by Skye Warren
“Do you know where Blake’s loyalty lies, Erin?”
She knew she was being baited. And yet she couldn’t help but respond. “Blake wouldn’t cheat on me, if that’s what you mean.”
“Maybe not. You’re young and pretty, and he’s…well, he’s not quite the man he was. Some injuries can never be repaired.”
Excuse me? Shit just got real. She may not have known the man Blake was, but she knew the man he was now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Blake is an amazing man. He’s honorable and brilliant and—”
“And fifteen years older than you. You aren’t fooling anyone, sweetheart. Definitely not him. He knows what he’s got in a pretty little co-ed with a crush on the professor.”
Erin gasped. She didn’t want this woman to mess with her head, but that was her fear. Not that she was using Blake, but that he’d think so. Not that she didn’t truly love him, but that he didn’t truly love her. No, she wouldn’t let Bel mess with her. “You’re obviously angry and bitter over something, but you don’t know me. And I’m thinking you don’t know him.”
“I know enough. I know he’s rejected everything we’ve ever stood for, including a life in politics, including our friends, including the kind of woman who would have been a good wife to him. Instead he’d picked you, in some kind of adolescent rebellion.”
“I will be a good wife.”
“And I know you came from trash. That’s all you’ll ever be.”
Blake
Blake didn’t look forward to spending time in this office, where he’d been lectured many times for some dumbass antic or another. He had quite a rap sheet at the prep school he’d gone to—ironic considering he was now a professor.
His father didn’t sit behind his desk. Instead he sat in one of the high-back leather armchairs by the fire, and Blake joined him there. Equals? Blake doubted that would ever be true. And maybe that was the way of fathers and sons, for one always to be the leader, even if the son had stopped following years ago.
“It must be serious,” his father remarked idly. “If it’s taking you this long to come out with it.”
Blake huffed a laugh without humor. “Serious, yes. I have a question to ask you, but I’m afraid I won’t like the answer.”
His father was silent, staring into a fire grate with no fire. Long minutes passed. “I know you thought I hated that you enlisted. And you’re right. I did.”
“Glad we cleared that up,” Blake said dryly.
“I was scared. Scared you’d never come home. And I was right, in a way. You never did come back to us.”
His throat was dry. “It wasn’t me you wanted. It was some other kid. One just like you.”
“Not just like me. I never had your courage.”
There was a finality to his words that made Blake’s gut clench. “I didn’t cut you out completely. I’m here now. And you’ll be invited to the wedding.”
“Even if you don’t like my answer to this question you’re going to ask?”
It was Blake’s turn to be silent, because he couldn’t make any promises. His loyalty was to Erin, and beyond that, it was to do the right thing. Any gratitude he had for his parents was like this house—old and creaking under the weight of the present.
“Dad, what happened with the intern in Washington?”
Silence. Stillness. His father had heard him, and understood him, every nuance of the question. He didn’t bother pretending not to know or asking which intern? There must have been a hundred interns over the course of his congressional career.
Blake gave him time to answer, because he’d rather have the truth. And he knew that for all that his father could spin a lie, in this room with just the two of them, he’d hear it.
His father spoke slowly. “How do you know about that?”
“Does it matter how I found out?”
“I suppose it doesn’t.” A slow shake of his head. “You were at university then, and coming home as rarely as possible. I thought you’d follow in my footsteps, but even then, you would hardly come to my office. You never met her.”
Suspicion turned dark. “Why would you remember that? Something so specific, about an intern meeting your son?”
“Because she wasn’t just an intern.”
Blake closed his eyes. “So it’s true.”
“It was wrong. I’m not defending myself. I’m just answering your question.”
“Did you hurt her?” he demanded. “Did you…” He couldn’t even say the word. “Did you force her?”
“What?” His father turned to him, a rare shocked expression on his lined face. “Christ, no. I would never force anyone, never hurt any woman. And definitely not her.”
“Jesus.” He supposed his father could lie to him, but Blake believed him. An affair with an intern was still bad, but not as terrible as forcing a woman. “Do you know what Erin’s thesis was about?”
A muscle ticked in his father’s jaw. “She’s the one who told you?”
“She didn’t tell me a damn thing. Probably because she knows it would hurt me.” Though there was a darker possibility—that she thought he wouldn’t believe her. “I had to request a copy of her thesis from a colleague. That’s how I found out.”
“I cared for that girl. A great deal.”
“That girl? How old was she?”
“Old enough. I think that’s a stone you can’t throw, considering who you brought home.”
“I wasn’t a senator. She wasn’t my intern.”
“You were her professor. And her employer. Give me some credit. You may not call and give me regular updates, but I care about what happens to my son.”
Blake’s stomach churned. Had he become his father after all? The worst parts of him, the part that would use a woman for sex. That would intimidate her. “What happened to her?”
“Your mother found out. She didn’t confront me, though. She waited until I was out of town and then confronted the girl. It was…a bad situation. I blame myself.”
“No shit,” Blake said, his voice hard.
“By the time I got back and realized what happened…” His father sighed, looking more tired than he’d ever been. “It was too late. Your mother had spread the rumor that she slept with me, and there went any chance of her having a career in Washington. The worst part is that I couldn’t refute it. No, that’s a lie. I could have tried. I didn’t stand up for her.”
Blake agreed but he was too sick over the whole thing to say so. In the end he understood the irony of him accusing his father of wrongdoing. Blake had fought his attraction to his young maid, knowing it was too improper, that she was too young and beautiful and good for him. And in the end he had given in to his desire—just like his father.
There were differences too. Blake wasn’t married. He hadn’t broken any vows to be with Erin. And when it came to defending her against anyone, he would fight a fucking army.
His father sighed. “Our marriage had its issues. I can’t even say it was the first time I strayed, but it was the only time that meant anything. Your mother somehow knew that. It changed her. She became more bitter. More angry. God, keeping the assault charge under wraps became a full-time job for a while.”
“The assault charge?”
My father looked grim. “Yes. That’s why she waited for me to leave. She didn’t just confront the girl. She slapped her. Pulled her hair so hard she bled.”
“Holy fuck.”
“I told her.” His eyes darkened with pain. “When I got back, I told her it was my fault. Mine. She couldn’t stop blaming the girl. And blaming every young woman who slept with an older man, as if it wasn’t my goddamn fault for touching her.”
Was that why his mother was so cold to Erin?
Was it why she walked in on them having sex this morning?
He had left Erin in the living room undefended. If his mother was determined to hurt Erin, this was the perfect opportunity. He needed to find her. Now.
Chapter Fifteen
>
Erin
Erin’s first date came in her junior year. Already she was a late bloomer. Her other friends had already been asked—but they also had time to hang out at the mall for hours and attend the football games. Erin worked between ten and fifteen hours a week with her mother. So when one of the cutest boys in school had not only noticed her, but asked her to a movie Saturday night, she’d spent fifteen dollars on a cute new top and wore her favorite jeans.
The night went perfectly. They laughed together, they held hands. She fell as quickly as it was possible to fall, then they drove out to the make-out point. She was still on board. She wanted him to kiss her, to touch her. She didn’t want to have sex.
“Come on, Erin,” he’d said, frustrated. “I paid for the movie and popcorn. And now you’re acting shy? All I want is to touch you. Are you a fucking tease?”
She’d been torn between shame and anger and a desperate wish for acceptance. So she’d let him pull off her new top and grope her breasts. She’d let him pull her face to his lap. He’d humped her mouth until he came, spurting across her tongue and her lips.
Ever since then she’d tried to live honestly, to say no when she really meant it, to only say yes when she wanted to. And definitely never to trade sex for safety, for influence, for money, letting herself be bought. She’d always wanted to have sex with Blake.
And she believed he’d always wanted her.
It was hard to remember that in the face of the Ice Queen calling her trash.
“You come from nothing. You are nothing. Scars or not, he could find a woman with a goddamn pedigree. So why would he want a young, pretty girl who knows no one?”
Her cheeks burned. Is that what had happened? Had she let him pay for a movie and popcorn—and then let him push her face to his lap? No, she didn’t believe that. “I don’t know why you’re trying to come between us, but it won’t work.”
“I’m not trying to come between you, I just want to be honest with you. Women like you, you get ideas about men like Blake. That they’ll marry you, that they’ll leave their families for you.” Bel stood up, looming over her. “But they won’t.”
Erin tried to stand, but Bel was blocking her with her body—and was surprisingly strong for her thin frame. The older woman clamped a hand on her wrist.
Erin was too shocked to fight her off. “Let go of me,” she whispered.
Bel twisted her fist, sending pain down Erin’s arm. “When push comes to shove, they don’t want you. They want me. Women like you are just good for a fuck.”
Erin wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was a grown woman, and she was strong, and she wouldn’t cower and let herself be hurt even if she would be rejected by the man she loved in the end. She yanked herself free, sending Bel sprawling on her knees. “I said let go of me,” she said with remarkable calm. “And don’t ever speak to me that way again.”
Blake appeared in the doorway. “What the hell did she say?”
As Erin looked from Bel on the floor to Blake and Jeb standing in the doorway, shocked, she couldn’t even speak. It was too awful. She was too much the outsider here. Too much like Bel had described. Young and pretty, only good for a fuck.
She started to leave, pushing past Blake.
He caught her wrist, and she winced, cradling her arm close.
His eyes widened. “Did she hurt you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice too wobbly to be believed. “I just want to go. I need to… I need to leave. Don’t worry about me.”
“How dare you.” He practically roared at his mother. “How dare you put your hands on her. How dare you even speak to her.”
His mother didn’t stand up, barely even looked up. Wouldn’t meet his eyes. “She’s a little tramp, Blake. Everyone can see it. It’s embarrassing, you bringing her here.”
“She doesn’t exist to you. Not anymore. And neither do I.” Blake turned to her, his expression like stone. “Go upstairs and pack. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
He was going to continue defending her, and judging by the dark look in his eyes, it was going to be awful. Awful enough to ruin any chance of reconciliation between him and his parents. Even if he didn’t mind that thought now, he might eventually. She wouldn’t be responsible for that. She couldn’t.
“Please,” she begged. “Come with me. Take me away from here.”
Jeb stepped forward, his eyes somber. “Take care of her. She’s the most important. Your mother and I will have words. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
Blake looked torn. He gently pushed a piece of hair out of Erin’s eyes. “She can’t treat you that way. We should call the cops. Press charges.”
“I didn’t let her,” Erin said. Her voice grew stronger. “I stood up for myself, but now I just want to leave. There’s nothing for me here. The cops can’t help me now.”
He took her in his arms, careful as if he knew she might be sore. And she was, though more in her heart, than from anywhere his mother had touched. “My beautiful, brave girl. Let’s go. Let’s get you out of here.”
Blake
Blake drove without any idea where he was going.
Their original plan had been to spend one more night at his parents’ house. Then they’d head to Erin’s mother’s house in the morning. Instead they’d hastily packed their bags and tossed them in the trunk. It was nine o’clock at night, and he was barreling down the highway without a plan.
It occurred to him that he might not be in a good frame of mind to drive. He saw the road, but it was mostly a blur. A dark blur. Well, he wasn’t about to ask Erin to drive—not after she’d been berated and insulted. Not after she’d been fucking assaulted.
God, he still couldn’t believe his mother had gone that far.
It was despicable. It was unforgivable. It was a wonder Erin had even gotten in a car with him after what he’d subjected her to, but then again, it had been the fastest way out of that house. Had he lost her now? Had he really managed to fuck up the best thing in his life with one small, final act of loyalty to a family that didn’t deserve it? He should never have brought her for a visit.
He found himself pulling off on a familiar exit. He’d driven this way so many times that it felt like second nature, even though it had been years now. The manicured plots and bright storefronts quickly gave way to a dark, tree-lined road. It might even be spooky if he didn’t know how cheery the dappled black concrete and yellow stripes looked in the daylight.
He had no idea what Erin thought about this turn of events. She hadn’t spoken much since they’d left, just a few nods and murmurs when required.
“Away,” had been her answer, when he’d asked her where she wanted to go.
He didn’t like the idea of driving to Sofia’s house tonight. For one thing, it would take a few hours, so they’d be exhausted by then. For another, Sofia wasn’t expecting them, so it might inconvenience her. And lastly, he didn’t want to force Erin to confront her mother when she seemed somehow fragile. He knew they were close—definitely nothing like his relationship with his parents—but this particular issue hit a little close to home.
And so, he found himself heading toward Lover’s Point, a plateau with a great view of the city. By day it was visited by hikers along a five-mile trail. By night it served as the premier make-out spot.
He had no plans to make out with her. Even though she’d never been more beautiful, more desirable to him, she also seemed somehow untouchable. Ephemeral in the moonlight coming through the window, her skin pale and eyes fathomless.
Plus he couldn’t trust himself to be gentle right now.
Not with his rage so close to the surface. Still, it would be a quiet place they could sit and talk. If Erin would even talk to him.
The car bumped along the dirt path—well traveled by high schoolers, including himself, but still plenty uneven after every rain. All the cars, all the years, couldn’t smooth out a land this ancient. When he reached the grassy clearing, he
stopped the car.
The city stretched out in front of them, a blanket of lights to a city already abed.
“It’s beautiful,” Erin said, her voice soft.
He couldn’t even look directly at her, because she made his chest tight and his face tight and his body tight. All he could do was look out at the city. “Yes.”
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
She was thanking him? No, he needed to be on his fucking knees, thanking her for being with him, for staying with him, thanking her for fucking existing—because she was his light. Not a single one in that city shone for him. Only the woman sitting next to him lit up a damn thing.
“Baby,” he said. “We need to talk about what happened.”
“Do we?” She sounded sad, almost lost.
“We do, because you need to know that it was not okay, that I don’t support what happened in any way, that I wish to hell I’d gotten back to you a few minutes sooner so I could have put a stop to it myself.”
“I know.”
“I would never allow her to disrespect you in my presence, and I’m sick over the fact that I did allow it, by not realizing it would happen, by not being there for you.”
She put her hand on his. “Blake, I know.”
He pulled himself together enough to realize she’d had to repeat herself. He turned his hand over to hold hers. “How can you be okay with this?”
“I’m not okay with what happened. But it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have predicted she’d act like that. And once you realized, you got me out of there.”
He studied her arm, looking for any signs of bruising. It was too shadowy in the car to see. “Where did she hurt you?” When she seemed reluctant to answer, he added, “I need to know.”
“She grabbed my wrist, that’s all.”
“That’s all? That’s a big fucking deal.”
“I didn’t mean to…okay, yeah, I meant to downplay it. I just meant I’m fine. It will be tender for a little while. No medical intervention required.”
He still didn’t like how casual she was being about being manhandled, but he recognized she wanted to drop the subject. And short of taking her to an emergency room, which would be more traumatic for her, there wasn’t anything else he could do.