Page 2 of Hard Evidence
Did he want to spend a lifetime placating her?He loved his job, and he didn’t want to rattle around in an oversized mansion, alone apart from his cat.She didn’t even like the cat.
Fuck, he hated this part.
Hated the breakup.
Hated playing the villain, hated the thought of sweeping up broken glass at eleven p.m., hated the whispers that would follow after yet another failed engagement.
“I think that maybe the ring should stay where it is.”
“No, I need it back, otherwise people will ask awkward questions.”
“Melanie, you just broke things off.”
“What?Yes, but I didn’t mean it.”
“Then why did you say it?”
Her mouth opened and closed in a passable imitation of a fish out of water.Usually, he didn’t push back.He was too nice, according to Braxton Vale, another old friend, one who spent his days surrounded by beautiful women and his nights catering to other people’s kinks.Brax framed amiability as a shortcoming, called him a pushover, but Justin had only ever aspired to be the opposite of his father.Jeb Norquist had died as he lived—in a bar fight while being an asshole.
But now, as Melanie squared up with her hands on her hips, Justin wished he’d told her “no” sooner.He ducked as she picked up a vase and hurled it in his direction.Turquoise shards exploded across the floor in a halo of colour.
“If you don’t want to marry me, just say so!”
His first instinct was to backpedal, to compromise on two months in a beachfront villa for the honeymoon, but if he simply mollified her, he’d regret it later.Brax had spent years trying to extricate himself from his first wife’s clutches, and at the time, Justin had wondered why the hell the fool ever married Carissa.But now he knew the answer—it had seemed like the easiest option at the time.
Justin prepared to duck again.“I don’t want to marry you.”
“You asshole!”
CHAPTER2
JESSALYN
Could he hear my heart hammering?It sounded like a sledgehammer pounding against my ribcage as I crept down the stairs, one careful step at a time, avoiding the squeaky fifth tread.I’d mixed a dozen Benadryl tablets into his second glass of wine, but would it be enough?My husband had always been a painfully light sleeper.
When I tripped over his briefcase in the hallway, I almost chickened out.Almost crept back to bed and pretended I’d just gone to the kitchen for a glass of milk.But the bruise around my left eye throbbed, and I knew that if I stayed, I’d regret it later.This wasn’t the first time he’d marked my face, and unless I escaped, it wouldn’t be the last.
I should have cut and run before.
I knew I should, but it hadn’t always been like this.Sunglasses used to be a casual accessory, not a shield from awkward questions.In the beginning, Ridge had acted sweet and charming, the lawyer who’d had my back as I fought for compensation from the careless jerk who’d killed my mom and injured me.And Ridge had won.Won the case and won me over.We’d gotten married three months after the cheque was cashed, and now when I looked back, I realised that was the point he’d begun to change.
It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment my life turned to shit.When “I’ll treat you to a new outfit” left him dictating how I dressed, when “I’ve booked a table at L’Eiffel, just the two of us” left me cut off from my friends, when “finances are hard, let me give you a hand with budgeting” left me with no access to my own money.My failure to get pregnant had been hard on both of us, I understood that, but comfort had turned to overbearing pressure as he tracked my cycles, put sex on a schedule, and gripped my hand at doctor’s appointments.For the past six years—dating for one year and married for five—I’d been stuck like a frog in a pan of slowly boiling water.
Only two things had kept me sane—Saylor, the sole friend who refused to take “no” for an answer, and Shiro, the puppy I’d found shivering on the porch almost three years ago.
Yesterday afternoon, Ridge had taken Shiro to the shelter.
And yesterday evening, I’d finally snapped.
But quietly, because I didn’t want more bruises, and I needed him to drink that damn wine.
Carefully, I lifted my mom’s casserole dish out of the cabinet.Maybe I was dumb for wanting to take it with me, but it was the only thing I had left of her.I wrapped it in three dish towels and slid it into my backpack.The bag didn’t contain much, just the clothes and toiletries I’d hurriedly stuffed inside, plus the small amount of cash I’d hidden in an empty bottle of laundry detergent, a place he’d never look.Each bill had been carefully liberated over time from his wallet, ten bucks here and twenty there, but nearly five hundred dollars in total.
I heard acreakand froze.Had he woken up?Was he coming to find me?I held my breath, listening, but no lights came on.Perhaps it was just the house settling?We lived in a restored Victorian, a beautiful prison.The car key was kept in a lockbox, but Ridge wasn’t always too careful when he opened it, so I knew the code.One-four-two-seven—his golf handicap and his birthday.I’d barely driven since the accident, since George T Baker blew through a red light while on his cell phone and smashed into my passenger door.Mom died beside me.The fire crew had taken over an hour to cut me free.
Getting behind the wheel again terrified me, but now I realised it was the lesser of two evils.Key in hand, I tiptoed toward the garage.The internal door opened on silent hinges—I oiled them regularly because Ridge got annoyed if they squeaked—and then I tucked the backpack into the trunk of Ridge’s Lexus.It was time.Time to flee with the only man in my life who still mattered.
Ridge hated dogs, and the feeling was mutual, so I’d been shocked when he agreed to let me adopt a puppy.But it hadn’t taken long for me to see why he’d acquiesced.Control.It was all about control.By giving me something to love, he could also threaten to take it away if I stepped out of line.
