I release Vera and turn toward Cora. She’s got her hands on her hips. Her gaze bounces between Vera and me, then sticks on me. I pull my cellphone out of my pocket and look at it. Cora follows the movement. I can see the moment she realizes what I mean to do. She glares at Vera, her eyes hot and angry.
I hold my phone out to Cora. “I’m going with her.”
“Why?”
“She needs me.”
“And I don’t?”
“You have Leo now.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t need you anymore. Don’t go.”
“I’m sorry.” I take her hand and put my phone in it, curling her fingers around it. “I’ll contact you when I can.”
“What about your job? What about Mom and Dad and the life you’re building here?”
“I barely have the beginnings of a life here. It’s not enough. I can start over somewhere new where I’m not recognized and stared at.” I reach back and take Vera’s hand. “I have more with Vera than without her.”
“What exactly do you have with her? A life on the run? Do you even know why she’s running? I bet she hasn’t told you the real reason, has she?” She leans around me to glare at Vera. “Go on. Tell him the truth, Gwendolyn.”
Vera gasps, covering her mouth with her hands.
“Shit.” I spy Nolan and Savannah behind Cora, hovering just around the corner. “Not here.” I jerk my head toward the office.
Vera doesn’t want to go back in there. It takes some convincing, but I finally talk her into it. I take her hand and won’t let go. The minute I do I know she’ll bolt.
Once we’re inside with the door closed, I round on Cora. “How did you find out?”
“I was suspicious of her from the start, remember? When you started spending time with her, I got worried. So I checked the search history on your computer. You knew she wasn’t who she said she was from the start but didn’t tell me. What did she say to get you to keep it quiet? Is that when the sex started? God. You’re just like every other guy. Jerked around by your dick.”
“It was nothing like that. You don’t know the whole story.”
“I know more than you do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A simple Google search. That’s all it took to find out everything I needed to know about Gwendolyn Marie Johnston.”
“No. Please don’t tell him,” Vera begs. “Please. He doesn’t deserve that. Don’t do that to him.”
“Me?” Cora asks. “I’m not the one fucking him and lying to him.”
“We don’t fuck,” Vera spits out. “Fucking is having your virginity sold to the highest bidder and being tied down so he can collect his prize. Fucking is not knowing the name of the guy sticking his cock wherever the fuck he wants because he paid to get off on you. Fucking is being forced to your knees, to your stomach, or to all fours to fulfill whatever fucked-up request some sick fuck has. Fucking is paying your room and board in blowjobs whenever and wherever the master wants. What Beau and I do isn’t fucking.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
“Knock it off!” I put my arms out, separating them. “Both of you.”
“If you don’t tell him,” Cora challenges Vera, “I will.”
“No. You won’t,” I tell Cora.
“I don’t want to come between you and your sister.” Vera pulls her hand from mine. “I should go.”
“Goodbye,” Cora says.
“Hold on a minute. Both of you.” God. I can’t think with the two of them going at it like this. I let out a frustrated breath. “I can’t leave things like this between us,” I tell Cora. “I know I don’t know the whole story, but neither do you.”
Cora crosses her arms. “I know enough.”
“I’m going with her. Don’t leave things like this between us.”
“I’m not the one doing this to us. She is. I love you, but you’re all kinds of stupid right now because of her. You need to hear the truth, Beau. Once you do, if you decide you still want to go with her, I won’t stand in your way.”
I look to Vera. Her eyes are wide and round on Cora, her chest heaving. Trembling in the corner, she looks like a cornered animal facing off with a predator. I glance back at Cora, silently begging me to stay. This is an impossible situation. If I choose one, I lose the other. I don’t know what to do.
“I escaped instead of testifying and an innocent man went to prison,” Vera blurts out.
I whip my head in her direction. “What?”
“Sam French. He’s still in prison,” Cora says. “The Freedom Project is looking for her. So is the FBI. They need her to corroborate his and another missing witness’s story. She’s also wanted in another crime. Have I gotten anything wrong?” she asks Vera.
“No.”
“How could…” I can’t wrap my head around it. She knows my story. She knows it. How could she be a part of putting an innocent man in prison? How could she look me in the eye, fucking sympathize with me, when she did the same damn thing to another person?
“I don’t expect you to understand—”
“Understand? Of course I fucking don’t understand. How could you?”
“Are you still going with her?” Cora asks with a sneer.
“I can’t…I can’t fucking think. Just shut up. Both of you. Goddamn it!”