Page 95 of Love Notes & Lifelines
She’s the only one besides Elijah who knows my whole sordid past, and that’s only because she found me outside my mother’s room the night my world collapsed, and she had to get a doctor to prescribe me a valium to calm me down.
“He is,” she says with a fierceness I haven’t seen from her before.
“And he didn’t say what he wanted?”
She shakes her head. “Somehow he was on the visitor list, so the front desk let him through. I’m sorry. You don’t have to go in there. You can wait him out in here. I’ll alert the other nurses, sweetie. We’ve got you.”
I went out to grab a bagel for lunch, and before I could sign back in, Lucía whisked me into the nurse’s lounge to tell me Silas had arrived while I was out. I’ve been hiding out in here for close to thirty minutes.
“That’s probably a good?—”
“Excuse me, I’m…Stella.” Silas’s voice goes from sad to icy in the same sentence. He stands to his full height, which is not tall, but in doing so, his concerned mask slips from his face. “I was just in visiting Laura. How nice of you to join us.” He opens the swinging door wide, obviously a silent order for me to follow.
Lucía grabs my arm, and whispers, “You don’t have to go in there.”
“Oh, but she does. We have unfinished business to discuss. Isn’t that right,Stella?” My name sounds slippery and dirty coming from him.
“Stella,” Lucía tries again.
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” But it won’t. I know it won’t. Better to save her than risk exposing her to the devil.
Silas doesn’t move from the doorway, so I have to turn sideways to get by. His gaze is cold and menacing—more so than I’ve ever seen him. The second I cross the threshold his hand grips my bicep hard. Hard enough that his fingers pinch my skin, and I can already envision the bruises that he’ll leave behind.
My mother’s room is only three doors down and when we reach it, he shoves me through the open door with both hands, closing it behind him.
This was a mistake. I know better than this, but when he places a chair in front of the door my body tremors and I hold my arms tightly around myself.
It’s dark in here without the hallway light to guide me. Mom rests better when it’s dark, but it engulfs me now. I feel like the stupid girl trapped in a horror movie. It takes all my strength to make my legs work so I can round my mother’s bed, reaching out blindly for the lamp on the nightstand, and for once, I’m thankful that she’s sedated.
“Are you afraid of the dark now, little homewrecker?”
His words push me over the edge of panic, but I swallow down the fear and pain he’s about to cause. This man is the worst kind of narcissist, yet even knowing that, I can’t shake the shame from my heart.
“You’ve really made a name for yourself, haven’t you?” The ice in his tone eviscerates any warmth Beck has lent me. “First with me… Well, you didn’t succeed in ruining me, now did you?” He laughs. My stomach rolls and I swallow bile that burns my throat. “But now? Engaged totheBecker Hayes? The very man you work for?” His laughter turns menacing, like the villain locked away in a mental institution. “You do have a type now, don’t you, my needy little slut?”
“I’m not your anything.” The words sound stronger than I feel and I mentally pat myself on the back.
He strikes like a snake. Before I can jump out of the way, he has my arm twisted painfully behind my back and he’s pressing every inch of himself against me.
The bile in my throat inches higher as white-hot agony blinds me.
Lucía will get security—she will—as long as they’re not on break. Please don’t be on break. It’s past lunchtime, right? The assisted living home is not exactly a hotbed of illegal activity. Just a few more minutes, and she’ll be here.
“Why are you here?” I ask, but he twists my arm a little higher, and I cry out as the burning pain races down my shoulder and into my elbow. This is going to hurt for a while.
“You’re engaged, Stella. I wanted to say congratulations. But now I wonder, does your husband-to-be know why you can no longer teach? Does he know that you ruined a family or that you ruined your reputation when I turned down your advances?” He leans in and places his face against mine. The acrid scent of his breath makes me want to vomit. “Does he know that you’re a dirty little whore who will ruin his squeaky-clean image?”
“That’s not true, and it’s not what happened.” He’s not used to me talking back, and he presses on me until my face is smashed against the cement wall. His fingers grip tighter, and he uses his free hand to grab a fistful of hair. He snaps my head back like a twig and I fight to keep my tears at bay—he doesn’t deserve them.
“No,” he hisses into my ear. “But that’s what the world believes. That’s what every single person on the board believed because I am God in your world. I make the rules, you obey them, and you’re a very convincingwhore, Stella.”
He tugs my arm higher, and the burning sensation erupts into a forest fire. The pain of it clouds my vision and if he weren’t holding me up, I’d be a puddle on the floor. But hard as I try, a whimper he doesn’t deserve still slips free. He loves it. I know he does because his gaze zeroes in on my lips and he presses his groin into my back. I’m going to be sick.
“It didn’t take much convincing. You’re nothing without me, you never have been. Does your new fiancé know what he has in his bed? How far you’ll go to be loved. Has he experienced how desperately foolish you are?”
“You’re hurting me,” I say quietly. He’s going to break my arm. It’s stretched to the very limit of where it can go naturally—one more tug and I’ll feel it snap.
“But you enjoy the pain, Stella. You positively thrive in it,” he hisses. “It’s why you kept coming back for more. Isn’t that right?”
