What Belongs to Her (Harlequin Superromance) (18 page)

“Do you want to talk about last night?” John’s voice broke into her thoughts.

Damn it.
Her body tensed. “Which part?”

“The part where you mentioned your mother knowing something and not doing anything about it.” He glanced at her, his blue eyes apologetic. “I know it’s none of my business, but I care about you. I want to help you even if I can’t give you Funland just yet.”

She eased her hand from his and laced her fingers tightly together in her lap. Her knuckles ached. “It happened a long time ago. It’s not important.”

“Yet you threw a glass of wine all over the place and cried.” He glanced at her. “If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll have to accept that, but don’t expect me to believe it’s not important.”

She turned to stare at the passing view of cottages and green fields, her heart a lump in her throat. Liam’s words about appealing to John’s softer side filtered through her heart and mind, sending her emotions into a tailspin. How could she trust John as she trusted Leah? Resistance to surrender even a small amount of control over what happened to her in the past rippled through her.

“I can’t tell you.”

Her heart beat loudly as the longing to share with this man ebbed and flowed. She turned and stared at his profile. His expression was unreadable. He concentrated on the road ahead, a muscle moving in his jaw. The seconds beat with her heart until he reached out and lowered the volume on the radio. She held her breath and waited.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t want you to do or say anything you don’t want to. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.” He met her eyes. “But I’m not going anywhere for a while if you want to talk about it, okay?”

Not going anywhere for a while, but you will eventually.

A huge, unwanted sense of loss enveloped her. She stared at him. It was now or never. If she didn’t leap now, she never would. It felt right.
He
felt right. She took a deep breath.

“I was twelve.” The words slipped out and a strange sense of release washed over her. “I thought I was in love.”

He smiled as he stared ahead. “Don’t we all at that age?”

She swallowed. “He was older than me...a lot older.”

His smile vanished and Sasha noticed the way he gripped the steering wheel a little harder until his knuckles showed white. “Right.”

Stop talking. Stop talking now.
“It was a Saturday afternoon when I first saw him. I was working at the fair, as always. Helping out, but mostly getting under the stallholders’ feet. He was new there. I’d never seen him before.” She huffed out a wry laugh. “I’d never noticed anyone
look
at me the way he did that first time. It made me feel...” She inhaled a shaky breath. “Grown-up, I guess.”

He continued to stare through the windshield, his lips pursed tightly together.

Sasha blew out a steadying breath. The floodgates to her heart had burst wide open. Confessions and admissions danced on her tongue, scalding it. The only way to stop them was to get them out. Get them out of her body and into the open. She prayed they would be caught on the wind, never to return.

“Now I’m older, I see so clearly it was his fault what happened and how easily I walked straight into the scenario he had planned. The years of blaming myself, of hating myself, lasted a long time, but I’ve learned to live with them.”

“Where is he now?”

The tight, strained and incredibly unnerving tone of his voice sent a shiver down her spine.

She swallowed as her mouth went dry. “I don’t know. He disappeared. As far I know, no one saw him again after those three days.”

“Did he...?” The skin at his neck shifted.

“He didn’t rape me, but he did make me do things I didn’t want to do. I was terrified, strangled by inexperience and fear...but I said yes anyway.”

“You didn’t know how to deal with that situation. How could you have?”

“I was young, but it was still me that let him—”

“You didn’t know, Sasha.” He reached across and took her hand, tightly holding it in his lap, and she welcomed the pain of his grip. “Do you get that? You didn’t know.”

“I know I didn’t. But I still find it hard to believe it happened to me. That it still happens to kids every day, all over the world.”

He maneuvered the car to the side of the country road and killed the engine.

Panic gripped her. It was easier to talk and confess when he wasn’t looking at her, when his soft, blue eyes were focused on the road and not her. She didn’t want to see pity in his gaze. Didn’t want to witness his caring when she was over her ordeal—over it in spades and all the stronger for it.

She swallowed. “What are you doing?”

His gaze wandered over her face, lingered at her mouth and then tentatively, gently, he leaned closer and took her jaw in his hands. He stared deep into her eyes. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

He gently wiped his thumb across her cheek. “For trusting me. Finally. It means a lot you shared that with me.”

A traitorous tear broke and trickled over her cheek. She smiled. “You’re welcome...and I do trust you.”

His lips touched hers, warm and in control. So comforting, so trusting, so loving that she never ever wanted to have to say she let John Jordon go. She reached up and gripped his shoulders, pulling him closer and kissing him deeper. Her heart left her body and moved under his skin, beneath the shield of his ribs to merge with his. There would be no going back. Only forward.
God, please take me forward
.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A
WARE
OF
J
OHN
’
S
gaze on her back, Sasha walked around the street corner from where he sat in his parked car. Once she was certain she was out of his view, she exhaled a shaky breath and leaned against someone’s garden wall. She needed a moment before she saw her mother and asked her questions she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers to. Her heart beat erratically and her hands shook.

She had to get this done. Had to remember the real or imagined promise in John’s kiss. He would be there for her—even temporarily—after her mother’s revelations. Just knowing that, she could get through whatever happened in the next few minutes.

Pushing away from the wall, Sasha lifted her chin and smoothed her hands over the legs of her jeans.
Here goes nothing.

She strode forward, past the houses of people she didn’t know, toward a block of apartments where her mother had lived since she left Templeton. Sasha gritted her teeth. How could her mother have insisted the fair made her aware—no, ashamed—of her Romany roots? It hadn’t rung true with Sasha and now she knew why...her mother had been talking complete rubbish. Spewing excuses rather than reasons.

Pressing the buzzer to apartment 410, Sasha drew in a long breath. The intercom crackled and her mother’s voice came through. “Hello, darling. Come on up.”

The buzzer sounded and Sasha pulled open the door.

Throughout the brief elevator journey to the fourth floor, Sasha’s mind whirled and her confidence wavered. She met her eyes in the mirrored wall of the elevator and pulled back her shoulders. She had come here for the truth. Once she had it, she could move on, let go of her family’s reluctance to help her secure Funland for her own and deal with her only option. To overturn Kyle’s clause and to convince John no further harm would come to her if he sold it to her.

Her heart twisted. His hesitation to pass her the fair had very little to do with his anger toward Kyle now and a hell of a lot to do with his feelings for her. Feelings that were wholly—and scarily—reciprocated.

“He’s going home, stupid. He’s going home.”

She whispered the words that had kept her awake half the night, and echoed in her head while they kissed in his car. Sooner rather than later, John would return home to his own life and career.

The doors pinged and slid open.

Pushing John to the back of her mind for the time being, Sasha strode forward and stopped outside her mother’s closed apartment door. Swallowing against her desert-dry throat, she rapped her knuckles against the door. Barely two seconds later, it swung open and she came face-to-face with her mother after a three-month separation.

Sasha forced a wide smile. “Hi, Mum.”

“Darling.” Her mother grinned and opened her arms. “It’s so lovely to see you.”

Stepping into her embrace, Sasha closed her eyes as they hugged. Her mother might have done something Sasha would be hard-pressed to forgive, but they did love each other. They slowly parted and, with hands joined, the door was closed and together they entered the apartment.

It was modestly decorated in shades of pale green and cream. The three-piece sofa suite was black leather and invitingly adorned with cushions of varying sizes. The windows were open and the soft July breeze lifted the gauzy, floor-length curtains. Feeling the tension in her mother’s grip, Sasha turned and smiled.

“This is lovely, Mum. You must be happy here.”

She sighed. “I’d be happier if you were here with me.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Sasha eased her hand from her mother’s and walked farther into the room.

Snapshots of Sasha and Tanya adorned nearly every available surface, occasionally interrupted with pictures of her dead father and their childhood family Labrador, Beau. She picked up the picture of her father. “I wonder what Dad would make of you moving away from Templeton and my wanting to stay.”

“He’d understand.”

Irritation rippled across the surface of her forearms as Sasha replaced the photo. “Would he?” She met her mother’s gaze and their identically dark eyes locked.

“Why don’t we sit? Do you want coffee? A cold drink?”

Sasha moved to the sofa and sat, crossing her legs. “No, thanks. I want you to tell me what happened between you and Kyle and then I’ll go.”

Her mother hesitated, her face a closed mask. “I’m glad you came. I’m glad you want answers. It’s time.”

Biting back the urge to shout that she’d always had the right to know what happened with regard to Funland, Sasha leaned back into the cushions and waited.

Her mother sat beside her. “I had no choice, Sasha. I did what I thought best to protect you.”

“From what?”

“From...from what happened to you.”

Sasha breath caught painfully in her throat. “You knew. You really knew. My God, does Tanya know, too?”

“Of course not, I would never have—”

“Never have what? Kept my molestation from her? Or the fact you struck a deal with Kyle? A fact you’ve kept from me?”

Color rushed into her mother’s cheeks and tears suddenly filled her eyes. She looked down to her hands clenched tightly together in her lap and nodded. “I didn’t know what else to do.” She looked up, her gaze pleading. “Tanya doesn’t know anything. I promise.”

“I really don’t know what to say, Mum.” Sasha’s face burned with hurt and disappointment. “How could you—”

Her mother snapped her head up and stared deep into Sasha’s eyes. “You have to understand...and when you have children of your own one day, I hope you will. I was never sure that man did anything to you until I was talking to a few of the mums at the supermarket one day. You were in school and doing well, but there was something different about you after the summer. You seemed...older, more mature. Funland became a mission to you rather than a place you enjoyed. It consumed you, and while your grandfather was excited about your determination to make it yours, I was scared by it.”

Sasha stared as memories crashed and burned inside her. How could she deny the shift from childhood excitement to unadulterated hunger hadn’t ignited inside her once Matt Davidson disappeared? How could she lie and say the place hadn’t felt tainted and dirty after those three short days? That it became her entire life’s purpose to make Funland clean again. To make it hers so she could repaint and replenish it to its former glory...before
him?

She swallowed. “So what happened? Did you know Matt Davidson?”

Her mother clutched Sasha’s hand, making her flinch. Her gaze darted over Sasha’s face, her face a mask of fury. “My God, do you think if I knew the man, knew where he was, I wouldn’t have tracked him down and made him pay for what he did to you and those other young girls? By the time I knew the truth, it was too late. I found out what had happened years after. I just wanted to move away, take you and your sister far away, where you could be safe and forget Funland ever existed.” A lone tear slipped down her cheek, and she lifted her hand to cup Sasha’s jaw. “But how could I do that when you were so determined to stay? To work with Granddad every day as though your entire life depended on it?”

“Did you give Kyle Matt Davidson’s name?”

Her mother nodded.

Tears clogged Sasha’s throat and pain mixed with anger...for him...for her mother. “But you weren’t sure and you told Kyle anyway. Worse...” Sasha trembled and lifted her mother’s hand from her face. “You thought telling Granddad was the right thing to do. How could you do that?”

“I had to.” Her mother’s eyes darkened with determination. “Once I found out Kyle wanted the fair, I was prepared to do anything to ensure he had it. The place reeked with filth so why not let Kyle run it into the ground where it belonged?”

Sasha’s heart picked up speed. “I love Funland. So did Granddad. It wasn’t Funland that molested me, it was one animal. One man among a million good. You had no right to tell Granddad. How do you know it wasn’t that knowledge that broke his damn heart?” She pushed to her feet and whirled away from the sofa—from her mother. She glared through the open window at the deserted street below. “This is all your fault. Everything that I’ve worked so hard to call my own could now be out of reach forever.” She turned around. “If Kyle’s son doesn’t sell me Funland, I’ll never forgive you.”

Her mother stood and came toward her, her hand outstretched. Sasha stiffened and her mother pushed her hand into her hair and held it there. “I did what I thought was best. It was hard for me, too, Sasha. Hard for me to see you lose weight and buckle under so much determination to learn the fair from the ground up, to see you work for Kyle when he knew...” Her mother closed her eyes. “It was hard and I couldn’t watch anymore. I had to leave even if you didn’t come with me.”

Sasha fought the burn in her eyes and crossed her arms. “So you told Kyle the information he needed to ensure Granddad never wanted me to have anything to do with the place. You told Kyle and accepted money.”

Her mother opened her eyes. “Money I could use to set us up somewhere new. Why can’t you see I did this for—”

“For you, Mum. You did this for you.”

Unable to stand another minute looking into her mother’s pleading eyes, Sasha stormed toward the door and yanked it open. With a final glance at her mother, she marched from the apartment and jogged to the elevator. She punched the call button, praying for its speedy arrival.

Her mother’s apartment door clicked open behind her. “Sasha, please. Come back in, we have to talk about this.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Sasha rushed inside, her finger shaking as she pressed the button for the ground floor.

“Sasha, wait. Please.”

The doors slid closed and her mother’s desperate face disappeared. Sasha slumped against the back wall, covered her face with her hands and cried.

* * *

T
HE
PAST
FORTY
-
FIVE
minutes and thirty-two seconds would go down as the longest of John’s life. He’d drank one painfully inadequate espresso and scanned enough of a tabloid newspaper to keep him up on celebrity nonsense for the next twelve months. Who gave a crap who was marrying whom or sleeping with whom when the woman you were falling in love with was about to confront her mother about a fifteen-year-old hurt that lingered on her heart like a bruise?

He stared out his windshield. He was falling in love. The notion was unexpected...yet entirely welcome. A lonely life waited for him back in Bridgewater, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to return. Meeting Sasha had taught him all the years he’d thought he’d been avoiding getting involved with a woman hadn’t been that at all.

He’d simply been waiting for the right woman to come along. The beat of his heart and the roar of love in his veins told him Sasha could be “The One.” The one to provide good times and laughter in his life. What if together they could have a future full of promise rather than carrying the endless weight of resentment toward parents who’d made dire mistakes?

At last, he realized his anger toward Kyle served no purpose. John exhaled a breath. Whereas being with Sasha served every purpose he could think of. They understood each other and cared for one another. The heat between them was undeniable, and the need to learn more about her likes and loves, dreams and wishes, burned hot inside him.

He glanced at his watch and hissed out a breath from between clenched teeth. He’d promised her he’d wait for her call and not come looking for her. He closed his eyes. God, it was killing him not to get out of the car and make sure she was okay.

The moment she opened up to him about her past, everything changed. An avalanche of emotion consumed him and burst into his blood on a tidal wave.

What happened to her had made her fight to hold on to the possibility of turning something ugly into something pretty for the future hordes of kids who came to Funland looking for a good time. His past made him bitter and full of hatred toward Kyle, a man who hadn’t given his son a second thought until he needed him for his own means. To make his narcissistic choices seem worthwhile.

The seconds passed like minutes as John tapped out his impatience on the steering wheel. He’d promised Sasha he wouldn’t even enter her mother’s street, let alone knock on her door. His foot bounced against the car mat as he waited in the street around the corner, fighting every instinct to seek out his lover.

Who was the faceless piece of shit who hurt her? Who stole a young girl’s innocence and then disappeared? The heavy, throbbing weight of revenge flowed through his veins. For the first time in forever, John’s vengeance was concentrated on a man who might still roam the streets, preying on other innocent young girls, rather than for a man who would soon lose his life to cancer.

He drew in a shaky breath.

Deep inside, he sensed it was important to be what Sasha needed right now and not take the yearned-for steps toward tracking the bastard who’d hurt her and make him pay. At least not yet. He couldn’t leave her so he could scour the country and exact justice when there was such pain in her eyes, or a tremble in her lips when he kissed her.

He would have to bide his time.

He tightened his jaw. What would his father do in this moment? Hadn’t Kyle taken a gun and shot the man who’d killed his mother?

John shook his head. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t kill Sasha’s abuser and leave her alone to deal with the aftermath. Together, they’d find him. They’d make DI Garrett and the police help them every step of the way...and then John would be with her as Sasha’s pain was put to rest forever.

Memories flowed, and John closed his eyes. Images of his father lifting his mother from her feet to swing her around in circles during a rain shower, while his six-year-old self laughed until he cried in the shelter of their garden porch. Another time, John had climbed from his bed and crept downstairs...only to peer into the living room and see his father massaging his mother’s feet, the light of flickering candles dancing across her smiling face....