasn’t sure if another apology would even be anything more than white noise at this point.

  “I went to see my mother,” he said, breaking the silence. “That’s where I went when I left here.”

  “Oh?” That possibility hadn’t even crossed my mind.

  Austin cleared his throat. “Four years ago, she told me that you never came to Vegas. But then you told me in the police station that you had.” He bent his head to inspect the small stuffed animal he held…a gift from Moxie. “I wasn’t sure who was lying, you or my mother. I knew out of the two of you, she was the most likely to lie, but in my mind, you’d told the biggest lie of all by breaking your promise.”

  I bit the inside of my lip, not even attempting to defend myself.

  “But when I saw Moxie…” He lifted his gaze to meet mine. “It all fell into place. My mom had picked you up that day. She’d never liked you. When she realized you were pregnant, she would have seen you as a problem she needed to get rid of.” His fingers worried at the small ears on the toy he was holding. “I had to see her face-to-face. I had to know for sure that she at least had a hand in it. I mean, it doesn’t change anything. I’m still hurt that you couldn’t trust me. I feel betrayed and cheated.”

  Austin glanced in the direction of my room.

  “I know.” I twisted my fingers together to stop them from trembling. “I know you will never forgive me. And I can accept that.” I took a deep breath to keep from losing my composure. “I just hope that you can give Moxie back the father that I stole from her.”

  “I want that, too.”

  I closed my eyes and my throat burned with gratefulness. No matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut, I could feel trails of wetness snaking down my face. Something soft brushed against my cheek, and I opened my eyes to find that Austin had moved closer and was wiping away my tears with his thumb.

  “Tell me why, Frankie,” he pleaded. “Just explain it to me so I can understand what you were thinking. I know your heart. I know you loved me. I need to understand why you thought it was the choice you had to make.”

  And so I did. I explained my conversation with his mother, what I’d thought about while I stood outside the Venetian, and why I’d gone to Texas and never returned home. He didn’t seem surprised, only shook his head.

  “You were always willing to sacrifice for others,” he said sadly. “What you need to know is that the show was never my dream. You were. You still are.”

  I thought my heart just might explode. And when I started to sob uncontrollably, I didn’t even try to stop. Austin put his arm around my shoulder, pulled me close, and asked me to keep talking. He wanted to know all about Moxie—my pregnancy, her birth, her first word, her first steps. I told him everything. I had journals to give him that I’d written in every night, telling him what Moxie had done that day. I had boxes of photos and videos and drawings and souvenirs that I’d saved for him. It wasn’t the same as being there, I knew that, but I wanted him to know that I’d always wanted him to be part of Moxie’s life.

  When I was finished, he said, “You were only eighteen, Frankie. You made the wrong decision, but you were only eighteen.” He grabbed my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “We get a second chance. We can’t change what happened, but we can start fresh.”

  He looked at me, his eyes full of hope.

  “My heart hurts,” he said, licking his lips and shaking his head. “I’m not going to lie and say that it doesn’t, but my love for you is stronger than the pain. I want you. I want Moxie. I want to be a family,” he said adamantly. “I’ve always wanted you to be my family.” He raised our hands and turned mine over so he could place a kiss in my palm. “I lost my heart to you the first time I met you, Francesca Alessandra DiGorgio, and even though you broke it, I forgive you. And I’m giving it to you again.” He met my eyes, and behind his glasses, his eyes were glistening, but bright with hope. “Keep it safe.”

  — AUSTIN —

  FIVE MONTHS LATER

  22. I CAME BACK FOR YOU

  Heartbreak was just like any other break—a slow healing process that took time and patience. I once heard that when you break a bone, there is a small period after healing when the area that was broken is slightly stronger than the surrounding bone, but eventually it all evens out, and that spot is no more likely to break again than any other bone.

  As far as my heart was concerned, I was learning that the difference between a broken bone and a broken heart was that the heart could come back stronger than before. As my love for Frankie and Moxie grew stronger, so did my heart until I could barely remember a time when it had been broken.

  What a difference a few months could make.

  I dropped the box of donuts on the kitchen table, and it was a race to see who would grab the first one, Frankie or Moxie. Moxie accidentally dropped her donut face down on the table which resulted in most of the chocolate icing smearing across the wood.

  “Sorry, Mama,” she said, picking up the donut and trying to salvage as much chocolate as possible with her tiny fingers.

  “Don’t worry about it, Moxie,” Frankie said, grabbing a napkin and tossing it to her. “Nana’s table has seen worse mess than a little chocolate.”

  Frankie lovingly pet the table top with her hand, and I was grateful that I’d managed to buy it off of Pauly at the yard sale before someone else could. I’d moved in with Frankie and Moxie the morning after our conversation on the back porch. We both knew there were issues we needed to work out, but we decided that we’d missed out on enough and it made sense to work through those issues together. I didn’t want to go another day without my girls in my life, so while Moxie carried over small bags of my clothes, Frankie and I carried Nana’s table home.

  “When are we going to see your store, Daddy?” Moxie’s face was covered in chocolate. She’d seen the shop several times over the last few months, but today was our grand opening and Moxie had insisted that there be a ribbon cutting, even if it was just the three of us. She’d been going around the house all week, taping ribbons across doors just so that she could practice cutting them.

  “As soon as you’re done eating, we’ll head over,” Frankie told her, attempting to wipe some of the chocolate off Moxie’s face as she bounced around in her chair. “And then we’ll go see Nana after lunch, okay?”

  “Yes, yes! Nana!”

  Frankie beamed at the excitement in our daughter’s voice. I knew that keeping the house had been a small victory, but moving Nana up to a better facility in Baltimore and seeing progress was the true battle she wanted to win. Nana might not ever be able to move back home and sit at her kitchen table again, but she was becoming more ind
ependent, and she looked forward to Moxie’s visits more than anything else.

  After finishing my coffee, I walked over to the sink to rinse out my cup. I flipped the handle of the faucet and took a face full of cold water. Shocked, I dodged out of the way but water continued to spray all over me and the rest of the kitchen. I managed to slam the handle down to turn off the water, and when I turned around, Moxie and Frankie were howling with laughter. I took off my glasses and carefully set them on the counter.

  “You’re all wet, Daddy! Mama put a rubber band on the sprayer! Isn’t that funny?” She giggled happily, as if hosing me down was the most fantastic thing she’d ever seen.

  I raised my eyebrows at Frankie and gave her a wry smile. “Hilarious.”

  She shrugged. “Told you I’d get you back for the ping-pong balls.”

  Frankie stood up to take her coffee cup to the sink, and when she turned around, I was standing right there. I wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her close. She wriggled a bit against the wet fabric, but she let me arch her back into a kiss that was slow and lazy and perfect for the morning.

  As I pulled her back up, she blinked contentedly, and tilted her head to say something. I didn’t even give her a chance. One flick of my wrist and she became the next victim of the sprayer.

  Moxie squealed with glee as Frankie ducked and dodged, trying, but failing to avoid getting wet.

  “Me! Me next!” Moxie yelled, standing on her chair and pounding her chocolate cover fingers all over the pretty outfit she’d put on for the day.

  We all ended up needing to change our clothes before going to the store opening. Moxie proclaimed that the kitchen sprinkler was even more fun than Aunt Blabby’s pool next door.

  ***

  Moxie pulled out her lime green scissors and expertly snipped the red ribbon we’d tied across the door. Drew took pictures of the three of us in front of the store, and when we opened the doors, the small crowd of people—mostly friends and family that had been waiting—came inside. Moxie took it upon herself to show customers her favorite things inside, and I slung my arm around Frankie’s shoulder, guiding her behind the counter.