Page 32 of Defenseless
“That’s exactly what I want to know, Sabina. You’ve lied to your colleagues, hidden secrets from your past, and now you’ve put my cousin in the line of fire.” She flinched, but he wasn’t done. “Let’s be very clear about this, Sabina. Unless you can convince me that the attack tonight wasn’t because of whateveryou’ve beenhiding, everything that happened is your responsibility. My cousin was almost killed trying to save you. He’s one of the best men I know and because of you, he could have died tonight. Whatever your secrets are, they end now.”
Sabina wasn’t much to cry, but Ethan’s words had her eyes filling. He was right. Shewasresponsible for Chad being shot. She hadn’t pulled the trigger, but if not for her, Chad wouldn’t have been there. If not for her, theshooterwouldn’t have been there.
She should have told Chad the truth. Or run away altogether. But she hadn’t. She’d selfishly tried to have both—him in her life and her secrets.
The thought of losing him had her stomach cramping, and she looked away from Ethan.
“Where is he?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“Gone.” One word. One cold word.
“I want to talk to him.”
Ethan cocked his head. “Too bad. He’s not willing to be in the same room with you anymore.”
His words sucked the breath from her lungs. She rubbed her hand across her chest, her heart beating furiously beneath her palm. “I guess he has every right to hate me.”
At that, Ethan scoffed. “That’s the thing, Sabina. He doesn’t hate you. That’s why he can’t be around you.”
Her brows dropped. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” He paused, but she felt he had more to say, so she held her tongue. After a long, tense moment, he spoke again. “When Chad was in college a young woman—a classmate of his—accused him of sexual assault.”
Sabina’s heart skipped a dozen beats, and she was shaking her head before Ethan even finished speaking. “He wouldn’t do that. I know that’s what everyone says, or what a lot of people say, about perpetrators, but in Chad’s case, he wouldn’t. I know that.”
Ethan studied her for a long moment. She saw the moment he decided to speak again, and his chest rose on a small inhale. Whatever he was going to say wasn’t easy for him, either. “You’re right,” he said. “Of course you are. But it was, quite possibly, the worst two weeks of his life. There was an investigation, and although the school managed to keep it quiet, it divided the class. For two weeks, he walked around campus with half his classmates thinking he’d assaulted a woman and having no way to prove he hadn’t. It…had an impact on him.”
Sabina couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him. To be innocent of a crime and unable to prove it. “What happened?”
“It turned out that the young womanhadbeen assaulted. But not by Chad, of course. She’d been a victim of her uncle’s predation. She needed help. Shewantedhelp. But her uncle was high up in the administration of the academy, and she didn’t think anyone would believe her if she spoke the truth. She also struggled with naming him knowing what it would do to the rest of her family.”
“And so she namedChad?” Sabina asked, horrified for both of them. She wasn’t about to forgive the woman for putting Chad in that position. Good god, it must have made his life a living hell. But her heart also ached for his classmate. She couldn’t imagine what the young woman must have been going through.
Ethan nodded.
There was more, still, that Ethan wanted to say, but he seemed to be looking for something from her. “I didn’t know,” she said, then she frowned. “Why are you telling me this now? Surely it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened tonight? You made your opinion very clear on the matter that what happened was my…responsibility.”
“I’m telling you because you brought that all back for him tonight. The fear, the panic, thehelplessness. When he left here a few minutes ago, he was as close to breaking as I’ve ever seen him, Sabina. And maybe I can forgive you your secrets, depending on what they are. But I can’t, I won’t, forgive you for what you did to him tonight.”
Panic clawed inside her, like a hundred birds fluttering to get free. “I swear, Ethan, I have no idea what I did. What did I do? I know I didn’t tell him things I should have told him. Things I shouldn’t have kept secret—”
“But why would you tell him anything when he makes you uncomfortable?” Ethan cut her off.
She blinked at him, the words sounding vaguely familiar. “What?”
“Tonight, at the diner,” Ethan said. And just like that, she knew. She held up her hand to stop Ethan, but he paid her no mind and continued to tear through her. “He was holding your hand, giving you comfort and encouragement. He was trying to convince you to trust him so he couldhelpyou. That’s all he’s ever wanted, Sabina, for you to trust him so that he couldloveyou. But you couldn’t do that. Youwouldn’tdo that.” Ethan paused, his chest rising and falling in a rapid beat. “I’m not saying you have to trust people or like people just because they want you to. But why did you have to make him feel so unwanted, so dirty? So evil?”
The words she’d tossed out at the diner danced in her head, taunting her. They’d been meaningless words. Well, not exactly meaningless. Shehadbeen uncomfortable with the questioning. But not becauseChadmade her uncomfortable, not in that way. It was unfathomable to her that he would ever even consider preying on a woman, much less act on it.
But still, she’d said those words. They were not meant in the way he’d heard them, but that hardly mattered.
And now they couldn’t be taken back.
She could own that mistake, at least. She didn’t know how or if she could fix it, but she could at least own it.
Raising her eyes, she met Ethan’s gaze. “I didn’t mean it the way he interpreted it.” She held up a hand to stop Ethan from interrupting her. When he closed his mouth and nodded, she continued. “But I did say those words and know full well the power words can have. I was uncomfortable with the conversation because I knew I was in the wrong. I knew I needed to talk to him. Iwantedto talk to him. But for reasons we can get into later, I couldn’t bring myself to do it right then. And because of my own issues, I lashed out. I didn’t mean to hurt him or imply what I did, but that doesn’t matter, because Ididhurt him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to rectify the damage I’ve already done, but I can try to not do any more.”
She paused and watched Ethan. The hard glint in his eye wasn’t quite as sharp, but he still didn’t look very forgiving. She suspected it wasn’t just her relationship with Chad that she’d damaged tonight.
