Page 2 of Fury
I’m done being stupid
Bethany
“It was never that, was it? Never real. Never going to be forever, was it?”
In her head, Bethany heard her trembling question on a repeated loop, remembered how it had echoed down the phone line connecting them through the glass. Saw again the expression Derek wore, cold eyes she didn’t recognize staring at her over the mouth she knew so intimately. Dark stubble on his head, strange to see him look like this, his scalp had always been so smooth under her hands.
“Don’t. Please. Don’t lie to me. Give me that, at least.”
Heard his response.
“No, honey. It couldn’t be.”
Twenty-year-old Bethany Taylor rested the heels of her hands against her forehead and pressed hard. Over the sounds of water splashing around her, she remembered the hollow clunk of the phone hitting the hook, the fluid movement of his muscles as he rose from the chair positioned across from her, and how he never broke stride as he walked away. Hollow inside, as she’d been since she left the prison after visiting the man she loved.
She’d left the prison and gone straight to the bank, shifting money and borrowing under her own name, not the business, funneling in every cent she’d lost. Only once that was done, did she pull in a breath that wasn’t weighted with fear. All through the legal proceedings she’d expected her brother to show, expected him to swoop in like an avenging angel. Had woken with that fear choking her every day, slept but fitfully, plagued with the nightmare of having to explain to him how she’d messed up.
Now that everything was settled with the money back in the business accounts where it should have stayed all along, there’d be nothing to explain.Better if Davy never knows.
Tipping her head back, she used her palms to wipe the water from her face, turning to let the shower stream through her dark hair. If there was salt mixed in, no one would ever know.Never again, she vowed.I’m done being stupid.
