Even my hockey teammates were chilly, in spite of the fact that I played hockey after that like I was starring in The Hunger Games.
It was a lonely three years. But my hockey game improved a lot. The female hockey coach appreciated it.
“And as for your second question,” I continue, “there was nobody I trusted to tell. Men get away with things like this all the time. Every boarding school on the East Coast has had to reckon with mishandling a sexual predator or two. I never told a soul until right now, because I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”
Neil squeezes my hand. “I do.”
I take a breath and just sit with that a moment. Because it feels really fucking good to hear it.
“So do I,” Paisley chirps.
That’s a surprise. I can’t help but glance over at her. She gives me an apologetic smile and a tiny shrug.
Who knew that girl had a beating heart somewhere in her body?
“Regardless,” Neil’s uncle snaps. “We still have to vote. Don’t forget—we had a deal.”
Neil’s mother twists her wedding ring around her finger nervously as the CEO rereads the motion. “All in favor of the donation to fund the Clint Hauser Sports Complex, raise your hand and be counted.”
Three hands go up on the opposite side of the table.
My hand stays locked down, and so does Neil’s.
Paisley shakes her head. “No way.”
I’m just about to smile when Neil’s mom slowly raises her hand.
“Mom,” Neil barks. “Don’t you dare!”
“We had a deal,” she says.
“Motion passes,” the CEO says.
Neil springs out of his seat. “Fuck the deal. Giving money to assholes is never the right call. I’m done with this.”
“He doesn’t get the money, even if he is a pervert! The school does,” his uncle growls. “And you already registered your opinion with your vote.”
“I don’t think you understand. I’m done with this.” Neil marches around the table. At first, I think he’s going to storm out and leave me here with these crazy people and an empty martini glass.
But his progress stops right beside the CEO. Neil reaches down, plucks a piece of paper off the desk, and tears it in half. Twice.
Four pieces of my resignation letter fall to the boardroom table.
His uncle lets out a gasp of rage and then dives for his signed trustee transfer document.
The sound of tearing paper rents the air again. Another contract destroyed.
Paloma Drake gasps. “Neil! Look what you’ve done!”
“You don’t get to lay this on me,” he thunders. “Your issues are not my fault. Dad’s estate provisions were not my doing. None of this is my problem. Fight your own battles.” He nearly completes his circuit of the table but comes to a stop beside my chair. He holds out a hand and offers it to me. “Can we leave now, wifey?”
“We so can.” I push back my chair. “Thanks for the martini, boys. It’s been a pleasure. See you next quarter?” I give them a saucy wink, and they stare back with dead eyes.
Then I take Neil’s waiting hand.
His long fingers close around mine, and satisfaction surges through me as I follow him out of the room.
Neil is silent as we make our way out of the corporate offices. He finds my suitcase and my hockey bag in the closet where the assistants stashed them and tosses one over each shoulder. “Come,” he says in a growly voice.
I hurry along behind him. He’s clearly upset.
As we enter the elevator, I realize that nothing good will come out of this. I could have just kept my trap shut. That damn sports complex will still get built, and that asshole’s name will still be on it. In gold letters, probably.
Hell. All this drama for nothing. But I hadn’t heard that man’s name in years, and when Neil’s cousin had said it, I’d panicked.
I’d been triggered, plain and simple, and so I’d reacted.
Now Neil’s scary mom wants to kill me.
It’s a good thing she isn’t really my mother-in-law. I don’t think Thanksgiving would be very pleasant.
Outside, on the freezing, rain-slicked pavement, Neil steps to the curb and whistles. A car and driver appear. It’s not the limo this time, it’s merely a shiny black town car with the same female driver who’d picked us up at the airport the afternoon after Vegas.
Neil murmurs a greeting to her and puts my stuff in the trunk while I watch, dazed. “Get in, sweetheart,” he practically growls. “You’re not wearing a coat.”
The car is warm and smells of leather. I lean back against the headrest and try to calm my galloping heart. When I open my eyes, we’re cruising down Fifth, and Neil still looks like he wants to punch something.
But then he turns to me, and his expression softens. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say simply. I’m always okay.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m just… sorry.”
“Well, thanks? I don’t see how it’s your fault.”
“Yeah, but you were sixteen. Jesus. And you didn’t have anyone to talk to about it.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “That must have been scary as hell.”
“It was scary,” I surprise myself by admitting. Thinking about it causes a familiar knot of tension to gather behind my breastbone. It had been a dark day when I’d realized even my fancy new school couldn’t save me from the same bullshit I’d faced at home. There had been no safe places. Anywhere. “But it was also humiliating. I went to this man expecting praise and a conversation about my future. All he’d wanted was to get his dick sucked.”
“Shit,” Neil curses. “I want to break him in half. And there’s no way you were the only one, right? You can’t be the only kid he ever propositioned.”
“I doubt I was. But I was the scholarship kid. The kid with literally nowhere else to go. The kid they probably wouldn’t have believed even if I had told.”
His handsome frame bends as he puts his head in his hands. “And now he’s getting a building named after him.”
“That’s how it works.” And that’s why I’m always so angry.
Except right now I’m just tired. I sag against the leather seat. Clint Hauser hadn’t been the worst man in my life. People in my own family have done more damage than he’d managed.
And that’s my real secret—the pattern. “You know…”
I chicken out.
Neil takes my hand and strokes it. “What, baby?”
“It wasn’t the first time,” I whisper.
His hand goes still. “He approached you before that?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not him. Other people did worse to me before that. And at some point you start to wonder if it’s you.”
That had been really hard to say, and I look away—out the car window. Rain smacks against the glass as we glide toward the east side of town.
Neil strokes my hand again. Then he lifts it to his mouth and kisses my palm. “Thank you for telling me that,” he whispers.
I can’t say anything at all. I have to hold very still and breathe through the familiar shame.