Never Say Never
Part Three of
The Never Say Never Series
Melissa Shaw
Table of Contents
Never Say Never, Part Three
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Also by Melissa Shaw
I Need Your Help
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Copyright
To my loved ones. Thanks for believing in me.
CHAPTER ONE
“Emily?” Chase looked from her ex-husband, standing in the office, and back to her face.
She had no words. Her two worlds had just collided with such force, that they’d surely split apart into millions of pieces.
“Mr. Newman, I had no idea you were such a gracious person. Associating with a killer like her. Most men would run a mile.”
“How do you know that?” Chase gripped the back of his chair, but Emily was still glued to hers.
“Emily is my ex-wife.”
No, no, no. She wouldn’t let this happen.
What was Brian doing in Chase’s office anyway? A shady deal or a debt to pay off were the only answers. Brian struggled with gambling debt, though he tried to keep it a secret for the sake of appearances. That meant Chase’s ‘business’ wasn’t as above board as she’d assumed.
“I think I’d better leave,” she said, standing quickly. It was better to get away, regroup and prepare for whatever Brian would cook up to discredit her. “But I wouldn’t believe anything this man says.”
“Wait,” Chase answered, holding up a hand with a frown crinkling that flawless forehead, “this is your ex-husband?”
“Yes,” she nodded, moving around the chair and further back from the desk. This was a nightmare. Brian would surely make her out to be a monster and any hope of saving Chase from Janet would be lost.
Brian was alive with excitement, it was written across his face. Trouble was on its way if that expression was anything to go on.
“Yes, she was my wife. A hazardous affair. Fortunately I realized her quirks were actually character flaws before it was too late.”
Emily opened her mouth to interrupt, but Chase stepped in first. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
There was hope then. She held her cell aloft, ready to display pictures of Brian and Janet together, though the sting would be worse for Chase since Brian was some kind of business associate.
That worried her even more. Brian wasn’t the kind of man she’d associate with in any form. He’d sooner steal from you as look at you.
“Mr. Ross, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to reschedule this meeting. I hope that suits you,” Chase said, eying the phone in Emily’s hand with intrigue.
“Yeah, Mr. Ross,” she said, flipping through to the image she needed, “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
She wouldn’t take his shit anymore. She wouldn’t be afraid of a man who was no better than a school yard bully.
“I assume you know what she did.” Brian took out his cellphone and fiddled with it, as if he was bored. “She destroyed your family.”
“What?!” Emily yelled and poked her head forward. She hadn’t touched Chastity – hell, the woman had done more harm to her than anything else.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t put two and two together, Emily,” said Brian with a devilish grin – the same he’d used on her after coming home late from work, smelling of perfume. Or the night he’d demanded she give him a blowjob in the back of his Audi though she’d been uncomfortable with it.
“What are you talking about, Mr. Ross? I’m losing my patience.” Chase came around to the side of the desk and leaned against it, then reached up and loosened his tie.
“What were their names?” Brian turned to her, sliding that cell back into his pocket with a smirk. “Go on then, Emily, what were their names?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But the creeping dread spread through her stomach and into her legs and arms. It couldn’t be true. Did Brian mean what she thought he did?
“Don’t play dumb, girlie,” Brian snapped back, showing an iota of that deadly temper.
She hated that nickname. “I don’t answer to you anymore. Kindly explain yourself or get the fuck out of here.” Emily glanced at Chase to check he was in agreement with her sentiment, but he didn’t acknowledge her.
“The people you killed.”
“People?!” Chase coughed and ripped that tie right off. “There was more than one person? You’re a serial killer. Christ, I can’t handle this. No way.” He tossed the garment on the walnut desk and it slid to a halt beside his laptop.
“What has this got to do with anything? I don’t have to discuss it with you or anyone else.” Emily put the phone back in her pocket.
Brian gave a raw chuckle which gargled in his throat. “Oh, I think you do. Do me the great honor of naming them. I’m sure Chase would like to know too. Wouldn’t you?”
“Tell me, Emily. I have a right to know what the hell is going on here.” He folded his arms.
She glanced between the two men, each cutting distinct and imposing figures in the stark simplicity of the office. An old pain started in her chest, memories of screaming, crying, blood, death, all delivered in a dizzy haze of drunkenness. A stupor.
Emily had been so scared and alone. So broken by Brian’s betrayal that she’d laid into that bottle of vodka like it was her oldest friend.
“The names.” Brain demanded it. There was no reprieve.
“Marie and Kevin.” Tears welled up but she refused them. She’d dealt with the pain of what’d happened, carried in her mind and soul for years now, and she wouldn’t let Brian see that agony.
Chase went as white as a sheet and gave a groan. A slow grin spread across Brian’s self-satisfied mug. What she’d give to slap it right off those lips. A deep hatred bubbled in her stomach and she let it rule her for a moment.
“And the surname, sweetheart?” Brian checked his manicured nails.
Hatred was replaced by burning dread. How had she not realized this before? She’d been blinded by her issues, by Chase’s lack of attention, by the sheer need for him.
“Newman,” she whispered.
Chase’s shoulders drooped and he levelled her with a gaze which punctured her soul. It was as if he was broken inside and he’d pulled back the façade to show her what was behind that frosty exterior.
“That’s right,” Brian said, nodding with glee no doubt, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Chase. “My dearest ex-wife killed your parents in a car accident.”
CHAPTER TWO
“No, it’s not true. It can’t be true.” Emily denied it, tripping over the leg of the chair, trying to back away from the realization.
Chase was mute, frozen in space and time, staring at her, gaze pleading for a reason why she’d destroyed him.
“Oh but it is,” Brian said. “I was astonished that you were with her, Mr. Newman, knowing what she’d done.”
“I didn’t know.” He managed, finally.
“I was drunk, I don’t even remember getting into the car.” She had to deny it, even though she’d tried to accept her responsibility in the matter countless times. But it wasn’t true in her mind. She literally could not remember getting into that car.
The next thing, she’d woken up in hospital, surrounded by police and Brian had been in another room, talking about what he’d witnessed.
It was a scratch she couldn’t erase and the guilt was bone deep. If she lost Chase over this, it would shatter her perception of herself. It’d been easier when they were just names on paper.
Ea
sier to pretend it wasn’t real; just a bad dream. That she wasn’t the type of person who could be irresponsible enough to wipe the lives of two human beings clean off the face of the earth.
“I was there. I witnessed what you did.” Brian strolled to the window, which looked out on the skyline, and kept his back to them. “Poor Marie and Kevin. They died on impact, at least.”
“I was slaughtered that night,” she put in, desperate to placate Chase. “I’d just found out Brian was cheating on me.” That brought her back to the phone and the pictures, but she couldn’t break him down now.
“You’re a dirty little liar. Look at her,” Brian said, turning to gesture at Emily, “your parents are dead, yet she’s making up excuses.”
“I didn’t make a habit of drinking and you know it. It wasn’t like I was out every night getting plastered and driving myself home.”
“On the contrary, that was exactly what you did. I didn’t cheat on you; that was an excuse you made up to justify your addiction!” Brian clapped and clasped his hands together in front of him.
“Your words are poisonous. I wasn’t an alcoholic! I didn’t drink for years. For all the years we were together, because I wasn’t allowed to.” He’d twisted this so far out of proportion that she might not be able to recover from it. She couldn’t let him lie about her, but her true cocaine addiction spoke for itself.
What would Chase believe?
“I’ll never forget it. Picking you up from bars in the middle of the night, having to peel men off you to get you out of there. You had no concern for anyone other than yourself. You didn’t care what it looked like or that you were betraying your husband.” Brian’s list of errors was cold and completely false.
“That was you! That was you, not me. I didn’t cheat on you once, you cheated on me. You forced me to stay home and be your perfect little Stepford wife while you socialized and fucked anyone you liked.”
She’d believed she wasn’t worthy of Brian’s affection.
“I’ve had enough of this.” Chase grunted, gripping the edge of his desk.
Emily walked round the desk to meet him, but he didn’t want her nearby. She reached out to brush his shoulder and he shied away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“You can’t buy into what he’s saying. He’s a manipulative bastard. You know what I’ve been through with the kids, Chase.”
Brian snorted and leaned against the window sill, observing with a smirk. She’d never wanted to lash out at anyone as much.
“Emily, for once,” Chase’s tone trembled with anger, “for ONCE, this is not about you!”
She gripped the phone and it slid a bit in her sweaty palm. “It’s never about me.”
“Ha! When I found you in the strip club and tried to help you,” Chase said and Brian let out a small exclamation of glee at hearing about it, “it was about you. When I protected you from that fucking hairy backed gorilla, it was about you. When I put you up in an apartment and got you a job at the studio, it was about you. Christ, I’ve done just about everything for you.”
“That’s not true.” It wasn’t, was it? She had her own life, but she’d helped him too. She’d stood on her own two feet, beat the addiction, worked herself raw to earn back the money she’d owed.
“It’s not true? I’ve dealt with more drama from you than any other person in my entire life. And now, your ex-husband happens to be an associate of mine and,” he choked up slightly, “the people you killed were my parents.”
“I –” but she couldn’t say anything back.
“That’s right. What you did is inexcusable, Emily. It doesn’t matter how it happened or how unhappy you were. All that matters is you took the lives of the people who mattered the most to me.”
“You don’t think that matters to me? I think about it all day. I dream about it. I wake up crying about it.” She did care. She did realize what it meant to lose a loved one.
“Oh, you cry about it?” Chase’s glare was frosty. “Pity your tears can’t bring them back. And instead of owning up to it and leaving my office for good, you have the audacity to stand there and make excuses. You’re a selfish bitch.”
It was an indefensible accusation.
“Now, get out of my office. I have business to attend to.”
There had to be some way to explain it to him. “Chase –”
“Leave. Or I will have you removed by security.”
Emily looked from Chase’s cold expression to Brian’s gleeful grin, and breathed through her nose. There was nothing she could do to convince him to let her stay. She strode to the chair on the other side of the desk and retrieved her handbag, then slipped the phone into it.
She refused to cry in front of Brian.
“Goodbye, Chase.” She whispered, then let herself out of the office, defeat sinking through her pores, into her skin and down into the pit of her soul.
It was over.
There was no one left.
CHAPTER THREE
Emily parked the car just inside the gates of the old age home. Sunny Oaks, it was called, though there was nothing sunny about the concrete fences and the wilted trees from which the place had got its name.
She held onto the steering wheel and steeled herself.
She’d never deserved Chase’s love, even though she hadn’t realized what her crime had cost him from the start, but the one person who should offer her some kind of love or acceptance was in this place.
And she’d never showed it before.
“Come on, get yourself together.” She ripped the keys from the ignition and let herself out of the car. A cool breeze brushed back strands of her hair and she forced it back into a messy bun on top of her head.
“Back again, I see.” It was one of the nurses at the place, all silver haired and outfitted in white clothing. She looked about as imprisoned as Emily felt. She watered a few of the dilapidated roses in pots beside the sliding doors. “I don’t know how you handle it.”
“What do you mean?” She slid her favorite tote down from her shoulder and into the crook of her arm.
“The old bat. She’s a handful. Don’t know how you do it, being related to a woman like that. Must be easier now, though. ”
Emily blinked a few times. “My mother. Yeah, I’m not sure how I do it either. But what do you mean it’s easier now?”
The water from the can trickled to a standstill and the nurse tucked the pale yellow metal container under her arm. “It’s none of my business,” she muttered, then gestured towards the entrance. “You go on up now, dear.”
She wandered off down the pavement, glancing back every now and again. Emily narrowed her eyes and stared after her. What the hell was that about?
Emily dragged her feet through the brown brick halls with their equally brown linoleum floors. What a color scheme to select for this kind of place. Depressing, much? She strolled up the stairs and located her mother’s room.
Here went nothing.
“Hi, Mama,” she said, entering through the thin wood door and shutting it behind her.
“What are you doing here?” The woman coughed into her hand. Her eyes were watery, rheumy even, and she had two tubes trailing from her nostrils. “I assume not to grant me well wishes. You didn’t come when this happened.” She motioned to the blipping machines around her bed – it’d been swapped for a hospital-style recliner.
“Oh my God! What happened?” Emily hurried to her mother’s side and grabbed at her arm, but the woman ripped it out of her grasp, without much strength.
“None of your damn business.” She coughed again and settled back into her pillows.
“I – No one informed me of this. What the hell?” Emily stormed to the door and poked her head out, searching for a nurse to confront. Why hadn’t they called her? She only played the bills for the damn place.
“They didn’t call, Mama, I swear it or I’d have been here right away.”
“They did call, girl. You just didn’t answer you
r phone.”
After the drama of the past months, it was entirely possible. Another slice of guilt sank into her and she ground her teeth. There were too many affairs to balance.
“Please, what’s happened?”
“Pneumonia.” Mama snapped at her.
Emily came back from the door to sit in the chair beside the bed, and took hold of the rails on it. “If I’d known, I would’ve been here.”
“It doesn’t matter, girl, I don’t want you here.”
“You can’t mean that, Mama. I’m your daughter. We’re family.”
“You’re no true daughter of mine. You ruined your life, killed people, destroyed the lives of your children, left a perfectly good husband and for what?” Each vitriolic sentence was punctuated by a hacking cough.
“It wasn’t like that,” Emily began, but she couldn’t finish. Upsetting her mother wouldn’t achieve much. The woman would never see sense and she’d only get more acerbic with each protest.
“Oh, and I hear you’re an escort now. Is that how you can afford the new clothes?”
Emily’s heart went cold. An escort? That was the kind of lie Brian fabricated.
“Where did you hear that?” Emily scrunched the leather of her handbag, begging her mother for any answer than the one she dreaded.
“From Brian of course. He’d the only real relative I have left. I respect and trust him, which is more than I can say for you.”
“Mama, he’s a liar. He’s turning you against me.”
“Bullshit,” the old lady coughed, not bothering to wipe the spittle from her parched lips. “He visits me often, my Bri. And he tells me all the sordid news, so don’t for a second think I don’t know what’s really going on in your life.”
Emily shook her head. There was nothing she could do to stop this. Her mother was ill and she still didn’t see the truth about Brian.
“He used to beat me.” It was her last ditch attempt.
Never Say Never, Part Three (Second Chance Romance, Book 3) Page 1