Charlotte had been right not to give the paramedics all of the details until Sullivan was already on his way to the ER. I’m not sure I would’ve let him live if he’d been anywhere near me when I finally heard everything that monster had done. Granted, she hadn’t been raped in the conventional sense, but she’d sure as hell been sexually assaulted.
The bastard had ripped her dress and undergarments, leaving bruises and scratches all over her, and at least one of those scratches had been inside her. Sullivan had backhanded her across one cheek and thrown his fist into the other, and the doctor had been genuinely surprised that her x-ray hadn’t revealed a crack in her skull, courtesy of the building’s brick exterior.
I promised to keep her safe, and look what happened...
Every time I thought about it, I saw red all over again, and I wanted to kick myself for letting her out of my sight, even for a moment. That fucker should never have been able to get that close to her. I still had a lot of questions about how she ended up outside with him in the first place, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her.
We were still at the hospital, and Charlotte was finally resting comfortably. She’d spent nearly an hour shaking and wincing as her body processed the last of the adrenaline. By some miracle, her CT scan had shown no signs of a concussion, so the doctor had given her something to take the edge off the pain and promised to send us home with a script for something stronger. Charlotte looked desperate for sleep, but she insisted on getting all of the reports filed tonight while everything was still fresh in her mind.
The cops had indeed followed us to the hospital and questioned us both at length, but they’d decided not to arrest me based on the physical evidence the hospital staff had collected. Sullivan wouldn’t get away with nothing but a slap on the hand and a restraining order this time. I’d see his ass in jail or find a way to put him in the fucking ground.
And Charlotte’s rape kit sure as fuck wouldn’t be one of thousands added to the state’s backlog. I was paying to have it sent to a private crime lab, along with whatever tissue samples the staff had pulled off Sullivan before he’d gone into surgery. Apparently, I’d broken his face enough to require a bit more than an ice pack. Serves the fucker right. My fists were a mess, but I didn’t care. The pain was worth it.
She was worth it.
I couldn’t stop staring at Charlotte, studying every inch of her as she lay quietly on the hospital bed with her eyes closed. I wasn’t sure if she was actually asleep or if closing her eyes merely offered her some small bit of escape and pain relief, but I kept quiet just in case. She had dark bruises blooming on both cheeks, and her lip had bled a little on one side. I knew she’d probably look and feel even worse tomorrow, and the thought made me shake with a fresh surge of anger and fear.
I could’ve lost her. I could’ve been too late… What if I’d chosen to wait for her in the lobby as we’d planned? What if I’d decided to spend more time searching the building for her instead of looking outside? What if I hadn’t heard her scream?
What if…?
Those two words were utterly terrifying. So many things could have happened differently. I’d seen the rage in Sullivan’s eyes and felt it in the one punch he’d been able to land before I knocked him on his ass. My face ached a little even now, and I hated knowing Sullivan had unleashed that strength on my angel. He very well could have killed her.
Fuck.
I was suddenly desperate to see her beautiful eyes, if only to reassure myself that they were truly going to open again. But I didn’t wake her. She deserved whatever peace she could find in the middle of this mess. I settled for wrapping an arm gently over her and feeling each breath she took, counting them and thanking God for every single one.
Sixty-two breaths later, the door opened, and the discharge nurse wheeled a rolling computer stand into the little exam room. She was an older woman with a compassionate smile, and she processed Charlotte’s paperwork quickly. I gently roused my angel so she could sign it and listen to the discharge instructions, and I was pleased to see that she looked a little better after the short nap. The painkillers were doing their job, and she wasn’t wincing with each movement anymore.
We were given a folder full of instructions and referral resources on our way out, and I rolled Charlotte to the exit in a wheelchair, pleased but nervous that she didn’t try to argue her ability to walk. Donovan had dropped my car off hours ago, and I eased her into the front seat as gently as possible. She gave me a weak smile and closed her eyes again before I’d even shut the door.
My phone buzzed in my pocket for the umpteenth time, and again, I ignored it. The only person I’d spoken to since we’d left the venue was Donovan, and I’d asked him to pass an update along to the rest of the family. My mother had been calling too, but I wasn’t about to touch that landmine. I didn’t have the restraint to deal with her foolishness or her apologies right now. She could wait.
I’d expected Charlotte to sleep on the way home, but to my surprise, she opened her eyes and was looking more alert by the time we made it to our apartment.
“I want a shower,” she announced as soon as we were through the front door. Her voice was still hoarse and muted, but it sounded better than it had a few hours ago.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
She’d been lucky—if you could call it that—to avoid needing stitches, so the doctor had given her the green light for showering. But I knew she was still tender in many places, and I followed her into the bathroom to help. I’d already seen the worst of the damage Sullivan had done, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch her undress again. My chest ached as we stepped into the enclosure together, and I fiddled with the shower settings to make the water pressure as gentle as possible for her. She was swaying on her feet a little beneath the jets of warm water, so I kept my arm around her rib cage to steady her.
“Ease up, Angel,” I said softly, watching Charlotte scrub at her body with more force than her injuries could really tolerate.
I coaxed the loofa from her hand and took up where she left off, though with a much gentler touch. She leaned against me, keeping her head down as I washed her. I felt her tremble in my arms, an echo of the adrenaline-fueled tremors that had plagued her earlier.
“Shhh… It’s okay, baby. It’s just us.”
The words seemed to break through the last barrier she’d been keeping around her emotions, almost as though she’d been waiting for my permission to release them. The sound of her anguished sobs broke me, and my eyes stung with tears of my own.
“I feel so dirty,” Charlotte confessed, still hiding her face against my chest. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to touch me after…”
“You should never doubt that. Ever. Nothing could change the way I feel about you. You’re not dirty or contaminated or broken… I know it feels that way right now, but I promise it won’t always be like this.”
“I don’t… feel like myself.”
“But you are. You’re my angel. The strongest woman I know and the love of my life. No one can ever change that or take that away,” I promised, rocking her gently. Charlotte nodded slightly and fell silent, and I hoped she was allowing my words to sink in. “Are you done in here? At least for now?”
I knew this wouldn’t be the last time she’d feel the need to scrub Sullivan’s touch from her skin, but what she needed now was rest. Peace. She sighed and nodded again, so I turned off the water and set about getting us both dry.
Aside from the occasional sniffle or hiccup, Charlotte remained silent as I applied some of the ointment the doctor had prescribed for the deep scratches on her thighs, and I watched her swallow her pain medication with a wince. Her eyes were still glassy with tears, and one spilled over her lashes every so often while I dressed her in one of my t-shirts and a pair of my drawstring shorts.
“Thank you for letting me take care of you,” I murmured, slowly working a brush through her wet hair. To my surprise, she let out a tiny huff of sardonic laughter.<
br />
“Isn’t that what you always do?”
“When you let me.”
“And I ‘let you’ quite a lot, I think.” She finally lifted her eyes to mine, and the love I saw there was shadowed by sadness. “You got me off the streets, helped me find a good job, helped take care of my mom… You’ve practically kept me bubble-wrapped for weeks just to keep me safe.”
“And yet, that bastard still hurt you. I didn’t keep you safe enough.”
“No. What happened is not your fault, Eli,” she frowned, turning her body to face me. The stubborn little crease in her forehead made my heart ache with love for her, and she seemed to anticipate my response before I could give it. “And I know it isn’t really mine either, but it was my fault he was able to get me alone. I was upset and went outside to clear my head. I wasn’t even thinking about him or the need to be cautious. It was just bad timing. He was patient. He waited weeks… months, really… for an opportunity like that. He was bound to find it eventually.”
“But why were you upset enough to go outside alone?” I asked, relieved to finally be able to voice the question out loud. I hadn’t wanted to push her, but she’d been the one to bring it up. Charlotte sighed and looked away from me, but I gently tilted her chin upward so I could see her expression. Her dark eyes were shimmering again. “What happened?”
“I was coming back from the bathroom, and… I overheard your mom and her friend talking about me.”
“Fuck,” I swore quietly. “Angel, what they said—”
“No, I… I heard enough to know that your mom wasn’t the one saying the worst of it, but… to hear her tell you that you deserve better…” She trailed off with a shuddering breath. “It’s the thought that always goes through my mind. You could do so much better than me, and everyone seems to know it but you.”
I couldn’t stop the surge of frustration I felt over the way she saw herself, but I knew she didn’t deserve my anger. I took a deep breath and kept my voice as calm and clear as possible, staring intently into her beautiful eyes.
“First of all, there is no one ‘better than you.’ Not for me, not ever. And no one will ever convince me otherwise. So, put that thought out of your head right now, Angel. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.
“Secondly… How much of that conversation did you hear? I know you didn’t stick around to hear me laying into the both of them, or you probably would’ve felt at least a little better afterward.”
“I left after your mom said… you know. I couldn’t go back to the ballroom without you all spotting me in the hallway, so that side exit was the only option. I couldn’t bear to look them in the face knowing what they really thought of me.”
“Then you missed the best part. I shamed them both for being hypocrites and cussed my own mother out in front of her bitchy friend. I’ve been wanting to do that for years.”
“But what that other woman said was much worse than anything I heard your mom say. Unless she got worse after I left.”
“No, you’re right. But still... Mom may not have been slinging the worst of it, but she didn’t stick up for us either. I won’t put up with that kind of nastiness from anyone, least of all my own mother,” I replied firmly. I was still struggling to keep my anger with Mom in check, but that was the last thing Charlotte needed to worry about that right now.
She sighed and leaned into me, apparently needing a moment to digest everything before she answered. I helped her into bed and tucked her in, leaving her side only to turn the lights off before I slipped beneath the blankets as well. She immediately gravitated toward me, settling into my embrace with a deep sigh.
“I did figure you were probably setting them straight, but I just didn’t want to hear anything else out of their mouths. Thank you for standing up for me,” she whispered. The soft moonlight through the open window glimmered slightly in her eyes.
“I wish I could’ve done more. I’m afraid I did give them more details about your life than you might have wanted anyone to know. About your mom and stuff. But the lies were so much uglier than the truth, and they needed to hear just how wrong they were about you.”
“It’s okay. I’m just sorry I overreacted. If I’d been stronger, waited a few more minutes… We could have left together and never have even known Brent was lurking around,” she sighed.
“You didn’t overreact, Angel. I don’t blame you for being upset over what you heard. Hell, I was just as upset on your behalf. I get it.”
“What are you going to do about your mom?”
“Right now, I don’t really care,” I admitted with a small shrug. “She can stew in her own mess, and maybe we’ll talk when she’s ready to apologize to you.”
“Don’t punish her for too long. She’s your mother. The only one you’re going to get. You never know when…” Charlotte trailed off with a note of deep sadness in her voice, and I knew what she was getting at. I hugged her a little closer and kissed her forehead, which was one of the only places on her face that wasn’t discolored and hurting.
“I know. I’ll try to remember that. But she has to understand that you will always be part of my life. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, and I never will again. You’re my forever,” I vowed. She gave me a teary smile that eased the pain lingering in my heart.
“That almost sounds like a proposal.”
“Not yet,” I grinned back. “When I propose, I’m damned well going to do it right. You deserve no less.”
She gave a small but very real laugh, and I felt a surge of relief at the beautiful sound. She was shaken from everything that had happened, but she was still my Charlotte. My angel. We would survive this and whatever else life threw at us.
“You’re my forever too,” she whispered, bringing her hand up to rest against my cheek. “I love you, Eli.”
“I love you too, Angel.”
Epilogue
Charlotte
The large, candlelit room spun slowly around us, and hundreds of eyes followed our progress around the dance floor. Louis Armstrong serenaded us with La Vie En Rose, and the intermingled scents of rich food and fresh flowers hung pleasantly in the air. But I was practically oblivious to all of it. Because the arms that held me so tenderly belonged to my husband. Eli’s perfect blue eyes shone down at me with so much love and happiness that my heart faltered at the sight of it. Of him.
It didn’t matter how many people had been vying for our attention all day. I just couldn’t stop looking at him. He was ridiculously sexy in his tux, and his heady, masculine scent kept washing over me and beckoning me closer, just as it had the first time I’d met him. I wanted to bathe myself in that scent. I wanted to peel him out of his clothing piece by piece and devour him until we smelled exactly the same. My eyes traced the clean lines of his tuxedo slowly up to his smirking face, and I blushed a little at the knowledge that my rather indecent thoughts were probably all too easy to decipher.
“You know, Mrs. Brighton, we can always leave early. Dinner’s been served, the cake’s been cut… You can chuck your bouquet at someone, and I can have you in the limo with that gorgeous dress over your head within ten minutes,” he proposed, grinning wolfishly. I couldn’t help but laugh, even as I felt my panties dampen at the mental image his words painted.
“We can’t leave yet. It’s not even nine. We’d never hear the end of it from your mother.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“And your sister? After all the help she gave us with the planning?”
“Hah. Kennedy didn’t even make it out of the building before her marriage was consummated. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Seriously?” I gave a horrified sort of laugh, not sure I wanted to ask just how he knew that.
“Yeah. They think they were really clever sneaking off to one of the lounges down the hall from the banquet room at their reception, but they were gone longer than they realized. I was the one who got sent to look for them.”
“So, y
ou caught them?”
“Sort of. I didn’t see anything, but I heard plenty. They don’t know that, though.”
“What did you do?”
“Covered for them,” he shrugged. “Like any good sibling would do. I say we call that favor in.” I giggled at the boyishly hopeful look on his face.
“Half an hour,” I suggested, leaning up to kiss him softly. “Your patience will be rewarded.”
Eli’s chest rumbled beneath my palm, and he brought his lips to mine again, kissing me with a heat that was probably a little too intense for the present audience. I kissed him back with equal fervor, unable to summon the will to hold back or even be concerned what our guests might think. This man was mine, and I was most certainly his. The world would damn well know it.
“Half an hour, and then I get to see what’s beneath this dress,” he asked, speaking low into my ear. I shuddered in anticipation.
“I promise.”
The sexy wedding lingerie I’d bought was just one of the things I was planning to reveal tonight. I’d been feeling a bit off over the last few weeks, dealing with a sensitive stomach and a fatigue that never seemed to go away. I’d chalked it up to wedding stress, but Kennedy had convinced me to take a pregnancy test yesterday. She’d held my hand through my initial shock as I’d stared wordlessly down at the little plus sign, and so far, she was the only one who knew.
It hadn’t taken long for the overwhelming joy to set in. While Eli and I certainly hadn’t planned to get pregnant so soon, I had no doubt he’d be as elated as I was. Waiting even one day to give him the news had been incredibly difficult, but I was determined to do it right. I wanted it to be just us when I told him. Not when we were surrounded by wedding guests and family members watching our every move.
As we danced through the next two songs, I managed to pull my eyes off my sexy husband and glance around the reception hall, instinctively searching for my mother’s table. She was in her wheelchair, as always, with a nurse stationed to her left. Mom was still unresponsive most of the time, but she had the occasional good day. Thankfully, today had been one of them. Not only had we gotten a smile out of her earlier, but she’d spoken a few words too.
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