CHAPTER FIVE

LAYNA

NOBODY HAS EVER MADE ME feel like this before. I’ve never been able to just let go, lose myself. I’m not even sure how we got here.

I fell asleep worrying about him out in the storm, and when I woke up and he was right there, so handsome and so close, I gave in to my instincts.

Turns out my instincts rock.

“Who did this to you?” he asks.

“Huh?” I’m mad that he’s pulled me out of my fantasy and back into my head. “Did what?”

He presses the lightest of kisses to my arm where angry purple bruises have formed.

Damn.

“It’s not important.”

Oh, Broody McBrooderson’s gaze gets all dark and intense. “The fuck it’s not.”

Mood broken, I pull the robe back on and cover myself. This is not a conversation I want to have, much less have while exposed.

“Dude, you are harshing my mellow.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“When you are trying to distract me, you pull out your college-girl airhead routine because you know it annoys me.”

“I am a college girl.” I push him back so I can get up. “All I have to do is breathe to annoy you anyway.”

“Who fucking put his hands on you?”

Ignore. Distract. “I didn’t want to dig around your dresser while you weren’t here, but I was hoping you maybe had some more clothes I could borrow. This robe is…”

“Is it who you’re running from? Is that why you don’t want to go home?”

“Just a t-shirt and maybe some boxers would be fine.”

“Someone grabbed you hard enough to leave finger-sized bruises on your arm. Tell me his name, and I will cut off his hand.”

I gasp at his sudden propensity for violence. Despite his size and his grumpy attitude, Rogan has been a gentle giant in my presence. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

We stare at each other for too long, him trying to pierce my brain and get my secrets, me trying to build a wall. The less he knows, the better.

“I’m sorry I kissed you.” I’m not.

That makes him blink. And then he gets this look that is equal parts disappointed and hurt. So he gets up.

“Rogan—”

He holds his hand up to stop me and silently walks away. I cover my face with my hands. God, why do I screw up everything? A normal woman could probably have turned that whole thing around and had him inside her by now. Instead, I’m alone again.

I feel the weight of his hand on my leg, and I uncover my face. He’s on his knees on the floor in front of me. His eyes are the richest shade of brown and full of concern I don’t deserve. “Rogan, I’m—”

“You’re not alone anymore.” He picks up my hand. It’s so small inside his. “I know you don’t trust that yet. And I shouldn’t get frustrated with you. It’s going to take time. But you’ll see. You’ll look back someday and see how every memory we share from here on out is me not letting you down, and then you’ll believe. I can be patient.”

I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say or think or feel. I can’t process what he’s saying, it’s too much. But the feeling of not having to face everything alone for once…I don’t even realize I’m crying until he wipes a tear so gently off my cheek. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

“Why don’t you want to go home, Layna?”

“My stepdad.”

“What did he do to you?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Then tell me.”

Maybe it’s worse than he thinks.

“My mom met Alan after my dad died three years ago. I pretty much thought he was a sleazeball, but she really liked him.” I shrug. “He was always nice to her. Really nice. So I guess I just thought maybe any guy that wasn’t my dad was a sleazeball and I tried to get along with him. For a while anyway.”

“You were close with your dad?”

I nod. “Very. He was my hero.” A pang of longing pierces my heart, doubling me over. God, I wish Daddy were still here. He’d have known the right thing to do. He always did the right thing.

But then, if he hadn’t died, I wouldn’t be in this mess, either.

Rogan is still on his knees on the floor in front of me, watching me so closely.

“Alan lost all my dad’s money pretty quickly. I think he used the bulk of it right away to get himself out of debt. I still have some set aside in a trust fund, I think, unless he found a way to access it. But I can’t get to it until I’m twenty-five. People started coming to the house. Taking things away. My mom…she didn’t handle it well. First losing my dad and then losing her wealth. She was kind of fragile.”

“Was?”

My whole body gets cold. “She started taking pills. Alan found her this strange doctor who got her whatever she wanted whether she needed it or not. And about a year ago, she was gone, too.”

“Gone?”

“She died. Overdose.” My hands are trembling, so he takes them in his, giving me comfort. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt comfort. “I blame Alan. I wanted her in rehab, but he just kept bringing that stupid doctor around until I was an orphan.”

I was sad when she died, but it was hard to mourn the shell of the person she’d become. My mother, the woman I loved, had been dying since the day she met Alan.

“Alan managed to get everything that my father owned into his name by then. Everything except for my trust fund. We had a fight. He knew I thought he was a loser, and he hated that. He was a real macho man, didn’t like that I didn’t fall at his feet. At some point, he found my journal. At first, I didn’t know it, but I realized later he’d been using it to sabotage me. He figured out all my weak spots. He screwed up my grades, got my friends to alienate me.” At Rogan’s questioning look, I explain, “He used my passwords I had written down to mess with my college assignments and grades. He used my social media accounts to mess with my friendships. My phone. He was whacked out like Gossip Girl on steroids.”

“I don’t know who Gossip Girl is.”

“Well, I’ll never believe Gossip Girl is Dan, but that’s another story. It was a TV show. And we’re getting way off track. Anyway, Alan ruined me from the inside out. And then he read an entry and found out I was a virgin.”

Rogan stiffens.

“He sort of sold me to one of his ‘business associates.’”

“He what?” Rogan explodes.

“He set up some sort of date with some old guy he owed money to. I figured out at that point what was going on. How he knew so much about me. How he’d turned everyone against me. The buyer was coming into town a few weeks later, so I made a fake entry in my journal. About the night I snuck out and lost my virginity. I came home from school and Alan was there. Livid. Shaking. This strange angry red color.” I shiver. I’ve never seen anyone so close to a psychotic episode. “He ranted and raved at me for an hour and then decided I made it up. He called that doctor, the one who turned my mom into a vegetable, and locked me in his office until he could get there.”

I rub my arm where the bruises are tender. “I didn’t go willingly, as you might imagine.”

“Why did he call the doctor? Was he going to drug you?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. The doctor was there to…he was going to have him examine me. For a hymen.”

Rogan loses all color in his face. “Fucking Christ, he’s a dead man.”

“So, while I was in his office, I hacked his computer, tried to move a little money around, tried to access my trust, but couldn’t. And then I found the keys to my car. The one he’d been keeping from me for the last week, forcing me to be a prisoner in my own home.”

“You escaped.”

“I escaped.”

Rogan’s big hand, so gentle yet capable of so much, cups my cheek. “You’re the strongest, bravest person I know.”

Which of course sets me off into tears.

“He’ll never hurt you again. I promise. You are not alone.”

I’ve been so alone for so long, I’m not even sure how to feel. Grateful seems like a tame word. But I also feel responsible. I don’t want Rogan dredged into my crazy world. He’s got this great, quiet life of no drama, and I just come barreling through like the Kool-Aid man going through a wall.

“He isolated you for too long. You’re like a flower that needs sun.”

A dandelion maybe.

Rogan fixes my robe. I’d forgotten I’ve been sitting there with my boobs out. Nice one, Layna. “Well, at least now I understand what was north,” he says.

“What was north?” I ask. Because I have no idea what I was heading to other than away.

“Me.”