She’d been so worried that she’d blown it with Scott, that her going all freaky-AWOL on him Monday night had ruined their chances. She knew he was mad by his last voicemail and text message, but at that point she still hadn’t been ready to talk to him. She needed to see her therapist, get some coping tools and figure out the next steps. Todd was, after all, Scott’s client—a big client, at a new job no less. It would be deleterious to his career to lose Fletcher Holdings.
But she also didn’t want to lose Scott.
How could she keep him and he keep Todd?
Was that even possible?
After a few moments, he broke the kiss. His lips traveled down her cheek and over her jaw. “Eva.” Her name on his lips was a plea. It cracked her wide open, causing her emotions to clench tight in her throat. “What are we going to do, Eva?”
She had no idea. No clue.
It was all so messed up now.
Even when she tried to start a new life with her sons in a new neighborhood, with a new man, Todd Fletcher still haunted her. He was a true demon, and if Allison DeWitt’s books had taught her anything, the only way to kill a demon was to rip off its head and burn its body.
Tempting, but she’d never been one for bloodshed.
Against everything inside her that protested, she pried herself up off his lap and walked back around the chair. “I should finish your hair.” Her voice was hollow and not at all sounding like her own. She resumed her job, the feel of Scott’s silky hair between her fingers and the cool steel of the scissors in her hand reassuring and grounding. She loved her job. All she’d ever wanted to be was a hairdresser. Since the age of three, she loved playing with people’s hair. She’d learned to braid and plait hair at a young age, and by the third grade, girls were lined up at recess waiting for her to braid or style their hair.
Aesthetician school had been a bit of a no-brainer after she finished hairdressing school and started working in a salon and spa. She knew she wanted to keep educating herself in the field of beauty and pampering. She wanted to have more to offer people, add more skills and expertise to her CV. So she worked her way through aesthetics school while cutting and coloring hair at The Yellow Owl Hair Salon in downtown Seattle.
Man, she missed it there.
The Owl had been a hip, fun place to work, and she’d made some incredible friends.
But Todd had done his job as an abuser and alienated her from all those friends. She didn’t speak to any of them anymore. At one point she would have gone so far as to call them her extended family, and now? Now she doubted any of them would throw a bucket of water on her if she were to spontaneously catch fire. Todd had caused her to burn a lot of bridges and hurt a lot of people.
“That’s what abusers do,” her therapist had said. “They isolate their victims from friends and family so that all the victim has left, the only person they trust is their abuser.”
And that’s exactly what Todd had done. And he’d done it so well.
Thank God, Celeste hadn’t given up on her and refused to leave Eva alone, no matter what Todd said about her sister. She was still working on repairing her relationship with her parents. Todd had destroyed the once close and loving relationship she had with them. There was a chance they hated her ex-husband more than she did.
She grabbed the razor off the vanity counter and tidied up the back of Scott’s neck and his sideburns. The silence between them began to grow thick in the air. Their passionate moment from earlier already seemed like a lifetime ago. Now all that filled the room was the buzz of the blade and her thundering pulse in her ears.
Once she was finished, she circled around in front of him and hunched down a bit to make sure everything was even. Her fingers found their way back into his hair, and she flayed them out over the sides of his head, pulling the hair out to double-check the length.
Everything looked good.
Scott looked good.
It was habit that had her reaching for the soft, fuzzy brush from the vanity and brushing it over his neck and shoulders, sending the small hair clippings to the tile floor. Then she removed the cape from him and stepped back to grab the broom, but she didn’t have the chance to reach it before his arm snaked out and he grabbed her around the waist, drawing her once again onto his lap.
Her chin trembled as he settled her into him. Heat poured off him like a nuclear reactor. If she wasn’t careful, he was going to send her into a full-on meltdown. “I thought that Todd might have convinced you I was all those terrible things,” she whispered, her fingers twisting around the hem of her white T-shirt. She was in her comfy but professional attire. Stylish dark wash denim capris, a plain white V-neck T, purple tennis shoes and funky, sparkly chandelier earrings. It was an outfit that said she tried, but she wasn’t trying too hard because she was also a mother of two boys and it was a daring enough move for her to wear white, let alone get all glammed up.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Too many thoughts and emotions swirled inside her that the strength to lift her head, to look him in the eye failed her.
Luckily, it was Scott to the rescue. His knuckle found her chin, and gently, he tilted her head up. “I believed him about his ex-wife when I didn’t know who she was. But now that I know it’s you, that I know you, I don’t believe a single word out of his lying, bastard mouth.”
Relief flickered inside her. “Thank you.”
“Haven’t you figured out by now that we’re inevitable, Eva? I don’t know how you can’t see that.”
The flickering relief morphed into hot, licking flames of need. No man had ever been so patient and caring with her, while at the same time making her swoon and think a million dirty thoughts.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” he said, clearing his throat. “I went through a lot of emotions when you ghosted me like that. First, I was worried. My overactive imagination had you upside down in a car, pinned inside as the engine caught fire and the fire department was unable to reach you.”
“Well, that’s rather detailed and morbid,” she muttered.
“Blame Allison DeWitt and her epic attention to detail.” He chuckled before his smile faded and his tone grew serious once again. “I was worried. I was scared, and I was sad. I really wanted to go out with you. Yes, the book signing of my favorite author would have been awesome, but that was just a bonus. Dating you was the real prize. And then when Mr. Gallagher said you ran home and then packed the boys up in your van, I started to think that maybe you were all at the hospital. Like everyone had come down with food poisoning or had ingested bad pork or whatever. I started to fear for your kids. Then I thought maybe Todd had kidnapped all of you.”
Her eyes flared. That thought came to her more often than she cared to admit. Only Todd didn’t kidnap her; he killed her and then took the boys. At least once a week she woke up in a puddle of sweat after having a nightmare much like that. And of course, those were the nights the boys chose not to climb into her bed, so she’d then have to pad barefoot through the house to go and check on them, often sitting on the sides of their beds for close to half an hour staring at their messy bedheads and angelic faces.
Todd would have to kill her before she allowed him to take her children away from her. He knew it, and she knew it. Which was why she had those kinds of dreams. Awful, haunting, gut-wrenching dreams.