I wanted to bottle her up, keep her locked away, untouched by the world. Untouched by any man but me.
But suddenly, Elodie became…different. She started asking questions, flinching at my touch, saying no, and looking at me like she could survive without me.
That was when I knew; my innocent Elodie, my highland rose was…gone. I was devastated, angry. I felt betrayed. I wanted to rip the world apart with my bare hands, burn everything down.
But Juliette came. My first and only seed.
The moment I held her fragile frame in my arms, I saw it in her, the part of Elodie that I’d lost. It lingered in her pretty green eyes, in her silky hair that reminded me of summer flames, in her quiet, haunting beauty.
Juliette was a perfect reflection. A mirror of what once was. A second chance to preserve the innocence before it was lost.
I might have failed to protect Elodie, but I would shift the course of the universe to protect Juliette. I would tear apart those prison walls. I would slit the throat of any man who dared to stand in my way. I would crawl through fire and jump through hoops until I was reunited with my daughter again.
I would return for Juliette.
For she belonged where I belonged.
My little rosette.
1
BETH
My body was currency; something I offered in exchange for warmth, for attention…for anything as long as it resembled love.
PRESENT DAY, SCOTLAND
Mother said to not get too comfortable with boys. Because boys became men, and men were monsters.
But Mother wasn’t always right.
She once said, as long as the back door was locked, no felon could invade our home. But the worn-out wood gave way too easily when the neighbourhood burglar, Jasper Welsh, grew a sudden interest in the plasma TV Mother got because the old Sony Trinitron kept coughing up pixilated images.
She also said the world was safer in daylight, yet had her purse ripped from her shoulder by a biker on a bright Tuesday afternoon, last summer.
She was wrong more often than she liked to admit. Because not all men were monsters. At least Rowan McRae wasn’t.
I was a like a fabric worn too thin, threadbare from too much pulling, and unravelling at the barest of touch.
My body was currency, something I offered in exchange for warmth, for attention…for anything as long as it resembled love.
But, despite this truth, Rowan McRae embraced me, made me believe there was a universe where I was special, worth having…loving, perhaps.
I didn’t know if he loved me, though. But he protected me. And protection had always felt close enough to love for me.
Where other boys recoiled, Rowan had pulled me closer.
“The sex was good and all, but I don’t really like you like that, Beth.”
“You’re pretty, Beth. But let’s be honest, you’re…weird.”
“Get over it, Beth. It was just sex. I’m not that into you.”
These were my truth. Beth Fraser wasn’t really anybody’s type. She was just something to past time, the girl you’d walk up to when you needed a few moment of fuck.
But Rowan McRae came and painted over that pathetic, hideous picture.
In his arms, I was wanted.
