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“You’re telling me to go home?”
She immediately shakes her head. “I know what it’s like to feel different, to not fit into the box everyone has put you in. What I’m telling you is to never discount a situation just because of how it started. Hound fucked me in an alley, thinking he was hooking up with a red-headed stripper.”
“Wow,” I say, huffing an awkward breath. “That’s descriptive, considering we just met.”
“It’s the truth. Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
I shake my head. “You’re not the first person to tell me that. So I should just let it happen, I guess?”
She chuckles. “Hell no. Rage against that shit. Fight it. Stand your ground. Definitely don’t listen to a word spoken by someone who isn’t involved. What’s the saying? If they aren’t feeding, fucking, or financing you, then they don’t get an opinion?”
My smile returns. “I’ve heard that before.”
“You look old enough to feed yourself, and although I don’t have access to your bank account, I’m sure you could pay your own way, and fucking? Well, maybe listen to what Oracle says to you.”
“You assume I’m fucking him,” I challenge.
“I know what satisfaction looks like, hon. And it was all over your face the second you rushed into the clubhouse to his room, not noticing the room full of people you hurried past.”
“Fair enough,” I concede.
“It’s going to be fun getting to know you, Beth, Oracle’s wife.”
She winks at me before taking the stairs down toward the house she told me she grew up in. I stand on the deck, my eyes wandering over the luxurious pool, as I take a few reassuring breaths.
Dr. Miller is a voice of reason, and she isn’t exactly forcing me to change my mind. She just wants me to think about the choices I’ve made.
I don’t want to think about any of it, and as a grown-ass woman, I know I don’t have to.
I pull open the door to the back of the clubhouse and make my way back to Derrick’s room.
Thankfully, he didn’t close the door behind me when I walked out earlier, and it’s easy enough to find.
I step inside, and he freezes, his hands inside my luggage.
Guilt swims on his face as he pulls his hands free.
Chapter 13
Oracle
“You watched me pack,” I snap. “What exactly are you expecting to find in there?”
I pull my eyes from hers and shift them down to her suitcase before lifting them back to her face. “What?”
“You’re rifling through my stuff,” she snaps.
I point to the open dresser drawer, indicating some of her items that are already in there.
“I’m making room for your things, but if you’re that adamant about doing it yourself, then that’s okay,” I tell her. “I was just trying to help.”
Her eyes dart from the dresser back to me more than once.
Her face falls, her shoulders lumping forward. I know what’s going to happen before the first tear even crests.
When her head drops forward, a silent sob racking her shoulders, I should probably head right for the door. I should seek out Kincaid and find a way to make alternate plans for this woman. She’s snippy and has a fucking hair trigger. It has to be because she’s been hurt, betrayed, and/or manipulated in the past.
It’s a defense mechanism that I’ve seen more times than I can count.
You don’t have to be sex trafficked to be abused. You don’t have to be physically hit to be hurt either.
It’s just a guess, but I think there’s a good chance her life has been a series of one disappointment after the next, starting with her family at the speed in which her brother agreed to marry her off to a man she didn’t even know.
“Fuck,” she whispers, the word pulled in on a ragged breath.
Instead of bolting, I go to her and wrap my arms around her.
This is supposed to be fun and entertaining, but I can tell it’s only going to get more complicated.
I have no idea why that doesn’t make me want to run in the other direction.
I have spent a lot of my life helping and rescuing people. Even in the military, I’d be tasked with clearing a building and find abused women and children. They are seen as less than, expendable, in nearly every country. They’re the first ones to be dismissed, the first ones to be abused.
Not once have I pulled a woman from horrific circumstances and wanted to do more with them than get them to safety.
I don’t have a hero complex. I wouldn’t even consider myself a protector.
I want justice.
I want to blow a hole the size of my fist into the chest of anyone who thinks it’s okay to take others’ liberties away.
Being that man doesn’t explain why I hold her against me and promise her that everything will be okay, but I don’t feel like solving that puzzle right now either.
