"Have I mentioned Colt is as dumb as a bag of rocks?" She smiles and I let out a laugh I wasn't expecting. "He's always been good at the people stuff. The public figure, the athlete. No book smarts whatsoever. I filled out every form for him because he reads at a third-grade level. His entire personality is football and being an athlete. I passed his classes for him in high school, and he didn't go to college."
Wow. Who fucking knew.
"Over the past few years, I've had security systems installed throughout the house. Motion censored, recorded, uploaded to the cloud every night. I have footage of every time he's hurt me over the past five years." She picks up her Coke. "I needed the capital to leave and keep my business. I may have started it because he forced me to, but it's the only thing that truly belongs to me. He's taken everything else. Hell, even my parents."
"Your parents?"
She lays back on the floor and stares at the ceiling. "I've told them things he's done to me. They refuse to believe me. Or maybe they just want to protect their lifestyle; who knows. But I cut ties with them when I came here. Had Cammy change my number."
"Have you ever shown them the footage?"
"No. I've never even touched it. I just know it's there." She turns her head to look at me. "I need my settlement so I can live without his thumb pressing into everything I've built. The footage is the insurance policy. The moment I need it, I use it."
"Release it." I sit up straighter. "The money you're making from this contract alone is worth more than your settlement, and you said so yourself. Hell, I'll buy it from you and release it myself. Fuck Colt Monroe."
The anger moves through me fast, and I can't stop it. That man needs to be under a prison for what he's put her through. For what he took from her.
"What's holding you back?" I ask, seeing the hesitation in her features.
"It will be a shitstorm." She sighs.
Tears start to well in her eyes, and I move to lie next to her on the floor, leaning on my elbow, rubbing slow, gentle circles on her stomach. It feels intimate, but I need her to feel grounded and safe right now.
"You don't want to be seen as the victim," I say. It's not a question. I know that feeling from the inside — it's the same reason I don’t speak about what happened in that poolhouse. Surviving something doesn't mean you want to be defined by it.
Her tears start to fall; I pull her face into my chest and hold the back of her neck.
"You will be the reason another woman decides she can walk away," I say quietly. "Even when the whole world is against her. You will be the reason a life gets saved before the abuse puts her in the hospital. Whether it takes a year or ten, Blaire, you're fucking strong for walking away." I hold her tighter. "Put that fucker where he belongs. And you hold your head high when you do it."
"Can we do it Monday? I really just want to be here with you this weekend. Is that okay? Can I stay?"
She looks up at me, and I'm done for. I'm hers. Maybe I've always been hers and was just too buried under everything else to admit it.
I tuck her hair behind her ear.
Her eyes close briefly at the contact, like she's letting herself have it, just for a second, before she opens them and finds my face and goes very quiet.
"Bennet," she says softly.
It’s just my name. But the way she says it sounds like a door opening.
My thumb traces the line of her jaw, and she tilts into it, barely, like she doesn't mean to and can't stop herself, and I feel that small surrender in every part of me.
I lean down and press my lips to hers in the softest kiss I've ever given anyone. I let myself look at her the way I haven't allowed since I walked away from her ten years ago. I trace the pulse jumping in her neck, her jaw, the soft curve of her bottom lip.
"You're so fucking beautiful, Blaire."
"You taste like tacos," she whispers against my lips.
"You taste like heaven." I close the distance again, deeper this time, and feel her smile into the kiss before she lets it go and gives herself over to it completely.
Her fingers find my hair and pull me closer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BLAIRE
I'm suddenly aware of exactly where this moment is headed as Bennet's kiss gets progressively more intense, and my mind is reeling with all the wrong things.
