More Than Protect You: A More Than Words Novella Read online

  I don’t blame her for trying to make the unnecessary pain he’d inflicted fit with the world view she saw through her rose-colored glasses, but she simply hadn’t been worldly enough to know that Barclay could have done so much to make the experience good for her.

  “Did he apologize afterward?”

  She laughs bitterly. “No. He kissed me again, told me he’d been wanting to do that for two years, and was glad I was willing to let him. Then he swore the painful part was over, donned another condom, and…we did it again.”

  “Jesus.” Barclay Reed was clearly not just a pig and a pedophile, but a selfish asshole, too. The world is better off without him. I wonder how Griff turned out to be a seemingly good guy with half his genes and an upbringing courtesy of Barclay. It’s a miracle.

  But the look on Mandy’s face tells me she’s expecting my condemnation. “I’ve shocked you.”

  “You didn’t, baby. He did. He should have known better. He should never have touched you.” I rake a hand through my hair. If this is hard to hear, I’m sure it’s doubly hard for Mandy to tell me. “What happened next?”

  “I learned one thing about Barclay fast; he was insatiable. I don’t know where he got the stamina, but we spent most of the night having sex.”

  “You must have been sore and exhausted and…” I’m stunned, and frankly, a little sick to my stomach.

  “Completely. I told him that, too.”

  “And he still wouldn’t leave you alone?”

  “No, but I didn’t ask him to. I wanted to be everything he needed. I was still convinced he would only be with me if he loved me, especially after he introduced me to the wonderful world of orgasms.” She gives me an acidic, self-deprecating twist of her lips. “Barclay was a lot of things—a liar, a thief, an asshole. But once my hymen was no longer in the way, he was incredible in bed. I’m ashamed to admit that, for a long time, I took pleasure as a sign of love.”

  “I’m sure that was far more about his ego.”

  “Completely. I know that now.” She looks away. “Long story short, Stephen was fine by the time we got to the hospital. I lied to my father about why I looked so tired and was walking funny. Barclay backed up my story, all while winking at me behind Dad’s back like he loved the secret we shared. A few days later, as he hugged me goodbye at the curb at LAX, he whispered that my pussy was his and I’d better not share it with anyone. I promised I wouldn’t. And for the next seven years, we carried on in secret. We grabbed every opportunity to be together we could. I even chose a college in Southern California to be closer to him. He lived in Maui at the time, but there weren’t any acceptable universities on the island. He was often in LA for business, though. We usually spent a few nights a month together.”

  “And you still thought you were in love with him?”

  “Absolutely. But when my senior year started, I really began thinking about our future. We spent a weekend together during my fall break, and I broached the topic of him leaving Linda.” She shakes her head at herself. “I was having my doubts that Barclay loved me. I tried to assure myself he must, but I still wanted him to prove it in some way.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He said he wanted to divorce Linda, but he had to move money around or she would bankrupt him. He said it would take a while. I understood him not wanting to give her half of his life’s work. Remember, I’d known Linda most of my life, too. She’d always been cold and unlikeable—at least to me. So I convinced myself their problems were of her making, probably so I wouldn’t have to see Barclay’s faults…or my own.” She shrugs. “Anyway, his answer disappointed me, but I was young. I had time. So I resolved to be patient. Then he moved from Maui back to LA and suggested I come to work for him after graduation so we could spend more time together while he got everything in order. I thought those were signs that he wanted to be with me.”

  More so he could keep fucking her under everyone’s nose. “When did you figure out you two had no future?”

  She’s quiet a long time. “At first, it was little things. The day I started at Reed Financial, this guy who reported to him—a total jerk named Byron—called me the ‘fresh meat.’ He said he wasn’t surprised that Barclay had hired me to replace his last assistant, who had just turned twenty-eight, since she was way past her prime.”

  “He sounds like an absolute jackass.”

  “A hundred percent. Then he said there was an office pool among his managers as to how long it would take Barclay to nail me. I was flabbergasted, but when I asked Barclay about it later, he told me Byron was an ass looking to stir the pot and that I should ignore him. Then I started hearing rumors about Barclay’s flings with past assistants, along with the fact that he’d also talked to them about wanting to leave Linda, but never did. During all this, Barclay and I would sneak away for quickies in cars, conference rooms, and airplanes. Occasionally, we’d find ourselves a hotel suite. But I began to feel like a convenience, not a girlfriend. Not the woman he wanted to spend his life with. Eventually, it hit me that we never had sex in either of our respective beds. My first few months out of college, I shared an apartment with Harlow to manage expenses, so Barclay never wanted to spend the night there. Of course, he never invited me to his house with Linda unless my whole family was in town. But it occurred to me that if we were going to have a future, shouldn’t we start telling the people in our lives about us? He just kept brushing me off, saying it wasn’t the right time. And before you comment, yes, I should have known by then he had no intention of marrying me, but I didn’t know how to stop hoping. I believed with all my heart that I loved him.”

  “What ended it?”

  “I got pregnant. He claimed he’d had a vasectomy…so I went off the pill. What was the point of taking it if I didn’t need to actually prevent pregnancy? My periods had always been regular…but I missed my first one after that. At first I told myself that my body was taking a while to restart normally, but when I vaulted out of bed one morning because I had to throw up, I knew.”

  “And you told him?”

  “Immediately. In a way, I was relieved. I’d been stunned when he told me he’d gotten fixed. How were we going to have kids in the future if he’d had a vasectomy? Yes, he had children with Linda, but I was going to be his new wife and I wanted kids.” She scoffs at herself. “When I told him I was pregnant, his first reaction was to grin, so I thought he was happy. Then he literally patted himself on the back and said he still ‘had it.’”

  Just when I’m convinced Reed couldn’t be any worse, she proves me wrong. “What an asshole.”

  “And I really didn’t figure that out until I asked him what we were going to do about Linda, his divorce, our future… He looked at me as if I was an idiot and told me he wasn’t planning on doing a damn thing. He would leave Linda on his timetable, not mine. Then he said he’d been trying to figure out when I’d catch on to the fact that I was just a convenient hole. He’d enjoyed getting me pregnant, but he had enjoyed knocking up more than one of his assistants in the past, too. He, Byron, and some of the other managers even had a betting pool on me, and he won because he’d managed the feat so quickly. But he didn’t want me anymore, especially since he hated fucking pregnant women. And he’d never loved me anyway. It probably sounds stupid, but I was shocked.”

  “Not stupid. Horrifying. Calling him an asshole is too nice.”

  “You’re right. But I was still gaping and reeling when he told me I should consider our time together a life lesson, that I should think more critically and be far less gullible before I climbed between the sheets with someone else. And, by the way, I was fired. If I went quietly, he would give me six months’ severance and pay me for the rest of my unused vacation time. If I thought about doing something silly like hiring a lawyer, going public, or telling my dad who’d fathered my baby…well, he already had an insurance policy. About a month prior, he’d asked me to grab the office’s petty cash fund and stash it at home because, according to him
, someone had been stealing from him. I did what he asked, and he made sure the office surveillance captured me ’stealing’ so the police and the public would know I was accusing him of inappropriate behavior in the office to sling mud and cover my tracks.” She folds her hands together. “Apparently, he’d run this same scam on several of his other assistants. It always worked.”

  I can’t even understand Reed’s depravity and I don’t want to waste time trying. Instead, I take her hand in mine, doing my best not to betray the depth of my anger. “I don’t even have a word low or filthy enough to call that man. Really, if he wasn’t already dead, I’d be hard pressed not to hunt him down and pull the trigger myself.”

  “Thank you for taking my side, but it’s hard not to feel like the blame is half mine. I wanted so badly for the shimmering future I could picture with him to be real that I gave myself easily, made excuses, and overlooked obvious red flags.” She sighs. “So trust is hard for me now. I especially have a hard time trusting myself.”

  And that’s the biggest problem. She wants to believe we have a potential future, but she’s afraid to take that leap of faith. I still sense hesitation. Shit. I can’t push her. I won’t. She has to want this enough to overcome her fears, and she has to believe in us enough to take a risk. I learned from Ellie that a relationship is no good if only one person wants it.

  “I understand.”

  “You’re not going to tell me how stupid I was?”

  “For being young and naive? No. You went to him openly and honestly—”

  “Blindly.”

  “You have to forgive yourself for that. If you want to Monday-morning quarterback this thing, sure, maybe you should have seen the signs sooner. But the truth is, you shouldn’t have had to. A grown-ass man should never have defiled a child, then strung her along for years before plotting to ruin her life and wash his hands. The fact he didn’t give two shits about his own son or daughter you were having is just the cherry on top of his shit sundae.”

  “Oh, he offered me money to terminate the pregnancy. If I did, he’d write me a glowing recommendation for a future job. He had friends in all the right places, if I wanted to provide the same level of…service he was accustomed to. Suffice it to say I told him to shove his offer up his ass and slammed my way out of the office. I never saw him again.”

  Wishing I could inflict more violence on this fucking scum-sucking shitbag doesn’t do anything to help the pensive woman in front of me barely holding back tears. Instead, I squeeze her hand. “Mandy, baby…”

  “I expected that to be the end of it. I left Reed Financial that day, resolving to find another job as soon as possible and have my baby on my own. I devised a stupid story about a one-night stand with consequences for my dad and my brother. But the truth came out a couple of months after Oliver was born, when Barclay got arrested. My family dynamics have been a mess since.”

  I can only imagine. If they’re blaming her—and at least Douglas Lund seems to be—they’re idiots. But right now, my bigger concern is Mandy. “Are you still going to therapy?”

  She nods. “It hasn’t been easy. Celeste, my therapist, still thinks I blame myself more than I should.”

  “From what I’ve heard you say, I agree.”

  “I’m still trying to reconcile it all in my head, but I’ve made a lot of progress.”

  I bring her closer. “Good. But I hate that you believed his lies. He had to know what you were thinking.”

  “About our future? He did. He never corrected me, just hauled me back to bed. So…I’m a train wreck. I haven’t had sex in way too long, and you’re the only other man I’ve ever kissed. Aren’t you sorry you ever thought you were interested?”

  “Don’t try to deflect me with sarcasm. I’m still interested.” And I hate that she’s mentally flinching, giving us both an excuse for me to walk away before I’ve even had the thought to. “It’s going to take something far worse than the truth to shake me off, baby.”

  Her smile is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen, and more precious because I know it’s real. “Why are you so understanding?”

  “Did you ever stop to think that maybe you’re just used to a complete asswipe, so any normal guy seems like a saint?”

  “No. I’ve met plenty of perfectly nice guys, too. Bruce, for example. Not interested.” She hesitates. “Couldn’t trust him. I tried, but…no. You? I trust. I’m still trying to figure out why.”

  Just like I’m trying to figure out why I want Mandy so much. Not just sexually, though god knows that as we’re both basically sitting here in our underwear, I wouldn’t mind laying her back and making love to her. But I don’t know where her head is, and I need more time to process everything she’s told me. Though I’m not deciding about us. I’ve already done that. My heart knows, as crazy as that sounds.

  I tuck a pale strand that worked free from her braid behind her ear. “Maybe we’re both doing something we should have done years earlier. We’re listening to our gut.”

  Her smile widens to something so pure she seems to glow. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Then she hides a yawn behind her hand, stretches, and closes her eyes. “I’m so tired.”

  “Go back to sleep. I could use some extra z’s, too. If you need anything, I’ll be in the next room.” I stand, grab my Glock, then palm her crown. “We’ll worry about everything else later.”

  As I turn to leave, she grasps my hand and tugs me back. “Stay. Please.”

  “You’re not ready for sex, Mandy. And that’s not love.”

  She lifts her soft blue gaze to me, and it’s a sucker punch to my chest. God, if I could wrap my arms around her and take away all her pain, I would right now. But doing anything else tonight would only confuse her more.

  “You’re right. But would you lie here and hold me?”

  The hard outer shell of my resolve cracks. I lay my Glock on the nightstand again. “Of course.”

  “Thanks.” She tugs me down to the bed until I’m flat on my back with my arm around her. She curls up to my side, resting her chin on my chest. “In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I think you’re amazing.”

  “And I think you should stop buttering me up before I fall for you even more.”

  “Why would I want to stop that?”

  Honestly, I’m not even sure I could if I wanted to. My heart feels as if I’ve pushed it over the cliff and it’s now in free-fall. When it reaches the bottom, either Mandy will catch it…or it will shatter into too many pieces to put back together. I’m not sure which, but that doesn’t stop me from holding her closer, kissing her forehead, and falling into a deep sleep beside her.

  Chapter Eight

  A few hours later, a light little giggle wakes me. What the hell?

  Prying my eyes open, I look toward the sound—and find Mandy lying beside me. She’s still wearing that champagne nightgown that arouses the fuck out of me. She has her head propped on her palm as she looks down at Oliver, who’s between us laughing as his mother tickles his belly.

  I can’t help but smile. “Someone’s in a good mood.”

  “Both of us. I haven’t slept that well in months. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do anything except sleep, too.” And probably deeper than someone hired to keep her safe should. “Feel better?”

  “Much. Breakfast?”

  “Coffee first. How long has Oliver been awake?”

  “About forty-five minutes. I changed him, then we’ve been cuddling. Sorry if we woke you.”

  “Nope. I need to get up.”

  Baby giggling snags my attention again, and I turn to him. He’s still grinning when he puts a little palm to my cheek. His feet kick as if he’s excited, then he lets out a happy squeal.

  The joy on his face tugs at my heart. In fact, the scene feels domestic. Normal. Touching. I’m hoping to be a part of Mandy’s future, but that means I’ll be a part of Oliver’s, too. Maybe I’ll even end up being the closest thing he has to a father.
The realization brings both a cold sweat and a lump to my throat.

  “Go ahead,” she says. “I’ll make coffee and get this little guy some breakfast.”

  With a groan, I haul myself out of bed, Glock in hand, and meander to the office and find my duffel bag. I toss on clean clothes, brush my teeth, and check my phone. Douglas Lund has already texted.

  I’ve got a check for a hundred grand in my hand. Ready to tell me where to find Amanda?

  I ignore his text. He doesn’t deserve a prompt answer, and I don’t need his shit—or his money. I’m focused on Mandy.

  Instead, I plod to the kitchen, where the scent of java fills the air. Some country song plays from her phone. She hums along as she scrambles an egg for Oliver, who’s playing on the floor at her feet. He clings to her ankle with one hand and a toy truck with the other. She’s put a new braid in her long hair. She’s fresh-faced and smiling as she slides his egg onto a paper plate, chops up a banana, then sits him in her lap at the nook table.

  She looks relaxed. Happy, like she knows she’s where she should be, which gives her a serenity she didn’t have even twenty-four hours ago. I hope I’m part of the reason for that.

  “Hey,” I call out.

  Mandy sends me a smile. “Hi. Coffee should be ready in a minute.”

  “Thanks. What’s this song?”

  “‘Woman, Amen.’ It’s Dirks Bentley.”

  It’s upbeat and on the happy side. As I listen, I find myself identifying more than I thought I could with a genre I usually consider twang. But the world definitely has a way of shaking your faith. Mandy and I have both been rattled by it. Then the singer croons something that, on the surface sounds silly, but might explain why I’m falling for her so quickly. Her feelings for me, even if they’re new, are filling the cracks left in my heart. And I hope my love can do the same for hers after Barclay shattered it.