Ashlynn seemed surprised by it, but Lauren remained mostly oblivious, although her smile faltered a bit at her daughter’s tone. “Well, he has to get his check… I thought it would be a nice way to thank him.”
Willow’s whole body went so rigid that she thought she might crack in half. “You’re paying him?”
Ashlynn frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Lauren said, “Well, yes, of course. I mean, he was the one working with the cops that night, and we contacted his office about taking the case, so it only seems right. I guess since he never technically got back to us… but that seems unfair. He put himself at great risk from what I understand, and we would’ve paid 20 times that amount if we could have.”
The initial shock had worn off, and she had enough time to get herself under control, but she couldn’t muster a very good performance, so she retreated to her bedroom.
Once there, she didn’t know what to do with herself. The last thing she needed was time to think, but being around her family was grating on her nerves. It was early so it was still light outside, but she turned the light on anyway and climbed into bed.
Somehow she needed to mentally prepare herself for dinner. She had no idea how she was supposed to sit across from him after what he had done and pretend like nothing happened. Pretend to be grateful. Her heart raced thinking about it alone in her room, when she wasn’t looking at his face. How would she be able to think of anything else? How would she be able to force down the food with memories of being on her knees before him, having to force him down her throat? Without thinking about the pain, the anguish, that his actions had caused her?
Even if he didn’t want to do it.
That was the real kicker. The pain was real, the anxiety was real, the memories were real, his was the face she had to pin it on, but… he hadn’t wanted to do it. There had been no malicious intent. He wasn’t trying to take away her control, her ability to say no, he was merely the tool that Lane used to do it. Physically he had forced himself on her, but he didn’t really have a choice, and that made it so much more confusing.
Also, if he wouldn’t have been there, she would be forcibly whored out to all manner of disgusting men. Instead of one man forcing himself on her, how many would there have been at that point? Four? Ten? More than that? Her dream from the night before wouldn’t just be a nightmare, it would be her life.
If he wouldn’t have been there, she didn’t know if she would have ever made it home.
Not to mention, he had almost been shot himself while saving her.
And yet, she still wasn’t sure she could stand to look at him across the dinner table without betraying her discomfort.
Why had her stupid mother invited him to dinner?
---
When Ethan pulled into the Kensington driveway, he just sat there for a moment, gripping the steering wheel so hard that his hands hurt.
He had tried all day to prepare himself. He was doing exactly what he’d been determined not to do—giving himself more evidence of the gray-eyed girl’s humanity.
When her mother called his office to talk to him, he’d felt a deep sense of foreboding. Maybe Willow hadn’t gone to the police, but she had probably come clean with her own mom. He had been braced for an audible bomb when he picked up the phone.
Instead he got a dinner invite.
Despite the several excuses he gave her in quick succession, she insisted that what he did meant so much to her family and she was more grateful than she could ever express, and she practically begged him to come over for a thank-you dinner.
He wasn’t sure how much dinner he would be able to eat, as sick as he felt.
Since he really, really did not want to go, he made one last attempt, telling her that he wasn’t sure it would be good for her daughter, seeing as he had been posing as one of the bad guys during her captivity, so just seeing him might make her relive what had happened to her.
That was a very real concern for him, but the woman on the other end of the line did not seem to be capable of processing that possibility. She called that suggestion “absurd” and added that Willow was so grateful for what he had done, and she was sure that Willow would want him to come.
He was 100% sure that she was wrong, but she sounded so sure of herself, even he almost believed it for a second.
So there he stood, waiting outside their house for the ground to open up and swallow him so he didn’t have to walk through those doors and lay eyes on the one person in the world he never wanted to see again.
He could already feel his face heating up, and he suspected it was not because of the weather. He had no idea how he was going to get through dinner.
The perky one, Lauren, greeted him at the door, actually pulling him into a hug that made him feel immensely uncomfortable. He made the mistake of looking past her, and immediately noticed a pair of gray eyes boring into him, like little daggers. He awkwardly pulled back from the hug and attempted some semblance of a smile for her mother’s benefit, but smiling in front of the girl, trying to pretend everything was okay seemed so wrong. She should know that he didn’t take her feelings lightly, that he had done her a terrible wrong and that he didn’t deserve thankful hugs from her mother. And she deserved to know that he knew that.
How he could possibly express that to her, he had no idea, but he knew it wasn’t through fake smiles and bullshitting with her parents as if he deserved their admiration.
The whole situation was extremely unfair to her, and he had no idea how to change that short of coming clean, which he was not about to do.
Taking care of his family had to come before relieving his own conscience.
Before dinner, Lauren brought out the reward check and tried to give it to him. She hadn’t said anything on the phone about the check, and since he hadn’t formally been hired, he hadn’t been expecting one. Honestly, finding Willow had happened purely by accident; he hadn’t been looking for her.