“I have a date. And an early morning tomorrow at the studio.”
She waved me off. “Go on. Have fun with Dan the mystery man.” She shot me a small smile.
I had my hand on the doorknob when she called my name. I turned.
She had her arms crossed and looked utterly miserable. “I’m glad you’re here still. Thank you, I mean …” She dropped her arms to her sides. “For staying. I look forward to meeting him, your … new man.”
I drew myself up, and allowed the words to fly out of my mouth without thinking first. “Well, I guess you should know that the only reason I did stay is because of Daniel.”
She frowned before letting her face go neutral. “Whatever it takes, I suppose.”
She and I glared at each other, the years and years of unspoken, suffocated emotion between us like a thick, impenetrable fog.
“Bye,” I said, waltzing out and slamming the door in direct contradiction of long-standing family rules.
The tears came later, when I ran into Dan’s house and threw myself at him, cursing a blue streak.
The official Sunday dinner-slash-meet the boyfriend was a strained affair. Daniel was one of those guys who never met a stranger, but I got the feeling that his zeal in trying to make my parents approve of him was not going over well at all. It infuriated me because I knew they were bound and determined not to like him, no matter what he said or did.
“So,” my mother said, once we’d finally made it to coffee and apple pie. “An investor, are you, Dan?”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, smiling. But I could tell he was fraying around the edges. My mother will do that to you, I’d warned him. He’d been gripping my hand under the table so hard my knuckles ached.
“Hmm,” she said, taking another tiny bite of pie, then putting her fork down.
That sort of ended the meal on a note symbolizing the whole event. Daddy had said little, but shook Daniel’s hand as we left, gave me a hug, then headed outdoors, even though the snow was starting to fall and the temps had dropped.
We didn’t say much on the thirty-minute ride to his house. He kept a death grip on the wheel. When I touched his thigh and let my fingers travel up the inseam of his dress trousers, he grunted. “Not now, Angelique.”
I withdrew, willing to let him get past the whole thing on his own. When he wanted to be left alone, it was best to do that, I’d learned.
He helped me out of the Mercedes then unlocked and opened the front door for me. As I was taking the second or maybe third step into the Italian-tiled, cathedral-ceilinged foyer, something shoved me from behind. I stumbled, surprised, but not really worried. Until the “something” hit me across the face, pressed me up against the wall and ripped off my skirt and panties.
“Hey, damn it,” I said, but my voice was small. We’d been heading in this direction for a few weeks now. “I’m not really in the mood, Daniel.”
He backhanded me before I could get out another word. I screamed, shocked and now legitimately afraid of the looming presence of my usually solicitous, if a little overbearing, boyfriend, the man I’d allowed myself to entertain actual wedding fantasies about.
He had a grip on my arm and was unbuckling his belt with the other hand. I tasted blood and fear and my first tickle of anger.
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” I squirmed and tried to shake off the vise-grip of his fingers. “Jesus. Calm down, already.”
“Shut up, bitch,” he said, grabbing my leg and yanking it up before shoving into me hard, before anything resembling the usual amount of preparation. It hurt. Bad.
But this was my boyfriend, after all. And he was usually such a sweetheart, always buying me stuff. We’d gone car test-driving the day before, and he was leaning toward a BMW convertible, he’d said with his adorable grin.
All of these things ran through my brain while he rutted and grunted and fucked me as if I was no more than a prostitute … no, a sex doll. When he ripped my shirt and bra, then squashed one of my breasts in one hand while he kept hammering me up against the wall so hard my lower back hurt, I protested, hoping he’d gotten this thing out of his system and we could start over, square one, mutually pleased by the sex as usual.
The shock and pain of the next blow to my cheek forced the tears I’d been holding back to run down my face. He kept thrusting, wrenching my nipple, his neck pressed against my face while I counted down from a hundred, willing him to finish.
He did, of course, and pulled out of me so fast he was still coming. I dropped to the cold tile floor, in shock and pain from my face and nose and nipple to the harshest pain between my legs. I felt ripped, shredded, and pissed off, but too scared at that moment to act on it. Sniveling, I let my legs sprawl out in front of me while I tried to pull the tattered edges of my shirt together.
He stood there, breathing heavily, the smell of his spunk filling my nose, while I sobbed, unable to make myself stop. When he touched my shoulder, I spit out a curse and crawled away until I hit the bottom step, then pulled myself up.
“Oh, God, oh, honey I’m sorry, baby, Angel, my sweet Angel.” His deep voice hit me hard. I turned, my shock expanding to epic proportions at the sight of tears in his eyes. “My darling, I don’t know what came over me. I’m … Oh God, your face. Honey, please let me …”
I reached out for him, let him catch me in his arms, carry me to the huge claw-foot tub and gently wash me, even between my legs, as he soothed, kissed, and made promises.
Promises, it turned out, he never intended to keep.
Chapter Sixteen
The early start to winter that year should have been an omen. But there were a lot of those—warnings, red flags—that I didn’t heed as I should have.
The freeze outdoors was juxtaposed against the slow thaw between my parents.
Antony, Margot, AliceLynn, and baby Josh had their happy little family unit. Aiden, Rosie, Jeffery and baby Mandy had theirs. Kieran and Cara were making a go of it again, although she refused to marry him for some reason, something he told me about a few nights after Daniel raped me.
I’d finished my last class of giggly little girls at the studio, nodded at the last wannabe ballet mom, keeping my head turned slightly so I wouldn’t reveal the small bruise under one eye. As I contemplated how in the hell I could avoid every member of the Love family and any of their friends until it faded, I looked up from a stack of paperwork for the coming spring term and saw Kieran knocking on the window next to the desk.
“Shit,” I muttered, knowing he’d seen me full on, bruise and all. I unlocked the door and let him in, self-consciously pulling my hair down that side of my face and turning away from him. He stood in the open door, wind-blown snow swirling around his tall form.
“Shut that, already. Jesus,” I said, walking away from him.
He grabbed my arm and turned me around, tucking my hair behind my ear. His brow furrowed in a classic male Love way. I jerked out of his grip, but he had my chin between his thumb and forefinger, and was moving my head, left to right, in silence.
“Cut it out,” I said, slinking behind the desk and pulling hair over my eye again. “I slipped while I was, you know …” I waved in the general direction of the studios.
Kieran flopped into the chair opposite me, his gaze neutral. “Mama and Daddy don’t like him. I suggest you steer clear of them for a few days.”
He leaned forward, elbows on the messy desk. “And now, I suggest you tell me the truth, or I will find this ass-wipe and clean his clock for him before I turn him over to Antony, who will then hand him down the line until he reaches our father, if he lives past Dominic.”
I stiffened. “I fell down, Francis. I broke my fall with my damn face on the edge of the barre. End of story. Spare me the chest beating.” I shuffled some papers. “What’re you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be out convincing Cara Cooper to marry you so y’all can stop living in sin and making our parents fret? They have enough to worry-wart over between me and Dominic.”