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“It’s not your fault, Beck.”
My words seemed to fall on deaf ears. I approached him and reached out to touch his arm. He was so remote, floating somewhere far from me, tethered to the world by the faintest of threads.
“It’s not your fault,” I repeated.
“Don’t.” One flat, hard word. At least it was a response.
“It’s not your fault,” I repeated. I’d say it all night if it broke through the maelstrom of emotions he was experiencing. “Beckett – you were just a kid. It’s not your fault.”
“You don’t know anything, Eve.”
“I know it wasn’t your fault. The adults in your life failed you. Your fucking predator of a stepmom, and your father, too. What she did was messed up, Beckett. You were just a kid. She should be in prison.”
He let out a hollow laugh. “Right. Like that will ever happen. She’s spent years building a reputation…and I’m just the angry, broken billionaire’s son. The fuck-up. The druggie.”
“No, you’re not. You’re not what she or anyone else thinks about you. You know who you are…I know who you are —”
“No, you don’t,” he interrupted. “You don’t know anything about me.” He leaned in and grabbed my arms, holding me in place. “You can’t even understand what I feel inside…Compared to you, Cinderella, I’m dirty, bathed in filth…ruined.”
His words made me recoil, they were so full of poison.
“We’re nothing alike. Don’t try and understand me, you’re not capable of it. I’m angry all the goddamn time, full of resentment and bitterness. You feel guilty about being jealous of people with money, but you’re the one I’m jealous of,” he muttered.
“A loving mother and a twin like Asher. Growing up cherished and protected…I’ve always been fucking jealous of you, Evie, and when I had the chance to spoil your pristine image and dirty your innocence with my fucking depravity, I took it. You should run away from me as fast and far as you can, before I drag you down to my level.”
I knew what he was doing. He was trying to push me away, and I wasn’t going to let him. Frustration at how difficult it was toreach him and stress from the last day of no contact boiled over and rushed out.
I grabbed his arm when he tried to turn away from me.
“You think I’ve never been angry? You think I’ve never been misunderstood or hated the fucking world? You think I like being poor, the charity case? You think I liked being looked down on by the cheerleaders every single day at high school? Always the untalented one? The average one? The one who doesn’t belong? Or worse, the pretty one? Pretty and poor and ripe to take advantage of? You think I like being hit on and talked down to by the men at the country club?”
A muscle ticked in Beckett’s jaw. “Who was it? Tell me their names,” he couldn’t stop himself from demanding.
It diverted his anger for a second, and I used that moment to brush away his hands that were keeping me back and press toward him. I cupped his face, and he stilled so suddenly, it was like I’d put a gun to his head. My fingers trailed down the scar. The one that bound us together.
“It’s not your fault, Beck. Kids should be protected, not blamed. None of it was your fault.”
His eyes locked onto mine, and there were years of torment there. “She never touched anyone else. It was only me…What was it about me that made it happen?”
I could tell by the way he spoke it was an accusation he had leveled at himself a million times, if not more.
“Nothing. She had power over you, and access – that’s it. The same thing would have happened to the son of anyone she married. It wasn’t your fault, and you didn’t do anything to makeit happen. You didn’t ask for it, you didn’t deserve it. It doesn’t matter what she said or did, or how it felt in the moment, good or bad or anything else at all…It wasn’t your fault. Nothing you did was wrong.”
I hadn’t finished speaking when he kissed me. Hauling me against his chest, he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me hard. It was a brutal kiss, full of desperation and need. I met those emotions every inch of the way, winding my arms around his neck and holding on.
He lifted me, turning us so the car was beneath me. There was a wildness to Beckett that I’d never experienced before. He wasn’t all the way back. He was someplace in between. I held him to me tightly, pressing my body against his as much as I could, welcoming his harsh touch and desperate need. I needed him right back.
He pulled back after a moment, leaning his forehead to mine, his breath rasping harshly between us.
“It’s not your fault, Beck. Forgive yourself…please.”
He leaned in and kissed me again. His furious anger wasn’t softening. Instead, it was a hot, molten urgency. The same hunger built inside me.
“I don’t deserve to touch you, Evie. My hands aren’t clean?—”
“They’re not dirty. You’re not dirty. Your body isn’t unclean, or ruined or spoiled or any of that shit…hers is. Yours is perfect. It’s perfect to me.” I cupped his face again, and his eyes burned into me, just like the day we’d first met. “You keep telling me that I belong to you…that my body is yours. Well, it works both ways. Your body is mine…and no one says that shit about my things. You’re perfect, just the way you are.”
He stared at me for a long moment and then lifted me again, opening the back of the car with one hand and sitting me on the edge of the backseat. I pushed backward along the seat, my gaze fixed on him. When my whole body was on the seat, I leaned back on my elbows and wet my lips.
