Finally, he calls, “Wait.”
I glance back.
“I have a guest room,” he concedes. “My parents go to Los Angeles for the winter, and they’re already there. They’ll never know.”
“What’s the catch?”
He snickers. “What makes you think there’s a catch?”
“Because your name is Ian Fletcher.” I cross my arms over my chest. “So?”
“I’ll let you stay… for a kiss.” He walks closer, circling around me.
“Why did you kick me in the stomach?”
His eyes light up. “Ah. Do you still have bruises? Can I see?”
“This was a mistake.” I can’t get away from him fast enough. Honestly—what on earth was I thinking?
I try to step around him, but he blocks me. I step around him again, and he follows me down a hallway, into the kitchen. It’s big and cold. There’s a sliding door that leads out onto the porch. I got drunk in this house. It was here that Unknown got that damn video of me.
“Kiss me and you can stay, rent free, for a month. If you aren’t discovered before that.”
He’s standing right behind me, while I’m frozen with my hand on the glass.
“And I’ll tell you who took that video,” he adds.
“Tempting,” I say.
“He kissed Savannah in front of you.”
I flinch.
“Multiple times, if sources are correct.”
My gaze wanders over his backyard. I could go somewhere else. Riley’s, maybe. She would hide me from Caleb.
“I don’t understand why you’d want to kiss me,” I say.
I turn around, and he’s right there.
He’s not Caleb. He’s intimidating, sure, but his presence doesn’t make me lose my shit. He crowds me, and all my body remembers is the pain.
He’s close enough to touch me, but he doesn’t. He stares into my eyes, a slight frown on his lips.
He leans into me. I put my hands on his chest and shove.
He laughs, going with the momentum. A second later, he traps my wrists in his hand and holds me against the sliding door. It rattles when I hit it, protesting the abuse.
“Let. Go.” I try to shake him off, but his grip just tightens.
He yanks my shirt up to my chest.
My stomach is still a kaleidoscope of bruises. It was a vicious move on his part, kicking me. It still hurts, but not as bad now. The first week? Forget about it. And after Caleb’s betrayal, it’s a drop in the bucket. Mentally, anyway.
“Got what you wanted?” I ask.
He runs a finger over my abdomen.
I shut my eyes. “Stop.”
“He calls you a sheep,” he says. “But I think you’re proving to be far from that.”
I open my eyes.
His attention is fixated on the bruises. There’s an odd expression on his face—a split second of remorse, maybe, and his damn finger on my skin.
“Stop touching me, Ian.” My voice doesn’t tremble like I thought it might.
He releases me like coming out of trance.
“Payment accepted,” he whispers. He clears his throat. “Take the room, Wolfe. Upstairs, first one on the left. Don’t ask me for anything else.”
I don’t push it. I slip past him and dart up the stairs, stepping into the room and closing the door behind me. I lean against it for good measure. My bag hits the floor next to me.
The room is huge. I mean, big surprise—the whole house is a freaking mansion. But it’s pink. A girl’s room, clearly, by the white-and-pink bedspread and the light-pink walls. The curtains on the two windows are white. A rug covering half of the hardwood floors, a low dresser in the corner… a vase of flowers on one nightstand and a lamp on the other.
Weird.
I’d imagine they must have a housekeeper, someone who keeps everything clean and fresh. The water in the vase is high and clear.
There’s no lock on the door. I inch toward the bed, exhaustion crashing over me. It’s not even ten o’clock yet. Was it only five hours ago that Caleb was inside me? He wasn’t professing love—I’m not that daft—but our sex…
I’m delusional. Clearly.
After a night of limited sleep, I could stay in bed for a week.
I lie down and stare at the tiled ceiling. My eyes won’t close, even though they feel like sandpaper. I can’t cry, either. I spent most of the walk to Ian’s house swinging between stoicism and sobbing. No in between.
How could he do this?
There are questions that need answering.
I hop up and pull a notebook out of my bag. The way to get organized is to make a list.
Who is Unknown?
Why is Caleb set on ruining my life?
Tobias—Dad’s attorney?
When I try to remember my past, nothing happens. It’s like there’s a wall in my mind. It isn’t active unless I try to access the few months before I entered into foster care. I remember being with my dad in the park, but that’s because Caleb practically forced the memory out of me.
Maybe…
No.
I look down at my list again.
There’s more.
Where are Caleb’s parents?
What happened in our past?
Who sent the video?
My head pounds. Ian told me he knew. I’ll have to ask him again.
I lie back down and force my eyes shut.
Today’s been a clusterfuck. Being in Ian’s guest room… well, I can’t say that really makes it any better. My phone is off, at the bottom of my bag. I can only imagine the texts and calls piling up: Riley, Caleb. The Jenkinses might call to inform me that Angela will be picking me up. I might come back and find my stuff on the curb.
That happened once.
Angela was waiting for me next to a plastic bag of all my belongings—a few shirts, underwear, pants, and a toothbrush. The foster family hadn’t even given me toothpaste.
I prided myself on not losing my shit. I’d learned the hard way that tears solved nothing. They changed nothing.
Eleven-year-old Margo learned that bad things would continually happen. It was her new reality. I went into the system when I was ten, but for that first year, I was optimistic. I thought I’d go back to my mom and dad, that life with the Ashers would return to normal.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Margo
Past
The detective took my dad away.
A lady sat next to me on the bench and smiled. Even though she looked nice, she wasn’t particularly warm and fuzzy. Not like Dad when he held my hand on the way here.
“Ready to go, Margo?”
Dad struggled against the handcuffs. It was quite the commotion.
“Where?”
She frowned. “Your dad was just arrested. I’m with Social Services. We’re going to try and locate your mom, okay?”
My pulse raced. “Mom? No, she…”
Blank.
“I’m Angela,” she said. She shook my hand and then wouldn’t let go. She pulled me up and away.
I wondered if there were more police officers to arrest me, too.
“Come on, honey.”
We were almost to her car.
Dad said never to get in the car with strangers.
I screamed.