Rage simmers beneath my skin, but I force it down. I want to fucking murder the arsehole, but that’s not what she needs.
A tear slips down her cheek, but neither of us wipes it away. “I wanted to believe him, and he didn’t touch me again until after Tinsley was born. He spent the pregnancy doting on me, making me feel like a princess. I didn’t realise until it was too late that he used that time to isolate me from Quinn and my friends. Two months after we got home from the hospital, he forced himself on me again. He’s a man who doesn’t like to hear the word no.”
My thoughts drift to my old man, and things I saw that no kid should ever witness.
“When I tried to leave the first time, he said if I ever took Tinsley from him, he’d make sure I regretted it. I couldn’t risk him hurting her.”
Something cold coils in my chest, but I know she needs to tell her story, as difficult as it is for me to hear. The parallel between her and my mother gives me hope she’ll understand why I did what I did. The only difference in our stories is that she was strong and fought for herself and her daughter, whereas my mother gave up, choosing to follow her abuser into the afterlife instead of living for me and Tori.
“It got worse. More unpredictable. Every time Tinsley cried, I was terrified he’d take it out on me. I was terrified of getting pregnant again, but the heavy bleeding I experienced after Tinsley’s birth caused scar tissue to form on my uterus. It prevented me from falling pregnant, but that only made him angrier.” Her voice cracks. “I tried to hide the bruises and muffle my cries, but Everett wasn’t stupid. When his father wasn’t home, he begged me to leave. To take Tinsley and go. But I couldn’t. I know he thinks I was weak, but I had to protect my daughter, and I didn’t want Edward to take it out on his son.”
“Everett would never think you were weak,” I say, somehow keeping my voice level, despite wanting to scream and rant about how none of this was fair.
“He protected her. When she was old enough for her own room, he made sure I gave her the bedroom next to his, and he protected her. I’m so grateful to him for that.”
“How did you get out?”
She exhales slowly. “When Everett turned eighteen, he received his inheritance from his grandfather, and he hired a family lawyer without telling me. I didn’t know he’d been documenting things. Photos. Dates. Recordings when he could get them. He said if I wouldn’t protect myself, he would.”
A sudden surge of gratitude to my best mate floods through me. He did what he could to get her out of there.
“The lawyer helped us file for an intervention order first. Then urgent parenting orders.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “It wasn’t enough for criminal charges. There wasn’t proof of everything, but it was enough for the court to see risk.”
My jaw tightens. The system is fucked.
“After lengthy court proceedings, I was awarded sole parental responsibility of Tinsley, and he gets supervised visits every fortnight.”
“Has he tried to contact you?”
She shakes her head. “But that doesn’t stop him from trying to control me. He’s careful about being seen to do the right thing. He never misses his child support payments, and he pays for her school fees, with his only request being that she attends the private school in Beckford. How can I refuse that when I want her to get a good education? It will be the same with university, I’m sure. There’s no way he’ll let her leave town, and I can’t afford to send her somewhere else. He also won’t let me get a passport for her, so I can take her to visit my family in France. They’re small things, but he does it to feel power over us.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“That’s the law.”
With my hand that’s settled over the back of the couch, I brush her hair behind her ear and cup her cheek. “She’s lucky to have you. I hope you believe that.”
Closing her eyes, she smiles softly, nuzzling into my touch. “She’s what kept me going every time I was cowering in fear from his touch.”
Pain shoots through my chest. If only my mother could’ve felt the same, she’d still be here, not buried six feet under the dirt, lost forever in the darkness she was afraid of. Probably still haunted by the ghost of the man who drove her there.
When Juliet’s eyes finally open, they’re resigned and weary. “My life is complicated, Blake, and that won’t change for at least another thirteen years. I don’t blame you if it’s all too much and you want to walk away. You have your whole life ahead of you. You’re too young to be caught up in all my drama.”
Leaning forward, I crush my lips to hers, plunging my tongue into her mouth and kissing away the ridiculous notion that I don’t want every part of her messy life. Knowing all of this only makes me want her more. She’s a survivor, a fucking angel, and there’s no way I can walk away from her.
Which is why it’s going to hurt so much more when she walks away after hearing my story.
Chapter 22
Juliet
Blake doesn’t just kiss me, he claims me. The urgency of his lips against mine, the way his fingers tangle in my hair, his heart racing under my hand pressed against his chest, tells me everything I know. He isn’t walking away.
Despite knowing how messy and complicated my life is because of Edward, he’s choosing me. No, he’s choosing us. He knows Tinsley and me are a package deal, and he’s choosing to stay.
Or at least, I think he is.
When he finally pulls back to look at me, the pain in his tortured blue gaze is so raw and deep that it sucks all the oxygen out of the room. He shifts on the couch, putting distance between us, though it looks like it hurts him to do so.
