Until I'm Yours (17 page)

I can’t even meet his eyes when I think of all the things Kyle’s camp will trot out about me. Not lies. The truth. The ugly truth of my reckless behavior and decisions over the years. Trevor tips my chin until I can’t look anywhere but at him.

“I believe you. Shaunti Miller will believe you. People will listen. Halima said your story is a weapon, and you’re going after Kyle Manchester with guns blazing.”

He slips both arms around my waist, pulling me into him until my head rests on his shoulder.

“And I’ll be right there with you.”

Maybe that scares me the most. That when I fight Kyle Manchester, I won’t be the only one with weapons. If my story is my weapon, my past is Kyle’s ammunition. He won’t hesitate to use it against me to save the life he’s built and his promising future. And the thought that Trevor will be right there for all of it, witnessing the dirt and grime of my past, that thought scares me maybe most of all.

“Want to go back to your place?” he asks. “We could order something, or I could cook.”

He pauses, and I can practically hear him choosing his next words carefully.

“Maybe you can tell me what happened.” He pulls back to study my face. “And we can talk about what your next steps need to be.”

“I want to talk to my mother before I go any further.”

“And your father?” His voice softens. “I mean, I know he’s not exactly father of the year, but if he knew that Kyle—”

“He already knows.” I swallow the lump that’s been growing in my throat since Halima took the stage.

“What the hell do you mean he knows?” Trevor grabs my shoulders, dipping his head until we’re almost nose to nose. “He can’t know, Sofie. He’s still dealing with him. Still courting him for Bennett.”

“Bishop, I told him.” Shame and disappointment thicken the words in my mouth. “He…he doesn’t believe me, or he tells himself that so he can stick to his plan.”

“Unbelievable.” Anger burns in his eyes. “What kind of man is he? To take that piece of shit’s word over his own daughter’s?”

“Don’t.” Tears burn my eyes and my throat swells with familiar hurt hearing him say aloud what I’ve wondered time and time again since I confronted my father about Kyle. “I’m used to it. It’s just…him. Can we leave? Just go to my place?”

I muster a grin and tug on his lapel.

“And you can cook something good for me later.”

He bends until he can whisper in my ear.

“I could get used to taking care of you.”

I work against the smile that forces its way to my lips, but I can’t resist it. I can’t resist him. I’m not sure why I ever even tried. Who resists something this good?

“It’s been a long time since anyone took care of me.”

The smile I couldn’t resist fades as the reality of my situation hits me. I’m not sure that once I expose Kyle Manchester for the douche bag rapist prick that he is, anyone will be able to take care of me, to protect me. For the first time, I may not even be able to take care of myself.

I
step off the elevator into the lobby of my apartment building the next morning like it’s a normal day. Like I’m not setting into motion a series of events that could prove catastrophic for me. Like every other morning, Baker idles outside my building, waiting for me to start my commute to the office. Only this morning, I have a small detour.

“Baker, could we run by my parents’ house first?” I set my slouchy leather purse and a bag of samples for Haven on the backseat beside me. “Do you know if my mother has plans this morning? Besides her usual, I mean.”

Billi Baston is a woman of routine. Every morning she has her breakfast at nine o’clock sharp. Some variation of omelet, grapefruit, her Columbian coffee. Never in her robe or pajamas. Always dressed for the day, hair in place. God forbid our housekeeper, Millie, see her
dishabille
.

She and my father have a strange relationship. I don’t see love between them, but something almost as strong binds them together. I’m not sure what that is exactly, but it has kept her tethered to my father through infidelities, neglect, and downright indifference. My mother is a mystery wrapped up in another mystery. I’ve always wondered why she stays and why she turns a blind eye.

My phone buzzes from my bag, pulling me from the enigma that is my parents’ marriage. In spite of the difficult conversation ahead, and the even more difficult days ahead once I go public with my story, I smile as soon as I see “Bishop” on my screen.

“Hey, you.” I lean back in the heated seat, bracing myself for that warm Southern drawl.

“Hey yourself.” I hear a smile in that deep-timbered voice. “On your way to the office?”

“Not quite yet.” I pass a hand over my face, agitation returning full force. “I’m going to see my mother first.”

“To tell her everything?”

I want to tell him no one ever gets
everything
with me, but I don’t. It’s easier to hide your secrets when people think you’re baring them all. They don’t dig as deeply or as hard. Some things will follow me to the grave, and with those secrets as my final bedfellows, I have no illusion that I’ll rest in peace.

“Yes. I’ll tell her what happened with Kyle, if my father hasn’t already.” I shrug even though he can’t see me. “We aren’t besties or anything, but she’s still my mother. I want her to know her daughter was…”

I trail off, checking the rearview mirror to see if Baker is paying attention. Of course he is. That’s what he does. Blends into the walls and furniture so you’ll talk freely. He’s a collector of secrets, even the ones he doesn’t want.

“I just don’t want her hearing anything on CNN she hasn’t already heard from me,” I conclude.

“Makes sense.” Though only a few seconds, I hear his hesitation. “Look, about yesterday. I shouldn’t have ambushed you with Halima and her story. This is a huge decision, and I never want you to think I’d manipulate you into anything.”

“Trevor, I don’t.” I drop my voice to a whisper, an intimate breath between us across the airwaves. “I needed that. You have a way of inspiring me, and I like it. And thank you for last night, by the way.”

“Oh, you mean cheap Chinese food and the documentary on the fight for women’s rights in Kenya? The one you fell asleep watching?”

“I had a long day!”

“I fell asleep, too.” His chuckle wraps around me, warming me more than the leather seat at my back. “It’s okay.”

“What I was actually thanking you for was not pressuring me to talk about…things last night.”

I know that if I’m going public with this, I’ll have to get used to resurrecting the details of that night, but I’m not ready to do that with Trevor. There is some small part of me that’s afraid he ultimately won’t believe me. My own father didn’t. On some level, I don’t expect more from my father. He’s a ruthless, self-centered bastard. Always has been. Trevor has raised my expectations beyond what they’ve been with anyone else. The advantage of not expecting is never being disappointed. Over the last few weeks, Trevor has shown me what it feels like to expect.

“You’ll talk to me about it when you’re ready.” Trevor’s voice softens like there could be someone listening. “Can I see you tonight?”

“We’ve seen each other every night.” A smile lifts the corners of my mouth and heart. “Aren’t you tired of me yet?”

“No.”

Just that. I’m not tired of him yet, either. As a matter of fact, I’m hungrier every day. Not just for him in my bed, but just…him. Being around him. Laughing with him. Learning things from him.

“I’d love to see you tonight, too, Bishop.”

“You want to try going out again?”

“What if this is our third strike?”

“I’m not out, that’s for sure, strikes or not.” I can imagine the grin on his face that I hear in his voice, and it makes me grin in return.

“Maybe you should.” My grin starts fading, and I wonder if he hears that in my voice, too. “Get out, I mean.”

“What are you talking about, Sofie?”

I’ve weighted the conversation with my words, but it needs to be said. And as selfish as I am, as I have been, and as much as I want to keep doing what we’re doing—do more—I have to say it.

“Things could get really ugly, Bishop. We could stop now before—”

“Is that who you think I am?” Irritation tightens his voice. “We haven’t known each other long, Sof, but I thought you knew me better than that. I’m not abandoning you because things might get tough.”

“And messy.” I gulp back my fear. “There are things you don’t know about me.”

“And there are things that I do. I know you’re brave, and despite your father’s efforts, compassionate.”

“That’s not funny,” I say, a giggle slipping from my lips.

“I know that you’re beautiful.” His voice dips, the sensual pull from the other line tugging on my senses, luring me into him even over the phone. “And that I can’t be in the same room without touching you. I know I want to kiss you all the time and that I can’t stop thinking about you.”

What do I say to that? Do I confess that I feel the same? Only my thoughts go far past kissing. My thoughts go so far that I wake up sweating and twisting in the sheets for him, reaching for my vibrator, but I don’t even try because I know it won’t be thick enough, long enough. I know it won’t go deep enough. I know it won’t be him.

“Sofie?”

“I’m here.” I clear my throat, sitting up straight and smiling at Baker, standing in the door to help me down. “I…um…I’m at my mom’s.”

“Okay.” Humor and desire linger in his voice. “I vote that we stay in tonight so I can kiss you.”

“Is that as far as we’re gonna go?” I step out of the car, flashing Baker a quick smile as I walk into my parents’ Park Avenue home. “Don’t get my hopes up, Bishop.”

My voice teases him, but he knows I’m serious. I’m ready when he is, and he knows it.

“Your hopes won’t be the only thing ‘up,’ Sof, but tonight’s not our night.”

A chuckle percolates in my throat before spilling over, a rich sound only he could pull from me on the cusp of a conversation like the one I’m about to have with my mother.

“And you maintain that we’ll both know when it’s right?” I ring the bell even though I still have a key. My mother doesn’t much like surprises, so I’ll give her at least the warning of the bell.

“Yeah, I think we will.” He pauses, his voice more serious with his next words. “And I think we’re close.”

He’s saying two things, and I hear them both between the lines of what he’s actually saying. Yes, we’re closer than we’ve been to having sex. And halle-freaking-lujah for that. But he’s also saying we’re
close
. It’s exactly the word I think of when I consider what we’re doing, what we’re becoming. We’re becoming close. I’m letting him in, and I’m starting to understand that’s what he wanted. He didn’t want one intimacy without the other.

The door swings open, cutting off the things I want to say to deepen this feeling between us, even over the phone.

“I gotta go.” I walk past our housekeeper, Millie, into the foyer with its black and white tiles.

“You’ll call me when you’re done?” Concern creeps into his voice. “As soon as you’re done?”

“Bishop, I know how busy you are—”

“As soon as, Sof.”

God, he makes me….

“Okay, as soon as.”

“That’s my girl.”

He has no idea how good that sounds to me. What would it feel like to be
his girl
? To have all that care and sweetness and passion and fire aimed exclusively at me? I was the one resisting this, but now I want to lean into it so badly. This connection with Trevor is the silver lining in a very shitty cloud. I want to protect it from everyone who would question it, who would cheapen it, who would destroy it. The need to protect this connection rises so fiercely inside me that for a moment it steals my breath.

I walk deeper into the house and peer into the dining room, where my mother is already seated and eating her omelet. I drop my phone into my purse and walk in.

“Morning, Mother.”

My mother looks up from her grapefruit, a frown worrying her brows.

“Sofie, did I forget we had an appointment?”

Not exactly how I wanted to start.

“It’s good to see you, too.” I sit down across from her at the dining room table that seats ten, but usually holds only one for breakfast. My mother prefers it that way, but she’ll just have to put up with me for a little while today.

“Sofie, I’m not saying it isn’t good to see you.” That forced patience I’ve seen all my life enters her voice, settles on her face. “What can I do for you, sweetheart?”

We’ve never been close, and I regret that now more than I ever have. She was always beautiful and aloof, a maze of walls I could never figure out how to negotiate or scale to get on the other side. To get to her.

“Mom, I need to talk to you about some things that will be coming out soon.” I shake my head when Millie gestures at the empty plate in front of me. “No, thank you, though, Millie.”

I wait for Millie to leave the room before continuing.

“Things about …an incident from the past.”

“Surely not Señor Ruiz again. I heard he’s in New York.” She rolls her eyes. “Sofie, please leave that woman’s husband alone.”

The serrated spoon she digs into the soft, pink flesh of her grapefruit may as well be plunging into my heart. That’s how her comment feels. That’s how it hurts. When that scandal broke I was barely twenty years old, and my mother had nothing but chiding for me. No guidance. No comfort. Only criticism and censure.

“I want nothing to do with Esteban Ruiz.” My voice bounces off the walls of this cold room. “That’s not what I’m talking about, though it will probably come back up.”

“Sofie, dear, as much as I wish we had more of these little heart-to-hearts”—she glances at the diamond watch on her wrist—“I have a ten o’clock.”

She’s lying. Baker drives us all. He would have arranged a Bennett car for my commute if my mother had a ten o’clock appointment. He would have mentioned it. He would have known.

She wants to get rid of me. I wonder if my face disappoints her, the fact that I look like my father. If my actions, my life in most ways, have disappointed her. The chasm between us feels so deep and wide, I’m not sure my words will even reach her across it, but I have to try.

“Mom, fifteen years ago something happened that I never told you about, and it’s about to come out.”

My mother goes still, her pointy-tipped spoon hovering over her grapefruit. She places the spoon down, pushes her plate away, and sits back in her seat, eyes fixed on me.

“Go on.”

I draw up enough breath to force the words out. Words I thought I would take with me to my grave.

“Kyle Manchester raped me.”

I look up when there is not so much as a gasp. No sound, just those blue eyes looking back at me unblinkingly.

“Did you hear me, Mom? Kyle—”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken, dear.”

Shock and disbelief drag my jaw down and open.

“Mistaken?” Something I can’t even call a laugh, it’s so humorless, barges past my lips. “It’s hard to be mistaken about a man forcing you to have sex, Mother.”

“Sofie, I’m just saying that things get out of hand. People take things the wrong way.”

“Exactly how was I supposed to take sexual assault?”

“This was fifteen years ago, so why are you just now coming forward? Why didn’t you tell us then?”

I drag my mind back to that night. To Kyle dropping me off at the house like everything was normal. Like my wrists weren’t ringed red from his belt wrapped around them. Like my breasts weren’t on fire with marks from his teeth. Like I wasn’t limping from the pain between my legs.

I’d felt filthy, and as soon as the door closed, I’d raced up the stairs to shower. I was a cliché, the victim huddled under a stinging spray of water that couldn’t reach the parts that felt most unclean. I’d wept against the shower wall until my voice withered in my throat, and all I had left were whimpers and moans. I don’t know how long I sat on my bed in my robe, catatonic, but eventually I knew I needed to tell my parents what had happened. I shuffled up the hall to their suite, but stopped at the door.

“You and Daddy were fighting.”

“What?” My mother allows herself a small frown, not a deep one, because too much expression wrinkles skin.

“You and Daddy were arguing when I came home. I heard you, and I just didn’t.”

“So you didn’t tell us you were raped because you heard us arguing?” Her face is skeptical, her voice condescending. “What were we arguing about? What was so important that you couldn’t interrupt to tell us something like this?”

“I don’t…I don’t remember.” My memory dredges up their raised voices; the anger and urgency of that argument, but no details. So many things about that night hide from me in the shadows of my subconscious.

“Now, Sofie, does that make sense to you?”

I can’t explain to her that I always felt like an intrusion in their lives, like they weren’t sure what to do with me now that they had me. Like they were just biding their time until I was gone. And that night, when I needed them more than anything, when I scrounged up the courage to go to them, I couldn’t make myself intrude. Couldn’t interrupt. Maybe I thought they wouldn’t believe me. It was probably because I thought they wouldn’t care.