His gaze turned shrewd, making my skin prickle. “You sure seem defensive of a girl you claim means nothing to you.”
“I’m not defensive of shit,” I lied, biting the inside of my cheek to keep the truth from spilling out. “Like I said, she’s just a girl.”
He crossed his arms, looking like the condescending prick he was. “That’s not what your mother seemed to think. She said she saw you down in the driveway next to a piece-of-shit car, and it looked like you too were close. Very close.”
“Mom’s a wino and a pillhead,” I said as I reached for my headphones. “She doesn’t know what the hell she saw.”
This time my dad grabbed them and my phone and threw them both across the room. “You’ll watch how you talk about your mother while you’re under my roof, boy.”
I felt that indignation bubbling up in my gut, coating my words in sarcasm as I asked, “Is anything I just said a lie?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, you have no business getting involved with some white-trash townie, not when you’ll be graduating soon and leaving for Columbia in a matter of months. You need to concentrate on the future.”
I hadn’t bothered to tell him I had no intention of going to Columbia. Or Yale. Or any of the other bullshit Ivy Leagues he’d pulled strings to get me accepted to. Once I graduated in a month I was done with him and his bitch of a wife and this goddamn house. He could keep his money, I’d make my own way. I didn’t care how I did it as long as I never had to see either of them again. All I needed was Shane. As long as I had her, nothing else mattered.
“You’re getting worked up over nothing. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
He wasn’t buying it, I could tell by the gleam in his evil eyes. “Then you won’t have a problem ending it with her.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” I snapped, playing right into my father’s hand so easily he didn’t even need to break a sweat.
The son of a bitch grinned like he’d just bested everyone on a cheesy gameshow. “That’s what I thought.” He turned and started for the door, speaking over his shoulder. “That’s wasn’t a request, Jensen. That was an order. You’ll end it with that girl, and you’ll do it tomorrow. I won’t let you tarnish this family’s name and reputation by associating with some backwoods trash. Roses only mingle with class,” he stated, like I was nothing more than a stud horse kept around for breeding and increasing the bloodline—which I guess was an accurate depiction of how he saw me. “I won’t risk you knocking this girl up so she’s tied to our family for the next eighteen years. Break up with the bitch.”
I threw my legs over and stood to my feet. “Don’t you ever call her a bitch again,” I growled, that all too familiar rage building up inside of me. “I said I’m not ending it. There isn’t shit you can do about it so you might as well just deal.”
He turned slowly, the vein in his forehead starting to throb. “You think there’s nothing I can do about it?” he asked in a chilling whisper. “Have you forgotten who I am?”
I hadn’t forgotten. He’d never let me. Whitman Rose, district attorney on his way to judge. He had power, he’d already shoved that fact down my throat. But when it came to Shane Hendrix, I didn’t give a fuck. “You aren’t ready to play with the big boys, so I suggest you learn your place and mind yourself.”
“Fuck you,” I bit out. “Fuck your ‘power’ and your connections. There isn’t a goddamn thing you can do or say that will make me leave her.”
His face grew that same mottled red it did every time I pushed him to the line. “Who the fuck do you think you are, you little shit?” he snarled as he rushed me, stopping only an inch away. “You’ll do what I say when I say or I’ll make sure you lose everything. I don’t care if you are my son.”
“Then take it,” I fired back. “The car, the clothes, the credit cards. I don’t give a shit. Take it all, you miserable old bastard. See if I fucking care.”
His fists clenched and I knew exactly what would happen next if I didn’t watch it. But I was too far gone. All I saw was red. All I could think of was how desperate I was to keep Shane. I didn’t care about the repercussions. I came by my anger issues honestly, getting them right from my old man, so when we went head-to-head, the results were ghastly.
“I’ll make you regret ever being born.”
“Too late, motherfucker.”
And with that, I shoved him right over the line.
My brain felt like it had been scrambled, when I breathed it felt like someone had poured gasoline into my lungs and lit a match, and every step I took was a lesson in torture. But I kept going.
I was done. Gone. As of tonight, it was over. Once I came to on my bedroom floor and was able to move, I’d shoved some clothes into the backpack I used for school and walked out, leaving behind my car and phone and anything else that belonged to him.
The walk from my parents’ place to the Hendrix household was only a little over five miles, and usually I could have done that no problem. But my father had literally just beat me unconscious, so the walk was agony.
I could have stopped him. There was a part of me—a big part—that wanted to do exactly that. It was only by the grace of God that I’d managed to hold back. Because I knew what he’d do. If I had lifted a hand to defend myself or left a single mark on him, he’d have called the cops without so much as blinking.
I was eighteen years old. I would have been fucked. So I took my beating and didn’t fight back. For once he’d been the one to lose control. For once I hadn’t given him what he wanted. I hadn’t played into his hand. And for once he lost a bit of that power he held so tightly to.
Now I was free.
The sigh of relief I let out when Shane’s house came into view rattled a bit, and spots started dancing before my eyes. But it was just a little farther. Only a few yards. I could make it. I would make it.
The door opened almost as soon as I finished knocking, and in spite of the pain, in spite of everything that had happened over the past few hours, I felt a peace glide over me that I’d never felt in my life, and I knew without having to question it, that it was the peace that came with knowing you were home.
Chapter Fifteen
Jensen
It hadn’t taken me and the guys long to get the answers I was looking for the night before, and by the time I pulled up in front of the sprawling mansion with its perfectly manicured lawn, lush flowerbeds, and artfully designed topiaries, I was seconds away from losing my shit.
I beat on the front door with the side of my fist, not giving the first fuck if it was considered rude. The door opened seconds later and the woman who’d birthed me but had never been a mother stared up at me in shock. It looked like she’s aged a decade and a half in the years I’d been gone, and I didn’t feel the slightest bit bad for finding humor in that. Guess all the pills and wine had finally beaten out anything plastic surgery could do.
“Jensen,” she breathed, her eyes wide. “What are you—how did you—I mean, it’s good to see you.”