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“Fuck, Thea, why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I thought it was normal and I was so excited. All I could think about was that my dreams were coming true and that blinded me to anything else.”
Rage spits like molten lava inside me, but I fight with all I have to keep it from erupting. It wouldn't help anything right now. So, I wait with all the patience I'm capable of to finally find out what took Thea away from me six years ago.
“Keep going,” I grit out, releasing her chin from my fingers, only to hold her by the tops of her arms instead. Touching her is the only thing stopping me from losing my grasp on reality. It grounds me like nothing else can.
Her eyes are closed as tears continue to fall fast and heavy, but through them, she manages to speak. “I had a gut feeling something was wrong the moment I walked into the office, but I ignored it. God, I'm such an idiot.” A sob breaks free and fuck if it doesn't break my heart. “I thought I was meeting with a woman, but the agent was a guy in his early forties with these thick-framed glasses and a receding hairline. And his eyes...” She pauses, shuddering. “I can't even explain it. They were just...off. Kind of blank, I guess. Like there was nothing behind them.”
My grip on her tightens, fingers digging hard into her flesh. It must be hurting her, but either she doesn't care, or she's too lost in the memory of what happened to even feel it. Still, I force myself to release her.
“No.” Her hand shoots out to grab me. “Don't stop touching me.Please.”
The way she's looking at me right now is so desperate, so goddamn sad, that I'm not far from crying with her. So, I trail my fingers back up her arms until I'm cupping her cheeks, brushing away each and every tear before it even has a chance to drop.
I don't know when the anger I felt so vehemently toward her morphed into fierce protectiveness, when my resentment faded into tenderness. It hasn't disappeared completely, though. That ball of fiery rage still blisters inside me, but it's not directed at Thea anymore. It burns entirely for the bastard who's making her eyes look so motherfucking haunted right now.
“What did he do?” I ask on a ragged breath.
“He made me touch him. He made me—“ She sniffles, face twisting in pain. “I can't even say the words. But he said that if I didn't do what he wanted, then he'd release the photos I'd sent. I was scared, so fucking scared, so I did it and just prayed it would be over quickly.” Her voice breaks on a sob and I drop my forehead to rest against hers.
“Thea, baby,” I say, my voice rough and fractured. “Princess, did he rape you?”
“No.” Her answer is strong and instantaneous, causing overwhelming relief to wash like a tidal wave through my bloodstream. “He made me give him a blow job, but he didn't force me to do it. Not physically. It was a choice,mychoice. God, Cole, please know I'm so sorry.”
She explodes into unstoppable sobs. Huge, body-wracking cries that cause her to crumble and slide down the wall behind her. Falling to my knees before her, I pull her into my lap and cradle her against me. She burrows her soaking face into my neck and weeps. All the while, I run my hand up and down her back, trying to comfort her while barely keeping a lid on the profound, debilitating rage I feel.
She thinks it was a choice.She thinks she was unfaithful to me. She thinks this was all her motherfucking fault.
Never in my entire life have I ever been as gutted as I am in this moment.
“Princess, I'm gonna need you to listen to me, okay?” I feel her nod in the crook of my neck and smoothe my hand over her hair. “You didn't choose what happened to you.”
“I did,” she interrupts. “I was a whore. I - I - I was stupid. I was asking for it. I made him think I was willing to do it.”
“Fucking listen to me,” I growl, some of my anger escaping despite my efforts to contain it. “I don't know who the fuck told you this was your fault, but it wasn't, Thea. It fuckingwasn't.”
“My daddy... He said men don't put their hands on a woman unless they're given a reason to.” She sniffs, clinging to me impossibly tighter. “He said you wouldn't want me after what I'd done, that you'd move on with a girl who hadn't whored herself out for fame and ruined her reputation.”
Her father.
If that man wasn't already dead, I'd kill him.
“Princess, your daddy was wrong. So fucking wrong.”
Thea shakes her head, scraping the back of her hand across her cheek in a fruitless attempt to dry her tears. “No, he was right. The man… He didn't force me to my knees. He didn't hold me there.”
“He didn't need to force you for it to be assault.”
“What?”
I cup her face and tilt it up so she can look at me. Slowly and enunciating every single syllable, I tell her, “You did not consent, Thea. He blackmailed you. Sexual coercion is still sexual assault. Do you understand that?”
Her eyes blur with confusion, an emerald haze of trauma and misunderstanding.
“I don't know.”
“Did you want to touch him?” I ask her simply, calmly, despite the realization that the last six years might have looked very different if her father hadn't failed her as catastrophically as he did.
