Page 128 of The Anchor Holds

I ground my teeth together, thinking of how Calliope had said it. The way she said everything else. In a cool, even, self-assured tone. That tone had made my cock twitch on the dockwhen I first saw her, waving papers in my face, in those high heels, that hair, the fucking suit. Yeah, the power she carried around turned me the fuck on.

But what happened earlier wasn’t that. I knew her well enough now to recognize that she was clutching on to that veneer of power with her fucking fingernails. Maybe someone else might not have caught the catch in her breath, the way sweat beaded on her upper lip. The tightness to her shoulders.

Listening to her, I’d battled to control my own reactions. Because I knew any small response would have had her shrinking back, putting up her defenses, shrouding the truth.

And fuck, part of me might’ve wanted that. The cowardly part of me might’ve been tempted to let her do that. To sanitize whatever might’ve come next because I wasn’t brave enough to hear what thegoddamn Russian Mob did to my woman.

I’d had to remind myself that she’d been brave enough to survive it, that she was brave enough to tell me all of that while standing in her power like she had on the dock. Like she had each time she walked into the room since I’d known her.

So I’d weathered it.

I listened to her tell me that she was beaten half to death. That she wasraped.

That she hadn’t called the police, no ambulance, that she stitched herself up in her bathroom, with broken fingers. I’d resisted the urge to snatch her hand into mine, to inspect the slight crookedness of her middle finger that I’d noticed but never in a million years had thought would have such a sinister history.

Instead of holding on to her so I could ensure that she didn’t float into that horrible memory, I’d listened. I’d digested everything she told me.She bled in her apartment on her own then stitched herself up. And that asshole,Jasper,the one she had a relationship with that I both didn’t understand and hated with every fiber of my being, had known about it. He’d knownthat she was beaten and bloody and alone, and he hadn’t done a fucking thing.

I knew which was worse, theoretically. A man who put his hands on a woman, on Calliope, that man was worse than scum. Yet a part of me thought it was somehow worse that that man, that sinister character, that scumbag, let Calliope be alone because he thought she could survive without him.

Yes, Calliope could survive anything and everything without a man to be her savior. She could get through it alone.

But she didn’t deserve to. Shouldn’t have had to.

She needed someone to be there for her.

She hid her needs underneath her façade, beneath her shield, but Calliope needed it. Even if she would’ve rather died than admitted it.

Twenty-Four

The Parting Glass — Hozier

CALLIOPE

We were babysitting on Elliot’s and my last night.

He didn’t know it was the last night. Our last night together. Precisely how it should’ve been. Shocking him so he couldn’t do anything about it. Blindsiding him.

Cruel but necessary.

I thought I’d be greedy for time alone together, to soak up the last touches, moments, as if I could imprint him onto my soul.

But being alone with him, lying to him felt like breathing in toxic waste. It felt fatal.

Clara was the ultimate distraction. And despite my thorny, melancholy feelings, she made it difficult to becompletelymiserable.

The little girl was happiness in black combat boots. You would never have known how sick she was just a few months before.

Her prognosis was officially cautiously optimistic. Hence Beau being back at work and the nanny having a night off, Clara out of his sight for small amounts of time.

Like my time with my nieces, I liked being with Clara. And I loved seeing Elliot with her.

“Can Aunt Loppie put me to bed, please?” Clara asked with the impeccable manners her father had instilled in her without actually possessing them himself.

Elliot’s face became warm and melty when he looked at me, his smile so full of love it crushed my lungs.

“Yes, she may.” Elliot kissed his niece’s head.

I avoided eye contact as I busied myself with getting Clara into her room, her instructing me on how to get her projector set up before turning the lights off.

---