One
Porter
“But you’re good?” I asked Avery as she sat curled into CJ’s side on our parents’ couch. After setting Asher up in a bath, I ran up to the house to check on my sister, but I was antsy to get back to the guesthouse.
Asher hadn’t said a word—not when I rushed into her hospital room, not when I drove her home, and not after I told her I was stopping at the house.
She was closed off in a way I’d not seen with her, and it scared me.
This week had been fucking hell, not knowing where she or Avery was. There were no phone calls, no demands for ransom. The police originally thought the kidnapping was because of the Prescott name, but after they pulled the truck’s plates, they realized it had been about Asher.
The abductor had been her last foster father.
The moment the words were spoken, I wanted to find Ryan and demand answers. Why the fuck did he come here? He brought this to us.
I’d worry about him later though, because my only priority during this entire storm was Asher.
“I’m good,” Avery told me, a small smile on her face. “Go back to Asher. She needs you.” Her eyes started to tear and she nodded. “She needs you.”
I cut a glance over to CJ but his eyes were on Ace. She would be fine.
I stepped forward and kissed my sister on the top of her head. “Love you, Ace.”
Before I left the house, Mom thrust a casserole dish in my hands. “Make her eat something, Porter.”
I nodded, tucking the foil wrapped dish under my arm. I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek and before I stood straight, Mom put her hand on my cheek and gave me a watery smile. “I love you both, so much. Please tell her so.”
“Of course, Mom,” I managed to croak, my own eyes starting to burn.
I left Caine with Mom, and headed toward the guesthouse.
I walked the distance between the houses, my mind racing. How the hell could the day be so damn bright and cheery, the birds singing and the breeze light, when I felt like my entire world was crashing down?
If I couldn’t break through to Asher, if I couldn’t get her to even look me in the eyes…
What the hell was I going to do?
I’d been cleared from camp both last week and this, but I had to go back eventually. If Asher didn’t come with me…
My heart squeezed painfully in my chest.
When I entered the guesthouse, I listened for…anything.
And I heard the shower.
Frowning, I locked the door behind me and placed the dish on the counter top before walking into the bedroom. The bathroom door was closed as I had left it, but the shower was most definitely running.
I left her in a bath.
“Ash?” I tried opening the door but found it locked. “Asher?” I tried the door again, but it was still locked. “Asher!” I slammed my hand on the door, my blood starting to rush quickly through me, fear and adrenaline overtaking me. With shaking hands, I reached up to feel around the frame, where Mom used to hide keys when we were kids.
Thank God there was one up there. I didn’t want to waste time looking for a toothpick or bobby pin to pop the lock. She wasn’t answering me. I didn’t have time to waste.
I popped the lock and pushed the door open. “Asher.” Relief washed through me as I could see her shadow standing behind the shower curtain, although there was a thick steam in the room.
“Beautiful, talk to me.” I stepped into the humid bathroom, flipping on the exhaust fan, but still, she said nothing. Carefully, I pulled back the curtain. She was facing the stream and her head hung down, her hair falling down her sides and in front of her as the water cascaded around her.
The humidity was even greater in the confines of the shower and I reached in, startled at the heat. “Shit, Asher,” I mumbled, reaching in to turn off the water. It was scalding.
I grabbed for a towel. “Asher, babe, come out.” She lifted her head and pushed her wet hair behind her, but she refused to meet my eyes.
God, what the hell had she been through? Avery didn’t say much about the days they were gone.
But Asher, on the other hand, said nothing.
And while she had my engagement ring on her finger—even with our wedding having been announced to the world, and that it hadn’t happened—the doctors told me nothing.
They allowed me to stay with her, but didn’t give me answers.
I knew they did a rape kit.
But I didn’t know the results.
Did that bastard touch her? Was that why she refused to look at me?
I had no fucking clue what happened and it was eating away at me every time Asher refused to meet my eyes, didn’t say she loved me back, didn’t even say hello.
Shit, I’d take any one of her sassy remarks right now. Anything to tell me she was still with me.
Asher stepped out of the shower and into the towel, burrowing into me when I wrapped the thick cotton around her. My heart jumped in my chest and I squeezed my arms tight around her.
It was going to be ok.
It would be ok.
It had to be.
Asher
After Porter left, I stood and turned on the water, turning the heat up, up, up, in an attempt to feel clean. No amount of hot water could wash off the disgustingness that was me though.
I was tainted, and dirty, and unworthy.
I didn’t deserve a family like the Prescotts.
I didn’t deserve a friend like Avery.
And I sure as hell didn’t deserve the love of Porter.
They were going to find out.
I was told in the hospital that my former foster father was dead, but that didn’t matter. The Prescotts would find out.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Avery had already figured it out.
I turned up the water and squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to relive the last week, but the scenes kept playing like a bad movie.
Avery and I walked down the sidewalk after my last dress fitting. I’d left it with the seamstress, where she and I would pick it up on Friday before heading up north.
“It’s so gorgeous, Ash. You’ll make such a beautiful bride,” Avery gushed at my side and I couldn’t help but smile in excitement.
Less than a week before I was marrying Porter.
Carter was due to arrive in to Milwaukee tomorrow, and I was excited for Avery to meet her. We had a few days of fun planned, but then the real excitement was starting.
Suddenly there was a broad body between Avery and me, and a heavy arm fell around my shoulder. When I looked over, startled, my world bottomed out.
I didn’t know how he found me.
With his voice lowered, he told Avery and I that he was taking us somewhere, that he would hurt Avery if either of us did anything to draw attention.
So, we went.
And Avery didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on.
“You grew up so pretty, Genevieve,” he said, trailing a finger down my cheek. I flinched at the light feeling. “The pictures just don’t do you justice. I’ve missed you. I tried to find you, to talk to you at Christmas, but you ignored me.”
It was him that ran us off the road. I glanced across the hotel room, where Avery sat on the second queen bed, her legs crossed and her eyes fixed on him and me. Her blue eyes were wide and frantic, but I knew mine were too.
If she learned what happened…
If she knew…
I fought the rising need to vomit. Instead, my breaths came out uneven and panicked.
He leaned down, his lips near my ear and I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’ve never had as pretty a cunt as yours.”
I swallowed hard and my eyes flew open, locking with Avery’s. God, I hoped she didn’t hear…
He had taken both our phones and Avery’s purse when we first got to the hotel. Then he went and put some device on the handle of the door so we couldn’t leave.
“You know him,” Avery said the first night, well after he left for the connecting room. He kept the door open; I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back. He certainly wouldn’t leave the adjoining room. If he left us alone, if he left both rooms, what was keeping us here?
Nothing.
Not a damn thing.
We could leave.
But he wouldn’t allow that.
Why?
Why was he here? Why did he want me?
I swallowed hard and looked over at the woman who had been my best friend, next to her brother, for the last four years. “He was my last foster father,” I admitted quietly.
Avery studied me quietly, but I could see the wheels turning in her head. What was she thinking? What did she figure out?
My heart was racing at the thought that she would figure it out.
Or that she was blaming me.
Blaming me for getting her here.
I had to do something. I had to get Avery out.
I had to find a way to get our phones back.
It took a day for me to work up the nerve, but I’d tried. I went into the connecting room the next night, after Avery’s breathing turned even and deep in sleep.
How she could sleep then, had been beyond me.
I hadn’t slept a wink.
I’d walked next door and bargained with the devil himself.
Now, I reached forward and tried to turn the heat of the water up again, but it was as warm as it could go.
He had scowled at my piercing. Flicked it and told me it ruined the ‘delicate flower’ I was. He took it out but was too “disgusted with my choices” to take me then.
Nothing happened, I tried to remind myself, but it did nothing to stop the ill feeling coursing through me.
Nothing happened that you didn’t want.
The next night, I went back.
And I gave him what he wanted.
My mouth on him, the one thing he tried and never succeeded back then. With shaking hands and tears in my eyes, I had let him gag me with his skinny, disgusting dick but after, when he came on my face, he made a mistake.
He left me alone while he went into the bathroom to clean up.
I frantically threw open drawers, digging, searching, not caring about the noise I was making. The water was running; he couldn’t hear me.
Drawer after drawer, I dug. I opened the wardrobe, digging into his coat pockets and sliding my hands over the floor and shelf.
Finally, my hand connected with something small and solid and rectangular.
I pulled it back.
Avery’s phone.
I stood on tiptoe and reached further back.
My phone and the strap to Avery’s purse.
I grabbed them and closed the doors to the wardrobe, moving quietly and quickly into the adjoining room. I stuffed them into the tiny drawer of the nightstand between the two queen beds.
The water turned off next door.
I slammed the drawer closed and rushed for the bathroom, throwing on the shower before quietly locking the door. He wouldn’t touch Avery. I knew it deep in my gut.
I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as I stood as still as possible, my ear to the door. I closed my eyes, focusing. I heard as he opened his bathroom door. I heard his feet sliding over the carpet. He paused. And then his footsteps left.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, my body shaking and my eyes tearing up again.
I turned my back to the door and sank to the floor, allowing myself to completely break.
I was disgusting, but soon, I’d save Avery from this hell.
Soon, Avery would go home to her family.
And me?
I lost it all. I’d figure it out in time…
“Asher!” There was a solid thwap against the door as Porter must have hit it with the flat of his hand, the sound bringing me back to the present. I lifted my head to the shower stream and with my eyes squeezed shut, my breath held, I let the water drown me, the heat on my face burning.
But no matter how hot I made it, nothing would clean me of the filth coating my soul.
Avery had had a front row seat to the horror of my past. There was no way she didn’t notice the friendly touches, or the fact that he brought me into the connecting room at least once each of the five days he had us.
“Don’t touch her,” I said, through clenched teeth, when I noticed him looking at Avery. He was bringing me back into the room Avery and I were staying in.
“She’s a pretty one.” His voice was thoughtful. “But you, Genna…” He lowered his voice so only I could hear. “You are my favorite.”
I dropped my chin to my chest again and I felt as my hair slid over my shoulders, hanging in front of me.
I sat in the hospital bed, my eyes locked on the wall in front of me.
Porter squeezed my hand but I didn’t—couldn’t—look at him.
I didn’t give him back the three words he kept whispering to me.
When he learned what I did…
Love would be the very last thing he felt for me.
I had no more tears left to cry.
“Shit, Asher.” The water turned off, but I didn’t lift my head. I was instantly cold, the water dripping from my hair, down my back and my stomach, hitting the floor and splashing my toes, grew chilly.
“Asher, babe, come out.” In my peripheral, I saw Porter standing there with one of the bath blankets. I lifted my head just enough to push my hair back but I couldn’t meet his eyes.
I couldn’t handle to see the care and love in them.
I’d ruined it all.
I needed to feel his arms around me one more time. One more taste of what I so desperately craved, but could no longer have.
I stepped out of the shower and into his arms, digging my nose into his chest as he wrapped me with the towel. I squeezed my eyes shut and the tears I didn’t think I had anymore, burned behind my lids.
I was too tainted for him. I needed to push him away.
He couldn’t love me. He couldn’t marry me.
This was the right thing.
With a deep breath, I tried to memorize the feel of standing in his arms, the smell of his aftershave, the strength of his body.
One more time.
I wanted one last memory of this man.
A good memory.
And then I was leaving.