Page 28 of Queen of Ruin

Darren remains quiet. The pattern he draws along my shoulder blade is the only thing grounding me.

“We lived with my grandparents, and after my grandpa died, my mother remarried.” I can feel my voice start to waver, but I press on. “I was a teenager by then.” I have to take a deep breath.

“My grandmother had already been diagnosed with MS and she was deteriorating swiftly,” I explain.

What I have to say next… I’m glad that I don’t have to look at him because I’m already on the verge of letting my emotions get the better of me. I’ve been so good at hiding things that I didn’t know if I could find them again.

“I didn’t like the way he looked at me, and my grandmother must have sensed it too, because I would sometimes find her in the morning still asleep in her recliner just off the hallway to my bedroom.”

Darren’s body stiffens, his fingers pausing the lazy circles on my back.

“Hmm,” his chest rumbles against my ear. “You shouldn’t tell me things like that,” he rasps.

I tilt my head to finally look at him. His lips part, but his eyes remain closed.

“Why?”

His hand moves from my back to run the pad of his thumb over my cheek without even looking at me.

“I am not a violent man,” he says with a voice that is rough and deep. Then he opens his eyes and tips his chin down to level his gaze upon me. “But I would do unspeakable things for you.”

* * *

I pull the refrigerator door open and peer inside, trying to decide if I’m hungry or not. I grab a yogurt when I hear the doorbell ring.

When I open the door, Rausch is standing on the front porch. The look on his face tells me he was expecting Darren, not me. This time I’m wearing Darren’s Georgetown t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Maybe he thought Darren sent me packing, accomplished what he set out to do with those photos –- get rid of me.

My emotions are still raw, and seeing him is like scratching at an exposed nerve. Everything I thought I had made peace with seems to come back to the surface. Without saying a word, I step onto the porch and slap him.

The sound cuts through the silence of the early morning sleepy neighborhood like a whip. The indignant look on Rausch’s face should cause me to take a step back, but I don’t. Whatever he has to give, I can take it.

“What did you think you would accomplish by giving Darren those photos?” I raise my voice.

Rausch’s gaze settles back on me, his steely blue eyes narrowed.

“I gather Darren didn’t take it well?” he asks with an expectant expression.

“You humiliated me.”

“I don’t know you,” he states bluntly, “and I don’t owe you anything, so your feelings are not my concern.”

He’s right, he doesn’t owe me anything. We only know each other because of circumstance. I study his large form that takes up the bulk of the doorway, impeccably dressed even in this early hour of the day.

I’m good at judging character – a skill acquired because of my profession – but Rausch has always been a difficult read. “You knew nothing happened between us.” I narrow my eyes and search his face for any indication that I’m right, and the tick in his jaw confirms it. “You just wanted him to think it did.”

“I have known this family for longer than you have been alive, and you’ve been here, what,” he looks at his gold watch to make his point, “five minutes?”

“You didn’t have to go about it the way you did.” I allow my outrage to seep into my tone.

“Young lady,” Rausch responds condescendingly, “there is no room for consideration of feelings in politics. You’re lucky I was the one to give the photos to Darren, because if I hadn’t, they would have ended up in the paper under much different circumstances,” he admits.

He acts like I should be grateful for his intervention.

“You got them from Langley. Kerry died, and the pictures became irrelevant, until Darren punched Langley at the charity event.” Which I’m sure wasn’t good for his ego.

Rausch doesn’t confirm my suspicion, and his face remains as stoic as ever. Regardless, I’m sure he knows what kind of man Langley is without me having to tell him. The fact that Langley had those photos all this time makes my skin crawl, even more than when his hands were on me.

“You have no idea how many fires I’ve had to put out because of her,” Rausch states, looking next to me as I feel Darren’s arm wrap around my waist.

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