I try to lighten the mood by chuckling, but Peter isn't laughing. His eyes narrow and his jaw clenches as he rips the ring box away from my hands and stashes it in his coat pocket. “When you know, you know, Sydney,” he says. “And I know. Are you saying you don't want to marry me?”
“I – ” I am so caught off guard by all of this, and in that moment, all I want is to get out of the car. I want to escape. “I don't know, Peter. It's all moving too fast and I don't know what to make of any of it right now.”
The air rushes out of my lungs with a whoosh and I feel like I'm being suffocated. Choked. Like I'm fighting for air and I need to breathe. The limo feels like a cage suddenly, and even though the car is moving, I almost want to jump out, just to escape the tension.
Peter is still on his knees in front of me, but he's no longer looking at me. In the darkness of the car, I can't see the look on his face at all, but his hands clench my thighs, his nails digging into my bare flesh.
“Peter, you're hurting me,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm.
He doesn't pull his hands away though. No, instead, he looks up at me and I shudder when I see the darkness in his eyes. I don't even recognize this man anymore. The charming, sophisticated man my parents know and love is gone, replaced by a red-faced monster who continues digging his nails into my flesh, even as I try to pull myself away from his grasp.
I lean against the car door, as far as I can from him, desperately trying to put some distance between us. He grabs me and tries to pull me back to where I was sitting, but I fight and struggle, kicking his hand away with a high heel shoe, which goes flying to the other side of the limo.
“Peter, stop!” I scream. “You're scaring me.”
For some reason, I expect that to work. I know he has a quicksilver, wicked temper, and his anger has always terrified me, but it's never been directed at me before. Not for long, at least. Nothing like this.
“So what, Sydney?” he spits. “You come along and enjoy these fancy vacations, let me spend my money on you, but you'd really rather be fucking some scruffy inbred from the mountains? Is that it? Is that what's going on here?”
Before I know what hits me, I snap. Pulling back my hand, I slap Peter across the face as hard as I can. His head barely moves, but there's an angry red hand print on his cheek and the look in his eyes is worth it. He seems to pull himself together, as if he's coming to his senses, but it's fleeting. The monster he's become returns quickly, even angrier than before.
He looks at me with pure disgust and hatred in his eyes. His breathing is ragged, and he looks like he wants to kill me and dump my body in the woods. My heart races and a bolt of fear runs through me. I try to control myself, but I feel the trembling in my body as the grip of fear tightens around my heart.
“You're nothing but gold-digging trash,” he growls. “Just like all the others. I never should have expected more from you than I would a common whore.”
“Go to hell,” I say.
Those are the last words I utter to him, because Peter reaches over and opens the car door I'm resting against. I scream, but no one hears me. No one that matters, anyway.
“No, you go to hell,” Peter says, pushing me out of the moving car.
Luckily, the driver must have seen the door was open and he slowed down. As I fall from the limo, to the hard pavement below, everything moves in slow motion. I hit the snow-covered ground with a hard crack and the breath is driven from my lungs. The ground is slick, and I roll for a bit. As I topple over an embankment, I hear the car door slam and the limo drive away. I roll down the steep embankment, completely out of control of my body, unable to stop. I dig my nails into the hard packed, snow covered ground, trying to keep from rolling further when my head strikes something hard.
My vision wavers and blurs, and then goes dark.
CHAPTER SIX
JACK
I don't go far after leaving the diner. Instead, I go to my truck and drive around the town center for a few minutes before circling back to the cafe. I owe Daisy for my meal – not that she'd call the cops on me. I know I can always pay next time. Daisy isn't going to hold it against me and she's likely not even going to care. I won't do that to her though.
If I'm being honest with myself though, part of me wants to see Sydney again. Another part of me doesn't, though. Because seeing her again means I'll have to see that asswipe boyfriend of hers again, and God knows I don't want to get into a fight in the middle of Daisy's cafe.
I can't deny that I want to punch his lights out, but I don't even know the guy. Maybe he's good to her. Maybe she's happy. She deserves to be happy after all.
As much as I had hoped she was there to see me, running into her again was nothing more than a bizarre coincidence. One of those rare, strange cosmic events where the planets are lined up just right or some shit like that.
When I circle back around and see that the limo is gone. I slide into the spot, parking right outside the front door. This time, I leave the truck running, planning to only be inside a minute. Gunner sits in the backseat, tongue out, content to just being going for a ride. I pat his head and give him a quick scratch behind the ears.
“Be right back, buddy,” I say, as if he can understand me – though, I sometimes think he can.
I climb out of my truck and quickly go inside. Daisy is talking to someone at the counter, but she turns and offers a sympathetic smile as soon as I step inside the door. She excuses herself from the customer and comes over to me and touches my arm.
“I'm so sorry, Jack.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
I shrug and try to sound casual, hoping she buys my act. It's not her fault that things went the way they did. It's my fault.
“Just needed to stop in and pay my bill,” I say. “Sorry for my hasty exit earlier.”
“I don't blame you,” she says, shaking her head.
She purses her lips and I can tell she's not happy about something, I assume it's the same reason I feel like shit.
“Anyway,” she says. “The meal is on me.”
Pulling out my wallet, I shake my head and stuff a fifty in her hand. My meal cost less than twenty bucks, but she deserves the extra for putting up with me all these years.
Staring down at the cash, Daisy objects and tries to hand it back to me.
“No, it's yours,” I say. “You know I'm not hurting for cash, Daisy. Take it.”
“I'm not hurting either,” she says.
We both know that's a lie. I'd give her more if she'd take it, but Daisy has her pride and I know not to trample all over it. The couple of times I've broached the subject of helping her out, she's shut it down right quick. So, I resort to giving her little bits of cash now and then. It's not much, but it still helps, and she's most likely to accept those.
“I gave her the note, Jack,” Daisy says, her eyes serious.
“Oh yeah?” My throat closes up on me, and there's a lead weight in my stomach. “Did she read it?”
“Not here, but she took it,” Daisy says. “She couldn't read it with that jackass sitting across from her.”
A small smile pulls at my lips. It seems we feel the same way about Peter. Something isn't right with him. He just seems slimy to me. The kind of man who wouldn't think twice about laying hands on a woman. I never would have pictured Sydney with a guy like him.
Part of me though, thinks it might be my own jealousy poisoning how I see him. I'm not exactly an unbiased source. Daisy likes everyone though, and if she doesn't like you, there's usually a reason.
I really wonder what Sydney sees in him. I mean, I guess he's everything her parents wanted for her – rich, handsome, and well-dressed. But from the small portion of time I'd been in his presence, I can see that he's got a wickedly possessive side.