Chapter Twelve
Bethany felt a kind of dread settle in the closer she got to them. The mansion stood in all its lit glory atop the hill beyond the gate.
“Miss Sterling?” one of the men called out.
“Shit, it’s Bethany Sterling.” Both men rushed up to her and grabbed her before she fell to the ground. “Marcus, call up at the house and tell them Bethany is out here.”
She reached out. “No, wait, please.” For some reason those words came from her on their own. She didn’t want them knowing she was here just yet, but she couldn’t understand why she felt that way. The men looked hesitant, but they both nodded and carried her to the gate. There was a small SUV parked to the side, and once they had her inside and the gates open, they drove up to the house.
“Miss, we should really inform Mr. Sterling you’re here,” said the man that was sitting in the backseat with her.
She shook her head, but kept her focus forward. The guard driving kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t speak. The drove up to the mansion was quick, and when they parked the SUV in front of the driveway and helped her out, she found the strength to hold herself up. There were a few young valet boys that stared at her with wide expressions, but they looked more frightened than anything else. They moved past the entrance, down the long ornate hallway, and into the sitting room just before the great room where most of the parties her mother and father held were located. She could hear music coming from the closed doors, and even though she couldn’t see that there was a party going on inside, she knew they were celebrating.
“A party.” She had meant to think that instead of say it out loud, but at her words both of the guards stopped and looked at her.
“Yes, Miss. Mr. Sterling landed a rather big account with his firm, and they are throwing a dinner party because of it.”
She stared at the man who spoke, but words failed her for several seconds as she processed it all. She had been missing for a week, and even though there had been a note and they had been led to believe she had run from her “obligations,” it had still been only a week. How hard had her father really tried to find her? Clearly he hadn’t used every resource at his disposal or he surely would have known she was at some obscure cabin in the woods. But strangely, after that revelation she had no tears or sorrow because a dinner party was more important to her father than making sure she was even alive. She pushed past the guards. After gripping the handles and taking a deep breath, she opened the doors and stared at the fifty-plus people in the great room. Some danced, others stood by the buffet or the bar, but her sight was riveted on her mother and father, who spoke with a group of people. Steven was amongst those men and women. The men were dressed in perfectly tailored and pressed suits, and the women in formal evening attire. And here she stood in ratty sweats, a disgusting and torn shirt, and covered in dirt and blood.
No one noticed her for several minutes, and she certainly didn’t make her presence known. All Bethany could do was stare at the falseness that surrounded her: the laughter, the ticking of expensive jewelry clanking against the crystal glasses, and the plastered-on smiles of the party guests. She had been so much better locked away in that cabin and chained to that wall. And then, as if the music suddenly stopped and the voices dimmed, one by one they turned and stared at her. The gasps that came from the women, and the deep murmurs from the men all spoke of the same thing: shock at her filthy and rundown appearance. When her mother and father turned and noticed her, the sound of glass breaking as her mother dropped her champagne flute filled the room.
“Bethany? Oh my word,” her mother said in a shocked voice.
Her father said nothing, just stared at her with a disgusted look on his face. No doubt her appearance would cause embarrassment to him. But no, don’t let him come closer, reveal that she was actually alive, and thank God that she was here. Steven also had a look of shock on his face, but she noticed he kept glancing at her father, as if waiting for the cue to react accordingly.
“Where on earth have you been?” her father asked in his ever-present cool voice.
Her mother stepped closer, but as if she, too, were disgusted over the leaves in Bethany’s hair, the dirt that covered her skin, and the blood on her arms and feet. She looked at her father, and then at Steven, and then ended on her mother.
“You’re hurt.” Her mother was like Robert’s puppet, doing as he said, when he said, and only taking her direction from him. But there was a glimmer of something motherly reflected back at Bethany. But then again that might just be her trying to find the good and right in this even more fucked-up situation.
She just couldn’t keep her mouth closed, couldn’t hold in these feelings of hatred and loathing that surrounded her. Maybe that was one of the good things about being with Abe? He had showed her that she could stand up for herself. “I am missing, but you throw a party for a promotion?” She kept her voice strong, refusing to show anyone that this was the last nail in the coffin of her fake life.
“Bethany, you’ll watch your tongue, young lady,” her father said harshly, and glanced around the room.
“I embarrass you,” she said without remorse. No longer would Bethany allow him or anyone else to suffocate her.
Robert said nothing, and made no move.
“Darling, where have you been?” Steven said and moved closer, but when she held up her hand to stop him she also glared.
“You don’t come close to me.”
“Bethany, honey, let’s go upstairs.” And there was her mother, trying to smooth everything out with that saccharine voice that was as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard.
All she did was nod, look at the three of them once more, and turn her back on them. She had come back for what? To tell them that she was alive, and hope against all odds that they would welcome her with open arms? Had she actually believed that they would see the life they had put her in? They lived in this the sheltered existence where selfishness consumed them. She was at the point that she would gladly go back to being Abe’s prisoner.
She pushed past the guards that looked as dumbstruck as she felt, and headed back down the hallway and up the ornate stairs. The sound of footsteps following her didn’t have her stopping and turning. Bethany wanted her shit and she wanted out. Once in her room she shut the door and walked over to small vase pushed behind her first-edition books. Her room hadn’t changed, and even looked as if they still had the maid coming in once a day to clean. Grabbing the vase and opening the lid, she breathed out when she saw the wad of money she had been saving for far longer than she could even remember. The bank account had been official, but this was her own stash, one that she had dreamt would be used for travels abroad, or for purchasing something that wasn’t approved of by her father and mother.
She went to her closet, grabbed one of her bags, and started filling it with clothes. She was in the process of getting underwear and socks out of her dresser when her bedroom door crashed open. She spun, saw her enraged father and worried-looking mother, and ignored both of them. She was getting the hell out of here and never looking back. She knew where she had stood in their lives, and this situation hadn’t changed their views on anything.
“You’ll tell me why in the hell you thought you could run off like that, and then suddenly come back looking like…” He scanned her form up and down, his disgust even more evident with each passing second. “…looking like you have been out screwing in the woods like a damn animal.”
A choked sound left her at her father’s cruel words. No questions of if she was okay, of where she had been, and why she had “left” the way she had.
“Well? No daughter of mine is going to come into my home—”
“Robert, please calm down. Your blood pressure.” And then there was her mother, placating and smothering her father because she was the perfect little Stepford wife.
Steven moved past her mother and father and smiled. “Bethany, sweetheart, what happened to you?” He reached his hand out toward her and she looked down at it.
She shook her head, grabbed the bag on top of her dresser, and shoved the money inside. She wanted no part of this. “You guys sit here in your designer clothes with your emeralds, diamonds, and Cuban cigars, and look down at everyone else that doesn’t meet your standards.” She was crying now, but they were angry tears, hateful tears, and they had been a long time coming.
“You expect us to approve of you leaving when you’re set to marry Steven? You shamed this family, and then you run out of fun on your little tryst and come back here looking like a vagrant.”
“Is that all you think of me, as some kind of pawn to do with as you please?” She closed her eyes, shook her head, and chuckled humorlessly. “Of course you do. What a stupid, stupid girl I have been to think you cared about me or what happened to me. I was better off at—” She stopped, cut herself off because something inside of her told her to shut up. These people didn’t deserve anything from her, let alone an explanation of where she had been.
“Where were you?” her father asked again, his voice just as hard as it had been when he’d first seen her. There was no warmth, no love…not like she had felt with Abe during her short time with him. God, if that didn’t open up her eyes to reality she didn’t know what would.
“Bethany, no one is angry with you. We just want to know that you were okay.” Steven moved closer to her.
No, they didn’t want to know that she was okay. They only cared about themselves. “Leave,” she said softly. No one moved. “Leave,” she said louder, with more force, and made sure to make eye contact with each of them. Her mother and Steven left, but of course Robert stayed, trying to exert his dominance. It was a very familiar situation.
“Shut the door, Steven,” her father said without taking his gaze off of her. When the door shut her father exhaled loudly, closed his eyes, and grumbled something under his breath.
“I have nothing to say to you. I have no explanation as to what happened.” Oh, she could tell him the truth, but what difference would it really make?
None.
“Do you realize your little exertion cost me a lot of money, put this family under the media spotlight, and humiliated the Sterling name?”
All she could do was shake her head. “For my entire life it has always been about you and the Sterling name.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, but didn’t respond.
“Look at me.” She clenched her jaw at his bland expression. “Really fucking look at me, Dad.” Bethany had never cursed to her father, and she was pleased to see this flicker of his resistance lower because of it. “Does it look like I’ve been gallivanting around the woods, or playing house with someone?” She held her arms out. “I’m tired, dirty, and even where I was I knew that all that glitters is not gold. You are not my family, and everyone in this fucking house can go screw themselves. But especially you, Father.”
He scanned his gaze up and down her body once more. “I’ve been looking at you your whole life, Bethany,” he said once he was looking at her face once more. “And all I’ve seen is a disappointment to the Sterling name.”
She wouldn’t cry over his coarse words. “You won’t have to worry about me being a stain on your legacy anymore. Go back to your party, forget about me like you always did unless it suited you, and let others handle your dirty work for you.” To think she had felt any amount of love for this man. She had only been gone for a week, and even if he said he had people working on her case to find her, she knew he was full of shit. He thought she had left like everyone else had, and because of that he had put her out of his mind and gone on with his life. They all had.
He curled his lip, and although she had a feeling he had more to say, Robert Sterling was not a man that spoke out of place very often.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll pack my shit and go back to where I was.” That wasn’t really the truth. She didn’t think going back to Abe or the cabin was the solution to her problems. She was going to try the world on her own, and although she had only saved the few thousand dollars in cash, she could do anything she set her mind to.
Her father glared at her for several more seconds, and then without uttering a word he turned and headed out of her room. She saw her mother and Steven right on the other side, and when her mother acted like she was going to come forward and speak to Bethany, Robert grabbed her arm and steered her away. And of course her mother didn’t protest. Steven moved closer once her parents left, but didn’t enter her room.
“Steven, please just leave. I have nothing to say to you.” He was just as fake as the rest of them. He had yet to move, and so she glared at him the same as he was doing to her.
“You fucked up a lot of shit, Bethany.” His voice was just as icy as her father’s, but that was the real Steven talking. “You and I could have had a lush life.” She slowly shook her head. “You fucked up, and now Robert will cut you off, as he should. I hope you like living out of the circle, Bethany, because there is no way anyone will let you back in now.” He didn’t say anything else, just turned and stalked back to the party.
She slammed the door and walked over to her bed. For a moment she just stood there, staring at the shit that had been her life since the day she was born. She sat on the edge of the bed, and the tears that came from her this time were real, and painful, and from not having the love she had longed for since she was a little girl. But that was the past—even if the past had just been minutes before—and she wasn’t going to go there. Glancing down at her ankle, she saw the redness that circled it from the chain. It had been loose enough that it wasn’t painful, but she couldn’t count how many times she had struggled to get it off. That tug and pull had lightly bruised her skin. But looking at that mark on her flesh didn’t send a flash of disgust through her, but a sense of stability and pleasure, and a torrent of other emotions. She would feel it again, think about it a hundred different ways, but in the end she knew she had been freer during her seven days with Abe than she had in her entire life.
She stood and wiped her tears away, grabbed her bag, and got the fuck out of hell. Not looking at anyone, or speaking to any of the assholes that had strangulated her more times than she could count, she left the mansion and made her way down the long driveway. She knew she’d have to speak with the police, but she also knew she wasn’t going to tell them about Abe. There was just something in her that said telling them she was kidnapped and held against her will wasn’t the route she wanted to take. It wouldn’t matter either way, because even if Abe was conscious now, he was smart enough that he had probably already left town. A sick and dreadful sensation filled her, and she had to stop and hold her stomach as the feelings intensified. Why should she care where Abe was?
Because in your heart, hell, in your bones you know that you want him even through all of this.
That might be the truth, but she wasn’t going to go back into that right now. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She glanced around, but only saw the darkness of the forest surrounding them. She looked over her shoulder, saw her father and Steven standing on the porch with cigars hanging from between their lips, and took a deep, strengthening breath. How foolish she must look to them, standing in front of this mansion in grungy clothing with a bag hanging from her hand. She turned back around, scanned the woods once more, and felt that sensation that she was being watched. Pushing those feelings away, she continued down the driveway and right through the front gate. Fuck them, and fuck everything they represented.