Chapter Thirteen
Faye
“You had fun?” I ask.
My sister shrugs. “It was okay. Kind of boring. We had to take a book and to read during times of reflection. Building stuff was cool. I didn’t like the circle of truth.”
“What’s that?”
“Where you tell people about your life and why you’re there.”
“Did you tell them?”
“I got in the circle. You have to, and I just said that some bad things happened to me and I was having a hard time dealing.”
I nod.
Chase is in the car, and as I roll Kerry’s bag behind me, I don’t know what to say.
“So, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“My boss is taking us home.”
Kerry stops, and I do the same. This is not a conversation I want to have.
“Your boss?”
“Yes.”
She glances toward the parked cars, and when she spots Chase she tenses up. “Do I need to know something?”
“No.”
“Are you being careful?”
“Wow, seriously. I’m five years older than you. I know what to do, and you don’t need to worry about that.”
I go to walk off, but Kerry grabs my arm. It’s the first time she’s touched me in a long time. She asked me to never hug her again. The request broke my heart, but I wasn’t going to give her a reason to hate me.
“You like him.”
“Kerry, let’s get you home.”
“Be honest with me. You like him?”
Licking my suddenly dry lips, I push some hair out of my face, and try to distract myself with doing everything but answering her question.
“Come on, Faye, you don’t have to lie to me. I’m not going to break because you suddenly like a guy. I love that you’ve got a man in your life.”
I stop and turn to Kerry. “He can leave if he makes you uncomfortable.” I don’t want her to pull away from me.
She sighs. “Seriously!” Kerry shakes her head. “I don’t care, okay.”
“But…”
“No buts. Stop using me as a fucking excuse not to do something because it makes you nervous. I get it, okay. I’ve been messed up and I’ve struggled, but I’m doing okay now. I know what is right and what is wrong. Don’t put your life on hold and use me as a reason to do it. I’ve got no problem hanging around guys, believe me. Just stop and think about yourself for a change.”
With that, Kerry brushes past me and walks right over to the parked car waiting for us. I’m not using her as an excuse. I don’t think so, anyway.
I don’t stall, and rush to the parked car.
When I climb in Kerry is chatting animatedly with Chase, and she sounds genuinely interested in him.
Sitting back, I buckle my seat belt and listen. All the way back to the apartment she talks about camping, hiking, the truth circle. She doesn’t talk about anyone’s story, just what it was like and her own thoughts about it.
She sounds happy.
Every now and then I keep glancing in the back to make sure she’s okay and sure enough, she has this radiant smile on her face. If I’d known all along that camping would have worked, I’d have taken her myself.
The moment Chase parks, she’s out of the car and gone, leaving me and my boss to gather her bags.
“You’re too soft on her.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
“Are you going to be like this forever with her? Carrying her bags when she’s married and gone?”
“There’s a long time for that.”
“Really?”
It’s what I’m hoping. “She’s fifteen.”
“Okay.”
Shooting a glare in his direction, I don’t like how sure he sounds. Fifteen is not a good age to date or do anything else as far as I’m concerned.
“What’s that mean, okay?”
“It means that you don’t know what the future holds or what she’s going to want.”
I stare at him, knowing he’s hiding something. I just don’t know what. “Out with it.” I don’t care if we’re in the middle of the street. He clearly has something to say, and I want to hear it.
He sighs.
“She asked me while we were waiting for you if I’d keep you off her back and help you see that she’s a grownup.”
“Wow, I struggle to get two sentences out of her on a good day, and she talks to you. Words and stuff.” I’m hurt. No doubt about it. It really hurts to know that she prefers my boss’s company to mine. How she’s happy to talk to him but not to me.
“Faye…” He takes a step toward me, but I can’t. Not right now.
I feel like an utter bitch, but it really does fill me with despair to know that she trusted him and she won’t give me the time of day. I don’t blame Chase, not really.
Entering the apartment building, I go toward the elevator this time rather than take the stairs. I expect Chase to go in the opposite direction, not to follow me, but he does, right into the elevator. As it starts it climb, he goes to the panel and presses the “stop” button.
I’m fighting tears as it is.
There’s no way I can do this.
It’s too much. Too raw and I’ve not got up enough walls. I need them firmly back in place right now.
Suddenly, he’s right in front of me, cupping my face, tilting my head back to look into my eyes. I let him. What else can I do? There’s no hiding, trapped in an elevator. Now I wish I’d taken the stairs.
So stupid.
“What is it, Faye? Talk to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re my boss and the man…” I sob, I can’t help it. “The man I sold myself to. I can’t talk. I can’t…”
His lips brush mine.
“You can trust me, Faye. You’re mine. Remember that. One hundred percent mine. You sold yourself to me. No one else. To me. Whatever it is, you need to get it out.”
Tears blur my vision as I look at him.
Words halt in my throat, and I don’t know what to do or what to say. Everything is so messed up right now, and I can’t think.
I replay Kerry’s words inside my head. I’m not using her to hold me back. I’m taking care of her like I failed to do.
“She liked it,” I say. The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“What?”
Once I start, I can’t make it stop. This is the secret I’ve been carrying. The only other people to know are the medical professionals.
“That’s why I needed the money. When, erm, when I found my stepfather raping my sister, I reported his ass straight away. Kerry attacked me. She hit me. Screamed at me. She told me they were in love. That I’d ruined her life by doing it and she was going to make me pay. She said she loved him. She loved when he was inside her.” The tears start to fall and don’t stop.
“Jesus,” Chase says. He doesn’t let go of me, but he wipes the tears away, and then his arms are right around my body, holding me tightly. He kisses the top of my head.
I sob.
After all the time that has passed, all the revelations from Kerry, from my stepfather, all of it, I just break apart and shatter. Throughout it all, Chase continues to hold me. he doesn’t let go, and I don’t want him to. I need his arms, his touch … his love?
“What happened?” he asks.
“It’s why I needed money. Kerry ended up the hospital. She was very sick, and the doctors said he’d been abusing her, brainwashing her. She was trying to hurt herself, and they had to restrain her. She needed to see the truth, so they put her through a program that helped her to see the facts. It required her to stay within a psychiatric facility and a doctor who could help Kerry come to terms with what had happened. They stripped away his training of her and helped her to realize what had been going on.”
“Was she the only one?”
“No. That’s how we knew it wasn’t love. There were three more girls on the street that came forward after I revealed what happened. They told the truth of how he showed them attention when no one else would. He made them trust him, believe he was there to be their friend, and made them feel special and loved. It all led to sex for him. He would ask them to do things to show their love for him. It was really rape and control. He got off on the power, and one of the girls, I don’t know why, it’s like she realized what was happening was wrong. He loved that these young girls couldn’t say no to him. It was a cycle of abuse that because he’d been well-liked, no one would have believed. After I exposed what he did to Kerry and that girl came forward, another two did also. There could have been others, but we don’t know for certain.”
“They believed you?”
I nod. “They couldn’t doubt it. He only targeted girls from families that were from ill repute, not that it was acceptable or anything. It sickens me to think of how long he was doing it. The doctor said that the kind of abuse she suffered, it had been going on for years. Before he finally did the act, he could have been working her since we first met with my mom.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have told you this.”
“Faye, you consider the night we met something dirty because I paid you. I stopped any other man from having you, and even if you weren’t for sale and we met in a bar, I’d have wanted you. Simple as that. Don’t think for a second that I regard that night as anything dirty. Far from it. I loved it, every fucking second, and I can’t wait to do it again.”
He wipes away the last of my tears.
“My face is probably a complete and total mess.”
“Nah, you’re beautiful.” He presses his lips against mine and I close my eyes, loving his touch a little too much. “Are you ready to go to your apartment?”
“Yes.”
He pushes the button that will take us up to my place.
When I go to pick up a bag, he refuses to let me take it, and I sigh as we walk to our apartment. Kerry is nowhere in sight, but I hear her in her bedroom. Once again, my trusty slow cooker has been working for me. I put it on high when we got home from work so anything I put in there would be cooked.
Chase takes the bags to Kerry’s room, and seconds later he comes back into the kitchen. As I’m serving up, he wraps his arms around me, and I close my eyes, enjoying the closeness we share.
I know it hasn’t been that long, but it’s like time fails to have any meaning when I’m with him.
Between work and our time together, I feel closer to him with every passing day.
“I’m so pleased you were able to trust me with this.” He whispers the words against my neck. Closing my eyes, I tilt my head to the side to give him better access. He sucks on the pulse, his teeth grazing the spot.
One of his hands slides beneath the band of my skirt and he cups my pussy. He doesn’t make any move to find my warmth beneath them, just strokes back and forth gently.
I want him there and then.
“I’m going to fuck you tonight. You’re not getting rid of me.”
“Kerry.”
“I don’t give a fuck. You’re going to have to be quiet. I’m not taking no for an answer. Not when I can feel how wet you are.”
His hand is gone in the next second. His lips are not.
“So, you two are a couple?” Kerry asks, startling me from my aroused state.
It is like an instant bucket of cold water. Opening my eyes, I stare at my sister’s mischievous ones.
“It’s not like you to come out of your room so quickly.”
“It’s not like you to take so long serving. That looks good on you.”
“Kerry!”
“What? Come on. I’m so pleased to see that you have a boyfriend. I was starting to worry there that you were looking forward to life as a spinster. I don’t think you’ve ever brought a boyfriend home.”
“Shh,” I say. She doesn’t need to go telling Chase just how many firsts he’s part of.
“She hasn’t?”
“Nope. None. Believe me, I’d have remembered. I know in high school there were rumors she was a lesbian. I didn’t buy it.”
“You’ve never had a boyfriend?” he asks, his lips back at my neck.
“No, and I shouldn’t be with you.” I look at Kerry. “It’s against company policy.”
“I’m the boss. I can change that if I want.”
Kerry laughs. “I like him.”
With his arms around me, I serve us up, and much to my surprise, Kerry sits with us the entire time.
She looks happier.
More like the young girl I used to know.
The one that didn’t have anything happen to her.
She doesn’t linger to do the dishes, but that’s okay. I like doing them, and Chase helps so we get through them quickly.
After that, we head toward my bedroom, which he’s never seen.
The moment we’re inside, Chase pulls me into his arms. “I’m your first at everything, aren’t I?”
Looking into his eyes, I nod.
“Good. I don’t like the thought of another man knowing just how precious you are.”
“What about you with other women?”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
I can’t help but giggle.
“All you need to know, Faye, is you’re the only woman for me. The only one I want.”
“You’re not just saying that.”
He rubs his cock against me and shakes his head. “No, I’m not.”