One to Hold (One to Hold 1)

dressed in grey slacks and a dress shirt unbuttoned at the top, blue eyes glowing beneath his dark brow, I had to fight all the emotions warring in my chest. The physical longing, the anger, the betrayal, the unbelievable, gut-wrenching pain. I ignored all of it—including the weakness in my knees at the blaze in his eyes when he saw me. I forced my mind to focus on what he’d done.

“Melissa,” he said. “What—” He started around the desk toward me when I cut him off.

“Don’t come any closer,” I said. My stomach was in knots, and seeing the expression on his face—the frown melting into joy going back to a frown at my words—it took everything I had to control myself, to take it slow and be a professional. To handle him the way he’d handled me.

He stopped. “I don’t understand. I’m so happy to see you. I-I want to—”

“Just hold that thought,” I said, my hand extended as I walked to the opposite side of the desk from him. “I’m here for a reason.”

“To see me, I hope,” his voice was soft and low. It made my eyes burn.

My jaw clenched against any display of emotion. I’d had enough of men and their games. “It seems you know my ex-husband Sloan. You did some work for him a few weeks ago? In Scottsdale?”

Instantly his shoulders dropped. “Oh, Mel,” he exhaled. “I can explain—” he started toward me again, palms out.

“Not until I’ve said what I came here to say.”

His hands dropped and he studied my face. Then he nodded as if he understood, but I was pretty sure he didn’t. “Will you sit?” he asked, going back around to his chair.

“I won’t be that long.” I pulled out one of the manila folders I’d brought, opening it on his desk and taking out the first document—the printout of their email exchange. “You confirmed for him that I was at the spa resort, but you saw no signs of me with a man? I suppose that was to cover your ass.”

“No,” he started. “It wasn’t. I wanted to let you decide what you wanted—”

“Save it to the end,” I continued, pulling out the next sheet. “I guess he told you his side of the story. That he didn’t know why I was trying to leave him, that I must have another man somewhere. Maybe that I was crazy? I know he repeatedly told the staff such lies, and he always wondered aloud how I could throw away our life together.”

Derek’s lips pressed into a line, but he didn’t speak. He waited for me to finish.

The next print out was a copy of the confirmation from the first escort service. “He wasn’t so worried about our life together when he started fucking prostitutes.”

I pulled out another contact, then another. One by one, I put the sheets on his desk, and Derek lifted them. I watched the muscle in his jaw flex as he quickly scanned their contents.

“The first time he said it was the long trip,” I continued. “He was missing me, horny as hell, I think he said. And with a prostitute, it didn’t count, right? She was just a faceless whore.”

His eyes traveled back to me, but I could tell he was waiting, letting me say what I needed to say.

“After that, I couldn’t sleep with him anymore.” My voice wavered a bit. It was the first time I was saying all of this out loud. And to the one person I had mistakenly thought I could trust.

“That was about a year ago, right after we moved to Baltimore. Six months ago, he decided he was tired of waiting for me to get over it. Marriage counseling wasn’t working, and he wanted to fuck his wife, goddammit.”

At that, I pulled out the photo I’d guarded so closely. The one I’d never wanted anyone to see. The humiliating truth I still couldn’t get my mind around. It had happened to me. To me! And I’d always believed I was smarter than that, a better judge of character. Seemed I was wrong twice.

I paused, studying the glossy print a moment, my throat tightening. Then I placed it in front of Derek, shame radiating through my chest.

“Of course, I fought him.” The thickness in my voice made it difficult to speak. “And he fought back.”

Derek only glanced at the photo before his eyes closed, his hand formed a fist on his desk. The picture showed my battered face. My lips swollen and purple, my black eyes, the cut at my hairline that really should’ve gotten stitches. It didn’t show the bruises covering my torso.

I only had this picture because I’d called Elaine in hysterics. She’d dropped everything and drove all night, six hours to find me in the hotel room. She’d insisted, no, demanded I go to the police. She wanted to call her dad, her brother, every male we knew to beat the shit out of him. But I wouldn’t. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to me.

So she’d insisted I let her take pictures. “For when you come to your senses,” she’d said, “and want him dead.”

It was the one bit of evidence I’d held onto in case the asshole, bastard, son-of-a-bitch loser I was living with decided he wouldn’t let me go.

“The next day,” I continued speaking to Derek. “When he saw what he’d done, he laughed and said something about how it wasn’t so long ago, raping your wife wasn’t even considered a crime.”

Derek stood quickly then, eyes blazing. “Melissa, you have to believe me. I didn’t know about this. I never wanted—”

“To hurt me? To fuck with me? Well, I guess you did fuck with me. Several times.” I walked to the window and looked out. “That’s the part I don’t understand. Why did you do that? Was it a little something extra for you? Tap the wayward wife?”