“Well, Violet is who I value most.”
“Then you wake up Brady, and I’ll go wake up my dad.”
By the time we hang up, I’m fully armed and dangerous, ready to detonate a bomb in the middle of this man’s campaign.
***
The calls start coming while we’re sitting in the emergency room waiting area, back to the hospital too soon for my taste. Violet’s barely said one word to me, just followed me silently as I checked her in.
This is where it all started—the connection that flared between us and utterly changed me from a guy whose dick twitched just watching her take pictures of the band, to the man who wanted to protect her after a stalker’s texts drained the blood from her face and put fear in her eyes.
She leaves me to sit in the waiting room as she gets her knee patched up and I duck into one of the offices to talk. Chief. Gus. Her father. Reporters.
Each conversation is like taking another bullet, but I’d gladly take these for Violet if it means protecting her and the last scraps of dignity she has. She’s being shredded like that first story, shamed for her nakedness and the kinky bindings, taunted for going to church one day and posing for porn the next, reviled for teaching sex ed to kids when she’s clearly a deviant.
But there’s one message I have through all of this. I love her. I fucking love that woman, and my heart could bleed every drop before it would give up beating for her. And as I repeat this fact over and over to anyone who will listen, I’m struck by the stupidest thing I’ve done so far in twenty-five years of living.
I haven’t told her.
Yet.
I stride out of the conference room with purpose, finding her talking with a discharge clerk near the front of the waiting area.
“Violet!” I sprint to her side, her mouth dropping open in surprise with the urgency in my voice. “I’m sorry, but this can’t wait,” I tell the nurse, and then I drop on my knees in front of her, clutching both of her hands to make her face me. “Violet, I love you. I love everything about you, every part of you, the good and bad, the light and dark. Everything I’ve done, even the screw-ups, were because I love you. And everything I am is here to protect you.”
She blinks, and twin streams fall down her cheeks.
“All this stuff that’s happening, even what’s about to happen, I can take it. I will gladly take all the hurt if it means I can take it from you. I know your heart, Violet, and I know what’s true and good about you. And I intend to spend the rest of my life proving it to the world.”
I’m panting with feeling, with this speech that somehow roared out of my throat, and I’m terrified she’ll turn away. But she doesn’t. By some goddamn miracle, she doesn’t turn away from me. She lifts me up, pulls me against her and buries her head in my chest.
CHAPTER 44: VIOLET
I have no words for Jayce, who treats me like I’m breakable, or maybe like I’ve already shattered.
He barely speaks to me after his declaration in the hospital. Maybe my reaction was less than he wanted, but I’m still processing everything: the stalker, Jayce’s betrayal, and the gossip article that ripped me to shreds.
Jayce takes me home—to his home—and feeds me. He holds me. And each time his phone rings, he excuses himself to his room and shuts the door between us.
He’s shutting me out of fixing this. And as I dress for the press conference, I know I can’t let him.
“Are you ready to go?” Jayce leans in the doorway of the bathroom as I dab concealer on the dark circles beneath my puffy eyes.
“Almost. But, Jayce, we have to talk.”
His expression slams closed and he crosses his arms. “I told you, Violet. I’m doing everything I can to protect you.”
I pull a brush through my hair, measuring my words. “You can’t fix this.”
“I can sure as hell try. I’ve got Gus and a PR guy working like crazy to figure out anything I can throw at Brady. Chief’s issued a statement to every site that’s run the story.”
I leave the brush and walk toward the doorway, standing as tall as I can to look straight into his eyes. “It’s not your fight, Justin.”
“It is. It has to be. I can’t let this happen to you.”
“Look at me. You didn’t let this happen to me. I did. I can take responsibility for being with Brady. Even when I knew better, I stayed with him because everyone wanted us to be together. Brady, my father, even the campaign planners. We made a great story.”
“And now you’re a horrible story.” Jayce’s eyes are pinched with worry. “They’re crucifying you right now, Violet. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
I cup his cheek in my hand, feeling the coarse stubble in my palm. “You didn’t hurt me. So stop owning this. You can’t rescue me.”
His jaw is set. “I can try.”
“Justin, I know you want to. That’s who you are—a protector. But if you shut me out of this, if you try to be my knight in shining armor, you’re taking away all of the power I have to fight this. I want to have my own sword, slay my own dragons, and cut down Brady and the stalker on my own terms. I’ll give you control, Justin, but not the power. I need that for myself.”
Jayce is silent, but gives me a slight nod. He understands me.
I walk out of the bathroom and track down my laptop, then open my email. “Let me show you something.”
Jayce hovers over my shoulder as I pull up the emails I forwarded to myself from Brady’s account. They’re more than enough to ruin him.
Jayce gives a low whistle. “How … how did you get these?”
“I hacked his email. Didn’t even hack it, really, just figured out the password.” After I take these to the police, Brady will be lucky to find a job slinging burgers and fries.
Jayce shakes his head and smiles. “Remind me not to make you mad.”
“Too late for that.”
“OK, then, remind me to quit trying to play knight. You stabbed the stalker who cut you, and now you’re gonna take down your ex with his own sleazy online pictures.” Jayce cups my face in his hands and plants a kiss on my lips. “You’re like the best kind of fairy tale, Violet. You’re the kickass princess.”
***
My father has flown in from Ithaca to make a statement with Katie in tow. In the few minutes between when his town car pulls up and when we have to take our places at the podium, I shut out everyone—Jayce and Chief and Katie—and force him to listen.
We huddle in a hallway out of their earshot.
“I know I’ve disappointed you,” I start, and I bite my lip, watching my father’s green eyes and the controlled set of his jaw for some gentleness or a sense that he’s on my side. “And I’m sorry for what this might do to your campaign. I didn’t do it to hurt you.”
“How could this happen?” His strained question is rhetorical. He’s talked to Jayce, heard precisely how Brady sent my photos to the revenge porn sites. He’s seen the pictures, a fact that horrifies me. He knows what the tabloids are saying. “I know I raised you better than this.”
“It doesn’t matter how you raised me.” I struggle to keep a scream from piercing my lungs. “You controlled everything about my life when I was a kid, but you can’t control what happens now. I’m an adult.”
My father takes a step back, as if he’s reassessing me. “Why, Violet? Why would you let Brady do that to you?”
I shake my head. “I never let him. He used me.” I touch his elbow, silently pleading with him to get past the photos and see who’s really guilty here. “I have absolute proof that Brady did it. Say what you need to say out there in this press conference. Make me the scapegoat if you have to for your campaign. But I’m not going to apologize for my choices.”
“Violet—”
I cut him off. “Even though you pushed me toward him, I chose to be with Brady. And I chose to leave him. Now I’m choosing to fight him and the stalker and the websites that post these pictures, whether you’re with me or not.”
; My father shakes his head. “I’m—”
“Senator Chase? Violet? It’s time.” Chief beckons us to the conference room.
Paparazzi and gossip bloggers stand side-by-side with reporters from the local news channels as my father steps up to the mic. Jayce ghosts to my side and squeezes my hand, and his quiet support begins to heal what he hurt when he told Kristina my secret.
My father clears his throat, and I wish I could plug my ears and sing at the top of my lungs to avoid hearing what’s going to come out of his mouth. That I’ve sinned, but we should forgive sinners. That I’m confused, or a victim, or that I should be pitied.
“I am proud of my daughter.”
My knees buckle at his words.
My father stands tall in his suit, staring intently at the sea of cameras assembled. “I am proud of my daughter, and who she chooses to love, in whatever way she chooses to love him.”
A whisper threads through the room as he continues. “I am proud that she’s a fighter, and that she fought off an attack by a stalker who pursued her for several weeks. He knew precisely where to find her because of pictures Brady Keller took and posted on the Internet, together with her name, phone number and address.”
More muttering. My father continues, “I am proud that Violet’s taken legal action against the despicable sites that shared those pictures. This is a crime, and a real problem called revenge porn, and I’ll stand by her as she sees it through.”
My father reaches for my hand and I send him an ocean of gratitude with my eyes. “No parent wants to see his child grow up, but becoming an adult means testing your boundaries, and sometimes making bad choices.”
Another whisper, and my heart plummets. I stare at my shoes, ashamed. Now comes the lecture. Will this become another speech about conservative values? And I’m the object lesson on what not to do?
“But Violet never chose this. It was taken by force, and shared with the intent to harm her. And that’s why I’ll fight—as a parent, as a state senator, and as a congressman if the people of my district choose—to create legislation that punishes both those who share revenge porn and the sites that host it.”
The surprised murmur in the crowd matches my racing heartbeat. A reporter rockets from his seat, hand waving. “Senator Chase, how does standing up for this reflect the family values of your campaign?”
“Family values?” His tone is hard, bordering on angry. “Family values aren’t just part of church and marriage. Family values are respect and fidelity and protecting the people you love. There is nothing in the world that could make me love my daughter less, and nothing that she can do that will make me fail to step up to protect her at every turn.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the flood of love from my father whose strict rules and conservative ways were always—always—meant to protect me.
“And I’m not just doing this for her. I’m doing it for your sisters and girlfriends and daughters. I stand for all of the young women who’ve been caught by some sleazy ex or hacker, only to have their faces and names dragged through the filth.”
***
After twenty minutes of questions, most handled deftly by my father, we climb into a black SUV to go to Jayce’s place. He’s in the seat by my father, talking in hushed tones. Katie and I huddle in the back, and thank God she threw the mother of all tantrums to come with Dad. I needed her today.
Jayce starts cooking while Katie oohs and ahhs over his apartment, then demands he take a selfie with her so she can show her friends, “or it didn’t happen.”
Dad sits with me on the terrace couch. “I blame myself for this,” he says, scrubbing his hands across his face and through his hair.
“How could you? It was my stupid, embarrassing mistake.”
“I trusted Brady. I trusted him to be part of my campaign, but worse, I trusted him with you.” He takes off his jacket and tie, unbuttons his shirt collar and rolls his sleeves. “I’m so sorry, Violet. And I’m sorriest of all that you didn’t feel like you could tell me.”
“It wouldn’t have helped,” I mumble. Now that the story of Jayce’s kinky girlfriend is out, my pictures will never be reined in. Gus will keep dogging the original sites that posted them, but it’s futile.
The Internet’s memory is infinite, and its tentacles are everywhere.
“Violet, it can always help to share the burden,” my father says. “The most important thing is that you know your family loves you no matter what. No. Matter. What.”
“Even if I do something stupid like this?”
“Especially if you do something like this,” he says with a smile, and I notice he dropped the word stupid. “You’re young. You get to test your own boundaries now that you’re an adult and you don’t fall under mine. And I’ll tell you a secret.”
I wait, watching a smile twitch on his face.
“I am very, very glad that social media didn’t exist when I was your age,” he says. “Because if it did, I can assure you, I wouldn’t have a future in politics.”
My mouth drops open in surprise and I giggle. His chest rumbles with a laugh and pretty soon we’re cracking each other up with the horrible hilarity of this situation.
“What’s so funny?” Jayce comes out on the terrace and hands my father a beer and me a martini.
Katie trails him with a glass of lemonade. “You’ve got to let us in on the joke.”
“Daddy just gave me the best ammo against your next broken curfew,” I tell Katie, and she grins wide.
“Don’t start with me.” He pulls his brows together in an attempt to look stern, but laughter still dances in his eyes. “I’ve already got one wild child, so Katie, you’d better not give me another.”
“Too late, Dad.” Katie winks at me. “Do you think now’s a good time to mention I have a new boyfriend?”
***
I kiss and hug Dad and Katie a million times before they leave to go home to Ithaca. Dad shakes Jayce’s hand, two strong men united. “Take good care of my daughter.”
“Always, sir.”
The door closes and he turns to me, indecision on his face. I wait a beat and then go to him, squeezing him around the middle so tight I might squeeze the breath out of him.
Jayce’s arms are around me instantly; he drops his chin and kisses my forehead, breathing into my hair. Soon his hand is tangling through the strands, combing through it the same way he first comforted me.
“Violet, I’m sorry. I told Kristina your secret and I had no right to. I did it because I wanted to take you with me to LA to protect you.”
I feel his heart pound against my chest, his wall of muscle curve around me to pull me close.
“I know. I know you, Justin. I know you did what you thought would help me. Thank you—” my voice breaks. “Thank you for fighting for me. For not giving up.”
Jayce chuckles and I look up at him. “Looks like you were pretty good at rescuing yourself. I did some checking while you were in the ER and you put that guy down. He’s going to be in the hospital for a couple more days before jail, and they don’t know if he’ll ever be able to see out of his eye again.”
I shudder. Even though Jayce didn’t rescue me from that guy, he rescued me from myself. In my bloodlust I might have stabbed him again, and again, and taken self-defense to the point of murder.
I never knew I had it in me.
“You told me I couldn’t keep you locked up in some tower like Rapunzel, and I get that, Violet. But now you’re free. There’s no stalker and no secrets hanging over you. You’re free to go and free to stay with me. But I want you to stay with me. If you’re willing.”
“I’m willing.” I reach behind his neck and pull his lips down on mine so he can’t mistake my meaning. This time, I take the lead, my tongue brushing his lips, then darting inside his mouth to taste him.
Beer and chocolate, the last of our dinner with Dad and Katie. And beneath what’s on his tongue, I taste him—musky, slightly salty, pure maleness that makes me ru
b my chest against his just to feel the hardened planes of his stomach and thighs.
Another thing hardens between us, but I’m not ready to give into the carnal pull of fantastic make-up sex just yet. “Remember that thing you said in the hospital?”
“What thing?” Jayce’s eyes are hooded with desire, and I confess I might be giving a bit more friction to a certain area. “About how I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving to the world your goodness?”
“Mmm, I like the rest-of-my-life part. But before that.”
Jayce’s hand drops to cup the curve of my rear. He hitches me up against him, my legs around his waist, and he walks us back toward the bedroom.
“The part where I told you I loved you?” His voice is husky as he lays me down on his bed and lifts my hands over my head, trapping them. “Because I do. I love you, Violet. And I’ll do everything I can to prove that to you.”
I thrill with this promise, thrill with the absolute certainty of his intent. The opposite of fear is love. I have no fear of Jayce, but even more, I have no fear of anything else. The secrets are out. The stalker is done. I can finally love this man freely.
And so I do.
CHAPTER 45: JAYCE
I have a decision to make, but first, it’s up to Dave.
Based on what he says, I’m in or I’m out.
The contracts are done—all but my signature. Viper Records is pestering the hell out of me to make it happen. I’m still not sure if Tyler’s in with me, but the contracts leave the door open, a guaranteed place for him if he comes with me.
If I leave and the band dissolves, he’ll be forced to choose sides. Me, his best friend, or Gavin and Dave? He sure as shit better choose me.
I pause at the door to Tyler’s loft, ready for the tough conversation that might mean Wednesday’s practice was my last one with Tattoo Thief, ever. I skipped yesterday’s for the press conference with Violet.
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