Page 108 of Sweet Possession
Time slowed down over the next few seconds. Lily turned back toface me, mouthing,‘I love you,’before kicking her heels off.
Realizing what she was about to do, I leaped out of the car.
But I was too late.
The truck driver slammed on the brakes as Lily bolted into the road.Screams filled the air. Nausea churned in my gut as I closed my eyes, not wanting to witness the moment the truck collided with Lily.
But I couldn’t shut my ears off to the sickening thudthatrang out.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was across the parking lot,reaching the group of people who had gathered around the front of the truck.
“I don’t know what happened. She…she came from nowhere,”thetruck driver said, stepping down from the cab, his body shaking like a leaf.
I towered over a man who was checking the body for a pulse, but itwas as plain as day from the mangled mess in front of himthathe wouldn’t find one.
Lily was dead.
Chapter 30
Cora
As determined as I was to never think about my dad again,thatdidn’thappen.
Perhaps I was naive to thinkthatI couldjustmove on from the abuseI’d suffered over the years, not to mention the fear he’d installed in me when I learned he planned to sell me a second time.
Which was why three days after telling my dad I would never think ofhim again, I broke. I’d kept everything bottled up pretending I was fine when I wasn’t.
I wasfarfrom fine.
Fox and I had been lying naked in bed, kissing, the first time we’dbeen intimate since Lily had told her vicious lies. When he moved his kisses down my body, something in me snapped, and I’dleaped out of bed as if I’djustbeen electrocuted. When he asked if I was okay, the floodgates opened.
I cried.
I shouted.
I cried some more.
I didn’t know how to deal with the unbearable weight of emotions I’dbeen dragging around with me from the minute I walked out of Arnold Diaz’s casino.
So when Fox suggested I talked to someone to help me processeverything, I didn’t disagree.
Twice a week for the past month, I’d been visiting Dr. Melissa White,pouring my heart out to her.
I didn’t know what it was about her, but from the minute I met her, Ifelt at ease. I could open up to her and tell her pretty much everything without being judged or patronized.
Well, not everything. I couldn’t tell herthatFox had beaten my dad todeath withjusthis hands, otherwise, there would have been a strong possibilitythatFox would have wound up in prison.
Some days, Melissa wouldn’t need to utter a single word. I’d fill theentire session blabbing about things I remembered from my childhood.
There were times when I cried through the entire session. Sessionslike the one I attended the day after Fox came home from work and told methatthe police had informed him they’d found hundreds of photos of Fox on Lily’s computer.
She’d been stalking him. They’d found photos of him having dinner atLe Voile with Sav, and when he was drinking with Nash. Photos of when he was in meetings at work.
Photos of the day we had sex in the pool, only my face had beenscratched out.
Other days, Melissa had to gently coax me to open up when I got lostin my head, and couldn’t think straight.
But therapy was helping.
