“Put me down.”
“Do you understand me?” My voice was thick with anger. It ripped through my throat in a low growl, and Balmoral whimpered. I pushed him further, tightening my hands around his neck.
“Yes! Yes, I understand. I won’t go anywhere near her. I’ll never speak to her again! I promise!”
“Good.”
I pulled him back and let go of his neck. He flew down the stairs to the next floor, disappearing through the door with a loud clang. I turned back to Sadie, who was shivering in the corner of the stairwell. As soon as the door closed on Balmoral’s back, she ran to me. I wrapped my arms around her as she cried into my chest.
She was trembling. She was so small and fragile in my arms, and I knew it was over for me.
I wouldn’t be able to walk away from her. I wouldn’t be able to hand her over to another man or let her go. It was selfish, and stupid, and would probably get me fired or killed, but I didn’t care.
I would protect her, because she was mine.
The moment Balmoral put his hands on her, I knew everything had changed. She needed protection. She needed a man.
She needed me.
Sadie curled her fingers into my chest and I stroked her hair until she stopped trembling. She looked up at me, her face streaked with tears. Her lip trembled, and I ran my fingers along her jaw to tangle them at the nape of her neck. With my other hand, I wiped her tears away and tucked a strand of wild red hair behind her ear.
“You’re safe now.”
She nodded and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can’t go back in there. Not like this. I ruined my makeup.”
“You’ll always be the most beautiful girl in the room.”
Her eyes widened and I saw the hint of a smile on her lips.
“Zane…”
“You have to stop calling me that,” I said gently.
She bit her lip and all the blood in my body rushed between my legs. She had no idea how fucking sexy she was.
“It’s just…” she trailed her fingers across my chest, and I growled. “It’s just that you don’t look like a Dennis.”
My heart was racing so fast I thought it would burst out of my chest. My cock was doing its best to destroy my waistband, and my mind was screaming at me to stop. I took a deep breath.
“I’ll get you a car.”
Her face fell, and she nodded. “Okay.”
I put my finger on her chin and tilted her face towards mine. “I meant what I said, Sadie. If he ever touches you again, I’ll make him pay for it. I’ll protect you, no matter what. You have my word.”
Her lip trembled and she nodded. “Will you come with me? In the car, I mean.”
I sighed. My cock wanted me to go, that much was clear. Gathering all my self-control, I shook my head.
“I can’t, Sadie. It wouldn’t be wise.”
“I don’t care about being wise right now, Zane,” she whispered.
I nearly broke. I nearly let her convince me. One more second, and I would be carrying her down eleven stories and taking her back to my place.
Somehow, I let my sense prevail. I shook my head and she bit her lip.
“Okay,” she nodded. “And Za—Dennis?”
I grunted.
“Thank you.”
8
Sadie
I woke up on Sunday with bruises on my arm and a pounding headache, even though I didn’t drink any alcohol at the fundraiser. Zane put me a car and sent me home, and I spent the evening crying in the shower.
I cried because of Thomas, but I also felt the sting of rejection when Zane turned me down. I felt like an idiot.
When I didn’t go downstairs for my usual Sunday run, and I didn’t get out of bed for breakfast, my mother came to knock on my door.
“Sadie, darling, are you feeling okay?”
Feeling fantastic. Never better. My fiancé has been cheating on me for God knows how long, and when I saw him kissing another woman in public, he assaulted me and tried to rape me. But I might be the biggest hypocrite in the universe because I kissed another man, too. But yeah, everything is great.
“I think I have the flu. I just need to sleep.”
I sighed when the door opened. I tightened the covers around my neck and curled into a ball with my back to the door. The bed dipped when my mother sat down. She put her hand on my shoulder, and I sniffled.
“It’s not the flu, is it?”
“It is, I’m just sick.”
“You disappeared yesterday.”
“I started feeling bad.”
“I saw Thomas leading you to the stairwell. Did he say something to you?”
I turned my head to look at her and tears started flowing down my face. My mother’s face was so full of concern—of love. I’d started to feel so alone in this house, and for the first time, I felt like she was really seeing me.
“He tried to…” My breath hitched. “He tried to force me to…”
I couldn’t get the words out. I just couldn’t say it. I was ashamed and embarrassed and confused. My mother’s hand tightened on my shoulder, and her eyes darkened.
“What did he do?”
I shook my head.
“Sadie…”
I sobbed. I couldn’t say it. “He… he didn’t do it. He tried, and then he left. Don’t—Mom, please don’t tell Dad.”
“I have to tell him, sweetheart.” I didn’t want to mention Zane—Dennis, whatever. I didn’t want him to implicate him, or to admit to the kiss or to the crazy things he told me about the CIA. I didn’t want to talk about any of it. I just wanted to be alone.
My lip trembled. My mother sighed and stroked my head.
“What do you want to do?”
I knew what she was asking. Did I want to break off the engagement? Did I want to press charges? Did I want to stay in bed for the rest of my life?
Yes. No. Yes.
I just shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t want Dad to… I don’t know. I’m so embarrassed.”
Spots of red appeared on her cheeks and her eyes blazed. I’d seen my mother angry before, but this was different. She folded her hands in her lap and swallowed thickly. She looked at me again.
“I’ll handle it.”
“Mom…”
“I won’t have that man in my family.” Her words were final, and relief flooded through me. I’d spent the night in agony, thinking that I would have to find an excuse to explain why I didn’t want to marry Thomas. I thought I was alone.
But I wasn’t.
My mother cared. As much as she worked and put her image as the perfect Senator’s wife before me more times than I liked, she cared. And she believed me.
She stood up and smoothed her skirt. She looked at me for a second and took a deep breath.
“Take another hour in bed, and then I want you to get up, go for a run, take a shower, and eat something.”
“I don’t—”
“Non-negotiable.”
I bit my lip and nodded. I felt like a child, not like a twenty-four year old woman, but in this moment, I appreciated it. I needed my mother’s support and her strength. At times, I hated how cold and disciplined she was, but now, I needed it.
I pushed the blankets off, and my mother nodded. She walked out of my bedroom, and I put on some running clothes. I didn’t want to go for a run. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to do anything except wallow in my own misery.
But I thought of Zane. I thought of the anger in his eyes when he grabbed Thomas, and the gentleness with which he touched me afterwards. I thought of the warmth of his arms and I knew I had to get up. I had to keep going, and not let last night break me.
He cared about me, and not coming home with me was proof of that. He knew I was vulnerable. He knew it wasn’t the right time.
So yeah, I had to get up. I had to keep going, if only to see him again. To show him that I was strong, too.
When I got back from my run, the house was quiet. My father was at
work, and my mother was humming to herself in the kitchen. I padded up the stairs and locked myself in my room. I laid on my bed in my running clothes, exhausted.
My phone rang, and my heart started thumping.
Zane?
No—Mags.
“Hey, stranger,” she said. I could hear the grin in her voice. “Haven’t heard from you since last weekend.”
“Classes started.”
I wanted to tell her about last night. She was my cousin, my best friend, and I wanted to share my pain with her. But when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.
Mags started telling me about her week. She’d just started a new job.
“Can you believe they told me to take out my piercings? It’s not even like I have that many! I have one stud in my nose.”
“Thomas tried to rape me last night.” The words tumbled out of me before I could stop them. Mags was silent for just a fraction a second.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not ra—” I took a deep breath. It was such an ugly word. A sob caught in my throat and I heard shuffling over the phone.
“I’m on my way.”
“Okay,” I squeaked. Tears were flowing down my face, and relief washed over me. Mags was coming. I didn’t have to be alone.
Even though I wanted it to be Zane, I wanted his arms and his smell and his protection, I knew I couldn’t have it. I just needed someone to tell me that it wasn’t my fault.
Mags stayed with me all day. She had dinner plans with Harry, but she cancelled them to stay with me. I found out later that it was their one-year anniversary, and that made me feel even worse.
We laid in my bed and watched romcoms. I cried during Ten Things I Hate About You, and Mags leaned her head on my shoulder.
“I wish Heath Ledger was singing to me from the school bleachers,” I sighed.
Mags laughed. “No you don’t. You’d die of embarrassment. You couldn’t even handle being asked out to the prom when we were in high school.”
I blushed, grinning. “It’s a nice thought, though.”
Mags sighed. “I’m sorry about Thomas. I always thought he was a bit of a dick, but I didn’t think he was an actual piece of shit. Like, a literal turd.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Mags. It’s him that assaulted me like that.”
“And then he just stopped?”
“I… I pushed him off me.” I hated lying, but I didn’t want Zane to be implicated. It was too complicated, too messy.
“Jesus. I can’t believe you caught him making out with someone else at the freaking fundraiser. Did he not think someone would see him?”
My chest tightened. I wasn’t one to talk—I’d kissed my professor a couple days earlier. I was almost as ashamed of that as I was to have been in the stairwell with Thomas.
Mags squeezed my hand and we were silent for a while. I started drifting off to sleep on her shoulder when my bedroom door flew open.
My father was silhouetted in the door. He pointed to Mags.
“Out.”
“Uncle Nath—”
“Out.”
She gave me a look, holding my hand tight. I nodded to her. She needed to go, I could handle this on my own. Whatever fallout there was for me breaking off the engagement, I would deal with it. It was better than marrying a man who would assault his own fiancée. I wasn’t going to marry him, and that was that.
Mags grabbed her bag and threw me one last look before leaving. My father stepped into my room and closed the door. He pulled a chair away from my desk and sat on it, leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at me. I gathered the blankets up over myself, trying to keep my gaze steady on his. My heart thumped.
He didn’t look understanding and supportive… he looked angry.
“What’s this about you not wanting to marry Thomas Balmoral?”
My throat closed up. His eyes shot daggers at me.
“I… I can’t.”
“You can.”
“He—” I took a deep breath. “He tried to—”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. You followed him into that stairwell, and then you changed your mind.”
“No, Dad, I—”
“Maybe if you’d have covered yourself up a bit more, and not dressed like such a harlot at an official event, this wouldn’t have happened.”
My jaw dropped as my chest burned with shame. I held the blankets close to my body, staring at the man in my bedroom. I didn’t know him. This wasn’t my father.
“What did you expect, Sadie? Flaunting yourself like that.”
“My dress had nothing to do with—”
“Stop it. I don’t want to hear anything else. You’ll marry Thomas Balmoral, and that’s that.”
He got up off the chair and turned towards the door, as if the conversation was over.
“No I won’t.” My voice was small, but strong. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, turning slowly.
“What did you say?”
“I said I won’t marry him. I can’t. I won’t marry a man who cheats on me and then… and then…”
“And then what?”
“And then tries to assault me!”
“He did no such thing! How dare you accuse a good man of something like that!”
My father stared at me. His jowls shook with anger and I shrank into my bed. What…? What was going on? Who was this man? Why did he care about this wedding so much? Was there really that much riding on that deal of his?
Why didn’t he care about me?
I was his daughter. His only daughter! I should have been the most important thing to him. Why didn’t he believe me?
He snarled in disgust, shaking his head.
“I don’t care what you do in your free time, Sadie. You can go out and meet whatever man you choose—”
“I don’t—”
He held up his hand.
“I’m a v—”
He silenced me with a look.
“There are just two things you need to do, as long as they aren’t too difficult for you. You don’t get pregnant before you get married and you don’t disrespect the man to whom you’re engaged.”
“Disrespect the man to whom I’m engaged?! Are you fucking kidding me?”
He rose up to his full height. “Don’t speak to me that way! You will respect me!”
I didn’t know this man. His eyes were black and his body was shaking. He wasn’t my father. Tears started streaming down my face, and he looked down his nose at me in contempt. His lip twitched in a snarl and he spun on his heels.
When he slammed my bedroom door, it rattled my bones. I stared after him, seeing nothing. He’d scraped my insides out with his bare hands, leaving me empty, raw, and alone.
I clutched my chest, opening and closing my mouth as pain started radiating from my heart. I rocked back and forth, crying silently until a sob racked my whole body. I cried until my face hurt.
No one came.
Not my mother, not Mags, not anyone.
No one came to see that I was okay, to check on me, to comfort me. They left me to my misery. They left me isolated, empty, and alone.
I thought of Zane. I wanted to talk to him.
But what would I say? What could I say?
My mind started turning circles around me. The ugly, nasty voices started getting louder in my head. I saw the way he’d looked at me, when he put me in the car and sent me home. He looked at me like I was damaged.
He’d saved me, but he didn’t want to stay with me. He said it was because it wasn’t appropriate, and he didn’t want to cross a line, but I knew the truth.
He thought I was dirty. Damaged. Unclean. He was disgusted by me, just like my father was, just like Thomas was. And I was disgusted with myself.
Maybe my father was right. Maybe it was my fault. But it wasn’t because I’d asked for it—no, it was because I hadn’t.
He got impatient, and I should have known. I thought he’d be happy to wait u
ntil marriage, but I was wrong. I wasn’t good enough to wait for. I should have given it to him sooner, and then this wouldn’t have happened.
Maybe I did deserve it.
I curled into a ball and pulled the blankets up to my neck, staring at the bedroom wall as my heart shattered.
9
Zane
Berk debriefed me on Sunday. When I told him I tossed the microphone, he looked like he wanted to rip my head off.
“What did I tell you about having eyes and ears on Blanchet at every opportunity? What the fuck are you trying to do here?”
“I told you, the situation became dangerous. I recognized one of Ivanov’s men at the fundraiser.” Lie. “Balmoral started threatening the Blanchet girl, and I had to toss the bug.” Almost true.
Berk sighed. He was standing across the table from me in one of the conference rooms at the mission’s headquarters. He had to leave for Langley in an hour, and I knew he wanted to give them a good report. Telling his superiors that his chief operative had tossed his mic at the first opportunity wasn’t exactly something to shout from the rooftops. He leaned his fists on the table and dropped his head.
“Which man of Ivanov’s was there?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“You know all their names.”
“Not this one.”
“Find out who it was. Find out how he gained access to the fundraiser. Find out why Ivanov is interested in Thomas Balmoral. I want to know everything. If we don’t get dirt on Blanchet, quick, he’s going to get away with this. We don’t have enough to charge him with anything at this point.”
He waved me away. I kept my head down while leaving headquarters, taking public transportation back to my house. I went in a back door, glancing around to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Dennis Norton was supposed to be at home all day today—I couldn’t be seen sneaking around. I went straight through the house and out the front door, got in my car and went to Ivanov. Playing both sides of this was getting exhausting.
His Vow: The Protector Series: Book 1 Page 7