I just hadn’t listened.
Dad finally dozed off, filling the quiet space with light snuffling. Leanne stopped back over when dad had reached REM and I was getting bored with my phone. Derrek’s message still lit up my message box, but I refused to open it… refused to acknowledge its existence. There were more messages now. I’d lost count how many time a new notification popped up on my phone. Apparently, he’d decided that I was the Vera he was looking for. But I wouldn’t read them.
I couldn’t read them.
“Is he still doing okay?” she asked, checking him out.
I inclined my head toward him. “He’s basically Rip Van Winkle.”
She smiled fondly at him. “I’m always impressed with how quickly he can fall asleep. It always takes me forever to wind down.”
“He’s always been like this. My brother is the same way. They just pass out.”
“Men,” she murmured with a tilt of her head. “They don’t worry about things like we do.” I laughed politely, but she wasn’t exactly right. My dad worried better than anyone I knew. And maybe sometimes he was justified in it. She turned to me. “Can I get you a paper or magazine?”
“Sure. I’d love a paper. Thank you.”
She returned with the Herald-Sun a few minutes later. Most industry gossip was found online, with food bloggers and online magazines. But newspapers could always be counted on to print reviews. I flipped straight to the Living section, anxious to see if there was anything new in the Durham area and maybe, possibly, see if something had been written about Foodie. It was a long shot, and nobody had contacted me about it or anything, but a girl could hope.
Instead of local news, a familiar face stared at me from the flat pages. It was a write up for a newish restaurant in Charlotte making a splash in the southeast.
I tried to swallow around the gritty lump in my throat, but I couldn’t seem to manage.
Derrek leaned against an industrial cooktop, surrounded by smooth steel and shiny accessories. His crisp white chef’s coat had no wrinkles, his name and restaurant name perfectly embroidered over the right breast. His eyes looked kind in the picture, creasing in the corners and glittering with pride. And his face. His face that was so good looking it almost hurt.
Unlike Killian, who screamed danger and mayhem and broken rules, Derrek was all-American- blonde, blue-eyed with clean-cut, chiseled features. After I’d moved in with him and things had turned for the worse, I used to wonder if his success had more to do with his appearance than his skill in the kitchen. He was a good chef, but he wasn’t phenomenal.
But it wasn’t just his looks and mediocre talent that propelled his career skyward. Even I could admit that the man had charisma. He was charming, alluring, he made everyone feel comfortable and cared about. Nobody could resist him.
Especially not me.
Not until I’d learned my lesson the hard way.
Now he’d managed national acclaim. I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed in the American people as a whole, but not surprised.
My stomach churned, and chills crawled over my body, making me paranoid. My fear was silly and unfounded. It was just a picture. He couldn’t see me. He didn’t know I’d found this article or bothered to read it.
He didn’t know anything about me anymore.
I sucked in a deep breath and clenched my hands into tight fists to keep them from shaking. I didn’t like to think about him anymore, or the time I spent with him. But once in a while, when I was afraid of the future or disappointed with how little I had done with my life so far, I allowed myself to imagine what my life would have been like if I’d have stayed with him.
Would he have proposed by now?
Would he have made me quit my job by now?
Would he have hospitalized me by now?
Would he have killed me by now?
A sour feeling of dread snaked through my stomach, threatening to make me toss up my breakfast, followed by a flash of heat and sweat. God, I was a mess when it came to Derrek. One part relief that I wasn’t still with him. One part embarrassment that I’d become a victim, that I’d let myself get sucked into an abusive relationship to begin with. One part hate—pure, raw, violent hate. And one part fear. Fear that he would find me again. Fear that he would suck me back in, remind me that I was nothing without him, that I would never be anything without him. Fear that he wouldn’t give me the choice. That he would demand my obedience.
And I would give it to him.
Again.
I felt like an addict in the worst way. And it was the sick addiction that scared me the most. Because I knew what I wanted and he wasn’t it. I knew how to be happy again, and he wasn’t the way. I knew how to stay healthy and go after my dreams and be my own, independent woman. And yet the threat of what he could do to me, how he could destroy every single thing, was very real.
And knowing that still didn’t take away the fear. Because I didn’t trust that there wasn’t some way he could convince me to go back to him.
He had stripped me of self-worth and confidence and everything I needed to be me. He’d turned me into a submissive, weak, shell of a woman. He’d broken me.
What if he did it again?
What if he didn’t turn me weak? What if I’d always been weak?
And he had simply been stronger?
When Leanne came back at the end of my dad’s treatment, I still clutched the Living section in my sweaty hands. She woke Dad and unhooked him. His sleepy gaze swept over the paper. I didn’t know if he recognized Derrek or not, but he didn’t comment on him.
He wrapped his heavy arm around my shoulder, and we walked to the car. It wasn’t until we were buckled and headed back home that he reached over from the passenger’s seat and settled his warm hand on my still-chilled shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Vera. No matter what I said earlier, you should know that I’m proud of the woman you’ve become and all that you’ve accomplished. I only worry because it’s my job.”
I gave him a watery smile, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
“And you don’t need him,” he went on, surprising the hell out of me. “I know you’ve kept what happened a secret because you think you’re protecting me, but I see it, Vera. I see that he hurt you badly. Hell, I had to deal with him after you left, calling the house twenty times a day. I know that he damaged you somehow and I hate him for it. I’d like to kill him for it. But I know I don’t need to. You’re stronger than that boy. And you deserve better. You deserve the best. I’ve never known anyone more deserving than you, baby girl.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I hiccupped on a mushy sob.
He squeezed my shoulder, his large hand engulfing me, making me feel small, protected. “You’ll get your picture in the paper soon enough. You just watch. He’ll be reading about you soon enough.”