“I’m not.”
“I know how you feel, but you don’t have to go through this alone.”
Kat squeezed her eyes shut and trapped the words she wanted to scream inside her head. She wanted to tell Sunny that she hadnoidea what Kat was going through, that she didn’t need sympathy, that what she needed was to get back to regular life and forget the whole thing as soon as possible.
Yet…when offered a chance at regular—meaning dinner with her friends—Kat couldn’t stomach the idea.
“There isn’t anything to worry about,” Kat said. “I really need to get going, though. We’ll talk again soon, okay?”
Sunny’s voice echoed through the line, but Kat didn’t want to hear it. She hit the End button, her head pounding, her breath racing. She all but collapsed into her office chair, her knees weak and her hands trembling.
The ringing of the phone made her squeeze her eyes shut as she dropped her head into her hands and ignored the sound.
Her life had changed so much but she couldn’t move forward.
And each time she shut her eyes, all she could see was the face of the man who had done it to her, who had turned her into this, and she wasn’t sure if that would ever go away.
* * * *
Dean smiled at the happiness on Ell’s face.
Fuck, how long had he wanted that for her? How many years had he spent watching over her, wanting nothing more than for her to get the life neither of them had had growing up?
And here she was, looking right at home helping Sunny at the women’s shelter Sunny ran.
“Well don’t you look happy?” Dean asked as he took a seat in Sunny’s office.
A flush to Ell’s cheeks said life with the three men she’d somehow ended up with suited her.
It certainly wasn’t what Dean had expected from her. Ell was tough as they came, so he’d always figured she’d end up with some spineless man that she could run around all day long. Of course, as seemed normal for him, he had no fucking idea what women wanted, as evidenced by her ending up with three Doms.
“Stop it,” Sunny said, that edge to her voice when she was protecting someone else.
“It’s fine,” Ell said. “If Dean isn’t causing problems, someone should probably check him for a pulse.”
Dean set his hand over his chest, feigning hurt.
“Now,” Ell went on. “Why are you here? You didn’t come all this way just to drop off these.” She held up a stack of his business cards.
“Of course I did.”
No, I didn’t.Dean could have dropped those off anywhere, or even just given them the information over the phone to hand out to women at the shelter who might need a lawyer. He handled mostly divorce cases, some custody as well, so it made sense for him to help.
Ell lifted her eyebrow, silently calling him out.
Dean let out a loud sigh. “Fine. I wanted to see if you’d heard from Kat.”
Ell’s smile came on quick, as if she’d suspected as much, but she didn’t keep that smile for long. It fading gave Dean his answer.
Sunny spoke up. “I talked to her this morning, but she got off the phone fast. I tried to get her to agree to coming over, but no luck.”
“I went over to her new place,” Ell added on, “but if she was in there, she didn’t answer and there weren’t any signs of her. She moved after…” Ell trailed off for a moment, and that old anger surged inside Dean at the tremble in her voice as she skipped over what they all knew. “But I don’t think anyone has gone inside her new place. Well, except for Toya.”
Dean snorted. Toya did as she damned well pleased as the owner of Sanctuary. No doubt she’d hired the movers herself and ensured the new place was up to specifications, especially for Kat, who had been the heartbeat of Sanctuary for years. “How is she?”
Ell and Sunny exchanged a loaded look, but it was Sunny who answered. “I don’t know. Going through something like that, it takes a toll. It doesn’t go away all at once.”
Dean lowered his voice to a whisper, as if that made it better. “What exactly happened?”