Would it be so bad for a girl like me to cling to the kind of man I always wished I could have had for my father? They were using me to feel better about themselves. What was the harm in doing the same?
Movement in the doorway grabbed my attention, making me jump. Damn Hudson. He was always sneaking up on me.
He was smiling as he saw me and that smile quickly turned to unmitigated rage.
“What in the fuck happened to your face?”
13
Hudson
I moved fast and was in front of her before either of us could blink and then my hand was at her arm, yanking her to her feet.
A gasp of surprise, maybe pain, fell from her scratched and swollen lips but I barely registered it.
“Who did this to you?”
She looked like she’d been run through with a cheese grater, scraped and scabbed, a yellowing bruise swelled her cheek, poorly disguised beneath a heavy layer of makeup.
“Hudson,” my dad called my name in warning. One I ignored.
“Who?”
I barked it out and she flinched, pulling her arm in my grasp.
Her cheeks turned red, and those large doe eyes of hers narrowed. She looked positively furious, and it was directed at me.
“Let go of me.”
Crap. What in the hell was I doing?
I let her go immediately. “Shit. I’m sorry.” I stepped back and scrubbed my hands through my hair. “When did this happen? Last night?”
She shifted her focus to the windows and the river, rolling her lips together.
A fierce strumming beat my chest, pooled blood into my fisted hands. “This happened last night. After you refused to let me drive you home?”
She swallowed thickly, and a gaze filled with ire and fire fell on me. “And what would that have accomplished?”
There was that strength. The hint of her softness quickly fleeing behind cinder blocks and bars. Not that I could blame her, but in this?
“Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”
“Like I can afford a doctor.” She laughed once, so cold it sent ice to all the rage pummeling my body. She turned to Dad. “May I ask where the restroom is?”
“I’ll take you.”
“No.” She held up her hand in my direction, refusing my offer, and didn’t take her eyes off Dad. “Mr. Valentine?”
“Stephanie can show you. She’s at her desk in front.”
She nodded once and started moving toward the door when Dad called her name.
“Yes?”
He smiled, that understanding smile filled with sadness I was so damn tired of seeing him wear. “It’s David.”
There was a quick twitch of the corners of her lips before she left, shaking her head.
“What are you going to do about this?” I demanded of him, hands thrown to my hips once she was gone.
He leaned back in his chair. “I will be there for her. In whatever way she needs me to be.”
I paced the room like a caged tiger whose first meal in days waited just outside. I was with her last night. I was rewarded with timid smiles, slightly crooked, and quiet conversation that was about nothing but sugary sweet and enticing all the same. I’d had the ability to keep her safe and protected at my grasp and let her have her way.
I could have followed her to ensure she got home okay. Had even considered it.
Now I had to sit back and do nothing? It wasn’t in my DNA.
“She made it clear she wouldn’t say who attacked her and if you notice how she’s walking slowly, slightly hunched, protecting one side, what we see aren’t her only injuries. So maybe stop yanking her around in your anger.”
“That’s it?” I threw my hands in the air.
“Someday she might trust one of us to tell the truth. And when that happens, she’ll have my full support. Until then, my job is to earn it.”
I hated it when he made sense. I made a face that said as much and the old man grinned up at me. It had the power to rile me up and calm me down all in one twisted motion.
“Did she ask you about anything?”
“She asked how much I looked into her.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“An answer that seemed to pacify her enough for now.”
“We could—”
“No. She’s curious enough to come back. If she knew, she’d flee and never give us this opening.”
He was right. I didn’t blame him. But the more I was around her, the more I wanted her in ways I shouldn’t. Having a gaping wound festering with lies and secrets wasn’t how I operated, with women or business.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
She stepped back into the room, head down, straight to her chair. Without any fanfare or recognition I was in the room, she sat down at the seat, flipped through sheets in the file in front of her. I stood at the windows, memorizing the location of every mark on her face, every bruise, every scratch from the smallest to the largest.
Someday, I would learn the name of the man who did this, hunt him down, and pay him back one hundred-fold.
I stood still while Lilly and Dad walked through the papers. She questioned everything, proving not only her intelligence, but her distrust.
Today had not gone how I’d anticipated seeing her. After last night, with the cupcakes and the quiet conversation and the enjoyably simple time, I’d expected to walk in and see her the same.
Instead, I was met with a coldness that didn’t warm while she and Dad talked. Occasionally, she glanced at me and quickly looked away. I swore once or twice there was a faint blush on her thickly made-up cheeks, giving me intense pleasure.
“You studied auto mechanics when you were…” His voice trailed off and Lilly barely glanced at him. She was head down, scanning another opening. My feet ached to take the seat next to her so I could see the ones that grabbed her attention.
“You can say prison. It’s just a word.” She said it so matter-of-factly, my dad chuckled.
“When you were there,” he continued. “You studied that. Did you enjoy it?”
“I enjoyed the sun on my back when we could open the garage doors, but it wasn’t horrible.” She gave him a wry look, that spark of her true personality that hadn’t been completely stolen from her. “Why? Do you take care of vehicles, too?”
“No.” He laughed quietly and then coughed into his hand. “Excuse me. No, we don’t have cars here. Was there anything about it you liked?”
“I don’t know if enjoy is the right word because nothing was enjoyable in there, but the cars and the engine and learning how everything worked together came easy to me.”
“What about blueprints. Have you read those?”
“Nothing more than floor plans and that was only out of boredom.”
“Floor plans?”
She tapped her pen repeatedly and looked my way before sliding her gaze toward the windows. “I had an uncle who was a general contractor. My mom’s brother. He kept stacks of books of floor plans lying around. They didn’t have any kids, so when we went to his house, which wasn’t often, I flipped through them.”
She shrugged and went back to the stack.
I abandoned my statue-like hold and made my way to my dad.