Chapter Seventeen
Rose
Slade doesn’t say a word as we drive down the mountain and towards the beach. The stinging in my cheek is still giving me aftershocks. I’m terrified. I am.
He struck me.
The white caps of the waves help to bring me a short-lived calm when I look out the window, and my heart, which was thrumming dangerously fast in my chest, begins to slow its pace. He’s never hit me before. Pushed me, sure, but he hasn’t hit me.
The metal grey garage door opens, and as we enter I have the urge to run. I don’t. Instead, I remain frozen.
“Are you coming?” His clipped tone sends a trembling to my legs.
“Yes,” I breathe.
Taking the elevator to his beachfront condo has my stomach performing an aggressive acrobatics routine, one making me feel physically ill. This sensation intensifies when Slade takes my hand to his and raises my knuckles to his mouth before pressing it softly against his lips. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“I know.” It’s an automatic response. One I don’t give any thought.
“When we get inside, I’ll get you some ice.”
“Okay.” I shudder.
The keys rattle before Slade has the door unlocked, and he punches in the digits to the keypad to disable the alarm system. “Go and sit on the lounge.” A flash of a half-smile touches his lips, and my need to run away returns with vengeance.
There’s nothing to be smiling about.
“Lounge, Roselette.”
I jump. His anger is still present and accounted for. “Okay.”
Scanning the room, I become disheartened by the woman who smiles broadly on the printed canvas attached to the wall. Her eyes sparkle as brightly as the large diamond perched on my finger, yet there’s something about her appearance that echoes emptiness. I can see her naivety. I sense her loss of identity. And I’m distressed by the fact this woman on this canvas is me. My image on a large display in my fiancé’s condo. What happened to this girl who I once viewed as happy, alive, and free-spirited? When did she begin to lead a controlled existence?
Am I being controlled, though? Or is this just a mirage?
The ice is freezing against my cheekbone, and I suck air between my teeth as I’m returned to the here and now. I didn’t even hear Slade returning or handling the pack.
“I’m so sorry.” He runs his hand into my hair and kisses my forehead. “I’ll make it up to you.”
And with this, I’m shaking uncontrollably. I want to leave.
He wraps his arm around my head and pulls me to his chest before making himself comfortable in the two-bay ridged lounge. I don’t dare move and stay in the position he shifts me. I’m much too frightened to do anything.
The generic ringtone of my mobile phone chimes. It has me tipping my chin upwards to locate it—that is, until Slade instructs me to allow it to ring out, so I do.
It rings again.
“I will need to take this call, Slade. It could be my father.”
“Fine.”
Leaning forward, I retrieve my phone from the coffee table in front of us. Looking at the screen, it shows an unfamiliar number, so I don’t answer. Instead, I settle back into my previous position with my head pressed against Slade’s chest, just how he’d positioned me previously. What am I doing here?
“I think I’m going to wash up, get all this blood off me. I’ll have something ordered in for you to eat when I return.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Don’t go anywhere. Don’t you dare go anywhere. You understand?” It’s a short tone enlaced with a hint of gentleness.
“Yes.”
The moment I hear the shower start, I scoop up my phone and collect my handbag off the floor in the entryway. As quietly as I can, I crack open the wood structure and step through the threshold of a place I once loved to stay. Now, I never want to be here again.
Clip ... clop … clip … clop. The sound of my stilettoes meeting the bitumen surface of the road sends uncontrollable tears to leak from my eyes.
He struck me.
I know I should call my father or mother to come get me, but strangely, I think they’ll be on Team Slade and make me return to his side. The fact that I’m the girl who secured Slade’s proposal and gave my family a financial out, more standing in this community, more than they ever had beforehand, has me frightened to do so. After all, Father is almost a god among the rich now, even though from what I understand we are in debt up to our eyeballs. I know they need for me to marry Slade as much as they need air to sustain life. How can I marry him now, though?
Beep.
My heart launches into my mouth. I’m too scared that if I look in the direction of the short honk, it will be Slade. I quicken my pace. Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. My speed escalates in a jog.
“Rose.”
A shiver shoots down my spine when my name isn’t called by the person I thought it would be.
“Finlay.” I stop, scanning the street.
He’s in the same clothes he was wearing when I left, and as he crosses the road in a run, I almost feel relief.
He wraps his arms around me tightly and takes a noisy inhale of air at the top of my head. “Shit. Are you okay?”
I break down into a flood of tears. “No,” I cry out.
I remain tucked to his side as he walks me to his car and then helps me in. “Buckle up, okay?”
Pulling the seatbelt across my chest, I’m not sure why I’m glad to find a saviour in Finlay, but I am.
We drive in circles at first. There’s no plan, no directional path mapped out. We lap around the same streets in a comfortable silence.
“Where would you like me to take you?” Finlay asks.
“How did you know where I was?”
“I didn’t. I followed you, but lost sight of the SUV. I tried to call—”
“That was you?”
“Yes?”
“How did you know my number?”
“You gave it to me, remember?”
I do. The bet. I nod and take a sly glance of his profile. It’s not long enough for him to catch me in the act, yet long enough for me to see the contracting of his jaw. He’s tensed.
More silence follows as we continue this circular course as if we’re lost inside a maze, and we’re continuously turning in the exact same direction we started every time.
“Rose, are you okay?” His tone is soft.
“Sure.” I’m not.
“Would you like me to take you home?”
“No,” I breathe. “Can you take me somewhere, anywhere that isn’t home?”
“Okay.”
Keeping my eyes planted on the white broken lines stained to the centre of the street, I take slow and steady breaths before granting my eyelids permission to close. I’m not tired—I’m not calm—I just need darkness to slow my rapid thoughts.
We stop moving, and I hear the sound of the handbrake being lifted. My heart begins to race—why? I’m not sure, but it’s raising my pulse with it and causing heat to wash from my head to my toes.
“Will this do?” His dark eyes search mine when I come to look at him, and this alone stops the overheating and the thrumming in my chest.
“Where are we?”
“It’s a national park, I think. It has bush-walking trails and stuff. I found it a few days ago … It’s quiet here.”
“Oh. Okay.” I’ve no idea what this place is. How can that be? I’ve lived in this area for such a long time. “This is fine. Thank you.”
“No worries.” He is genuine. When Finlay speaks, it always sounds so genuine … I’ve never met anybody like Finlay Crossley. “Do you want to get out or just sit?”
I don’t answer. I take my time to scan these new surroundings through the windows. Trees, more trees, thick grass, and wooded stumps with slats attached create a barrier containing this natural environment from the road. It’s nice here. Red bottlebrushes hang from branches, and upon inspection of these I decide I want to exit, so I do.
The closing of the car door and his feet against the ground alert me to Finlay’s presence.
I move to one of the round stumps and sit down. Finlay comes to rest on the next stump over, about a metre from the one I chose. He says nothing, and neither do I—we sit like two statues. It brings me peace.
The air is thin and fresh. The smells are a mixture of sweet perfume and freshly cut wood. It’s subtle and relaxing. This place is even more tranquil with the sounds of birds chirping above us and the grass rustling in the small wind gusts. All my worries wash away and all my sadness follows suit.
I feel free here.
And I can’t help but wonder if the six-foot hulk of muscle sitting next to me has anything to do with it.