Page 99 of Frozen Hearts
“So, what? You’re planning to keep me here as your own personal hooker for the entirety of winter break?” I snap, irritated and concerned purely at the thought of spending the next three weeks being degraded and demeaned, being punished for a crime I didn’t commit and made to feel less than all because Grayson is unable to open his eyes and see his dad for the piece of shit he truly is.
Not to mention the fact he’s somehow dragged Logan—and whoever else—into this.
Logan’s sudden change in behavior is now making a lot more sense, and I have the nagging suspicion that it wasn’t seeing me at Lux that changed his mind about us but rather Grayson whispering in his ear.
You have survived worse, I remind myself, repeating my usual comforting statement. However, the words don’t have their usual bolstering impact.
Grayson’s disparaging chuckle only rattles me further. “A hooker? You wish, Riley. Hookers get paid for what they do. You can think of yourself as more of a… sex slave.”
“Ooh, kinky,” Logan mutters from where he’s standing on my left.
The third shadow remains ominously silent, and I flick my gaze his way, struggling to get a read on him in the darkness. It concerns me that I don’t know who he is. Especially with all this talk of hookers and sex slaves.
Through the dark, I can feel his eyes boring into mine with a familiar intensity, but I struggle to place it. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask who he is when Grayson speaks. “You better rest up tonight. You’ve got one hell of a show to put on tomorrow—and every day for the next three weeks.”
With a sinking weight growing heavier in my stomach, Grayson, Logan, and the third mysterious shadow silently stalk out of the room, leaving me alone to ponder my predicament as my legs give out and I collapse to the hard floor, lost to the swarming of my own thoughts.
I can’t comprehend how this happened. I made sure thiscouldn’thappen. I checked that no Van Doren attended this school before I applied. Yet, somehow, we’ve ended up at the same college together. What are the chances?
Resting my weary head against the cold metal of the pole, I release a long exhale as I allow my thoughts to drift to the last time I saw him.
It was the day the cops showed up.
“What is this about?” Bertram barks at the uniformed officers standing in the doorway.
I’d only come downstairs to force some food into me. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but I’d only just found out I was pregnant, and while most days I still wanted to curl into a ball and die, I knew that was no longer an option. Not for another nine months, anyway.
However, when I heard the house manager inform Bertram that there were two police officers at the door, my feet became rooted to the floor. I knew I should run and hide, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away.
“Mr. Bertram Van Doren?” one of them questions.
“Yes. What is the meaning of this?”
“Sir, your presence has been requested at the station.”
“What? Is this a joke? Do you have any idea who I am? My time is valuable. I demand to know what this is regarding.”
The two officers exchange uneasy glances. “Uh, Sir,” the older one begins. “Allegations have been made against you. Ones which we would prefer to discuss down at the station.”
“Dad?”
At the sound of Grayson’s voice, my body unlocks, and I go to scurry away when a hand reaches out and snatches my wrist.
He’s only two years older than I am, but he towers over me at six-foot-two. Seventeen and going into his senior year of high school in the fall, he is rarely home, usually out with his friends or at parties.
When me and my mom moved in with him and his dad six months ago, I developed the biggest crush on him. I had these wild, inappropriate fantasies that he felt the same way—imagined what would happen if the two of us fell in love.
It’s laughable how naive and childish it all was.
A match was taken to those ridiculous, youthful fantasies that first night my door squeaked on its hinges, and I realized it wasn’t him sneaking in to see me but his dad. Since then, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid Grayson. The way he looks at me when we’re in the same room… I swear he can see through the front I put on for everyone else. It’s almost as though he’s reacting to the cracks his father inflicts each night. I know I’m no longer the happy, bubbly girl I was when I first moved in, but I can’t let him see just how broken I’ve become.
“What is going on?” Grayson asks me in a quieter voice when his father fails to respond.
Looking up at him, his face is lined with creases, and my heart clenches. I had to do what I did, but I hate that it’s going to hurt him.
His eyes search mine before turning to look at his father as Bertram demands, “Allegations? What allegations?”
The officers share another uneasy glance, and I stiffen in Grayson’s hold as the older one leans in and says in a quieter tone, “Sir, someone has come forward with claims of sexual abuse.”
