I FROZE, EVERYTHING INSIDE me wilting at the voice, too fresh in my mind.
I stared ahead, Mom’s face in my line of vision, and if I hadn’t recognized the voice already I would know who was behind me based on her body language. And her eyes—the only thing in her plastic face that revealed any emotion.
Her gaze flashed to shock and then dread. I glanced swiftly at Shaw, embarrassed; mortified that he was here for this. Even though I had shared my past with him, seeing it firsthand, witnessing it—living it with me—was an entirely different experience and I just wanted to shrink away until I was invisible. And anywhere but here.
I assessed his face. He looked confused. He’d heard the voice, too—the ugly words as clearly as anyone else near us—but he didn’t yet realize they were directed at me. Several people around us had stopped talking. They stopped and stared.
Run. Get away. The urge pounded through me. I just wanted to escape before this twisted from bad to hellishly bad. I stepped to the side and tugged Shaw after me, hoping to avoid Justin altogether. Maybe it was crazy or delusional, but I thought I could leave the room without a confrontation. Without having to look at my stepbrother one more time.
“Did you hear me, Emerson?”
A shudder rolled through me. There was no mistaking who he was talking to now.
Shaw stiffened beside me—went rigid in like one nanosecond. His fingers tightened around mine, and I knew there was no breaking that contact. That he wasn’t letting go of me.
Justin’s voice kept coming, a barrage of knives I couldn’t duck. “Where do you think you’re going? I’m talking to you, bitch.”
Yes, he was talking to me. Because I had come here. Because I’d thought that maybe things could be different. That I could be a normal girl who didn’t have a totally messed-up family.
Shaw turned slowly, taking me with him. I looked somewhere above Justin’s shoulder, staring blindly ahead, unwilling to even look at his loathsome face. “What did you call her?”
I’d never heard Shaw talk in a voice like this before. He’d lost his temper in front of me, but his voice had never been like this. Low and chilling, with an undercurrent of menace.
Justin didn’t answer him. There wasn’t a sound coming from anyone around us. All conversation had ceased. The orchestra played on, oblivious.
I brought my other hand to Shaw’s arm. “Let’s just go.”
“Oh, now you want to leave?” Justin’s face twisted. “After you trash-talked me to Melanie and convinced her to call off the wedding? Now you’re happy to go.”
“Oh, Emerson,” Mom cried behind me. “You didn’t!”
“Oh, she did.” Justin nodded. “I should have known she would do this.”
I tried to deny this. “I didn’t come here to—”
“You came here to do just what you did.” Justin closed the few feet of space between us. He didn’t even look at Shaw. It was as if he could see nothing beyond me. His eyes, so full of rage, fixed solely on me. As he took another step, Shaw flattened a hand to his chest and pushed him back, keeping him from getting any closer.
Justin looked at him, finally seeing him. He blinked. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the guy who’s going to kill you if you say another word or take another step toward her.”
Justin held his gaze for one moment, still leaning forward, pushing his weight into Shaw’s hand. They stared at each other, assessing, sizing the other one up. Finally, Justin stepped back. “Whatever. Take her and go.”
I released a shaky breath, relieved. I tugged on Shaw’s arm. “Come on.”
Shaw moved slightly, walking in a semicircle around my stepbrother, obliging me. And then we were clear, finally past Justin. Our backs to him.
“Emerson.” It was my mother’s voice.
I shouldn’t have hesitated. Shouldn’t have turned. But I did. She was the whole reason I’d come. I had to see, had to know.
She would always be my mother.
Mom stood beside Justin, staring at me with dead eyes, and a pang punched me in the chest. She still stood with him.
“You’re such a disappointment.”
I inhaled through my nostrils. Slow and deep, marveling at how those words could still cause me such pain.
I turned away, finally ready to go, but Shaw didn’t follow. I moved one step and realized that he still stood there facing Mom and Justin.
“She is a disappointment?” he demanded. His body went rigid and I could feel the anger radiating off him in waves.
Mom lifted her chin. “I don’t know who you are, but this isn’t any of your business. You weren’t even invited to this party. Leave before I call security.”
The threat didn’t move him. He didn’t budge. “You’re the disappointment . . . the failure as a parent.”
I hurried to Shaw’s side and seized his arm with both my hands, looking around at the avid faces watching our little drama. It was an unpleasant sensation. I felt like a lamb surrounded by wolves. “Shaw, what are you doing?” I hissed, panic spreading through my chest.
He glanced at me with bright, furious eyes and then looked back at my mother. “You don’t deserve a daughter like her.”
“You’re right. I don’t,” Mom flung back. She lifted her chin and raised her voice an octave so it could be heard clearly. “My daughter is a very troubled young woman. She’s given me nothing but grief.” She looked around the room, addressing the onlookers now as much as Shaw.
His arm clenched under my fingers. “First off, Emerson is amazing and smart and kind . . . but I could see why anyone would be ‘troubled’ with a mother like you. Oh, and that piece of shit standing next to you who—”
“Shaw!” I shifted my weight anxiously, fear scratching the back of my throat at what he was about to say.
He turned on me in a flash, his dark eyes relentless as his hands seized me by the shoulders. “No! I know what this guy did to you.” His voice dropped to a hiss, for my ears alone. “Everyone should know exactly what he is.”
I shook my head. No, no, no! No one could know. Mom and Shaw were the only two people I had ever told. Not even my best friends knew. Not my father. This room full of people couldn’t know. The world couldn’t know.
Suddenly Shaw was wrenched away. Justin gripped him by the shoulder, motioning to two uniformed hotel employees. “See this trash to the door.”
Something snapped in me then. I saw red. Shaw was not trash. Shaw was good and noble. The exact opposite of Justin.
I came at Justin, tearing his hand from where he gripped Shaw’s shoulder. “How dare you! Never touch him. Never! You’re the . . .” Fury and indignation consumed me. “You tried to rape me.” I whirled on my mother. “And you did nothing about it when I told you. Nothing!” My voice tore into a strangled choke at this last part.
Sometime in the last few minutes the band had ceased to play.
My stomach dropped as my words echoed throughout the room and I thought I was going to be sick. My words reverberated on the air. Jarring and awful. The sound of them seemed to run on forever, echoing through the room, bleeding into my soul.
I had never said them before either. Not those words. Not to my mother when I told her. Not to Shaw. Not even to myself. But that’s what had happened. I’d used other words.
He had bothered me. Or messed with me. Gentle euphemisms.
He tried to rape me.
I felt everyone’s eyes on me, exposing me, pulling me apart, revealing everything inside.
I staggered back several steps, suddenly feeling lighter. As if those five little words had been anchors on my soul and now they were gone.
Justin jabbed a finger in my direction. “You fucking little liar!”
I winced.
There were no more words after that. One moment Shaw was standing still and then he was a blur, going after Justin. His arm pulled back, fist connecting with Justin’s face with a sickening smack of bone on bone.
“Shaw, no!”
He ignored me and struck him again, shaking off the hands of the hotel employees as they grabbed for him.
“Stop it! Stop it!” I clutched my face, covering my ears as if I could drown out the sound of Shaw’s knuckles connecting with Justin’s face.
Justin went down. Mom screamed. The crowd parted wide. Shaw stepped over him, his feet splayed wide on either side of his prostrate body. Shaw reached for Justin, pulling him back up to his feet for more, but I was done. Justin’s ugly words, Mom’s disgusted glare. I felt like I was fifteen all over again.
I’d had enough. Shaking and wrecked, I could feel only those stares. Everyone gawking at me like I was something dirty. No way was I sticking around to watch him beat my stepbrother to a bloody pulp. That would be just the cherry on top of a craptastic night.
Turning, I fled the ballroom, barely stopping to grab my coat. My heels clicked on the outside sidewalk in a flurry as I hurried toward the parking lot. My shaking fingers fumbled over the front buttons of my coat.
“Emerson!”
A quick glance behind revealed Shaw running down the sidewalk.
Shaking my head, I turned and ran. I didn’t care how undignified I looked.
“Emerson!”
The sound of his voice was close behind me, and I choked on the realization that I wasn’t going to outrun him.
His hand fell on my arm. Emotion scalded my throat, bursting free as he spun me around.
“How dare you?” I whispered, wrenching my arm wide. “You shouldn’t have come! I didn’t want to announce to a roomful of strangers what they did to me!” Because it had always been what they did to me. Not just Justin. But Mom, too. Mom’s betrayal had been maybe the worst of all. It still was. “And I didn’t need you beating up Justin and causing a scene! What did that prove? You shouldn’t even have come here. I could have handled this on my own. I didn’t need you! I don’t need you!”
“But I need you, damnit,” he growled, his dark eyes searching, digging deep and threatening to take hold of me if I let him. I shook my head and slid a step back, as if distance would protect me. He followed. “And I want you to need me.” He took my face in his hands, hauling me against him, dropping his forehead to mine, muttering against my lips, “I couldn’t let him talk to you like that. You might be okay with them treating you that way, but I couldn’t let them—”
“Don’t! This wasn’t about you!” I fought the urge to sneak my arms around his neck. “What are you even doing here?”
“You think once I figured out you were here that I would just wait at home . . . do nothing while you’re in the same room with some guy who tried to rape you—”
“Stop saying that!” I wedged my arms between us and shoved him away with a grunt.
He angled his head, eyes softening as he gazed at me. “It’s the truth, Em.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Tears sprang loose, streaking hotly down my face. “I just announced it to everyone! It’s out!” I lifted my face and gulped in air, waving to the hotel. “Two hundred people know that now, thanks to you!”
“Me?”
“Yes, you! I wouldn’t have blurted it out like that if you hadn’t shown up. If I hadn’t gotten so mad when Justin called you trash.” I wouldn’t even have come tonight at all if it wasn’t for Shaw. If I hadn’t gotten it into my head that I needed to stop running. That I needed to stop hiding. That I could confront my past and be brave like Shaw.
He stuffed a hand in his pocket, and I realized then that he was without a coat. He had to be freezing standing there, but he didn’t so much as shiver. He just stared at me, his expression stoic. “Is that it? You’re mad at me because I forced you to face the thing you’ve been running from forever?”
“Yes! N-no!” I looked up at the winter sky as if I would find something, some truth or answer, in the dark gray clouds scudding against the darker night. Nothing.
He was right. He’d shaken me loose from my self-imposed cocoon. Since I met him, all the old hurts had returned. The fears. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. Letting him in had been a mistake.
I lowered my gaze back down to him. He waited, staring silently, his eyes so full . . . so judging. That’s what I felt at least. Exposed and raw. Like he could see me and what he saw was something broken. Something that needed fixing.
“You can’t fix me. This wasn’t your fight,” I whispered.
“Your fight is my fight. What hurts my girlfriend hurts—”
“No. I took several sliding steps backward, shaking my head. “I’m not your girlfriend.” I shrugged. “I’m not.”
I watched him for several more moments, absorbing the sight of his face as my words sank in. His eyes seemed to dim. “You’re scared,” he said quietly.
“Scared?” I scoffed. “Of what?”
“Of anything real. And what we have is real. You love me and it terrifies you.”
“I don’t love you,” I lied.
He grabbed my face then, dragging me closer with both hands. “You love me. I know you do. I know it because I can see it in your eyes . . . in the way you look at me.” He inhaled. “It’s the same way I look at you.”
“No,” I bit out. I couldn’t be so transparent. Love was pain. It was being out of control. Like the hot mess of tonight.
He kissed me. Hard. I struggled for a moment before relenting and kissing him back. I couldn’t resist. He had that effect on me. He turned my brain to mush and made all my girl parts tingle. His mouth softened then, turning coaxing and sweet. His tongue traced the seam of my lips and I gave myself a mental shake. Seizing control again, I pushed him away.
My chest heaved with gasping breaths that fogged the air in front of me. I stared at him for a long moment before tucking my shaking hands into my front pockets.
“I want you,” he said starkly, the barest quiver in his hoarse voice. “Me and you. Together.” He drew in a deep breath, his broad chest lifting. “But I can’t chase you forever.”
I nodded in understanding. It was an ultimatum. Fair, but an ultimatum nonetheless. After tonight, I couldn’t even contemplate it. It was all too much right now.
Without a backward glance, I walked away.