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“Skinner’s office was soundproofed, Cal.”
His brows knit. “I know that. I’d been there enough times back when we used to do business, before the motherfucker went batshit crazy.”
He’s not putting it together. It’s clear I’m going to have to spell it out.
“How then, did Kim supposedly hear Roxana screaming when Skinner was hurting her?”
He flinches at my mention of that brutality his daughter suffered. And then his brow furrows. “Ain’t got no clue, but it seems you do, so spill it.”
“I called Kim on her cell. She was out in town shopping at the time. I warned her that a young woman was in danger from her psychotic husband. Your daughter.”
He chokes and brings his hand to his face, scrubbing over it roughly. “He killed her because she interfered in his business that day. If she hadn’t gone in there—”
“I know.”
“Damn, Charlotte.”
“It was either her, or your daughter. Kim’s days were numbered anyway. Marrying a man like Skinner was a death sentence. He was only growing more unhinged as time went on. She had no chance after you disappeared, her one opportunity for escape. She refused her son’s attempts to help because she wouldn’t put him in Skinner’s crosshairs. But, unlike Kim, Roxana had her whole future ahead of her.”
He curses to himself some more.
“If I hadn’t acted, Roxana would have died that day.”
He jerks his head up, his eyes hard, as he mutters, “And because you acted, Kim died.”
“I don’t regret my choice, Cal.”
He scoffs. “‘Course you don’t.”
Well, that was loaded. “Excuse me?”
He chugs back his full glass of scotch, slams it down on the table, just shy of shattering it, then shoots to his feet. His hand is shaking with rage as he thrusts it in my direction accusingly. “You always hated her!”
Here we go. “I didn’t hate her.”
“Seething jealousy. Hate. It’s a fine line, ain’t it, woman?”
“She was the love of your life. Not your wife, but her. I didn’t like what it did to you when you couldn’t have her, when she chose Skinner over you. All she gave you was a cheap affair, something that endangered you, given that she was married to Skinner at the time. She used you. Like I said, you were her chance at an escape from a life she deeply regretted. I didn’t like the hold she had on you, even when you’d broken it off a couple of years before we started something. She was weak, just like your wife. You deserved better than that.”
He stomps over to me, looming over where I’m sitting on the couch. “Yeah? You wanted better for me?”
I meet his fierce expression head-on, never one to be intimidated. “Yes.”
“Then why’d you walk?”
Our eyes lock, intensity sparking between us.
Nineteen years ago, I’d put an end to our relationship, or whatever the hell it had been. I’d never fully had him, because he’d had other ties back then. But I’d wanted to. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted any man. Hell, for him I broke my rule of never getting attached and close to anyone. It was a risk for me with the work that I did. Trust didn’t come easy, not at all. But something about Cal had transcended all of that. Walking away had been… difficult. It’d broken a part of me. And, judging from his reaction right now, it had for him too.
“You know why.”
“Right, yeah,” he mutters bitterly. “You did what you always do. Put your career first.”
“No. It wasn’t the right time. You were grieving. You’d lost everything. You were going to ground. If I’d gone with you, while you were in that state, it would’ve broken us and destroyed what we had.”
“You walking like that did it anyway, Charlotte!”
I take him in. His stark emotion. His rage. Exploding all over the place. He’s open, more open than I’ve ever known him to be. He was always locked up tight. Even during our most intimate of moments, he still held himself back. And I understood it, because I always did the same.
