“Careful, darlin’. You start in with the foreplay and I can’t be held liable for my actions.”
I laugh as I spin in his arms to face him. “How is me telling you “no” foreplay?”
“How is it not?” he asks as he leans down and buries his face in my chest. Giggling, I push him away and the smile on his face when he glances back up at me is breathtaking. Shit. I forgot the way he could completely disarm me with just a look. “I forgot what this felt like.”
“What?”
“Being happy. It’s been so long since I’ve had a reason to smile.”
My heart breaks for him as I place my hand on his cheek and loop my finger through one of his belt loops, pulling him close again. In all this time, I was only able to focus on my own pain and even though getting locked up was his own fault, I never took the time to consider how much he might be hurting.
“I’m sorry for never coming to see you.”
He studies me, his gaze full of questions. “Why didn’t you? Were you really that mad at me?”
“Shit,” I whisper, dropping my gaze to my feet as I realize my mistake. Emotion crashes over me, the same way it does each time I think about that time in my life and tears fill my eyes. I’ve been putting this conversation off but I suppose it’s time to get it out in the open. “If we’re going to have this conversation, I need coffee.”
Nodding, he releases me and gently shoves me toward the table. “Go sit down and I’ll bring it over.”
After plopping down in the chair, I turn and watch him as he prepares my coffee just the way I like it, my mind working through the story, trying to find the best way to frame it. There’s so much that happened and I’m honestly a little unsure of where to even start. My stomach flips with nerves as my hands shake. Besides relaying the story to Hannah, I’ve never spoken of this to anyone else and it feels like something is lodged in my throat. Like I’m going to open my mouth to speak my truth but no words will come out.
Noah joins me at the table, setting my mug of coffee down in front of me and sitting in the chair across from me. He looks nervous but also curious whereas I can barely manage to get the coffee mug to my lips my hands are shaking so badly.
“Just spit it out, Kady,” he orders. “That look on your face is killing me.”
I suck in a breath and nod, my gaze focused on the coffee in my mug as I wrap both of my hands around it, soaking up the warmth. “I never came to see you because I couldn’t.”
“What does that mean? It hurt too much? You were mad?”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. I take another deep breath and meet his eyes, my heart pounding madly in my chest. “At first, I physically couldn’t and after that, it wasn’t safe for me to see you.”
His brows shoot up as he searches my face. “What does that mean? Will you stop being so goddamn cryptic?”
I nod. “On the night you were arrested, I got off work at the diner and I was waiting outside for you to pick me up when a big, black SUV rolled up.”
His brows furrow and I release the mug to clasp my hands together in my lap, staring at them as I continue.
“Two men jumped out and grabbed me. I screamed so loud, praying that someone would hear me, but it was late and no one was there. They threw a bag over my head and shoved me into the car.”
“What?” he hisses, his muscles straining. Closing my eyes, images of that night fill my mind and fear claws at me the same way it did then. Glancing up at him, I swallow my fear and press on.
“They took me to a basement apartment and left me there. For two days, I was alone down there. It was fully furnished and there was food in the cupboards but all the doors and windows were locked from the outside and I could see two guards standing outside constantly through one of the windows.”
He scoots his chair around the corner of the table, the legs scratching against the floor, and it startles me as he pulls my hands into his. “What are you saying to me, Kady? Someone kidnapped you and held you hostage?”
“On the third day,” I say, ignoring his question as tears fill my eyes as I drop them to my lap again, sucking in a breath. “Someone came to see me. He told me that the apartment was my new home and that I was his now.”
“Who was it?” Noah asks, his voice deadly and I look up, meeting his green gaze. Tears slip down my cheeks and he reaches forward, wiping them away with a tenderness that surprises me based on the murderous look in his eyes.
“It was Oliver Ford… or as you know him, Biche.”
He falls back into the chair like I punched him as his eyes widen. Studying me, his entire body starts shaking and without warning, he slams his fist on the table and jumps up.
“Son of a bitch!” he roars, his voice booming off the walls of the cabin as he kicks the chair he was just sitting in, sending it flying across the room. A sob slips out of my lips. Whipping around, he drops to his knees next to my chair and pulls me off my seat and into his lap. “I’m so sorry, baby. So fucking sorry.”
Another sob overtakes me as I bury my head in his neck and he runs his fingers through my hair, trying to comfort me.
“I swear to God, I’ll make him pay for this.”
“There’s more,” I tell him through my tears and he pulls back just enough to cradle my face in his hands as he nods.
“Tell me.”
“He held me there for a year and he liked to talk… a lot. While I was there, he talked about how much he hated you for not only making him look bad in front of his father but for taking me from him.”
Pain splashes across his face, quickly followed by confusion and I can see him trying to work through everything I’ve told him.
“He held you for a year? Did he just let you go when the year was up or did you get away?”
I shake my head. “No. A week after I went missing, Bobby realized something was wrong and he went searching for me. It took him over eleven months to find where I was and get close enough to Biche to be assigned to my guard duty. There was this maid that came in to clean the apartment twice a week and whenever she did, a guard would always accompany her and watch over me. Bobby pretended like he didn’t know me the first couple of times so we didn’t arouse suspicion and then on the third time, he broke me out of there. After that, he brought me here.”
Bewildered, he shakes his head. “What do you mean I took you from him?”
“Apparently, we went to school with him. He said he was in love with me when you came along and stole me away. He always blamed you for taking what was his and when you started selling better than he did, he blamed you for stealing his father’s affection.”
“This is fucking insane,” he whispers, staring at the floor and I use the opportunity to slip out of his grasp and walk to the other side of the kitchen. Memories flood my mind, so many nights that I cried and prayed for rescue to come. More tears fill my eyes. “What else? Tell me what else he did to you.”
I back away from him as he stands and turns to me, demanding answers. “No, I can’t.”
“Kady, I need to know. He had you for a goddamn year and I need to know what happened to you down there. Did he…rape you?”
My skin goes cold and I back away from him, shaking my head. When he reaches out for me, I slip past him and head toward the bedroom, desperately needing an escape. It’s all too much and I can’t spend anymore time talking about this today. Honestly, I’m surprised I was able to get through as much as I was. It’s so damn hard even thinking about what I went through for that year and talking about it all at once would break me, for sure. He has no idea the things I experienced while being held by Oliver and furthermore, I still haven’t decided if I’m going to allow this to continue. Oliver always told me that it would be a cold day in hell before he let Noah have me again and at this point, I know him well enough to know that he’ll live up to his word. If I allow Noah back into my life, one of us will get hurt, which is why I’ve been so reluctant to just pick up where we left off.