Page 97 of Because I Liked A Boy
“You think you can stand here and judge me?” His voice dropped, lethal. “You who ran when it got hard. You left that girl to rot under my roof while you spread your legs for gutter trash in Maplewood.”
Hunter’s name hovered between us, unsaid and poisonous. He smirked. “Did you think Hunter Hayes was different? That he cared? He was mine from the start. Paid for. Bought and sold. Every text, every meeting. Every laugh at that Maple Bean of yours — I knew.”
My mind reeled, dragging me back through every moment Hunter’s half-smile over coffee, the way his jacket felt draped across my shoulders, the stupid bunny he’d won like it meant something more. Each memory was ripped from me in jagged pieces, shredded under my father’s words until bile burned at the back of my throat. My chest caved in like he’d reached inside and squeezed. Rage was the only thing that held me upright. When he said it, the world went thin at the edges. The file flashed in my head; the neat notes, my life reduced to timestamps. “When he failed,” my father sneered, “I replaced him. Everyone is replaceable, Isabella. Every smile, every kiss you thought was yours I already knew.”
“You sick bastard,” I breathed.
“And yet,” he said, stepping closer until the air was electric, “you still crawled home. Right where I want you.”
Something inside me snapped. Tears dried on my cheeks and the salt left hard lines. “No. I didn’t come back for you. I came back for her.” I jabbed my chin at Penelope, who stood frozen, small and pale. “She’s not yours. She’ll never be yours.”
His face changed then — the mask cracking to show something like triumph. “On the contrary.” He smiled, slow and satisfied. “She’s mine. She lives under my roof. She wears my name. And she’ll thank me for it when she’smarried.”
The word hit like a blow. “Married?” I heard my voice, and it was small against the room.
Penelope made a wet sound. “What?”
“She doesn’t know?” I asked, disbelief cracking my voice.
His smirk widened. “She will now. Sixteen next month — old enough to be useful. The Cartwright boy. Eighteen, promising, respectable blood. A match that fixes an image and seals an alliance. Practical.” He let the word hang, savouring the damage.
Penny’s face drained of colour, her lips parting on a soundless no. She clutched at my sleeve like a child, shaking her head over and over as if the motion alone could undo his words. My heart split clean down the middle. She wasn’t some contract. She wasn’t leverage. She was a terrified fifteen-year-old girl being sold like property.
“Dad—no—I don’t want—” Her voice wavered, then fell away.
I moved before I thought, fingers closing on her wrist and dragging her behind me. “She’s not a bargaining chip,” I said, fury fraying my edges. “She’s a child.”
His hand shot out. He gripped my jaw so hard my teeth hurt, breath hot with scotch and contempt. “You’re a whore,” he spat. The word landed like a punch, and his palm snapped across my cheek. Pain exploded along my face; stars popped in my vision. Stars exploded across my vision, the metallic tang of blood flooding my mouth. For one dizzy second, the room spun and I was seventeen again, sobbing in the hallway while he stood above me, satisfied with the red mark blooming on my skin. Penny’s scream yanked me back,raw and jagged. Even dazed, I reached for her, fingers stretching until the guards tore us apart.
Penelope screamed. I clutched her arm, nails digging into her skin. “You’re safe,” I told her, though my voice shook. “I promise you’re safe.”
But the men in the doorway moved with the inevitability of puppets. They’d been waiting, shadows that slipped from the walls. One of them wrenched Penelope from my grasp. Her cry split the air.
“No!” I lunged, but hands wrapped around me — iron and unyielding. My father’s face hovered, lips thin with fury. “You’ll never take her.”
He nodded once. A signal. The men closed in. They hauled Penelope back, her small body writhing and crying, and one of them shoved her toward the stairs leading to the private wing.
I ripped for her, but his other hand grabbed my arm like a vice. Pain flared up my arm as he jerked me back. “Enough,” he hissed. “She forgets herself.” He gestured, and the men obeyed.
Someone shoved me hard; my shoulder slammed into the desk. Glass skittered and shattered, scotch seeping into the grain like blood. Penelope’s face was the last thing I saw before they dragged her away. She reached for me, fingers scrabbling at air.
“Bella!” she screamed.
The men’s grips were unbreakable. They hauled me down the corridor, past the rooms that had once been our refuge and now felt like a museum curated by him. The front doors were thrown open and the night hit my face — cold and sharp and cleansing.
I lay crumpled on the stone steps, cheek blazing, ribs aching from where their hands had dug in. Penny’s scream still rang in my skull, echoing behind the slammed doors like a ghost I couldn’t save. The night air cut through my coat, bitter and sharp, but it was nothing compared to the fire raging under my skin. He thought he’d ended this by tossing me out like trash. He thought he’d silenced me with blood and bruises. But all he’d done was light the fuse.
Then I pushed myself up. The pain stung, the bruise blooming, but under it a slow, molten resolve settled. His words still hung in the air behind me you are nothing but they were fuel, not chains.
This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
Where It Hurts
The oak doors slammed shut behind me with a boom that rattled through my bones.
I staggered down the steps, every muscle trembling, my cheek blazing where his hand had cracked across it. Blood salted my tongue, bitter and metallic, clinging to the back of my throat. My vision blurred, the world tilting, but I forced myself upright at the bottom of the stairs. Fists clenched. Shoulders squared. I would not collapse. Not here. Not where he could still be watching.
But the stones beneath me remembered. The last time he’d thrown me out, I’d been younger, smaller, too stunned to do anything but curl up where I landed. Back then, I’d carried the humiliation like a brand no one else could see. Now the bruises were deeper, sharper—and Penny’s scream still rang in my ears. This wasn’t just my shame anymore. It was hers too.
