AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was so tired, she didn’t utter a word of protest. She curled up closer as though in need of his touch, her breath warm against his neck as she dozed off with her cheek pressed to his shoulder.
He stroked her hair between his fingers and watched her sleep, remembering the first time he’d seen her. He’d been at Daniel Lexington’s place. She was Daniel’s little sister’s best friend, and Andrew had been bowled over at the sight of that red hair, the soft smiles she gave him from afar when their gazes met.
“Who’s the titian-haired girl?”
“Whitney Donahue, the heiress to the Donahue fortune when she turns eighteen. Right now she’s in guardianship, with some uncle on her father’s side.”
He’d been captivated right there. By her shy smile—especially. He’d started looking out for her at every Lexington event, somehow thinking in his head, I’m going to marry this girl. When she turned seventeen, Andrew hadn’t seen her for months, and Chloe said she hadn’t been feeling well.
He’d lingered outside the building where she lived, until he saw her come out, and he’d strode up to talk to her. The way she’d smiled when she saw him . . . he’d never forget that smile. Like he was the center of . . . everything. But he noticed her face was swollen—and she said she’d fallen. The discovery that she’d been enduring physical abuse for years, since her parents had died, had made Andrew angrier than he’d ever been in his entire life.
He remembered how she’d cried in his arms when he asked her what had happened. In the middle of the street, right there, as soon as she told him she fell, Andrew hadn’t bought it. Feeling a chill along his spine, he asked, “Did someone put his hands on you, Whitney?”
She’d dropped her head, and he heard her catch her breath, which only made his gut clench tighter.
“Please tell me,” he urged, taking her by the shoulders and gently squeezing, his insides a roiling hot mess.
“W-why?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Because I want to help you. Because I . . .” He hesitated, then leaned in, caught her scent, and before he could stop himself, he turned his head and softly kissed her ear and said, “Because I want you for myself. And I won’t have anyone hurting you.”
His heart still caved in on itself at the way she’d sort of . . . fallen into his arms . . . fallen, like her legs gave out . . . and started crying with him. Feeling murderous, he’d tucked her into his car and drove her to his father’s house, merely because it was closest, and talked to her for hours. He’d promised her nobody would ever touch her again and threw himself into the task of freeing her from that pedophile rapist that very day.
He’d put the best lawyers on the case, and the court revoked the man’s guardianship a few months before Whitney turned eighteen. She’d been sleeping at his father’s place, in Andrew’s old room, but on her eighteenth birthday, Andrew asked her if she’d like to come live with him. “I need a roommate,” he said to her, but the truth was, he just wanted to be as close to her as possible.
She excitedly spent the day packing up her old place. Officially, she was to become his “roommate,” but that evening her uncle Harry had stopped by for an unexpected visit. Andrew should’ve known the man would be angry. Along with his guardianship being revoked, the money he’d been receiving for his role had been withdrawn. Hell, Andrew shouldn’t have even let her go home alone. His heart pounded as he remembered that day, almost five years ago.
“He’s at the door!”
“Bitch . . . bitch . . . open up you fucking bitch!”
The fear in Whitney’s voice coming through the telephone, joined with the muffled curses in the background, had sent Andrew’s every alarm instinct into overdrive.
She didn’t need to tell him who “he” was. He was the damned uncle Andrew had fought, tooth and bone, to remove her guardianship from. “Don’t open it! I’ll be right there, call nine-one-one.”
Andrew arrived at the Donahue townhome before the authorities did and instantly spotted Whitney, a little trembling ball of fear at the bottom of the staircase. Her dress was soaked in blood, and sobs wrenched her small form as she cradled herself. Her uncle’s beefy, thick, prostrate form lay sprawled, facedown, on the floor beside her.
“Please tell me you’re all right!” Charging forward, he fell to her side and frantically searched her. “Are you bleeding? Is this your blood?” He ran his hands over the blood on her chest, trying to be careful but too desperate to find the source of that blood to be slow.
“It’s his b-b-blood. Oh, God, I th-think I . . .” She was blinking fast, too fast, blinking back tears, or memories, as she stared straight ahead. “I th-think he’s d-d-dead. Oh, my G-G-God, I—”
On his knees, Andrew turned to the figure’s side and felt for a pulse. There was none.
A flicker of apprehension coursed through him.
He’d never seen so much blood. It was soaking his pants from where he’d dropped at her side.
“What happened, baby?” he asked gently.
“Andrew, I-I just g-g-grabbed a k-kitchen knife to protect m-myself and h-he kicked the d-door open and when h-he c-came in I-I fell, and h-he fell on me—h-he just th-threw himself on me. The knife w-went in, it j-j-just went in by itself!”
“Shh. It’s all right, it was an accident. In self-defense.”
But no.
Fear, stark and vivid, curled around his heart as an icy chill spread around his being.
Whitney was eighteen now. No longer a child. They could claim carrying that knife would signal intent to use it. Second-degree murder could carry from sixteen years to life. She could be sent to a women’s penitentiary. Endure a trial. Be questioned about her relationship with the man. They’d bring back all the times she’d been touched by that man . . . her worst nightmares and the darkest moments of her life scrutinized by the public and a jury . . .
