Oh, what I would have given to be back in bed with him now rather than standing here.

“Are you a student at Dartford?” Mom asked, plucking a glass of wine off a passing tray.

“No, ma’am.”

“Oh?” She looked him over again. “Another school in the area? Or did you graduate already?” She smiled slightly, like that must be it. Like it had to be that because anything else would be unacceptable.

“I don’t go to college.”

Her perfectly smooth face looked doll-like in its utter lack of expression. Only in her eyes could I read her total lack of comprehension. Her overly plump, glossy lips finally managed to form words. “As in . . . ever?” She looked at me as if needing confirmation and then back to him. “What do you do?”

This is where if he announced he had a fat trust all would be right in her eyes.

“Since I got out of the Marines, I’ve been working as a mechanic.”

“A mechanic?”

Oh. God. Her body actually shuddered as if he’d confessed himself to be a serial killer. Her eyes looked ready to bug out. She was so blatantly horrified I actually felt the crazy urge to laugh.

She looked at me, that impossibly immobile face of hers looking ready to crack. “Are you serious, Emerson?” Her gaze flitted wildly about the room, as if expecting someone to jump out with a hidden camera and declare all this a joke. Or maybe she was just worried someone would point at Shaw and identify him as the hardworking blue-collar middle-class guy he was.

I shook my head and reached for Shaw’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go.” I was finished here. Justin’s ugly words echoed in my ears. I didn’t have to wonder anymore. He hadn’t changed. Nothing had. I had no family here.

I didn’t make it one foot, however. I stopped breathing when I heard the voice at my back.

“There you are, you little bitch.”

Chapter 19

I FROZE, EVERYTHING INSIDE me wilting at the voice, too fresh in my mind.

I stared ahead, Mom’s face in my line of vision, and if I hadn’t recognized the voice already I would know who was behind me based on her body language. And her eyes—the only thing in her plastic face that revealed any emotion.

Her gaze flashed to shock and then dread. I glanced swiftly at Shaw, embarrassed; mortified that he was here for this. Even though I had shared my past with him, seeing it firsthand, witnessing it—living it with me—was an entirely different experience and I just wanted to shrink away until I was invisible. And anywhere but here.

I assessed his face. He looked confused. He’d heard the voice, too—the ugly words as clearly as anyone else near us—but he didn’t yet realize they were directed at me. Several people around us had stopped talking. They stopped and stared.

Run. Get away. The urge pounded through me. I just wanted to escape before this twisted from bad to hellishly bad. I stepped to the side and tugged Shaw after me, hoping to avoid Justin altogether. Maybe it was crazy or delusional, but I thought I could leave the room without a confrontation. Without having to look at my stepbrother one more time.

“Did you hear me, Emerson?”

A shudder rolled through me. There was no mistaking who he was talking to now.

Shaw stiffened beside me—went rigid in like one nanosecond. His fingers tightened around mine, and I knew there was no breaking that contact. That he wasn’t letting go of me.

Justin’s voice kept coming, a barrage of knives I couldn’t duck. “Where do you think you’re going? I’m talking to you, bitch.”

Yes, he was talking to me. Because I had come here. Because I’d thought that maybe things could be different. That I could be a normal girl who didn’t have a totally messed-up family.

Shaw turned slowly, taking me with him. I looked somewhere above Justin’s shoulder, staring blindly ahead, unwilling to even look at his loathsome face. “What did you call her?”

I’d never heard Shaw talk in a voice like this before. He’d lost his temper in front of me, but his voice had never been like this. Low and chilling, with an undercurrent of menace.

Justin didn’t answer him. There wasn’t a sound coming from anyone around us. All conversation had ceased. The orchestra played on, oblivious.

I brought my other hand to Shaw’s arm. “Let’s just go.”

“Oh, now you want to leave?” Justin’s face twisted. “After you trash-talked me to Melanie and convinced her to call off the wedding? Now you’re happy to go.”

“Oh, Emerson,” Mom cried behind me. “You didn’t!”

“Oh, she did.” Justin nodded. “I should have known she would do this.”

I tried to deny this. “I didn’t come here to—”

“You came here to do just what you did.” Justin closed the few feet of space between us. He didn’t even look at Shaw. It was as if he could see nothing beyond me. His eyes, so full of rage, fixed solely on me. As he took another step, Shaw flattened a hand to his chest and pushed him back, keeping him from getting any closer.

Justin looked at him, finally seeing him. He blinked. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to kill you if you say another word or take another step toward her.”

Justin held his gaze for one moment, still leaning forward, pushing his weight into Shaw’s hand. They stared at each other, assessing, sizing the other one up. Finally, Justin stepped back. “Whatever. Take her and go.”

I released a shaky breath, relieved. I tugged on Shaw’s arm. “Come on.”

Shaw moved slightly, walking in a semicircle around my stepbrother, obliging me. And then we were clear, finally past Justin. Our backs to him.

“Emerson.” It was my mother’s voice.

I shouldn’t have hesitated. Shouldn’t have turned. But I did. She was the whole reason I’d come. I had to see, had to know.

She would always be my mother.

Mom stood beside Justin, staring at me with dead eyes, and a pang punched me in the chest. She still stood with him.

“You’re such a disappointment.”

I inhaled through my nostrils. Slow and deep, marveling at how those words could still cause me such pain.

I turned away, finally ready to go, but Shaw didn’t follow. I moved one step and realized that he still stood there facing Mom and Justin.