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48
SAVANNAH
A WEEK LATER
"No, I don’t want to."
My brow puckered as I stared at the other woman who was clinging to Bupkis and who, surprisingly enough, wasn’t trying to scratch her to get free. "Cassie, I understand that you don’t want to, but surely you see that youneedto? He won’t stay in jail if you don’t press charges."
"Especially as he’s claiming he restrained you as part of a consensual sex act," Rachel Laker murmured, her expression calm where I felt anything but. "Harvey will be out the day after tomorrow, Cassie, if you don’t make a stand."
The meeting went from bad to worse as Cassie pretty much turned into a mute from there on out.
My temper kept trying to surge and flare, but Cassie’s despondency was what broke my heart. I remembered her passion from before, and she was sounpassionate now. The bastard had taken so much from her, and she was still allowing him to steal more of her spirit away.
Twenty minutes later, as I walked Rachel out of the apartment after a thoroughly pointless meeting, I muttered, "I’m so sorry for wasting your time, Rachel. Thank you for coming to see us here and for fitting us in."
It had been a nightmare on my schedule, but I’d snapped up her offer to come visit us at my apartment.
She shook her head. "You don’t have to thank me or apologize. When Giulia told me the state of her when she and Nyx brought her here, I had to act.
"I run charity foundations, Savannah, for this explicit purpose. I know you talked about them with Lily at the BBQ."
"We did. We need to confer; I’d like to help spread the word. My star’s never been higher, so now’s the time."
Her smile was loaded with gratitude. "I’d appreciate that." The smile faded as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. "Cassie knows he’ll come after her, but she’s trying to minimize his anger."
"Let him try to get into this building," I seethed.
"You can’t protect her forever," Rachel pointed out. "You’re already going above and beyond for a friend."
"Hardly," I dismissed. "She’s only staying with us. It’s not like I’m giving her a kidney."
Rachel snorted. "Is that how you compare everything? To organ donation?"
My eyes twinkled. "Only with friends."
The other woman laughed. "Good to know."
"What’s our next move?"
"I’m not sure," she admitted grimly, her laughter fading. "I can put out a restraining order on him, but even then, there’s no just cause if she won’t press charges against him. Maybe work on her?"
"I’ll try. Cassie’s pretty damn stubborn." I thought about her career, a career I was supposed to be in the dark about. "She can work from home, so I have a feeling she’ll just stay in all the time."
"And you’d be okay with that?"
"Not really, but what else can I do? Mostly, I feel like I let her down," I admitted, rubbing my tired eyes.
"Forgive me, Savannah, but how did you let her down? You haven’t spoken for almost a decade, and it seemed as if the only reason you stopped talking was because life got in the way. It isn’t like you had a falling out."
I shrugged. "I’m not that good with people who aren’t family." There was a reason only Jen, a self-confessed bitch, put up with me. "I should have made more of an effort. Cassie really liked me. I know she did. And there aren’t that many people who want to get to know me just for me and not because I’m Dad’s daughter.
"Maybe if we’d stayed friends, she wouldn’t have fallen for that bastard."
Rachel pursed her lips. "You don’t know that, and that you can suggest it at all tells me you have an ego problem."
My nose crinkled. "Charming."
