Blind Girl: A Dark Billionaire Romance (21 page)

“No.” He stands above me. “Not the way you deserve.”

“You loved once,” I point out.

“I did,” he admits.
“Once.”

I nod, understanding his meaning. “I won’t take it personal,” I say.

“And you shouldn’t,” he says. “No, Alice… I think I would have loved you deeply if I were capable of it.”

I shake my head once. “You’re lying,” I say.

He looks at me with a twinkle behind his eye. “I can be a real bastard, Alice, but I am not without empathy.” I swallow the tears down and smile at him. He floats a hand up to my face and it hovers just over my skin. “My only hope is that he makes you happy.” He pauses and his eyes wander my face. “And my only regret, if I were to have one, is that I couldn’t do it myself.”

I close my eyes and feel his kiss against my cheek.

“Goodbye, Alice,” he whispers. He drops his hand and passes by me towards the door.

“Goodbye, Charles.”

He nods to me once before closing the door behind him.

A few silent seconds tick by. I take a deep breath and it passes smoothly through my body. As I exhale, everything stands still for one blissful moment in time.

The door opens again and closes just as quickly. I turn to see Gabby standing there with our bouquets in her hands.

“So…” she says. “Do you want to talk about that?”

I shrug a shoulder. “No,” I answer with a small smile.

“Okay…” She looks me up and down. “Are you ready now?”

“Yes.” I say it without hesitation. “I’m ready.”

***

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UNTOUCHED: A Bad Boy MMA Romance

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Chapter 1

Who Are You?

My stepfather turns the wheel and we travel off the highway onto a dirt road. The car rocks back and forth along the unstable drive and the contents of my stomach shift from motion sickness I never knew I had.

Six hours. It’s been six hours in this hot, muggy car, driving farther south than I’ve ever wanted to be in my entire life. Chicago is my home and I miss it more and more with every mile we travel. The last thing I want to do is spend the summer down in Bumfuck, Missouri, but like they said, I have no choice in the matter.

The farm comes into view as the fluorescent headlights illuminate it in the darkness. I cringe. It looks exactly as I expected it to, with a big, white house and an ugly, red barn at the far end of the driveway. Ugh, it even smells like it looks. Like dirt, mold, and dead things.

The car stops and my mother and stepfather exchange a quick glance in the front seat. She’s barely looked at me in days, even when I begged her to speak to me. She’s weak, always has been. I know that this was all my stepfather’s idea, and like the submissive, doting wife she is, she never questioned it for a second.

My stepfather steps outside the car and slams his door before wandering back to the trunk. I lean forward, taking the only opportunity I have left.

“Mom, please,” I beg her. “You don’t have to do this. Just give me one more chance and I—”

The door next to me opens and I look up into the dark eyes of my stepfather, Thomas. He holds my suitcase in one hand. “Get out, Claire.”

I turn back to my mother. Her eyes are down, on the brink of tears. “Mom, say something,” I tell her.

“Claire, get out of the car.”

I ignore him and reach out to my mother. “Mom—” His hand grips my arm to pull me out. I snatch my purse off the seat beside me. “Mom!”

She covers her face with her hands as I’m forced out on to the gravel driveway. Thomas closes the door behind us, casting her face into total darkness.

“Come on,” he growls. He keeps his grip on me and tugs me along with him towards the dark, white house. A dim lamp lights the porch above the scratched front door, painted red to match the eyesore of a barn across the gravel driveway.

“Will you please let me go?” I ask, my voice shaking.

Thomas says nothing, he never even turns back to acknowledge that I spoke. We climb the wooden porch steps and stop in front of the door. He reaches out and knocks twice.

Before I can take another breath, the door flies open and an older man stands in the doorway. He’s taller, a little taller than Thomas, but carries the exact same buzzed black and silver hair and mustache that every man I know born in the 1970s carries around with him like a badge of honor. I look up at him and we lock eyes for a brief moment.

“Come on in,” he says.

Thomas’ hand drops from my arm and he stares me down. “Go on,” he gestures me inside.

My eyes scan the entrance. I stand firm, not wanting to take another step. “Please take me home—”

“Get in the damn house, Claire.”

I look at my stepfather and my hatred for him multiplies. A chill glides through my body. I wrap my arms around my chest to keep the warmth inside. The early summer air does little to help. I quake and shiver. My body doesn’t feel like my own. I feel out of focus, lost in my own skin.

Thomas’ hand touches my back and he shoves me inside. I stumble, but keep myself up right as I walk into the large farmhouse. He tosses my suitcase inside after me and it lands with a loud thud at my feet.

“Goodnight, Thomas,” the man says to my stepfather before closing the door behind me.

We stand in silence as I listen to the sounds of Thomas’ boots on the porch outside and the car engine roaring with life before rolling down the gravel road.

The shock hits me. They left me here. They actually left me here. They left me behind in some strange house with some strange man out in the middle of nowhere. I look around the entryway. The stairs to the second floor sit right ahead of me and a living room sits just to the right of the front door. This house is obviously old, worn, and hasn’t seen a woman’s touch in quite some time. The furniture in the living room doesn’t match. The throw rugs are worn down from feet walking on them for decades. The television is small and just as old as I am.

“Come with me,” the man finally says.

He steps out of the living room and I reluctantly follow him into the back of the house. We enter a kitchen with white counters and a white floors. White appliances, white everything.

“Sit down.” He pulls out a wooden chair from the round dinner table in the corner and points it towards the center of the room. As I sit down, I feel like it might break beneath me, it’s so old. I cling to my purse like a security blanket, the only sense of familiarity I have here.

“Do you know why you’re here?” the man asks. He reaches up and grabs a drinking glass from the cupboard and fills it with water from the sink faucet.

I scoff, but say nothing. My teeth chatter together in my head. My thumping heart fills my ears. He walks forward and holds the water glass out for me to take. My tongue twitches, begging for it after the long and hot car ride. I take the glass and gulp the water down. It tastes old and strange, but it’s better than nothing.

“Your parents believe you’ve gone down the wrong path and they sent you here for my guidance,” he says, leaning back against the kitchen counter near the sink.

“What makes you so special?” I set the glass down on the table behind me.

“My name is Charlie Eastwood,” he says. “We’ve never met, but I know who you are.”

“Right…” I sigh, recalling the name. “Uncle Charlie. Thomas’ brother. The cop.”

“I’m not a cop anymore,” he says. “But back then, I was the one they called to deal with situations like this.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“You’re in withdrawal, Claire,” he says. “You’re twitchy. You can’t get warm.” He furrows his brow. “How long since your last hit? Two days? Three?”

I roll my eyes.

“Your parents aren’t sure what you took, but I’d guess cocaine, maybe a little bit of something else.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I ask.

“You have a drug problem, an attitude problem, and…” he takes a breath, “a boundary problem.”

“What boundary problem?” I scoff.

“They told me about you and Rick,” he says.

I shift in the chair. “Oh, come on…”

“You two are family—”

“He’s my stepbrother!” I shout. “
Step
. We’re not actually
related
. You people know that, right?”

“Family is more than blood, young lady.”

“Okay, yeah. Sure. Fine. Whatever. But Rick and I did nothing wrong!”

He pushes himself off the counter. “Calm down,” he warns. “Now, I don’t care about that as much as they do. The cops didn’t pick you up for fooling around with your stepbrother. They picked you up for being a minor under the influence of drugs and alcohol. And to be honest, I’m more concerned with the bruises on your face right now than anything else.”

I flinch. “He didn’t do anything.”

“He’s not here, Claire. You don’t have to cover for him—”

“I shouldn’t be here,” I interrupt. “This is bullshit.”

“I won’t tolerate swearing in my house.”

“What is this, 1962?”

“While you’re here in my house, you will follow my rules,” he says. “You should consider yourself lucky—”

“Lucky?”

“The officers that picked you up could have booked you with enough to put you away for a long time. I’m not just talking jail, I’m talking rehab and lots of red marks on your permanent record. Your life, ruined, in one night — over something as stupid as getting high—”

“Thanks for the recap, Dudley Do-Right.”

He pauses and stares down at me. I expect anger in his voice, but he holds it back, calm and collected. “Claire, you’re lucky,” he repeats. “You might not think so, but the other kids you were arrested with didn’t have the connections with the law your stepfather does and they’re all sitting in concrete cells right now. You aren’t.”

“May as well be…” My eyes wash over the bright kitchen again. “You can’t keep my here. This is kidnapping.”