by Lori Foster
“That’s where you’re wrong. It matters a lot now that I’m going into the SBC.”
“Why does the SBC change anything?”
“Because I’m in the limelight and certain people are likely to notice.”
That didn’t make any sense to Merissa. “Who will notice? And why will they care?” This was why he’d always avoided advancing? Because he didn’t want to be recognized?
Armie continued to watch her, his expression intent and somehow fatalistic, as if he thought she might begin to hate him at any minute.
She pushed back her chair and stood. “Tell me what happened so I can prove you’re wrong.”
He stood, too, although more slowly. His jaw worked; his face tightened. Merissa wanted to go to him, hold him and assure him that no matter the problem, it didn’t matter, not to her. But he looked so deliberately remote, she wasn’t sure if he’d welcome her touch or reject her.
“I was accused of rape.”
That stark admission was so ugly, so unreal, it landed between them like a thunderclap. Merissa took an involuntary step back. Almost immediately she surged forward again. “That’s insane!” She grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “Who accused you?”
Surprise flickered over his features, then settled into a curious, cautious frown. “Does it matter who?”
“Of course it does, because she’s a liar!” She leaned into him, eye to eye. “Who?”
Looking very uncertain, he scratched his neck. “You’re sure she’s lying?”
“Don’t be stupid.” She gave him a push that didn’t budge him at all. “You’re no more a rapist than I am.”
His lips twitched, not so much with a smile as with relief. And maybe some confusion, as if her reaction had thrown him. “No, I’m not.”
“Give me a name.”
With a halfhearted shrug, he said, “Lea Baley. But you wouldn’t know her since she’s a few years older than me.”
“So why did she accuse you?”
He made a face. “Sorry, Stretch, but she’s never really shared her reasons with me.”
This time Merissa poked him, both for the nickname and for not giving a straight answer. “You have a guess. What happened?”
Frowning, he rubbed his pec. “That hurt.”
Baloney. His chest felt like granite.
Merissa guessed, “You broke things off with her and she had a hissy?” When his eyes flared a little, she said, “That’s it, isn’t it? You being the man-whore that you are, you’re never content with one girl and that particular girl didn’t want to share so she spread those lies to…what? Get even with you?”
“I’m not a man-whore.”
“Oh please.” How Armie could deny that with a straight face, she didn’t know. “Total man-whore. But so what? You’re an adult and if you want to sow enough wild oats for a battalion, it’s your own business.”
“I—”
“But at eighteen, well, how many oats could you have sown?” She couldn’t ever remember Armie not being sexual. By the time she was old enough to really take notice of him, he’d already been experienced, or at least it had seemed so to her. Girls chased him, same as they did her brother. She’d grown up with that as a fact of life.
“You were so popular—of course you didn’t want to get tied down.”
“I—”
“It’s ridiculous.” She hadn’t known the details of his experience, only that he always seemed to be with a different girl and that the way he looked at that girl had been noticeably aware, with the full force of his hungry, blatantly sexual attention.
As he’d grown and matured, his nature had ripened. How he smiled at, listened to and focused on women made them hot and needy and ever-so-willing. She knew, because even when he wasn’t trying to seduce her, he managed to anyway.
But when he’d been eighteen—surely no one had expected him to get into a serious relationship at such a young age. Or at least, no one should have.
“Yes, you’re out there,” she said, because no one could deny his pleasure-seeking lifestyle. “Sometimes way out there from what I’ve heard. I mean, two or three women at a time? Outrageous. But force?” She made a rude sound.
“You saw the ties on my bed.”
“Yeah, and we’ve all seen the women ask you to…do things to them.” Merissa tried to ignore the heat in her face. “Geez, I imagine you have a hundred women who could be character witnesses. Lea should have known—”
Armie kissed her, fast and firm, putting a halt to her rant. It dazed her, that warm press of his lips to hers. When she got her eyes opened again, she saw him grinning.
“You—”
Before she could get too annoyed by his humor, he pulled her in close and laughed.
His body was warm, solid, and his scent surrounded her. Giving in, Rissy savored the moment. “Ridiculous,” she couldn’t resist grumbling one last time.
“Thank you.” He held her back the length of those long muscular arms. “For knowing better.”
Did he really think anyone who knew him would believe the lies? “You’re welcome.” Because it was so nice, she moved back against him again—and Armie let her. “So what happened after you broke Lea’s heart?”
His hands opened on her, one on her nape under the fall of her hair, the other low on her spine. “Lea’s heart was never involved. She was a nice, sweet girl, who, as she put it, wanted to take a walk on the wild side before she headed back to college at the end of the summer break.”
“Having you qualified?”
“Given her pampered life and the rich boys she was usually around, I guess I did. At first I wasn’t on board. I didn’t want to be some princess’s trophy, you know? But she tracked me down everywhere I went, constantly flirting, damn near throwing it at me, until one night at a party I finally gave in.”
Merissa tilted back to eye him suspiciously. “Is she homely or something?”
He snorted. “No. Or at least, she wasn’t then. I haven’t seen her since.”
“So you were resistant only because you didn’t like her motives? Hate to say it, Armie, but that doesn’t sound like you.”
“I know.” Armie absently smoothed her hair while thinking about it. “Lea was one of those rich girls, and I couldn’t figure out why she was after me. She always had a gaggle of her goofy girlfriends with her and they’d watch her approach, egg her on and then giggle about it. Like it was a joke maybe. Back then, the thought that she was slumming spooked me a little.”
Slumming? How sad that he would think that.
“I wish I’d stuck with my instincts because I no sooner banged her than she became a superstalker and I couldn’t shake her.”
“Guess she liked slumming.”
He gave her an absent smile. “A quickie in the upstairs of a friend’s house during a crowded party wasn’t all that memorable, believe me. But she started claiming she was in love with me and trying to buy me stuff. Like she offered me a car. How crazy is that?”
“A little crazy,” Merissa admitted.
“I got these anonymous naked pics, some of them pretty raunchy. They didn’t show a face but I knew they were from her.”
“Because any other girl would have claimed them?”
“Right. How else could I show my appreciation?” He shook his head. “She stuck one under the wiper on my car, mailed a few to my house, even managed to stick one in my locker at work.”
“Wow.” Very stalkerish.
“Finally I just flat out told her I wasn’t interested. I gave her the whole bit about it was me, not her, and that she was super sweet and all, but Cannon and I were both interested in MMA and anything serious with a girl just didn’t factor in.”
“Clearly your rejection didn’t go over too well.”
“A few weeks later the accusations started. It blindsided me. I didn’t hear them from her. It was her old man who confronted me, and he was nothing like his daughter.”
When Armie went quiet, Merissa crowded in cl
oser in silent support. For a full minute, he just held her, and she waited, not about to press him.
Finally, he said, “Mr. Baley showed up at our house with a couple of cops. He…”
Merissa stroked his chest, pressed a quick kiss to his neck.
Like steel bands, Armie’s arms tightened around her. “I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but Baley was quick to tell me. He said I’d raped his daughter and left her devastated. But the real kicker was that Dad didn’t back me up. He was just coming off a bender, and I swear he was…I dunno, gleeful to see me under attack. He told them I was a violent punk and said I was out of control, that I’d attacked him.”
Oh my God. Heartbroken for him, Merissa pushed back to see his face. “Armie, no.”
“Yeah. And it was a partial truth, I guess.” He shifted, seeming uncomfortable in his own skin. “You know my mom took off when I was fourteen, right?”
“I knew she was gone, but I don’t recall any details.” She’d been a kid back then, very uninvolved with her brother’s friends.
“The details suck. Basically she just decided she’d had enough of Dad drinking and cheating, so she booked. Left me with him and never looked back.”
Merissa couldn’t imagine such a thing. What a devastating blow that had to have been to a teenage boy.
“I guess Dad hated being alone because over the years he moved in one woman after another. Maybe a dozen or more.”
He hadn’t been alone, Merissa wanted to say. He’d had a son.
“The last woman,” Armie explained, “stuck around longer than the others, which didn’t make sense because Dad didn’t even seem to like her most of the time. They argued constantly and when he drank, he’d get too rough with her. One night he backhanded her and busted her lip. She crashed up against the wall, knocked over a lamp, then cut her foot on the glass.” He shook his head. “Dad was enraged, standing over her and shaking his fist, threatening to throw her out while she sobbed that she didn’t have anywhere to go.” Armie’s hands gently tangled in her hair. “I usually ignored him when he got that way, but this time it bothered me and I stupidly got between them. I told him he wouldn’t touch her again.”
That didn’t surprise her. Armie wasn’t the type to see any woman bullied. Stroking a hand down his back, she asked, “How did he react?”
“He slugged me, we tussled and I pinned him down on the couch. I never hit him, but I didn’t let him go, either, not until he’d stopped raging. His lady friend was frantically cleaning up the mess and telling Dad it was okay, that she was fine, and begging him to calm down. And finally he did.” Armie laughed, a humorless sound of remorse, and stepped away from her. “She should have been pissed. She should have left him. Instead, she got him another drink and apologized. Made no fucking sense to me.”
Merissa whispered, “You did the right thing.”
“Apparently she didn’t mind the rough handling as much as I’d assumed, because when my dad bad-mouthed me to the cops, she chimed in, too. The way they told it, I had anger issues and they both acted like me forcing a girl wasn’t that far-fetched.”
Merissa hurt for him. She remembered her dad being very much like Cannon; a caregiver, a protector, always there whenever she needed him. He’d made her laugh when she was sad, encouraged her when she felt like giving up and loved her without restriction. Never, ever, had he laid a hand on her in anger.
Even after her father’s death, her mother and Cannon had given her everything she ever needed. There hadn’t been a single day where she’d ever felt unloved. She couldn’t imagine her own parent turning against her the way Armie’s father had turned on him. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged that off. “I haven’t seen either of them since that day.”
So he’d lost first his mother, and then four years later, his father, too. Her heart tried to break, but Armie didn’t need her to be wimpy. He needed her strength—and her understanding. “Good for you.”
“I’d just finished school and I had a job, so as soon as the cops left, I gathered up my shit and walked out.”
And went where? She recalled him spending a week or so at their house. But that was shortly after her father’s death and she’d been grieving, paying less attention to her brother’s hunky friends.
“I had no idea if I should get a lawyer, or how I’d even do that on minimum-wage pay.” As he talked, Armie began to gather up the dishes, so she helped.
“Did you get arrested?”
“That’s what Mr. Baley wanted.” Armie stacked plates in the dishwasher with the ease of long practice. “He was shouting that his daughter had been abused, calling me a savage and saying I should be locked away so I didn’t hurt any other girl.”
Merissa tried to find some understanding for the father, knowing he’d only heard one side of a story. But the image of Armie so young, hurt but proud, made it impossible.
“Didn’t work out quite the way Baley wanted, though, because the officers, a guy and a woman, said they had to investigate the concern before they started arresting anyone.” His posture defensive, face averted, Armie paced away to wipe off the table. “Unfortunately, that meant talking to everyone who’d been at that party, which included most of my friends. I’d walk by and people would stare, then whisper.”
“They’re idiots. If they knew you then they should have known better.”
“They probably did—at first. But you know how it is with nasty rumors.”
“They spread like wildfire,” she acknowledged, cringing for him.
“That damn story circulated so many times, hell, I almost started to believe it.” He came back to the sink, braced his hands along the counter and stared out the window. “Overnight, everything changed. I don’t mind admitting, I was pretty scared. It was my word against Lea’s, and her father seemed not only influential, but hell-bent on seeing me crucified.”
Even though it was in the past, it crushed Merissa to hear what he’d gone through—so how must it have been for him to live it, and forever remember it?
“My options seemed hopeless…” Armie turned his head toward her. “Then your brother stepped in. He worked a few miracles…and gave me the advantage.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOUNDED LIKE HER superhero brother. “Cannon to the rescue?”
“Pretty much.” A slight smile chased the grim memories from Armie’s eyes. “I figured it was going to come down to my word against hers, and with her daddy’s money, I wouldn’t stand a chance. But Cannon had other ideas. The night Lea’s dad claimed I raped her, the party was at this nice house with security cameras at each door. Cannon was friends with the family, so they didn’t mind giving him the different video feeds.”
“The police hadn’t asked for them?”
“They probably didn’t know about them.” He shrugged. “I didn’t. The cameras were hidden, and since there weren’t any in the rooms where she claimed I raped her, the home owners might not have thought about it, either.”
“But Cannon did.”
“Yeah, and good thing. See, there was one in particular from the front porch that showed Lea kissing me goodbye, grabbing for my junk, riding my leg and basically hanging on me until I finally had to pry her away.”
Merissa felt like her eyes might fall out. “Wow.” She cleared her throat. “And that would have been after you’d supposedly forced her?”
“Yeah. It was pretty clear that I was trying to get away and she was doing what she could to get me to stay.” Armie’s gaze held her. “After I drove off, she was twirling in the yard, all happy and shit.”
Picturing that, Merissa almost felt sorry for the foolish girl—except that she’d put Armie through hell. “That sounds like powerful evidence.”
“Embarrassing, too, especially for her.” Next to Merissa, he leaned on the counter, his arms folded over his chest. “Cannon and I talked about it and decided it’d be best to see Mr. Baley before we took that video to the cops.”
So even
then, he’d been a gentleman. “Amazing.”
“Don’t saint me, Stretch. I knew if we took it to the cops it might’ve prolonged things while they sorted it out. So we took it to Baley. I wanted to go alone, but you know your brother.”
“Yes, I do.” And she could guess his argument. “You were already under the microscope. Cannon didn’t want anyone to be able to pin more trouble to you.”
Armie nodded. “So I stood back while Cannon showed the video to Lea’s father. The man almost blew a gasket, threatening us both, lunging for Cannon, getting in his face.”
Merissa didn’t know Baley, but she’d still put her money on Cannon. At eighteen, her brother had been incredibly fast, strong and capable.
“I couldn’t stay apart from that. But Cannon was right—I didn’t want assault charges on my back, too. So I told Baley I was calling the cops.” Armie drew a breath. “That, and the fact that Cannon didn’t back down, that he didn’t even flinch, forced Baley to calm down.”
“I almost wish Cannon could have hit him a few times.”
Armie gave a rusty laugh. “Yeah, me, too. But Cannon kept his cool. He told Baley he could round up more evidence from cell phones, that he could find a dozen of our friends to explain how Lea had chased me. How she’d chased me even after the supposed rape. Put that way, Baley had no choice but to let it go.”
“To spare his precious daughter’s rep?”
“And his own, I assume. But he was still furious, claiming I’d somehow drawn in his baby girl, that I was the one who’d corrupted her. He gave me a choice—fade away so there’d never be any chance of Lea seeing or hearing my name again, or he’d destroy me. He made it clear that he had enough money to do it, that not only could he buy witnesses and judges alike, he’d drop enough cash on my own father to get him to testify to whatever he wanted. He said regardless of any truths, the entire world would believe what he wanted them to believe if I didn’t keep a very low profile.”