Chapter 19

My eyes brimmed with tears as Killian met my stare and the whispers around me began. He knew then that Maverick was telling the truth. I wasn’t denying it. There was no point.

His family glanced around awkwardly before Curran stepped forward. “Come on, show’s over. Everyone back to the party.” No one really moved until he and Wren’s date reached into their back pockets and pulled out their badges.

“Youz heard him,” Wren’s date said. “Nothin’ to see here.”

Seamus and Declan hauled out the keg from the back of Wren’s truck while Angus tucked the case of beer under his arm.

“Come on,” Seamus mumbled. “All this beer ain’t drinking itself.”

They trailed after the crowd making their way to the backyard. The low muttering continued, dissolving as people vanished around the corner of the house. But the words failed to lose their sting, even when I could no longer hear them.

I hadn’t caught every comment. But I knew what people were saying, just like I knew what they thought of me. But as much as their opinions of me hurt, they didn’t matter as much as Killian’s and his family’s. They were a different story.

It was as if every blink they cast my way caused me pain. I’d embarrassed their beloved brother, ruined their party, and shamed them just by associating with me.

I didn’t do things halfway, did I?

Molly squeezed Angus’s hand when he reached for her. “Could you make a few more burgers?” she asked him quietly. “I think people are still hungry.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it, Mol.”

I felt their focus linger on me as they passed. Wren and Finn cast me a few hesitant glances as they followed. They hadn’t quite made it to the porch when Killian marched toward me, his fury building around him like a rising tide. “Is it true?” he demanded.

I kept my mouth shut, the lump in my throat tightening around me like a noose.

He angled his head to the side, swallowing hard. “This is the part where you answer me, Sofia—where you tell me everything that asshole said isn’t true.”

He swore when I lowered my head and crossed my arms.

“Nice, real nice. All this time—all this goddamn time you’ve been playing me!”

My chin jerked up. “N-no. I haven’t.”

Killian tightened his jaw. “Don’t lie to me, Sofia!”

“Kill, calm down!” Wren yelled from the porch.

“Stay out of it, Wren!” He reeled on me. “Did you have fun—pretending to be all innocent—making like you didn’t know what you were doing—while I fell for every last bit of it like some chump?”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. “Killian…”

“This wasn’t a game to me, Sofia. What I felt, what we did—”

“Kill, stop!” Finn hurried toward us with Wren at his heels. “Come on, you’re making her cry,” he said.

“Mind your goddamn business!”

“Fuck you, Kill!” Wren yelled at him. “Just ’cause your pride’s hurt doesn’t give you a right to treat her that way!”

“Get out of my face, Wren.”

Wren jabbed her finger into his chest. “Like hell I will. You’re being an asshole!”

“You don’t know shit. She’s been lying this whole time—Sofia, Sofia!”

I didn’t look back, continuing toward my car as I dug through my tiny purse to snag my keys. I thought I heard hands connect with something hard as my vision blurred. With shaking fingers, I opened my car door and cranked the engine. Finn had probably tried to shove Killian back. As strong and as angry as Wren was then, I knew even she couldn’t connect with force like that.

My fingertips wiped away my tears, enough so I could see the road as I pulled away. For a long while I just drove around—first toward my mother’s house, then in the direction of the highway that would lead me to Teo’s—until I finally veered back and returned to Killian’s neighborhood.

The lights were still off when I entered the dark house. He wasn’t home yet. I took the steps to the second level, barely feeling the floor as my sandals slapped against it. I turned on the bedroom light and walked into the large closet to retrieve my suitcase.

I threw it onto the bed and unzipped it, tossing the flap open. Killian’s words, his bruised expression, and the hurt in his tone haunted me as I returned to the closet to gather my belongings.

I wiped my tear-soaked cheeks as I folded my clothes, the same pretty clothes I’d bought to look nice for him, to look good on his arm, to be someone he could be proud of. Who was I kidding? I was never good enough for him. Now he knew it, and so did everyone else.

My hands reached for the dress I’d worn the night of his big match. I remembered Wren saying it resembled a wedding gown, and how she’d asked if Killian and I had planned to get married.

But men dated and had fun with whores. They didn’t marry them, did they?

I hurried to finish packing when my cries grew more forceful, knowing I needed to leave before Killian returned. He wouldn’t want me here. He wanted that nice, sweet girl who cooked and took care of him—not the one who’d hated herself so badly, who thought herself so unclean, that she allowed men to do things she didn’t want, enjoy, or need. Killian didn’t deserve her. He was better than that. Maybe he knew it all along.

Which was why he couldn’t love me.

I’d just dumped the contents of my drawers into the suitcase when a truck pulled into the driveway. “Later, Kill,” I heard Wren’s date say.

Wren said something else I couldn’t hear. I doubted it was as nice based on her tone.

The front door opened and clicked shut before the sound of heavy steps made their way up to the second-floor landing. I was trying to zip my bulging suitcase shut when I sensed Killian step into the room.

In the mirror, I caught of glimpse of him in the doorway. He held a bag of peanut M&Ms in one hand and a spray of wildflowers in the other. He froze in place when he saw what I was doing. This wasn’t a show. I wasn’t pretending to leave.

And he knew it.

He placed the flowers and candy over the mantel and slowly came up behind me. My body stiffened as his arms wrapped around my waist and he pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he murmured against my ear.

A fresh trickle of tears ran down my face as he continued. “I’ve fucked a lot of girls. I had no right judging you for doing the same.”

I wrenched out of his hold. “I didn’t fuck those men. I didn’t do anything with them. They were the ones who did things to me.”

The color drained from Killian’s face before his skin deepened to a furious red. He barreled toward me. “Are you saying that guy—all those guys he claimed you were with—raped you?”

I swallowed hard, watching as fear and rage darkened his features. “I’m saying that they did whatever they wanted to me…and that I let them.”

Killian watched me, his stance rigid. The seconds turned to several long minutes before he spoke again. “Why?” he asked.

I sniffed. The word was so simple really. One syllable. But his heartbroken tone packed a punch harder than any one of his blows. I didn’t want to tell him. But as much as he’d hurt me, after everything we shared, I owed him the truth.

I backed further away from him, unsure whether I’d be able to tell him if I remained too close. “I was messed up for a long time…after I was raped.”

My voice was barely a whisper as I forced the words out. “I’d go to parties I shouldn’t have been at. I drank and took things I shouldn’t have taken. And I let—” God, it was so hard to speak. “I let boys pull me into bedrooms. I let them climb on top of me…and, and I’d wait, until they were done. Then I’d leave.”

Killian’s chest rose and fell as he clenched his fists, his eyes fixed on the floor. “I never touched them,” I told him truthfully. “And they wouldn’t really touch me, not like…” I almost said “Not like you have,” but I stopped myself. Yet when Killian’s sad eyes met mine, I knew he realized what I’d intended to say.

He opened his mouth, only to close it again. He wouldn’t speak, but I felt his pain as if it were my own. He reeled around, I thought he was leaving until he whipped back and paced the length of his suite. “Fuck,” he growled. “Fuck.”

He seemed ready to kill something, he was so tightly wound, so full of anger, I thought he’d barrel through a wall. I hugged my body, hating myself for the person I was then, and for how he hurt because of what I’d done.

“I wasn’t pretending with you,” I managed, despite my quivering voice. “I know you think that, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know how to please someone, or receive anything good in return.” The tears poured out of me and my chest tightened brutally. “I need you to believe me, okay? No matter what happens now, I need you to know that. You’re the only one who’s ever mattered to me….”

My cries tore out of me. I couldn’t wrangle the emotions shoving their way through. It was all I could do not to completely fall apart.

Killian stormed toward me. I thought he’d accuse me of lying, or yell at me for my mistakes; instead what he said almost brought me to my knees. “Nothing should have happened to you—ever. You weren’t supposed to get hurt. Goddamnit, this wasn’t supposed to happen!”

He loomed over me, his blue eyes burning. He was furious, but it wasn’t because of what I’d done…he was angry that I’d been raped.

“This wasn’t your fault,” I stammered.

For a long moment Killian just looked at me until he pulled me against him and gathered me protectively in his arms.

“It was my fault, Sofia. I…I should have been there for you and I wasn’t.”

His warmth and words chipped away at whatever composure I’d managed to cling to, and I crumbled. He had wanted to be there for me, just like when we were young, and small, and both too innocent to realize how bad life could be. But he couldn’t have known what was going to happen. If he had, he would have stopped it. I knew that without a doubt. It took me a long time to calm.

“Can I ask you something?” he said quietly. I nodded, although I feared his questions. “How long did you…?” he sighed. “How long did you let this happen?”

It was more than I thought I should tell him. But I did. “Over two years. Sometimes months would go by and I wouldn’t do anything except hide in my room. But when things were bad, I’d go out more.”

Killian’s voice was so hollow, it didn’t even sound like him. “What made you stop?”

I worked my way through that night. I’d blacked out during pieces of it, but I remembered enough of what mattered. “I went to a party one night and a guy there gave me a lot to drink. He put me in this room and left me to find his friend.”

I could feel Killian’s anger building beneath his skin. But there was no going back now. “His friend knew Mateo. He recognized me and saw how wasted I was. He dragged me out of the party and called him. He and Lety came for me. That’s when they found out what I’d been doing.”

Killian muttered a swear word. I thought he swiped at his face, but I couldn’t be sure.

“They knew something was really wrong with me and took me to see Sister Augusta. She taught at my school and had a masters in social work. I started counseling with her.”

“That’s when it stopped?” he asked, his voice pleading with me to tell him yes.

But I couldn’t lie to him. “No. Not right away.”

His breath released in a shudder. “Why not?” Instead of answering, my tears soaked his T-shirt. He swallowed hard. “Sofia, please tell me.”

I waited for the pounding in my head to cease, and when I realized it was only growing worse, I told him the truth. “Because I didn’t want to live, Killian. I was trying to die…. But our faith counts suicide as the ultimate sin. So I searched, hoping someone would take my life for me—through disease, through a fatal blow—through anything. I wanted to…” My voice was trembling so hard I could barely finish. “I just wanted to stop hurting.”

“Christ.” He pulled away and lifted my chin. His devastated expression was more than I could take. “I should have been there for you,” he said quietly. “I should have stopped it—all of it. None of it would have happened if I’d just kept you safe.”

I shook my head, not knowing who was feeling more torment then. “Nothing you could have done would have spared me from myself. I was depressed and damaged, Killian, and because of it I did things I can’t take back.” I clasped his hand. “It was awful, and wrong, but I couldn’t see anything past my pain.”

“Self-mutilation.” I think that was what Sister Augusta determined my actions to be. But here with Killian, seeing how my mistakes affected him, I realized this wasn’t simply about me. My indiscretions had cost us both.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, Killian. I never meant to embarrass you or your family. But even though more than five years have passed since I last allowed myself to be used, people still remember what I did. And there’s nothing I can do to change it.”

Killian tucked me against him as he tossed my suitcase on the floor, then lowered me into bed with him. He covered us with a blanket and held me close until my tears finally stopped. “I don’t care what you did,” he said. “Or who’ve you’ve been with. I only care that you’re with me now.”

I clutched his shirt in my fist, certain I’d misheard him. “You still want me?”

“I’ll always want you,” he murmured. He reached to cup my cheek, appearing at a loss for words. “I wish I could explain what you mean to me, and how much I need you. I just don’t know how.” He glanced in the direction of the abandoned suitcase. “All I know is that my life means nothing without you with me.”