“I couldn’t tell anyone, Tess. Seventeen-year-old boys aren’t supposed to get raped. You know what people would’ve said? That I wanted it. That I should’ve been able to fight him off otherwise. I just wanted to forget it ever happened. I needed to bury that person I was that night in order to move on with my life.”
Tears fell and she pressed her face into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It was my fault. If I’d have stood up for you that night, he wouldn’t have gotten you alone. Everything would’ve been different.”
“Don’t do that to yourself, baby,” he said softly. “It wasn’t your fault. We were young and neither of us could’ve guessed he would’ve taken it that far. And it’s truly in my past. My dad saw the state I was in when I showed up. He didn’t know exactly what had happened to me, but he saw enough of the depression to know I needed therapy. I worked through it. The only other time it came up was when I started realizing I had dominant urges. I thought at first it was because of what had happened, my need for control in all things, but then I started looking back and seeing all the signs that were there way before that night. Maybe that night fast-forwarded my desire to be in charge, but it would’ve shown up eventually anyway. I truly hadn’t thought about Doug in years until you showed up in my life again.”
“And, of course, I bring all that bad stuff back up.”
&n
bsp; “Baby.” He grabbed her shoulders and leaned back to look at her. “You coming back to me has been the best thing that’s happened in my life since Rosalie was born. I feel like all this time I’ve been cycling through relationships, I was just waiting for what I really wanted. Who I always needed. You.”
“Kade—” Her chest squeezed, words leaving her.
“And I don’t care what the fuck Doug has on us, I’m not letting you do anything for him. I will figure out the custody situation. Reid just found out that my ex’s husband plays tennis with the judge who ruled on our case. So he’s petitioning for a different judge based on conflict of interest.”
“Maybe we won’t have to get faux engaged after all.”
“No, we won’t. I’m not going to allow it anyway.”
She blinked. “What?”
He took her hand and kissed her left ring finger. “When I put a ring on this, it will be for real or not at all. I’m done hiding it. I love you, Tess. I did then. And I do even more now. You’re it for me.”
She lowered her head, the weight of the words making her want to slide down to the ground. Love. It’d been said to her before. But somehow this felt like the first time anyone had truly meant it.
“I’m willing to give you the time you need to figure out what you want because I know this has happened quickly and that I come with a lot of fine print. I’m dominant and that’s not going to change, so being with me would mean being my submissive. And I have a little girl who will hopefully be a big part of my life. Plus, I’m in the public eye, so people would scrutinize us. I realize it’s a lot. But I need you to know that this hasn’t been a fling for me. This hasn’t been about fantasy. This has been me falling in love with you all over again. Day by day. Moment by moment.” He laced his fingers with hers. “You walked into my restaurant that first night, and before I even realized who you were, it was like the world shifted beneath my feet. Nothing has looked the same since.”
She was crying now, full, heavy tears. And not in that pretty Demi Moore kind of way. It was all so overwhelming, so much.
He brushed her tears away as they fell. “You don’t have to say anything back right now. I just needed you to hear how I felt. When I got out of that jail and realized you’d left town with him, I hated how much I’d held back and left unsaid. I can’t believe you had the nerve to think I’d be okay without you.”
She smiled and swiped at her runny nose. “How dare me.”
“Exactly. So now you know, and I’m here to help however you need.” He bowed his head. “I’m in your service, ma’am. Give me my orders. And please tell me it’s to beat that fucker Doug until he weeps.”
“All I need you to do is to be a lookout and make sure he doesn’t come downstairs. I grabbed the key to his office off his key ring while he was showering, and I know he just rotates the same passwords and changes the first number. So I’m going to go search through his computer.”
“What are you looking for?”
She wet her lips and looked toward the house. “I’ve been digging through Bluebonnet’s older reports, and I noticed some transactions that were strange. The balances also didn’t add up the way they should. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong and thought I must be reading them wrong, so I asked Gibson if I could take him up on that offer to work with Marcy in accounting for a few days. She helped me understand what I was looking at and what else to search for. Doug had been accessing the accounts under my name, pulling donation money earmarked for services for the kids into his personal account, then charging the charity for services rendered. No one thought to question it since I owned the charity.”
“So he’s stealing money from foster kids,” Kade said with disgust.
“And it’s not a huge amount because that would’ve been questioned. And even if it was, I would’ve looked like the culprit. But I’m thinking that if he’s doing it with Bluebonnet, he’s probably doing the same thing with the church. You should see how full the donation box is every Sunday. A lot of church members take the notion of tithes very seriously, donating even when they can’t really spare it. People assume he lives this good because he still has his hands in his father’s real estate company, but I can tell you his dad doesn’t have the kind of money Doug does. His father gambled most of their family fortune away.”
“And you think you can find proof?”
“Doug is anal retentive about documentation. He keeps a record of everything. I know something’s got to be there if I delve deep enough.”
“And when you find it, you won’t just have a little blackmail, you’ll have a way to take down everything he’s ever built.” Kade smiled and gave her a quick, firm kiss. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re brilliant?”
She laughed. “I can honestly say no.”
“Well, you are,” he said, giving her another peck. “Brilliant and brave as shit for coming up with this plan.”
The compliment wrapped around her like a warm blanket. Brilliant? Maybe not. But for the first time in her life, she felt smart and capable, like even if Kade hadn’t insisted on showing up, she could’ve accomplished this on her own. She hadn’t looked for someone else to save her or fix it for her. But she also wasn’t going to be too proud to accept his help now.
“Come on,” she said, taking his hand. “Let’s get what we need and get out of here. I’ve got a life to get back to in Texas.”