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Chapter Eighteen
I stared at myself in the mirror, taking in my knee length black pencil skirt and blush colored blouse. My hair was done up in a tight bun, pulled back from my face, with just a few stray tendrils framing my sad eyes.
After the day I had laughing and playing with Harlyn, my plan was to blow off Peter’s demand that I have dinner with him and my parents.
As soon as we’d arrived at the club, Harlyn had rushed over to talk to Ham, needing all the brothers to hear about her day with me at the store. I hadn’t smiled that much in a long time, seeing her dressed up in clothes way too big for her but that still made her look like a princess.
I was thankful for having Skylar there, Op had agreed to let her have time away from her club girl duties to help me run the store when my other employee couldn’t. It was only two days a week, but when the girls at the club were expected to not have other jobs while they were there, it really meant a lot that Op had made an exception.
We were both trying.
And things had been getting better.
Until I’d overheard the conversation Deacon was having with the boys. I’d stopped, intending on turning around and heading back through the other door when I realized that they were having a pretty deep discussion and not wanting to interrupt.
The words ‘prescription meds’ had caught my attention, and then when Deacon followed up with an explanation and what it was being used for, I knew instantly what he was talking about.
My gut sunk and my hands had begun to shake.
I knew exactly what that drug could do. And the reason I knew, was because it was the same one Peter had me addicted to. The same one he tortured and taunted me with. The same one he destroyed my life and my dignity with, and that haunted me every single day. The same one his company produced, and then bribed and blackmailed their way past the FDA approval.
I knew he was involved in this shit, and I had to do something, even if that meant playing a part that I detested so much. How I was going to pull off a happy smile and play the perfect daughter and wife, I really wasn’t sure. I’d spent so long, trying to draw the traits out of me that my parents had ingrained into my mind and body. Time that over the last six years I’d lived to free myself from. Now here I was, forcing myself back down that same path I tried to run so far from, but this time for different reasons.
I grabbed my handbag, opening it once to check that I had the forms I needed to show Peter, hoping that this was all he needed, and that proving to him that Harlyn wasn’t his would eliminate her from the equation and keep her out of his eyesight. Tucked in under those were more papers, divorce papers, ones that would free me from him forever and maybe finally allow me some kind of sanity.
I thought of Wrench as I pulled closed my front door.
Was he the type to marry?
Was that something he ever thought of?
I shook my head, thinking the idea was stupid.
Seeing him today had caused that rush of emotions to all flood back into me. How he made me feel so good. How he made me happy and freed my mind for those brief moments that we were together. But we both had responsibilities, ones that we couldn’t escape from. His loyalty was to the club, and I was pretty sure that as far as Optimus was concerned, that loyalty meant Wrench touching me could have him losing everything he held close to him.
And now I was thinking more clearly, I just didn’t know if I could be responsible for that. And how unfair it was for me to demand he kept that information from his brothers, his family.
I really did love the club. There may have been times where I’d blamed them, blamed Optimus for the fact that I couldn’t come home. I’d told him before, the danger that surrounds the club was too much for me to handle, too much for me to have Harlyn involved in.
They were just my scapegoat. I’d placed my fears and apprehension on them in order to make it seem like I was doing the right thing. It wasn’t fair, not on the club, Optimus, his brothers or the women who loved those men.
There would come a time when I’d have to admit the truth and take on the guilt and shame of my actions, I just hoped that they would be able to forgive me and understand that I was doing it for them and for my daughter.
I took a deep breath as I climbed from my car and stared at the restaurant in front of me that held so many strange memories. They weren’t necessarily bad because during the times I’d been there, I’d been somewhat happy, or at least content with my life and the way I was living it.
Peter had charm, I had to admit that much. Early on in our relationship he’d wined me, dined me, and surprisingly treated me more like a person than my parents had during my adolescence. I knew at the time that it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, to be with a man who was like them in more ways than one, but I felt like he showed me a different side to his personality, one that was relaxed, more carefree.
The work he did was all about helping families and finding cures to diseases and producing a medication that would help people through their pain, help them to live a normal life. He wanted to make people’s lives longer, help them to experience more. I admired that because it seemed like it came from a genuine place in his heart. But it wasn’t long until I realized his true intentions before I saw exactly who he really was.
I stepped inside the building and immediately there was a waiter offering to take my coat. I smiled graciously. “I’m here to meet Peter Davenport.”
His eyes lit up and he hurried to hang my jacket before sweeping his arm out in front of him. “Please, come this way, ma’am.”
Soft harmonic music played in the background, and patrons chatted quietly among themselves and devoured their food. The smell should have had my mouth drooling, given that I hadn’t eaten all day out of nerves, but all it did was twist my stomach further into knots.
The waiter stopped at the back of the restaurant and stepped to the side, revealing Peter at a large round table, sipping a glass of wine. He looked up and saw me, placing the glass down on the table and standing to his feet.
A gentleman.
