by Kreig, K. L.
I shouldn’t have let him in. In either my heart, or my body, but I can’t bring myself to regret a single solitary second of what happened tonight. And I don’t know how I can face Gray again while keeping this ugly, dirty secret bottled up inside me, where it belongs. He didn’t push me for answers again, but there’s only so long that can last. Even if we were to try to make a go of this, he would eventually press me. And I’d refuse him. The bitterness of my lie of omission would fester like an open wound, ultimately becoming so infected its toxicity would spread and become untreatable. And fatal to our relationship.
Gray thinks he loves me, he thinks he can forgive me, but, so help me God, if he knew my shameful secrets, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He’d turn and walk away with hate and contempt in his heart. And I simply can’t bear that. But the thought of letting him go almost sends my body into complete shutdown.
I’m so screwed.
“Livia, what are you doing sitting here alone in the dark?”
The overhead light turns on. I squint my eyes at the hurt it inflicts on my retinas. I’ve been sitting on the couch in the dark, in complete silence, ever since Gray dropped me off hours ago. Against my protests, he insisted on bringing me home and walking me to the door. He wanted to stay, but I wouldn’t let him. I needed time and space to think. He wasn’t happy but respected my wishes. I told him I’d talk to him in a few days, but I fully expect he’ll just show up on my doorstep tomorrow, uninvited.
“Livia, are you okay?” Addy asks, taking a seat beside me. Concern is clearly written all over her face and I’m glad my friend is here but want her gone at the same time.
I can’t even speak. I simply shake my head and she wraps her arms around me, comforting me. Then she must spot what I’m holding because she grabs the small, velvet box from my hand. When she opens it, it makes that lovely little clicky noise that jewelry boxes do. You know, the one that makes your heart pitter-patter the first time you lift the lid. I hear her gasp at the beautiful, sparkling piece sitting in the cushioned middle.
“What the hell is this, Liv?”
“My engagement ring,” I state flatly, not looking at her.
“Your engagement ring? Shut up. Who the fuck are you engaged to?” she shrieks. I haven’t been on a single date since we’ve lived together, so of course this shocks her. I’ve never spoken of Gray or Peter. I’ve never shared my painful past with anyone, except my shrink. I’ve kept the fucking lid on that nightmare superglued shut. It’s the only way I can cope.
Taking the box back, I shut it and climb off the couch. My hips are stiff and my right leg is slightly asleep. I walk to the living room window, gazing at the dark night outside from our third-floor apartment.
The day I offered my life for my sister’s I briefly let myself break. But the second I walked out the door of my father’s house, my resolve to survive was strong and fortified. I was given ten minutes and allowed to pack a small bag, taking only a few personal items with me, minus my phone. I was told I’d be provided everything else I needed. Lies, all of it.
I look down, turning the black box over and over in my hand and reminisce. While the details of the few minutes I’d spent packing are fuzzy and hazy because of the shock I was in, I distinctly remember taking my two-carat, emerald cut diamond engagement ring off my finger and hiding it under the loose floorboard in my bedroom. I retrieved it when we cleaned and sold our father’s house, but I’ve not looked at again…until tonight. It felt too much like breaking the seal on that closed box. A seal that, once broken, could never fully be repaired.
Addy waits patiently for my reply to her question. She senses I’m on the precipice of a steep ledge and if she pushes me too hard, I’ll simply tumble over and just be…gone.
I feel like a champagne bottle that’s been shaken. Bubbles fizz and demand release. The pressure to be contained in their glassy, corked prison becomes too great. And eventually the top will blow; spewing its sickly sweet contents everywhere, creating a huge fucking mess, the champagne now ruined, the bottle an empty vessel to be discarded. Left behind.
I need to release some pressure, to tell someone something so I can lighten this heavy burden I carry around with me daily. Spinning, I lean against the ledge, opening the small square container in my hand. I don’t look at her. I can’t. Instead, I stare at that tiny, size six and a half platinum circle of trust that Gray gave me…which I broke.
“A little over five years ago I was engaged to a man named Gray Colloway.” I smile as I let myself remember our whirlwind love affair and how very much I wanted to marry him. I still do. “He was the love of my life.” He still is, a quiet voice reminds me. As if I need reminded of that.
“What happened?” she asks tentatively.
Then I do look up at her. “Betrayal,” I answer simply. Not Gray’s of course, but my father’s. But I know my one-word reply has her thinking otherwise, and I feel bad for letting her believe a lie. Add it to the pile.
But if I talk about my father, I won’t be able to help but mention Peter. And I’m just not ready to do that yet. I’m not sure I ever will be. Voicing it to someone who I care about makes it all too real.
“I’m sorry, Livia. I didn’t know.” She comes and gives me a much-needed hug.
“It’s been too painful to talk about,” I murmur.
Truth.
“Why are you thinking about it now? Something happened, I can tell.”
How much to tell her? If Gray shows up on our doorstep tomorrow, she’ll know that we’ve reconnected and I won’t be able to keep the fact hidden that I now work for his company.
“If you can believe it, he owns the company I work for. How’s that for that spiteful karma bitch?” Or fate, I wonder. I laugh, but it’s bitter and threaded with anguish instead of humor.
Addy heads into the kitchen, returning with two large wine glasses filled to the brim. “Here,” she demands, holding one out to me.
“Thanks,” I mumble. I’d purposely not drank while I’d been sitting here, contemplating and reminiscing. My mood was already too dark. I felt like I was on the cusp of falling into a bottomless pit. Pulling me to the couch, we both sit.
“What are you going to do?” She studies me intently and I suddenly feel like a bug under a microscope.
“I don’t know.”
That’s the truth. When I first saw Gray walk into that conference room, I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to go to work on Monday. In fact, I intended to call Dundee’s the second I walked through my apartment door, begging for my job back. But on the way home, Gray pleaded with me not to quit. He made me promise. And I’ve broken so many promises to him already; I don’t know how I can stand to break another one. Me and my stupid mouth. I was never good at telling him no.
He knows me so very well. I never mentioned quitting, but he knew. He knew what my intentions were the second I stepped foot into his sleek black Bentley.
He reaches across console, turning my face to his. “You’re not quitting, Livvy.”
“Gray—” I protest.
“No, Livvy. I’ll pick you up myself on Monday morning if I have to, but you’re not quitting. HMT needs you.”
I laugh. “I just started. They don’t need me. I’m easily replaceable.”
He cups my cheeks and leans so close our breaths mingle. “Fine. I need you and you’re so wrong, Livia Kingsley. You’re unique. A one of a kind rarity and there’s no woman on the face of this earth that could possibly replace you.”
I melt as our lips touch. I groan into his soft, reverent, worshiping kiss, lost once again.
“Promise me you won’t quit,” he urges between pecks.
“Gray—”
“Promise, Livvy.” Our foreheads pressed together, his beseeching eyes find mine. I can’t deny him.
“Fine.”
The broad smile that spreads across his handsome, stubbly face sets my blood on fire. That time I initiate the kiss, unable to stop myself. We make out passionately
in the front seat of his expensive car for several minutes before we finally break apart and I convince him to take me home.
“You’re still in love with him. It’s written all over your goofy face, Livia. Now everything makes so much sense. Why you never date or bump uglies with any other guys. You’re still hung up on this one.”
I scoff. “Even if it’s true, it doesn’t matter, Addy. There’s too much water under the bridge for this to ever work.” And too many lies. Secrets.
Her eyes challenge mine over the top of her wine glass as she takes a drink. “You know what I think?”
“No, but I’m sure you can’t keep yourself from spouting your infinite wisdom, Abby,” I say, referring to her alter ego.
“True,” she laughs. Then her face turns serious and I know I’m in for a little Abby relationship advice. My best friend thinks she’s Dear Abby, and during these talks, I always revert to the nickname. “I think that sometimes people have a second chance to right their wrongs. I think that sometimes the past simply needs to remain there and if you spend your life looking in the rear view mirror, reliving your mistakes, you’ll never let yourself be happy. Look forward, Livia, not backward.”
My eyes prick. Sometimes she’s so profound and makes so much sense, I feel like she’s missed her calling. She should be counseling other fuck-ups like me, instead of teaching people to paint.
“I don’t know if I can do that, Addy,” I confess softly. “What if the past fuck-ups are so vast they simply can’t be overcome? Or forgiven?”
“Have you tried?” she challenges again. My very intuitive friend knows we’re talking about me now.
“No,” I reluctantly admit.
“Well then, there you have it. The most forgiving people in the world are the ones who love us unconditionally, Livia. You just have to give them a chance to do it.”
For some reason, although I still have so many secrets I’m hiding, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. Maybe there is a tiny glimmer of hope shining at the end of this very deep, very dark, and very lonely place that I’ve been hiding in for so long.
The question is, do I let that hope grow or do I snuff it out. Do I let Gray Colloway back into my life or do I cut him loose? Would he still want me if he knew the whole truth about where I’ve been and the new person those awful experiences have turned me into?
I wish I knew the right answer, but my fear is…it’s no.
Chapter 16
“Be a good girl, do as I say, and I won’t hurt you this time…much.” His hateful voice washes over me and sticks to me like a spider web that I can’t shake off. He’s the poisonous eight-legged insect waiting in the middle and I’m his prey. I’m helplessly caught and at his mercy. Except he doesn’t inject enough of his life-stealing venom to kill me all at once. Oh no. That would be too easy. Too kind. Too merciful. And he’s the furthest thing from merciful. He’s a sadistic bastard who delivers the toxin ever so slowly, breaking me piece by piece.
He commands me to remove my clothes, which I do. I quickly discovered it’s easier to obey, and denying him doesn’t change the outcome. It only makes it more painful.
“You’re getting fat,” he sneers.
Oh shit. There is no way I can hide the subtle changes to my body.
“And your tits look bigger,” he grits. Seconds later his face clouds over and I can tell he’s put two and two together. And by the volcanic fire swirling hotly in his eyes, I know I’m in big trouble.
“Are you fucking pregnant?” he screams loud enough for the whole house to hear. I shake my head in denial, but he knows. He knows I’m lying. He viciously grabs my arm, painfully digging his fingers into my sensitive flesh. “How the fuck are you pregnant?”
“It’s yours,” I gasp, trying unsuccessfully to free myself from his iron grip. As long as I live, I will never forget the cruel jeer on his face as he brutally shoves me up against the bedpost, the unforgiving maple digging painfully into my back.
“See, now I know you’re lying, little girl.”
It’s at this very moment I know my ruse is up. I know this baby is not his, and so does he.
“And do you know how I know?” he asks, deceptively quiet.
I shake my head, unable to speak.
“Because I’ve been firing blanks for over thirty years, you whore.”
I remember the swift punch to the gut that had me doubling over in an effort to catch my breath. I remember the backhand to my jaw, which felt like a wrecking ball had just connected with my head. But what I remember most were the repeated kicks to my stomach as I lay on the floor, helpless, trying unsuccessfully to protect the only thing in the world that mattered to me.
And as the beating continues and I eventually begin to blessedly fall into unconsciousness, I remember Peter’s orders to “take care of it and make sure she can’t get pregnant again.”
“Livia, Livia, baby. Oh my God.” Grant’s soft voice fades in and out. When I succumb again to the place where the pain can’t touch me, I know I’ll be okay. If anyone else had come, they might have finished me off, but I’d quickly come to find out Grant was my only protector here. He just couldn’t save me. No one could.
A single tear slides into my hair, and I angrily wipe it away. It’s early on Saturday morning, but I won’t be going back to sleep. I stare at my ceiling, trying to shake off the dream I just woke from. It’s a heart-shattering one that I can never seem to escape, no matter now long ago it’s been.
Lying quietly, I think of the profound loss I’d endured that day. I mourned the loss of my baby every single day, and although it seems like yesterday, it also seems like a lifetime ago, too. Sometimes it feels as if it was somebody else’s life and not my own, but the stabbing pain I feel quickly reminds me that’s not the case. I’ve accepted my fate because I have no choice. I just try not to remember it too often.
When Gray and I had sex without protection, I knew I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant, because I no longer could. Peter made sure to take care of that after he took the most precious thing I had away from me. I never understood why he would do that if he couldn’t have children, but of course, I didn’t have to. It was just one of the many sick and twisted things he did simply to show me he owned me.
And, as always, when I thought about that day, it made me incredibly angry and devastatingly sad. Of everything Peter could have taken away from me, the loss of my baby, and the ability to have any more, were the greatest ones.
The beating when Peter found out about the baby was the worst, and it took me months to recover. I’d be six feet under had Grant not saved me. At the time, I would have welcomed it. I begged Grant to just let me die, but he wouldn’t. He visited me every single day during my recovery and we became very close. It was six months after that incident before I saw Peter again.
As one of Peter’s right-hand men, Grant was a constant in my life for the three years I was with that monster. He was often the only thing that stood between me and certain death. He saved me, literally. Grant continually told me I was strong, and eventually he made me believe it, but I wouldn’t have been without him. My strength came from him.
But I never understood him, because underneath his rough exterior, which made him seem like he fitted in, Grant had a heart of gold, one he revealed only to me when we were alone. He was nothing like the monsters he played with, and the one time I dared ask him about it, he simply told me he had his reasons.
After Peter had died of a stroke, I had nothing. Peter and I may have been legally wed, but he used his great clout and vast resources to keep me, and our marriage, hidden from the public. Wouldn’t do well for people to find out he’d essentially bought me. Besides, if he kept me secreted away, he wouldn’t have to explain the physical injuries he regularly inflicted upon me.
Once Peter was gone, Grant got me out of that house of horrors and into this new life. He gave me enough money to make it through the first year. He helped me get back my maiden name on legal doc
uments, trying his best to erase my ugly past. I owe him my life. I owe him everything.
He’s the only other man I’ve ever been attracted to besides Gray, which is odd because Grant is the polar opposite of Gray. The only thing they have in common other than their striking hazel eyes is their height, both well over six feet. But where Gray’s dark hair is always kept short and neat, Grant’s black hair is long and unruly. He used to tie it on the back of his neck, which I always thought was sexy as hell.
Gray doesn’t have a stitch of ink on him, but Grant’s honed body is decorated with tats and piercings. Gray can rock a suit like no one I’ve seen, while I never saw Grant in anything other than well-worn jeans and tight, fitted t-shirts. Gray is the quintessential, sexy-as-hell successful businessman, and Grant is the quintessential drop-dead gorgeous bad boy. He drives a bike, wears a gun like it’s part of him, likes his beer ice cold.
I’m surprised to find myself missing him. I haven’t seen or heard from him since the day he dropped me off in Chicago a little more than two years ago. I touch my lips remembering the heated goodbye kiss he gave me and my stomach flutters a little.
I never wanted to be attracted to Grant, but God help me, I’m only human. We spent three years together and he saw me at my lowest and darkest times. He’s an amazing man, inside and out. He was the only reason I was able to physically make it through those dark days and memories of Gray were the only reason I made it through emotionally. But I know even if I could have been with Grant, he would never have had all of me, and that’s just not fair to any man.
That’s one of the main reasons I haven’t even considered starting another relationship. I meant the words that tumbled out of my mouth last night. I have always belonged to Gray. I always will. He owns me. He stole my heart eight years ago in Rocky’s Pizza and I’ll never get it back.
How I wish things could have been different for us. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. In the light of day I realize that even though Gray has my heart, and I apparently have his, a relationship between us could never work. Too much has happened. So I guess we’re both screwed. Doomed to live sad, lonely lives full of regrets and what-ifs and unfulfilled wishes.