His face is right in front of mine, our noses almost touching as his eyes search mine and I hold my breath.
“Bullshit,” he whispers. “Does your boyfriend who’s so easy to love make you moan like that when he fucks you? Does walking around with a stick up your ass acting like you’re better than everyone else just like your mother really make you happy? You acted like you’d rather be skinned alive than move around on that dance floor. And don’t try to tell me it was because of your dance partner when that goddamn kiss proves otherwise. I remember a woman whose entire face lit up as soon as she heard music. Who could lose herself in dancing and it was the most beautiful fucking thing I’d ever seen in my life. She came alive when she danced and those fucking legs of hers that went on for days defied the laws of gravity.”
He holds my stare for a few more seconds until he finally moves away and I can let out the breath I was holding. My bottom lip shakes with the need to scream and cry when he turns from me, grabs the handle of the door, and yanks it open so roughly it slams into the opposite wall.
“You’re not happy. Best thing about you right now is that at least you still have the most beautiful damn legs I’ve ever seen. Too bad you chose to stop using them.”
I watch him walk out into the brightly lit hallway and turn toward the double French doors that will lead him out of the house, my body sliding down the wall until my butt hits the ground. My bad leg is straight out in front of me and I bend my good leg, wrap my arms around it, and bury my face in the material of my dress that covers my knee. Eli’s parting shot hit its mark right in the center of my chest, breaking off the last remaining pieces of my heart as the memory of another night, one filled with thunder and tears and pain, crashes through my mind.
Chapter 10
Shelby
Six years ago…
Rain.
Thunder.
Lightning.
Flashing headlights blinding my already blurry and puffy eyes from so much crying.
Spinning and sliding through the flooded section of road, the wheel slipping from my hands and turning so quickly I can’t hold on.
Screams.
So many screams and I realize they’re my own. I can’t hold on. I can’t stop. Before I squeeze my eyes closed, the sky illuminates outside my window, lighting up the handwritten note resting on the passenger seat and I watch it slide across the leather and onto the floor.
I don’t need to see the words to know what they say. I memorized them and they’ve been playing on a loop in my head since I got in my car. This car that is careening out of control. This car that he always insisted on driving when I would sneak away and pick him up. This car that he loved because it wasn’t flashy and new, but safe and reliable and I paid for it with the money I earned waiting tables. This car that he loved to pull off on a secluded road, pull me over onto his lap, light my body on fire with his hands and his mouth, and whisper in my ear how much he loved me.
The words from the note play on a loop as this car, the one he loved to drive and tell me lies in, spins off the road.
“It was fun while it lasted. I’m in love with someone else. Good luck with your dancing.”
Even through the squealing of tires, the crash of metal, the breaking of glass, the words in my head are louder and demanding to be heard.
“It was fun while it lasted. I’m in love with someone else. Good luck with your dancing.”
My body jerks and my head hits the side window before that, too, shatters in a shower of glass, and still, the words won’t stop.
“It was fun while it lasted. I’m in love with someone else. Good luck with your dancing.”
The vehicle finally crashes into something that stops it, but it doesn’t stop my side of the car from collapsing in like it’s made of a thin piece of paper, pinning me in place. My left leg explodes with so much pain that my screaming grows louder, ringing in my ears as the car hisses and creaks and the remaining few pieces of glass from the windows tinkle down on top of the twisted metal all around me.
I try to move, but I can’t. I scream even louder when I feel the burning, the crushing, the stabbing, the agony, shooting from my hip down to my knee. I move my shaking hands to where the pain is and I feel something sharp and hard sticking out of my thigh where it shouldn’t be. My hands are immediately covered in warm, wet blood and I choke on my tears and my screams when I realize what I’ve done.
“It was fun while it lasted. I’m in love with someone else. Good luck with your dancing.”
Good luck with your dancing.
Good luck with your dancing.
My screams of pain start to die, right along with my vision…and my dreams.
Chapter 11
Eli
Get in the car, asshole.”
My feet stop in the middle of the turnaround where I’ve been pacing since I stormed out of the plantation house and away from Shelby thirty minutes ago. I look up to see a sleek, silver BMW idling right in front of me with the passenger window down and an irritated woman leaning over the center console, glaring at me.
“Not in the mood right now, Meredith,” I reply as I start to turn away from the vehicle.
“I don’t give a shit what kind of a mood you’re in. Get in the car.”
I hear the locks click as she releases them and leans back against her seat, her hands on the steering wheel and her fingers tapping against it while she waits for me to do as she says.
Fucking Meredith Prescott. There was a time when I thought the two of us might be friends when Shelby introduced me to her that summer six years ago. Friends who constantly bickered with each other, insulted each other, and couldn’t be in the same room together more than five minutes before we were throwing sarcastic comments around like a baseball, but we had the love of Shelby in common and that always made us try to get along for her sake. It didn’t always work, but we tried. I liked that she was so protective of Shelby, even if it sometimes pissed me off when she would make comments about how she’d kill me if I ever broke her heart. Going by the look on her face and her cheerful greeting, she’s come to collect on that death threat.
Realizing I’d rather be anywhere than standing in front of this fucking plantation with a woman inside who I can’t keep my hands off even when I’m pissed at her, I huff out an irritated breath and stalk to the car, throwing the door open none too gently and climbing inside.
The engine revs and Meredith presses down on the gas before I even get my door closed.