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I needed to know if I was anything like him. Three days after he was convicted and sent to prison, my mother killed herself. She couldn’t handle the truth and took a handful of pills, knowing I’d be the one to find her body. It was my aunt, Etta Turner, who whisked me away to California, changed my name from Grant VanBuskirk to Van Turner, and helped me start fresh. I grew up away from the spotlight, hidden behind a new name and a new mom.
But I never forgot my dad or the horrific things he did to women. And I knew all the gory details since my mom forced me to sit through his entire trial at the tender age of eight. I never stopped wondering if I was anything like him since his DNA gave me his physical features. We looked a lot alike, and I was terrified my insides matched his.
That visit confirmed we were nothing alike. He was a self-centered, cruel narcissist who tried to torture me emotionally during that very short visit. I left with all my questions answered and wiped my hands clean of him.
Of course, Arco wasn’t done with me. He spilled my true identity to an independent reporter who wrote a hack piece opining that I was probably as crazy as my sire. It nearly destroyed me that my shameful secret was revealed to the world and I almost lost Simone because I reacted badly to it. I tried to push her away and crawl back into my fortress of solitude. Luckily, I quickly realized my mistake and rectified it.
Fortunately, Simone is a forgiving woman who loves me to the depths of her soul.
Sucks that it’s not enough this time, because when that tell-all biography came out, it sealed my future. While I could reason with myself that with Arco dead all the sordid details of what he did and the interest in it would fade away, the fact that the biography hit theNew York Timesbestseller list ensured it would never go to the grave. I was always going to have to deal with it and if it was just me, fine… I’d deal.
But now it was going to follow Simone and haunt our children. The thought of my kids suffering the same abuse and bullying I did simply by being related to Arco was untenable. That book ensured I would never procreate and put anyone else in harm’s way to suffer Arco’s sins.
I’d probably stay immersed in these wretched loops of painful memories if not jolted by the car parallel parked in front of my house. Normally, I’d drive right by, turn down the next street and loop into the back alley where my garage sits, but the green Vermont license plate catches my attention first, followed by the immediate recognition of Simone’s BMW.
My head swivels to see her sitting on my front stoop, the porch light illuminating her clearly. She doesn’t see me, head bowed over her cell phone. She has three pieces of luggage sitting beside her.
“Fuck,” I growl, slamming on the brakes and leaving rubber on the asphalt.
Her head pops up to lock eyes with me through the passenger window. There’s no mistaking the stiffening of her shoulders or the wariness in her expression. I’m sure she can see I’m pissed, but even as angry as I am she followed me here, I can’t say I’m surprised.
It was probably expected and I refuse to let myself admire her for it. Her tenacity and sheer bullheadedness are two of the reasons I was so attracted to her when we first met.
Shifting into reverse, I whip into the spot right behind her and exit my truck. I round the back end, cross over the sidewalk and come to stand at the base of the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snarl, hoping to scare her into submission. “And how the hell did you even find me?”
“Malik,” she says. Of course it would be Malik. He works for a company that can locate anyone in the world. Hell, they located him when he’d been kidnapped in Syria and held prisoner in a hole in the middle of the desert for months.
“You need to go,” I say, pointing back at her car.
“Nope.”
“Goddamn it, Simone. You’re not welcome here.”
“I’m married to you and any home you live in is considered marital property, so I’m allowed to be here as much as you are.”
That’s bullshit and she knows it.
“And what are you hoping to accomplish?” I ask, throwing my arms out in confusion. “Other than pissing me off.”
“I like pissing you off,” she says as she rises and dusts off the back of her jeans. “And I’m here to make you see reason. I’m getting you back.”
I scrub my hands over my face, at a loss for what to do or say.
“If you wanted to play professional hockey again, why didn’t you just tell me?” Simone asks softly, and I’m knocked off-kilter by that question. “I would have supported you. I would have uprooted myself in a nanosecond to let you pursue that dream.”
Christ, I know she would and it’s why I love her so much. But I’m not about to tell her that. “I didn’t tell you because coming back into the league was my escape plan. I didn’t want you to follow me.”
Hurt flashes in her beautiful hazel eyes. “That’s cruel.”
“I told you before that I wasn’t a nice man and that I was going to hurt you one day.”
“I remember. And you did hurt me once and I forgave you for it. I’m going to forgive you for this as well. Just out of curiosity, how long had you been planning this escape from me back into the league?”
“The day the book came out,” I admit truthfully. When a reporter called to ask me about it, and I realized what was happening, I called my agent that very same day. I knew right then that I would never drag kids through this and I’d have to cut Simone loose so she could live her dreams.
Simone crosses her arms over her chest. “You should have just left that day, then. It would’ve been a lot easier.”
