Shane's Fall (The Escort Series Book 2) Page 17

  It was then that he realized how silent everything was. He looked up to see that his parents weren’t watching him. Their eyes were on the young woman standing at the top of the stairs, her trembling body only covered by one of his dress shirts, her bright eyes shining with the tears of betrayal. His mind wandered back to his mother’s last words and then he realized what Savannah had heard. Some complete and utter bullshit about an engagement that didn’t exist.

  “Savannah,” he said but she turned and went back into his bedroom. His parents were standing like twin statues, their mouths comically open as they stared at the now empty space above them.

  “Mom, Dad, can I meet you at your hotel in a little while?” he asked even as he was heading for the stairs, his mind racing. Could he even fix this? Should he?

  “Who is that?” his mother asked dumbly. But he was already up the stairs by the time she finished her question and vaguely heard the front door snick closed at their departure. His eyes were on the woman who wasn’t hastily dressing as he thought she’d be, but was sitting on the other side of the bed, the side she had seemingly claimed as hers after the first night she’d spent here with him. She was facing the wall, her back hunched, her black hair spread down her back and shoulders. Her arms were wrapped protectively around herself and she was rocking slowly back and forth. His gut clenched as he moved around to her side of the bed and he felt immediate relief when he didn’t see any sharp objects in her grasp. The band was still on her wrist but she wasn’t snapping it. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

  As he got closer, he could see silent tears running down her face. “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” she whispered. “The voices carry up here,” she said.

  Seeing her tears caused him physical pain and he knew this was exactly what their future would look like if he tried to make a life with her. She’d be hurting like this and he’d be off somewhere shooting up because the heroin meant more to him then she did.

  He wanted to sit down next to her and wrap her in his arms, but he didn’t. He leaned back against the wall so that he was facing her, but stayed closer to the foot of the bed. If he was within reach of her, he wouldn’t be able to do what he needed to do.

  “I know that.”

  “I couldn’t keep my promise Shane,” she said as more tears streamed steadily down. It was frightening how there was no sound to accompany them. He didn’t want her to hold the pain inside because he knew what that would ultimately lead to.

  “What promise?” he asked.

  “You wanted me to keep my heart out of this so I would be able to walk away when it was over,” she sniffed. “Our agreement. It was one of your conditions.”

  He nodded, his insides threatening to collapse in on themselves from the anguish he was feeling. “I remember.”

  “I knew I was in love with you that day but I agreed anyway.”

  He had already known she loved him because she wore her emotions on her sleeve, but it was both ecstasy and agony to actually hear the words. He wanted to say them back, to whisper them into her ear as he was buried inside of her, their bodies escaping from the harsh reality of the outside world.

  “There’s no engagement. Paige must have told my parents I had proposed to manipulate them into coming here. I told you the truth about not being with anyone else,” he said quietly. No matter what, he couldn’t let her leave here thinking he’d lied to her about that.

  Savannah nodded and then used her sleeve to try and wipe some of the moisture from her face. She was a blotchy, beautiful mess and she was his. And he couldn’t have her.

  “I’ll tell Logan everything about the attack tonight. He doesn’t need to know about what happened between us.” He hated how the word “us” barely made it out of her mouth and he hated it even more that she was using past tense to describe their relationship.

  He knew he had to say the words to end this for good, but he couldn’t make them leave his mouth. “Savannah,” he began, not sure how to phrase his next statement. “I need to know that when you leave here, you won’t hurt yourself.”

  She laughed harshly, the hurt in her tone ripping at his heart. “There’s nothing to let out.” She stripped the band off her wrist and dropped it to the floor. “I don’t feel anything anymore.”

  He choked back his own sob at her words and stood to go to her but a shrill, piercing sound interrupted. He smelled burning and then remembered the omelet he’d been preparing. Had that only been a few minutes ago? Somehow between blending the ingredients and this moment – less than five actual minutes – he’d gone from discovering how in love with her he really was to how fucked up his entire life had become and finally to accepting that he couldn’t have a future with her.

  “Stay here please,” he pleaded and then hurried downstairs. There were actual flames in the pan where the fluffy egg creation that he’d been increasingly proud of had once been. It took several minutes to find the fire extinguisher and put out the blaze and then silence the blaring alarm. By the time he got back to his room, she was gone.

  ***

  Shane pulled away from Logan and Savannah’s house and headed back towards the city. He’d left his apartment to go meet his parents, but ended up driving to her house to make sure Savannah had made it home okay. Her car hadn’t been there, so he was hoping that meant she’d gone to work, but in her condition, that would have surprised him. As he neared downtown, he ignored the exit for the hotel he knew his parents would have been staying at – they were creatures of habit, after all – and headed towards the northwestern suburbs. The elementary school was busy with parents dropping off their children and long rows of buses depositing an endless line of kids on the curb. Shane drove around the employee parking lot, but her car was nowhere in sight. Frustrated, he sent her a text that said I need to know you’re safe.

  He began the trip back towards the city and then picked up the phone and called Gabe. When his friend answered he said, “Is she there?”

  Gabe was silent for a long time before finally putting him out of his misery. “No, but she’s at the gym. A friend of mine saw her come in a few minutes ago and called me to let me know. Apparently she’s going at the bag pretty hard. I’m on my way there now.”

  He wasn’t sure if Gabe heard his choked sound of relief and was too messed up to care. “Can you just keep an eye on her for me today?” he asked.

  Another long silence. Then with a sigh, Gabe said, “Yeah.” Shane hung up and pointed his car towards the city.

  ***

  She just couldn’t get the rhythm right. Her anger built as she jabbed at the small speed bag. It kept swinging wildly and nothing she did made it move in that clean, fluid motion that was somehow soothing and empowering at the same time. She threw another punch at it and missed. A few more hits connected and she could feel the burning in her shoulders start. It eased some of the raw pain that had begun leeching into her bloodstream after she’d walked out of Shane’s apartment. She hadn’t expected the pain because all she’d felt in his bedroom after hearing his mother talk about his supposed engagement had been emptiness. When he’d come into the room and she’d declared her love for him and he hadn’t said the words back, it was like someone had removed all the blood from her body and injected her with ice water instead. She had nothing left – he’d broken her. She’d even discarded the band because you didn’t need distraction from something you couldn’t feel, right?

  It had all come screaming back though and she’d somehow ended up steering her car towards the gym. She’d walked in and zoned in on the speed bag and now, as sweat ran down her in rivulets and her mass of hair clung to her, she put every ounce of her strength behind each swing. She didn’t know she was sobbing with each punch or that the few early morning occupants of the gym had been and were still watching her with concern. And she didn’t see Gabe until he stepped in front of the bag and gently caught her next throw.

  She yanked her arm back from his hold and took a few steps back. She p
ushed some of the hair that was plastered around her face back and glared at him for the interruption. It was then that she noticed everyone watching her and then she realized why. She was wearing her pink dress from dinner last night. Her hair was loose and sticking to her sweat-drenched skin. Suspecting tears were running from her eyes too, she lifted her fingers to test the theory and sure enough, they came back with more than just sweat on them. Worse yet, she’d left her cardigan behind so her arms were exposed, the scars on the left one as plain as day.

  “Oh God,” she whispered as she felt all the eyes on her.

  “Hey!” Gabe nearly yelled at her, but his deep, commanding voice did what he had intended and pulled her back out of the darkness she’d been ready to escape into. “None of these men are judging you Savannah,” he said firmly as he motioned towards the room. “Every single one of them knows what you’re feeling.”

  She looked around and sure enough, most of the men were nodding. She took a deep breath and watched them return to their workouts. Gabe used the distraction to grab her by the wrist. He pulled her a few short steps to the big weight bag in the corner.

  “The speed bag is for precision and working on hand-eye coordination, but it’s useless if you just want something to beat the shit out of,” Gabe said as he worked some small boxing gloves onto her hands and then slapped the big bag. “If you really want to feel that burn, you use this.”

  How did he know that was what she was trying to do? He glanced at her arm, the scarred one, and said, “Everybody has a different way of getting the pain out Savannah. Alcohol, drugs, fighting, sex.” He said the last one differently and then she remembered his previous profession. “There’s no shame in doing what you need to do to survive.”

  She tested the weight of the bag by pushing against it. The thing barely moved, so she pushed it harder. Adrenaline flooded through her as she began striking the bag over and over. Within minutes her entire body ached, but she kept at it. The bag hardly swung, but the satisfaction that it did at all made her punch it harder. Dark, evil eyes looked back as she struck out. Cruel hands reached for her but she fought them off. That voice that told her to run and hide inside herself called out to her, but she smacked the shit out of it. Her body finally gave out on her and she stumbled to a halt and fell to her knees.

  Gabe was there before she did a face plant and his big arm just held her as he settled behind her and eased the gloves off her hands. As her breathing finally began to slow, Gabe released her and she sank down on her ass and drew her knees up against her chest. She felt his presence next to her, but he let her settle for a few more minutes before he spoke again.

  “When’s your next appointment with Dr. Henderson?” he asked.

  She was surprised that he knew who her doctor was and she answered, “Next week,” automatically before realization sank in.

  “He does emergency visits if you need to see him sooner. I can call him for you,” Gabe said.

  “Shane got his number from you?” she asked, a shot of pain kicking through her as Shane’s name left her lips. Gabe nodded, then chuckled.

  “I don’t really fit the profile, do I?” he mused.

  “What profile?”

  “Victim,” was all he said.

  It took her a moment to understand what he was telling her and then she shook her head in denial. He couldn’t be…

  “I guess victim is what you feel like in the beginning, but somewhere along the way you start to think of yourself as a survivor. It took me a while to get that,” Gabe mused.

  “You were-” She couldn’t get the word out because it was stuck in her head that such a thing could never happen to someone as big and strong and confident as Gabe.

  “Raped,” he finished for her.

  Tears welled in her eyes and then they were falling. It was too much – it was just too much. She felt his big hand rub her back in comfort and realized that the touch felt exactly that way. There was no fear or shame. She trusted him one hundred percent now, like she did her brother and Shane. Another flash of pain, but she pushed it away.

  “Does it get better the more you talk about it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it does. It sucked at first and it took me a long time to believe it really happened. I was ashamed to have to admit it to Riley especially. You don’t want someone you love to have to suffer through something like that with you.” She nodded because she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “I have to tell Logan,” she finally said. “It’s going to kill him,” she whispered.

  Gabe was silent for a moment. “It’s going to hurt knowing that he wasn’t able to protect you from that, that’s true. But he’ll see how strong you are and that will help.”

  “I’m not strong,” she said softly. “I couldn’t fight back…not even after,” she muttered. “He destroyed my life and got to walk away and all I could do was this,” she said angrily as she lifted her scarred arm.

  “You did what you needed to do to survive. When was the last time you hurt yourself?” he asked.

  “Almost a month ago,” she answered. She’d had a couple of close calls but the last time she’d actually done it was the night of her disastrous date with Robert.

  “So go another month, then another one after that. Come kick the shit out of this bag or call me and I’ll let you throw me around a little bit,” he joked as he referred to their self-defense training. “Or if you need something girly, call Riley and she can drag you shopping or go do some of that salon crap you girls seem to be so fond of.” He waved his hand around as he spoke – she wasn’t surprised that someone like him wasn’t at all familiar with the goings on at a salon. “Don’t let that asshole win. Don’t let him take even another day.”

  They were both quiet for a long time and she wiped at her now dry, but sticky feeling face. God, she was a mess. She was like a raw, open wound and even breathing hurt. But she was also here instead of home in her room watching blood run down her arm.

  “I’m in love with him,” she finally said out loud.

  “Did you tell him that?”

  She nodded. “He doesn’t feel the same. I’d hoped maybe things would change-”

  Gabe sighed. “He called me a little while looking for you – he wanted to make sure you were okay.” She looked up at that and she could tell Gabe was debating what else to say to her. “I heard something in his voice Savannah. If I didn’t think it was something, I wouldn’t tell you. But I’ve never heard that fear before – or the loss. Not even after his brother died.”

  She wanted to mash her hands over her ears because he was giving her the one thing that had sustained her all these weeks – hope.

  “I want to protect you Savannah – I think of you more like a sister now than I ever have before and the last thing I want for you is more pain. But I’ve seen the way you look at him. It’s the way I look at Riley.”

  She nodded, but emotion clogged her throat, making it impossible to speak. When she felt Gabe’s arm go around her shoulder, she didn’t hesitate to lean into him. Maybe if he just held her for a few minutes, she could find the strength she would need to fight for the future she wanted.

  ***

  His parents were already seated at the table in the hotel restaurant when Shane arrived. He knew he stuck out like a sore thumb with his dirty jeans and faded T-shirt. He’d grabbed the nearest clothes when he’d discovered Savannah had left and hadn’t had the energy to drive home and change. His mother looked at his clothes in distaste as he dropped into the chair next to her.

  “Darling,” she began but his father cut her off.

  “Linda, we agreed,” he reminded her and she fell silent. His father looked at him and then waved dismissively. “Son, we understand that sometimes a man’s needs take over,” he began as he reached for his coffee. “Just use some discretion in the future. Hotels,” he suggested casually.

  “What if it had been Paige who stopped by this morning?” his mother muttered.

  Ang
er went through him at the way they insinuated Savannah was just some toy he was amusing himself with on the side. “Paige and I aren’t together anymore, Mom.”

  Linda patted her hair and then stroked an imaginary wrinkle out of her blouse. “Shane, it was a fight – couples have them every day. It’s okay to be nervous-”

  “There’s no fucking engagement!” he nearly yelled and his mother dropped her fork, the metal clattering against the fancy plate beneath it. His father was in the middle of taking a sip of coffee and froze, his fist tightening in anger on the delicate coffee cup.

  “You will apologize to your mother,” his father announced.

  “Or what, you’ll disown me too?” Shane watched the color leech from his mother’s face and all of it seemed to transfer to his father’s because the man’s expression was thunderous.

  “You ungrateful-”

  “John!” his mother hissed.

  His father fell silent and put his cup down. They were having a stare down when Shane felt his mother’s hand close over his. He seethed with anger. It was like the past eight years of having his life decided for him and his acquiescing just so he could get a smattering of love, was catching up with him. His entire life was a joke. He’d bought and paid for their love with his very soul and he had no one to blame but himself. He’d sold his body to escape the shame of being owned by his parents and then he’d snorted drugs up his nose to try and overcome the self-disgust he’d felt at playing the role of whore to any woman who had a wad of cash to throw at him. He’d wrapped it all up in a neat little package and convinced himself it had been his choice and that he’d done it because he wanted to, that he’d enjoyed the rush.

  But the truth was clear as day to him now - he’d done it all because it was all he was good at – being someone else. Being the better version of who he actually was. If he was a good enough son or a good enough fuck or a good enough piece of eye candy then he’d never be alone. His parents, the women, Paige – as long as he was exactly what they wanted him to be, they’d stay with him. Without them he was nothing, had nothing. A dead brother and a drug addiction that would consume him like it had Gabe’s mom – that was who he would be when they walked away. And then Savannah had come into his life and blown it all to hell. He wanted her more than any of them, but she was the one thing he couldn’t have.