Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Please, it’s only that—”
He pulls me from the wall and drags me back down the hall. I gasp and struggle, trying to get away, but his grip is iron. He’s not himself right now and the rage rolls off his body in thick, heavy waves, and I’m terrified of what he’ll do. This is a different sort of anger, a much different anger, and I don’t think he’s going to spank me. I don’t think he’s going to make it feel good.
We reach our suite and he throws me into the bedroom. I stumble and lean against the bed, breathing hard and rubbing my sore arm.
“Stay the fuck here,” he says, jaw working. “You will not leave this room. Do you understand me?”
“Kellen, please.”
“Stop it. I don’t want to hear your excuses. I’m posting a guard outside this door with orders to throw you back in if you try to escape. Stop struggling, Tara. Stop making this harder. I’ll figure out what to do with you and come back soon.” He walks away and slams the door behind him.
Leaving me trapped and alone.
Chapter 17
Tara
I pace around the bed thinking about the look on Goldie’s face right before Kellen yanked me into the hall.
Tears streamed down her face and her expression was utter anguish.
She remembers.
Maybe not everything, maybe not the details, but she remembers. At first, she thought I was having an affair with Orin—clearly her mind is confused and she must’ve mixed me up with some other woman—and my spine shivers at the thought. Nothing could repulse me more than that bastard. I would’ve thrown myself off a cliff before letting that slimy, sick lizard touch me with his dripping paws.
No, I wasn’t sleeping with Kellen’s father, and he never once tried to touch me. Not that way.
I rub my face, tingling with anxiety. Going into his mother’s room was a risk and I knew he’d be upset if he found out. I had to do it though—I needed someone to confirm that what I experienced was real and not some figment of my fractured and ruined mind. In those early years, I was so strung out and so deeply focused on recovery and dealing with my addiction that I barely understood what was happening around me, much less able to process what Orin was doing.
As the years passed and I kept clean, my mind came back, piece by piece. But what I found there when I began to look back was worse than the hole I found myself stuck inside.
I walk to the window and wrap my arms around myself, hugging tight. Outside, the garden is still and quiet, and I think about standing in the heat, sweat drenching my clothes as the fabric clings to my skin, my arms digging into the hard rocky soil, the wind blowing along my hair, and for me, that’s heaven. To stay there, trimming, watering, digging, I could do it forever.
Except when Orin Hayle decided to pay me a visit.
It didn’t happen often at first, but I think he started to like it, and he came out more and more as the years went by. Except for that final year, when he was drinking too much and too sick to do anything more than wallow around the house. That was the best year of my life. The most peace I’d felt in a long time.
There’s a soft knock at the door. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here alone, but I’m guessing about an hour. Kellen steps inside, looking much calmer than he was before. The hallway behind him is empty, and I don’t know if he was bluffing about the guard or if Kellen sent him away.
“We need to talk,” he says.
I nod, already blinking back the tears. “I should’ve told you sooner.”
His jaw works as he steps closer. “It’s true then.”
“What did your mother tell you?”
“I want to hear it from you first.”
I look down at the floor and release a low groan. These memories hurt so fucking much, but he’s right, I need to face them and speak them myself or else Orin Hayle will keep on haunting me forever, despite how hard I worked to make him disappear.
“I don’t remember the first time. He’d show up randomly when I was out working and talk to me like everything was normal, but there’d always be a turn. I never knew what would set him off, but suddenly he’d come at me, telling me how I’m a murderer, how I killed his little girl and took away his child, how I’m a slut and a whore and a piece of fucking trash and he kept me around only because he thought it was funny to watch me suffering out in the heat and laboring for him.”
I close my eyes, tears dripping down my cheeks. I can still hear Orin saying all these things. It wasn’t once, or twice, but dozens of times, twice a week or more if he was in a particularly foul mood. He’d show up, verbally abuse me, and then—