Page 46 of Riding Hard

“Tell me,” he demands.

“Tell you?” I ask.

He hums. “Tell me. What has you looking at me like that?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. I can’t imagine how I’m looking at him, but I’m not going to just offer up all those thoughts that have been swirling around. No way in hell. He’s going to think I’m a crazy woman if I do.

“Nothing,” I lie.

He snorts, taking one step toward me, then another, before he stops. “I told you about Cade, and you’re going to meet him. I need more from you, Jules. I need to know if Cade is in any danger. If anything from your past could come to Boulder City.”

Yeah, I know what he’s asking. He’s right to ask because this could be a situation where Cade could be in danger at some point, but I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to admit it. Because if I do, I’m afraid that this is done.

He’s not going to want to be with someone who could bring someone like Victor to their front porch. Especially not when it involves his son. I don’t blame him for walking away from me once he knows it all, but I also don’t want him to know how absolutely stupid I was for as long as I was.

“I’ll tell you, but I want you to know that I won’t hold it against you if you want nothing more to do with me. Cade is more important than anything.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-EIGHT

JULIETTE

I can’t stand across from him and talk to him about this—about my past, my life, and the world I’ve lived in for years. About running, barely scraping by, and being scared shitless for far too long.

Walking over to the bed, I sink down on the edge and place my hands in my lap. I don’t know what I expect, but it’s not for him to walk to the closet and drag out a chair that’s pressed against the wall, placing it in front of me.

He sinks down, his thighs spread, his elbows on those spread thighs, and his gaze focused on me and only me.

“Talk,” he grinds out.

He doesn’t look mad. His eyes are focused on mine, but he is clearly focused. His voice is growly, his tone is sharp, so if I were to close my eyes, I’d probably think he’s pissed at me, but looking into his eyes, I don’t see anger. I see concern. Even if I can detect the bite of anger.

“Victor and I met ten years ago when I was nineteen. I thought he was the one. The most perfect guy I’d ever met,” I begin.

Slade doesn’t say anything. He continues to focus on me, watch me, wait for me to say what I need to say, the way I need to say it. There’s no sugarcoating what Victor did to me, and Slade wants it all for the sake of his son. He deserves it all, too.

“My homelife wasn’t great. When I turned eighteen, my parents made me pay rent to live with them. Victor offered to let me stay at his place. I took him up on it. I thought it was the chance of a lifetime. I thought it was my future.”

“But it wasn’t,” Slade states.

“No,” I whisper. “It wasn’t. It was a living hell. He isolated me from anyone and everyone I could possibly come into contact with. Then he started hitting me. Then it became some kind of sick, sexual thing. He would do things to me—make me crawl, naked. Use my body for hours and sometimes days.”

I’ve never actually said any of this out loud before. I’ve thought it a million times, analyzed it all in my head more times than I could ever count. But spoken about it? Never. Even with Alex and Elodie, I only gave them the basics.

“I don’t know what to do here, Jules.”

I can tell he’s got a lot going on right now. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. My lips twitch into a smirk, but only for a moment. Clearing my throat, I continue.

“I stayed longer than I should have. Like an idiot, I believed him all the times he said he was sorry and it would never happen again, even when I was bruised and couldn't walk for a week. I knew I didn’t love him about a year into it. I didn’t stay because I thought I loved him. I stayed because I was terrified.”

Inhaling a deep breath, I hold it for a moment. My eyes fill with tears, but not because I’m sad about what happened. I’m angry at myself for not leaving sooner. The rest of the story is where I’m pretty sure this relationship is over.

“I left LA, but by then, it was too late,” I whisper. “He thought he owned me. He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t even like me, but he thinks he owns me,” I hiss.

“What happened when you left?” he asks.

No doubt he already knows the answer to that, but I need to tell him in my own words. I don’t want him to think that this is over by any means, because I know that Victor hasn’t decided to just give up. That’s not who he is.